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New Zealand First article. This is
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Is "non-white" really correct? I'm not from NZ, but I seriously doubt it. I'm guessing these probable racists wouldn't want Russians or French jews coming over either, all of whome are quite clearly white. Even if they are ambivalent about europeans, I bet they'd oppose Turkish immigration.. you may find a non-white Israeli, but you won't find a non-white Turk.
Now if they really do just oppose immigrtion from *specific* places, that should be made more clear, since opposing specific migration patterns usually just means you don't support multi-culturalism but that your also not a racist. But, as it stands, this article basically says this is an abnormally inclusive racist party.
JeffBurdges05:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)reply
The party tends to aggravate racial and social tensions in order to appeal to popular support- it's not directly racist as such. The phrase non-white was evidently false as the party's figurehead leader is half-asian, half-maori. The issue as Winston Peters and the party claimed it was that immigration was "out of control" and was "eroding New Zealand's Culture". I edited it closer to NPOV and it's hopefully satisfactory now. --
54x15:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)reply
Wow, this really needs updating to reflect the party's current situation now I look more deeply into it. Maybe I'll have to find some free time for it- they're now in coalition with Labour. --
54x15:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)reply
NZ First's leader isn't white, he's Maori - although most Maori are perceived as white by non-New Zealanders. Despite Winston Peters' obvious charisma and intellect, NZ-First is not an intellectual party per se. As such Russians or Jews would not really be an issue for NZ-First voters as the party has no cohesive doctrine other than populism. New Zealand doesn't have any substantive history of anti-semitism and it is a nation of immigrants, so the NZ-First party isn't quite comparable to European anti-immigration/nationalist parties. Turks probably wouldn't be much of a problem either because they look much like Greeks or Italians, but just so long as they try to be like "us", don't wear distinguishing clothing or spend too much time at a mosque (preferably not at all). The party strongly plays upon the in-group/out-group dynamic of conservative political psychology.
NZ-First is more of a "sentiment" party - i.e. it panders to people's sentiments and prejudices which Winston Peters then gives a veneer of rationality to. Asians look really different/act really differently and are present in large numbers - so they're more of a threat to your average redneck than a French Jew is. It's basically the same formula that you get anywhere - anti-intellectual populism targetting ethic minorities, criminals/underclass, the "elite" (intellectual or economic), welfare beneficiaries (i.e."bludgers"), blah, blah, blah. Just listen to a typical talk-back radio caller (in any country) and that is NZ-First's target voter: simplistic thinking, self-righteous, slightly paranoid-victim type.
Very roughly speaking, and for the benefit of foreign readers, if you could take the economics of the USA's Democratic Party and splice it onto the social conservatism (minus the religiosity) of the Republican Party - then that would be NZ-First. By European standards NZ-First would be more centre-right than hard-right. It has a "softer" edge -for lack of a better term- than its European counterparts do. Its leader Winston Peters is a former member of NZ's conservatives - The
New Zealand National Party. NZ-First's former deputy leader Tau Henare is currently a member of The National Party.
121.73.7.84 (
talk)
10:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)reply
Media criticism
The article presently states:
Much of the New Zealand media[attribution needed] criticised this move [to take the Foreign Minister position] as a withdrawal from Peter's earlier position (outlined in his "Rotorua speech"[1]) that his party would sit on the crossbenches and thus stay out of government, eschewing "the baubles of office".
