30th New Zealand Parliament
| Terms of the New Zealand Parliament  |
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th 11th | 12th | 13th | 14th | 15th 16th | 17th | 18th | 19th | 20th 21st | 22nd | 23rd | 24th | 25th 26th | 27th | 28th | 29th | 30th 31st | 32nd | 33rd | 34th | 35th 36th | 37th | 38th | 39th | 40th 41st | 42nd | 43rd | 44th | 45th 46th | 47th | 48th | 49th | 50th 51st |
The 30th New Zealand Parliament was a term of the New Zealand Parliament. It was elected at the 1951 general election on 1 September of that year.
1951 general election
The 1951 general election was held on Saturday, 1 September.[1] A total of 80 MPs were elected; 49 represented North Island electorates, 27 represented South Island electorates, and the remaining four represented Māori electorates; this was the same distribution used since the 1946 election.[2] 1,205,762 voters were enrolled and the official turnout at the election was 89.1%.[1]
Sessions
The 30th Parliament sat for five sessions (there were two sessions in 1954), and was prorogued on 4 October 1954.[3]
| Session | Opened | Adjouned |
|---|---|---|
| first | 25 September 1951 | 6 December 1951 |
| second | 25 June 1952 | 24 October 1952 |
| third | 8 April 1953 | 27 November 1953 |
| fourth | 12 January 1954 | 13 January 1954 |
| fifth | 22 June 1954 | 1 October 1954 |
Ministries
The National Party under Sidney Holland had been in power since the 1949 election, and Holland remained in charge until 1957, when he stepped down due to ill health.[4]
Initial composition of the 30th Parliament
The 1951 election saw the governing National Party re-elected with a twenty-seat margin, a substantial improvement on the twelve-seat margin it previously held. National won fifty seats compared with the Labour Party's thirty.[5] The popular vote was closer, however, with National winning 54% to Labour's 46%.[6] No seats were won by minor party candidates or by independents.[7] This was the last New Zealand general election in which any party has ever captured a majority of the popular vote.[6]
By-elections during 30th Parliament
There were a number of changes during the term of the 30th Parliament.
| Electorate and by-election | Date | Incumbent | Cause | Winner | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dunedin North | 1953 | 12 December | Robert Walls | Death | Ethel McMillan | ||
| Onehunga | 1953 | 19 December | Arthur Osborne | Death | Hugh Watt | ||
| Onslow | 1954 | 7 July | Harry Combs | Death | Henry May | ||
| Patea | 1954 | 31 July | William Sheat | Resignation | William Sheat | ||
Notes
- 1 2 "General elections 1853–2005 - dates & turnout". Elections New Zealand. Archived from the original on 27 May 2010. Retrieved 2 December 2012.
- ↑ Wilson 1985, p. 173.
- ↑ Wilson 1985, p. 142.
- ↑ Wilson 1985, pp. 86–87.
- ↑ Wilson 1985, pp. 287–288.
- 1 2 Wilson 1985, p. 290.
- ↑ Wilson 1985, p. 288.
- ↑ "The New Zealand Official Year-Book, 1951–52". Statistics New Zealand. Retrieved 19 November 2012.
- ↑ Gustafson 1986, p. 378.
- ↑ Norton 1988, p. 314.
- ↑ Gustafson 1986, pp. 360f.
- ↑ Gustafson 1986, p. 390.
- ↑ Gustafson 1986, p. 247.
References
- Gustafson, Barry (1986). The First 50 Years : A History of the New Zealand National Party. Auckland: Reed Methuen. ISBN 0-474-00177-6.
- Norton, Clifford (1988). New Zealand Parliamentary Election Results 1946–1987: Occasional Publications No 1, Department of Political Science. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington. ISBN 0-475-11200-8.
- Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.