The McGillicuddy Serious Party (McGSP) was a satiricalpolitical party or joke party in New Zealand in the late 20th century. Between 1984 and 1999, it provided "colour" to ensure that citizens not take the political process too seriously. The party's logo, the head of a medievalcourt jester, indicated the intention to critique current systems by poking fun at them.
The party stood candidates in the 1984, 1987, 1990, 1993, 1996 and 1999 general elections and the 1986, 1989, 1992, 1995 and 1998 Local Body elections;[1] along with local-body and parliamentaryby-elections and university student association elections.[2]
It gained its highest number of votes in the last first-past-the-post (FPP) general election in 1993, when it stood candidates in 62 out of 99 electorates and received 11,714 votes, 0.61% of the vote.
Origins
The party was formed in 1984[3] in Hamilton as the political arm of Clan McGillicuddy (established in 1978). Members of the Clan had stood as candidates in the 1983 local-body elections in the Waikato,[3] and the party came together in time to contest the 1984 General Election. It had a strong Scottish theme, with the renaissance of a Jacobite monarchy being one of the party's main policy planks. Candidates included street performers, students, artists and members of musical groups such as the Big Muffin Serious Band.
The party selected its policies on the basis of their absurdity and their impracticality, but also how they tied into an over-arching grand plan. The features of this plan were: Funism (a doctrine of the most fun for the most people), The Great Leap Backwards (returning NZ to a medieval, subsistence, tribal economy) and replacing parliament with a McGillicuddy-style monarchy based on Jacobitism: a non-hereditary monarch would be appointed in a similar manner to that used to determine the Dalai Lama. The high number of NZers with (some) Scottish heritage was the reason given for creating a Jacobite renaissance in the south Pacific. [4]
Sending out intelligence agents around the world to wipe New Zealand off published maps, thus ensuring that no-one could invade the country.[5]
Standing a dog for parliament in the Hobson seat in Northland. Her policies included the abolition of cars, and turning a meat-works into an organic flea-powder factory.[6]
The abolition of money, replacing it with chocolate fish or with sand.
The demolition of The Beehive, parliament buildings, and all other buildings on a last-up, first-down basis.[7]
The diversion of aluminium production away from building US military aircraft and missiles to build giant space-mirrors to melt the polar icecaps and destroy all of the foolish greed-worshipping cities of man in one stroke, thereby returning man to the sea, which he should never have left in the first place (this the inspiration of the Admiral of the Highland Navy Aaron Franklin).
Raising the school leaving-age to 65 (after Parliament raised the school leaving-age by one unambitious year)[7]
Full unemployment, or full employment through slavery[8]
Using beer as a National Defence strategy: leaving bottles of beer on all beaches, so that any invading army would abandon its attack and get drunk while the broken bottles would prevent the army advancing any further.
Restricting the vote to minors: i.e., ONLY those under 18 years of age could vote (announced when Parliament lowered the voting age to 18 years). The party ran its 1993 electoral advertisements during children's programming.
Student loans for Plunket Society (or Kindergarten) attendance: prior to the 1984 election, David Lange's Labour Party promised to maintain free tertiary education, but the Education Minister, Phil Goff, introduced student fees when elected. National Party education spokesman Lockwood Smith promised a return to free education if elected, but did not carry out this promise. Most party supporters, many of them students, felt displeased that both major political parties had deemed free tertiary education unsustainable, but had deliberately lied about their intentions to attract votes.
Abandoning male suffrage: New Zealand, the first nation to achieve women's suffrage (in 1893), made a big deal of the centenary of this at the time of the 1993 election.
Votes for trees: New Zealanders have a reputation as environmentalists, and the University of Auckland's ex-Marxist law lecturer Klaus Bosselmann seriously advocated giving trees (and other bits of the environment) some legal standing. The party could not decide on whether native trees should have the option to vote in Māorielectorates, whether male trees as well as female trees should vote, and on the status of shrubs.