I think the [attribution needed] can be removed. I doubt that anyone would argue that there wasn't widespread criticism in the media (regardless of whether they think it was deserved). It is not difficult to provide lots of examples, for example
NZ Herald,
NZ Herald,
Scoop (ACT press release),
Dominion Post,
Sunday Star Times. Not all of these are from the time of Peters' appointment, because it's harder to find stories from 2005, but all refer to the criticism. Would the article gain much if we added all these references to it? It would way overbalance the referencing of the article - that is the only sentence to have a reference now, and adding several more to it is just emphasizing this one moment of Peter's career. Would adding a single reference as an example be sufficient? Or should we reword the sentence to be more specific, saying "X criticised Peters, saying 'blah'[2], and Y joined in with 'blah'[3]..."-
gadfium18:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)reply
One or two references would establish the fact -- I wouldn't worry about unbalancing anything by providing good references. I reacted to the "Much of the media..." formulation, which sounds like weasel-words at the best of times, even when referenced. So I endorse your last suggestion -- we could say something like" "X reacted[1] to Peters' becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs, seeing a change in attitude towards "the baubles of office" since the delivery of the Rotorua speech." --
60.234.226.62 (
talk)
21:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)reply
Some reaction[1]
to Peters' becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs detected a change in his attitude since the "Rotorua speech",[2]
which had spoken of sitting on the
cross-benches (and thus staying out of government) and eschewing "the baubles of office".
^
"WHO WILL NEW ZEALAND FIRST GO WITH?": An address by Rt Hon Winston Peters to a public meeting in Rotorua, Wednesday 07 September 2005, at the Rotorua Convention Centre, Concert Chambers, Lake end of Fenton Street, Rotorua, 12:30pm.
http://www.nzfirst.org.nz/content/display_item.php?t=1&i=2092, retrieved
2008-02-06
The New Zealand First Party seems like an center-right or even far-right party.
I agree with this. This party is considered center even though it's policies are right meanwhile the ACT party is considered right while it's policies are more accurately described as center. I'm not sure how all this got so confused when we have pages explaining the differences between left, right & center. GRosado 01:56, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
If is doing a coalition with Labour I kind of doubt is far-right, or it will be a very sui generis far-right party. But its political ideologies as describe in the infobox (nationalism, populism, anti-immigration) does sound far-right. A possibility of course will be, like in other articles, to specify the social position and the economic position (which I guess is more centre-left). Does anyone has more info? --
Dereck Camacho (
talk)
20:59, 21 October 2017 (UTC)reply
Yes you will be reverted if you change it. Several reliable sources describe the party as centrist. And there is a general consensus on that description. The reason it is considered a centrist party is because it espouses a mixture of left-wing and right-wing policies:
"It opposes the
privatisation of state assets (particularly to overseas buyers) and advocates buying back former
state-owned enterprises.[1] This policy aligns it with views generally found on the
left of New Zealand politics.[2][3] On the other hand, it favours reducing taxation and reducing the size of government (policies typical of the New Zealand
right) and espouses strongly conservative views on social issues.[4]"
References
^Cite error: The named reference state assets was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).
^Cite error: The named reference DeRouenBellamy2008 was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).
In terms of economic policies, the party is not aligned with the "right-wing" parties, National and ACT, which favour economic liberalism. --
Hazhk (
talk)
21:25, 21 October 2017 (UTC)reply
Well should be notice that if more sources are provide that indicate the party to not be centrist the definition could change or are the very least the infobox should demostrate the different points of view. Wikipedia works on consensus and if there are users that disagree with the current definition they have the right to be heard. I would encourage users who disagree to provide reliable sources otherwise before shuting the discussion ad portas. --
Dereck Camacho (
talk)
21:53, 21 October 2017 (UTC)reply
I'm getting sick and tired of progressives calling anti-immigration parties far-right. You're not far-right based on a stance on one issue. They're not even that socially conservative. For example, they support a referendum to fully legalize abortion. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
173.21.184.167 (
talk)
04:59, 3 November 2017 (UTC)reply
Get tired all you want, Wikipedia is not a forum in any case and ad hominems won't get you anywere. And been socially conservative is not a requirement to be far-right, even Nazism was in favor of abortion in certain cases as several far-right parties in Western Europe are. --
Dereck Camacho (
talk)
06:45, 11 November 2017 (UTC)reply
Again, be pro-abortion in any way doesn't pleclude you from been far-right, America is the only country in the world were anti-abortion became a characteristic of the far-right (and even among America's far right there are
pro-abortion people), in any case I wasn't saying that NZF was far-right, quite the opposite, I said it was doubtful as is having a coalition with the left but that if an editor wanted to argue about it and present proper references he/she has the right to do it and shouldn't be deny ad portas. --
Dereck Camacho (
talk)
10:41, 18 December 2017 (UTC)reply
The simple answer is that New Zealand First's position is controversial. Wikipedia should sustain neutrality and accurately reflect the controversy.
