Profiles:- ‘As you sow, so shall you reap': the New Zealand Greens and the general election of 2002

The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand can claim to be the second oldest Green party in the world. It contested the 1972 general election as the Values Party, gaining 2 per cent of the vote under what was then a First-Past-the-Post (FPP) system. In 1990 the Party won 6.8 per cent but not, of course, any seats. Between 1990 and 1996 it fought under the collective banner of the left-wing Alliance, during which time FPP gave way to MMP – a ‘mixed member proportional’ system adopted via referendum in 1993. In 1996 the Greens’ two co-leaders were elected as Alliance MPs. In 1999, standing under its own colours, the Party gained 5.2 per cent of the vote, entitling it to seven MPs in New Zealand’s 120 seat parliament. After three years of clinging on to power by the skin of its teeth and the seat of its pants, the centre-right National Party was replaced by a minority coalition of the centre-left Labour Party and the Alliance, with the Greens guaranteeing it a majority on votes of confidence and supply.