Post-natal abortion: making abortion illegal, but any mother could kill her child up to the age of 18, provided she did it with her own hands. The party designed this policy to offend all sides in the abortion debate. The fundamentalistChristian Heritage Party used abortion as a major policy.[7]
Replacing the Queen's chain with hemp: the Labour Party had a policy of protecting and extending the Queen's chain (publicly accessible land bordering watercourses), forcing farmers and iwi to allow public access to waterways. Candidate Dominic Worthington proposed replacing the chain with more environmentally sound hemp; with the Queen, of course, replaced by Prince Geoffie the reluctant. Rather than limiting the chain to protecting water in aqueous form, the King's hemp would also serve to hold together water in solid form, as in the ice in glaciers and in the Ross Dependency (in particular, the Ross Ice Shelf, alleviating environmentalists' concerns that the ice shelf might collapse and raise sea-levels). Ultimately, the policy envisaged that technology would regress far enough for it to become feasible to lasso water in gaseous form (i.e. clouds).[10]
Fixing accountants in concrete and using them as traffic barriers, occasionally accompanied by a pledge to steal some of the Monster Raving Loony Party's other policies as well—possibly a reference to political parties accusing each other of stealing policies, or possibly just silliness.
Full employment by carpeting the national highways: this would also save wear and tear on tyres
Breaking its promises
Note: not all of the above were party-wide policies outlined in manifestoes - candidates had creative licence to come up with their own policies.
Peak and Decline
The party attracted a surprising level of support, and became one of the larger parties outside parliament. On a number of occasions, particularly following the introduction of the mixed member proportional (MMP) electoral system, pundits[who?] predicted that the party might actually win parliamentary representation, but this never happened. When the major parties boycotted the Tauranga by-election 1993 in 1993, the party's candidate Greg Pittams, who appeared in nationwide newspapers during this campaign wearing his "emperor's new kilt" outfit, consisting of only a shirt and sporran, finished second to Winston Peters. Votes for the party presumably most often represented protest votes, something that the party encouraged with one of its slogans: "If you want to waste your vote, vote for us."[citation needed]
In the 1996 general election the party put up 65 list candidates, and 45 candidates stood as an electorate candidate.[12]
The introduction of MMP Mixed Member Proportional representation at the 1996 election changed the political landscape: there were more smaller parties to vote for with more of a chance of getting into Parliament. The McGSP percentage of the vote fell. The 1999 election campaign proved a disappointment. The party gained only 0.15% of the vote, a considerable drop. In addition to this the increased reporting required from small parties under MMP changed the 'work to fun ratio'[13] of taking part in elections.
Disbandment and deregistration
Shortly after the 1999 election, the party disbanded and the Electoral Commission officially deregistered it as a political party.[14] Party leader Graeme Cairns marked the event and did penance for the loss by placing himself in stocks in Garden Place in Hamilton in December 1999 as disgruntled party members pelted him with rotten fruit.[15]
Electoral results
General elections
The following table summarises the party's support in general elections.
A number of former members went on to stand as candidates for "real" parties. Former MP and co-leader of the Green party, Metiria Turei,[16] formerly held party membership, and was number 27 on the party list for the 1999 General Election.[17]
Other prominent candidates from this first generation of electioneering included founder and Party Leader Graeme Cairns, the "Laird of Hamilton"; Mark Servian; KT Julian, a long-time Party Deputy Leader; Adrian Holroyd; Cecil G. Murgatroyd (who subsequently stood against Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke under the Imperial British Conservative Party banner);[18] Sam Buchanan; Steve Richards; Donna Demente; and Penni Bousfield.
Younger pretenders
Some of the party's members became upset at the cancellation of their lifetime membership. In July 2005 a "McGillicuddy Serious Party" put out a press-release announcing plans to participate in the 2005 election, one initial policy involving replacing MPs with harmless jargon-generators.[19] A former member put out the press-release without the knowledge of the Clan McGillicuddy's senior members or of the party's former leadership.[citation needed]
After intense discussions within the Clan McGillicuddy, no further press releases appeared, no official party registration took place, and neither the party nor any candidates appeared on the 2005 ballot.[citation needed]
One candidate stood under the McGillicuddy Serious banner in the 2008 general election: Steve Richards contested the West Coast-Tasman electorate and received 259 votes.[20]
A member from the Party's early days, Richards had stood as a candidate in previous elections.
Current status
Despite the demise of the party, Clan McGillicuddy continued to hold regular public events for some time. A pacifist battle in Oamaru on 31 December 2007 saw McGillicuddy "Martians" take on Alf's Imperial Army in an enactment of The War of the Worlds.[21] YouTube hosts a video of this battle.[22] On 31 December 2013, there was a pacifist battle in Waitati in which the McGillicuddies defended Castle Almond (the castle-like home of one their members) against an "attack" by the local Waitati Militia.[23]
Norton, Clifford (1988). New Zealand Parliamentary Election Results 1946–1987: Occasional Publications No 1, Department of Political Science. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington. ISBN0-475-11200-8.