49.229.255.251 (
talk)
13:14, 30 May 2018 (UTC)reply
Indeed (and being economically liberal isn't a requirement of being rightwing; the definitions are much more complicated than that). "It's certainly not right to call it a rightwing extremist party, but it is a rightwing party" - NZ-born BBC correspondent speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme 15 March 2019 at 7:12 GMT.
86.186.47.110 (
talk)
07:14, 15 March 2019 (UTC)reply
A solution could be to revert the position back to "Syncretic", as it seems difficult to define New Zealand First as either left or right given it has positions across the spectrum. There are references listed in the article supporting this.
As we are unable to find sources explicitly referring to the party as "Syncretic", though that seems to be the most accurate definition, it might be best to leave the "position" section blank as is the case with several political parties' pages users have found difficult to define on Wikipiedia (see
Australian Labor Party,
Democratic Party (United States)) and let the "ideology" section do the talking. This seems to be consistent with the "Ideology and policies" section of the article, which states "Rather than defining the party's precise position on the left–right political spectrum, political commentators simply label New Zealand First as populist." --
Yarrowworks21:54, 19 August 2021 (UTC)reply
Wrong. We already have several references (removed without consensus) which explicitly describes the party as “right wing” and “right wing populist”. It doesn’t matter if the party wants to describe itself as centrist, third-party references are what counts.—
Autospark (
talk)
12:07, 19 August 2021 (UTC)reply
NZ First?
Str1977 who does not appear to want to understand the niceties of
WP:BRD seems insistent that New Zealand First should be NZ First in the body of the article. Str1977 has given no actual reason for this other than its there alot! I am unsure why it is so important to abbreviate the name in this way, most serious mentions of the party in references appear to always use the full name.
Andrewgprout (
talk)
19:00, 15 August 2018 (UTC)reply
Again, I'm afraid, we have another case of an editor simply reverting without ever stating his objections (a mere "questionable" is cryptic to everybody else) while at the same time assuming to know what another editor is on about. And that even after I twice stated my point. So let's make it clear:
I'm not insistent to call that party "NZ First" in the body of the article. I actually dislike overusing abbreviations. When I first edited this article, it switched back and forth between the full name and the abbreviation. I first replaced the abbreviations with the full name. Later I thought that we can also use the abbreviation, but consistently. So on the name issue I actually favour two alternatives: 1. always use the full name or 2. introduce full name and abbreviation and then use the abbreviation. If others prefer the "always full name" version, I don't mind. Only use it consistently.
The actual point of my edit were the 15 occurences (sometimes three in one paragraph) of "X announced". WP should cover events, not announcements. It is lazy, let's copy news and never look back, kind of writing an article.
“The party's platform is characterised by its strongly restrictive immigration policies, as well as its emphasis on law and order and on popular referenda. New Zealand First takes a centrist position on economic issues, and a social conservative position on social issues.”
Surely that places NZF in the centre-right or right-wing political position. The party isn’t in the centre for sure. Social conservatism, New Zealand nationalism, “law and order” agenda, restricted immigration. It’s clearly right-wing and similar to European right-wing parties such as
Law and Justice. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
2406:E006:ADB:1001:D426:A5FC:B163:1334 (
talk)
09:10, 1 January 2019 (UTC)reply
Prior to 2017 you could call NZ First a nationalist party, social conservative party or anti immigration party. This is not true anymore and Winston Peters/NZ First has not made anti immigrant statements or done anything nationalist for the past few years because he's part of the labour coalition. These words no longer describe the party so it's misleading to leave them up there. Prior to 2017 sure but not now and not till the 2020 election where they might be these things again.
