Workers Party of New Zealand

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Workers Party of New Zealand




Leader	Daphna Whitmore

Founded	2002 (as the Anti-capitalist Alliance)
Headquarters	none.

Political ideology	Leftism
International affiliation	Not Affiliated

Website	http://www.workersparty.org.nz/

The Workers Party of New Zealand (until 2006 known as the Anti-Capitalist Alliance) is a socialist party in New Zealand. It was formed to run in the 2002 elections as an alliance of the original Workers Party, (a pro-Mao group) and the pro-Trotsky Revolution group. In 2004 the two groups merged to form the Revolutionary Workers League^[1] which is now the Marxist current within the wider party^[2] The party publishes a monthly paper called The Spark as well as a quarterly journal called Revolution and contests local and national elections. According to the official website the Workers Party aims to build a new political movement based on workers' interests.

“

We aim to build a workers' organisation that represents the class interests of the international working class and fights for those interests on the ground in New Zealand. Any political organisation that does not stand unreservedly for working class interests is bound to protect capitalism and preserve the austerity measures that the capitalist class continues to impose on the working class."^[3]

”

1 Platform
2 Elections
3 Notable Members
4 References
5 External link

[edit] Platform

The party's magazine The Spark states that the party wants "A world without poverty and war, a world of material abundance where human potential can be expressed in full." adding that "While these ideas appear untenable today, they were the notions that inspired revolutions in the 20th century"^[4]
The official platform of the Workers Party, according to their website, is:

1. Opposition to all New Zealand and Western intervention in the Third World and all Western military alliances.
2. Jobs for all with a living wage and a shorter working week.
3. For the unrestricted right of workers to organise and take industrial action and no limits on workers' freedom of speech and activity.
4. For working class unity and solidarity - equality for woman, Maori and other ethnic minorities and gay men and women; open borders and full rights for migrant workers.
5. For a working people's republic.^[5]

[edit] Elections

Workers Party members promoting the "Hi-Viz" campaign at Canterbury University

As the WPNZ does not have sufficient members to register, it cannot gain party votes for New Zealand's proportional representation system, MMP, but can nevertheless put forward candidates for individual electorates. In the 2002 elections, it stood four candidates, the highest number for an unregistered party that year. The candidates gained a total of 336 votes between them, placing the Anti-Capitalist Alliance in fourth place among the unregistered parties.

In the 2005 election The ACA had eight candidates, again the highest number for an unregistered party, winning a total of 582 votes this time placing them first among the unregistered parties. In 2006 they began a nationwide recruitment campaign titled "Let’s Make Workers’ Issues Hi-Viz" in an attempt to gain the support needed to be on the ballot for the 2008 election.^[6]

[edit] Notable Members

In 2003 Paul Hopkinson, who stood as a candidate for the Workers Party (then called the Anti-Capitalist Alliance) in the 2005 election became the first person to be charged under the Flags, Emblems and Names Protection Act, after burning a New Zealand flag at an anti-war demonstration.
Another member, Nick Kelly, was president of the Victoria University Students' Association in 2006.