| Description | Libertarianz is a small political party in New Zealand. It is dedicated to Libertarian and Objectivist policies, and claims to be the only party in New Zealand dedicated to maximising personal freedom and reducing the size of government. Its slogan "More Freedom, Less Government" is indicative of the party's basic policy platform.
Libertarianz is generally regarded as being fairly extreme in its libertarianism, being considerably more radical than ACT New Zealand (the other political party in New Zealand that is sometimes called libertarian). Libertarianz does not consider ACT to be a libertarian party, and the relationship between the two is not good. Libertarianz describes ACT's policies as "crony capitalism writ large", saying that ACT supports "collusion between the state and big business" rather than the complete separation of the two.
Libertarianz was founded in late 1995 by Ian Fraser, who served as the party's first leader. Later, Lindsay Perigo, a well-known New Zealand broadcaster for Radio New Zealand and TVNZ, assumed the leadership. After Perigo stepped down, the party was led by Peter Cresswell, an architect from Auckland. The current leader is Russell Watkins, a businessman from Tauranga.
The party's first campaign was the 1996 election, the first to be held under the new MMP electoral system. Libertarianz gained 671 votes, 0.03% of the total. This put the party in 19th place. In the 1999 elections, the party performed somewhat better, gaining 5,949 votes (0.29%). This put the party in 11th place, and in fourth place among the parties which did not gain seats in parliament. In the 2002 elections, however, Libertarianz did not contest the party vote - due to a "technical administrative error", the party's list was not transmitted to the electoral authorities by the required date. As such, the party was only able to contest the election through individual electorate candidates. The party's five candidates gained 672 votes between them. |