122.57.51.76 (
talk)
03:26, 11 April 2019 (UTC)reply
Your edits were reverted because they are a more of a personal point-of-view rather than verified content. Please also apply good faith towards other editors and don't post bogus warnings on their talk pages.
Ajf773 (
talk)
19:12, 13 April 2019 (UTC)reply
Thanks for using the talk page rather than just shouting down something you don't like as trolling. Charlesdrakew, it's quite hard for me to prove a negative but according to NZ First's coalition agreement and policies on their own website they aren't anti immigrant they're in fact pro immigrant because of "skills shortages" [1] and Section 8 of [2]. This is not how it was before the 2017 election, their website has changed so their wikipedia article should also reflect those changes and make it clear in the body of the article that they have changed. I can't find anything that would be considered Social Conservative so i removed that as well. Removing Nationalist may be a stretch so if you can provide sources that they are still Nationalist i'll remove that from the edit.
122.57.56.29 (
talk)
23:21, 13 April 2019 (UTC)reply
I would be very careful taking references directly from
WP:PRIMARY sources. Has the Leopard changed its spots? My guess is probably not despite what they now say - time will tell. What we need here is significant high quality secondary references confirming and discussing the reality and practicalities of such a change in direction. Your current suggested changes could be considered
WP:SYNTHESIS and even if valid the change must be discussed in such a way that the change is discussed in relation to former policies not simply replacing them. I could see something like "the party modified some of its more extremist policies as a part of their coalition agreement with Labour... after the 2017 election...." being entirely acceptable if properly referenced.
I have reverted some changes. There is no consensus for introducing words such as "formerly" into the lead. In fact opposition has been voiced by several contributors. @
122.57.56.29: If you don't believe the descriptions are accurate then you should be removing them; however, you can't remove them because you have no sources to reference. Do you have any articles that describe a shift in the part's principles? --
Hazhk (
talk)
14:40, 19 May 2019 (UTC)reply
Would be great if someone could expand on the events of the party's foundation. I just expanded the lead of
Ian Peters a little (
diff), but seeking more info on the Nat -> NZF transition I saw that Ian (nor the other brother, Ron) was not mentioned at all on this article. It would be worth mentioning any other members who followed Winston too, but my knowledge of those events is... sparse. — HTGS (
talk)02:45, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Well it doesn't actually "say" this is the party's official colour but it’s obviously better than nothing. We still have no sources that state dark blue, nor is it used at all in the party's logo. Dark blue should absolutely be removed from the infobox as its purely
original research.
Helper201 (
talk)
12:21, 21 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I agree with the removal of dark blue. I don't recall ever seeing it used. We could also use the mention (customary) next to black. It is very frequent on wiki pages about party to do so. Do note also that some others NZ party pages such as
New Zealand National Party have their logo differ somewhat in shade. But it would be very impractical to change dozen of maps, diagrams and polls graphs over many decades of election everytime the logo slightly change the color used. --
Aréat (
talk)
22:28, 21 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Yeah, I have to say I was surprised to see the dark blue in the infobox. I think it would be fine to list just black, without sourcing for grey of any sort. Black is how they have always been represented, and although I have no problem with shifting infobox or template colours to grey, I don’t think we can justify saying it out loud without sources. — HTGS (
talk)00:11, 22 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Political position consensus
As the party is most likely to be included within the new NZ government. I think it would be good that we get a consensus on the political position. I think it would be greatly beneficial to the page for that to be done. There can be various ways we can do it, as the party is not specifically one position clearly. Such as like:
-
Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht - a footnote - this party could also be seen as similar to NZ first (populist/left-leaning economics with right-leaning social - and the consensus for that party page is to have a footnote)
-
Christian Union (Netherlands) - separate sections for political position (fiscal and social sections - I know this page used to have that as well and I'm unsure to why it was removed)
I think having one of these is far better than leaving it blank as of currently. Especially since this party will be in government as mentioned before (plus is a major playmaker in government coalition discussions).
ZlatanSweden10 (
talk)
23:04, 9 November 2023 (UTC)reply
Well, firstly the party can’t be compared directly to BSW, as it’s not socialist in nature, and footnotes should be avoided in Infoboxes. Secondly, I’m strongly against the “fiscal and social” split for Infoboxes, as it almost always is based on conjecture and
WP:SYNTH in articles I’ve seen. Thirdly, party factions should be described in the article body, using clear references, not the Infobox (and to be honest, NZ First is more of a personality/leader based party than a multifaction big tent party).—
Autospark (
talk)
23:30, 9 November 2023 (UTC)reply
It will be the third time the party is in a coalition, with either the left or the right. It's not a situation which demand a change. The party is a centrist populist one, which allow it to make such alliance. I find the lead portraying it well. It wasn't a good change to remive it from the infobox, though.--
Aréat (
talk)
01:58, 10 November 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't like the split in the infobox either. I very rarely see it as well. Could NZF be compared to
ANO 2011 in Czechia then? A populist centrist party (even though Babis is friends with Orban and goes to CPAC as of lately and is shifting right. And old members have left the party).
Also I do rarely see a factions section within parties infoboxes, so I do think it should be avoided in this case as well (I only see it in huge parties such as the
GOP and etc. Or big alliances such as the
People's Alliance (Turkey)).
I have two opinions: 1) anyone looking to change the ideology should bring a clear list of citations (and quotes from within them) that explain NZF’s political ideology/position. And 2) if there is too much disagreement about ideology in the infobox, that parameter should just be removed. The infobox is only there to summarise the basics in a quick, clear manner; if that cannot be done, then readers will simply have to actually read the prose to find out what NZF stands for. — HTGS (
talk)03:14, 10 November 2023 (UTC)reply
First, I get a real sense that people here don't understand how referencing and the political spectrum works. There's nothing preventing the party being categorised as "right-wing" despite being formerly in coalition with the centre-left NZ Labour Party. (FWIW, I'd place NZ First as a conservative party, but more in the style of a postwar, pre-neoliberal conservative party, more open to protectionism and less open to laissez-faire.)--
Autospark (
talk)
17:58, 18 November 2023 (UTC)reply
Agree the party has policy more right of centre and in the evolving political climate, it has drifted more from centrist. Also remember where NZF grew out of.. the National Party
It's also common to use two sections in describing position e.g
Fiscal: Centre
Social: Right-wing
or "Syncretic" it's pretty common either way but defining position in two parts is more common than leaving it blank when all other NZ political parties are defined. No one thinks it is left, most think it's right based on consensus here.
Jamessumnergoodwin (
talk)
22:27, 17 June 2024 (UTC)reply
Its best we leave this out of the infobox and explain things with nuance in the main text, due to the array of cited information on the matter in the main text.
Helper201 (
talk)
15:10, 19 June 2024 (UTC)reply
Overwhelming support in the three sections here put preference for position to be "right-wing" and if you're a political analyst (which I am) it's quite obvious that based on party policy and positions, NZF is definitely a centre-right to right-wing party. The 2023 NZ general election really shines a light on where NZF sits in the political climate. Further reference is the party relaunch in 2022, there are countless articles written by credible publications covering activities of NZF and their renewed charge. Right-wing it is.
J_S (
talk)
02:46, 20 June 2024 (UTC)reply
Lead
The
lead length is huge after a recent IP edit... and will certainly be uncomfotrable to read for a general reader. There also shouldn't be citations in the lead if it's already covered in the body. I prefer to focus on other articles at the momment, but someone may want to trim the lead to make it easier to read. Alexeyevitch(
talk)03:10, 10 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Actually, while we're on the subject, can anyone find a citation for "syncretic" for the party's political position? There seems to have been so much debate in recent years about which label fits, so much that there isn't even one in the box. But syncretic would describe the economic nationalism and right wing populism
222.152.26.228 (
talk)
03:16, 10 March 2024 (UTC)reply