- This article discusses the New Zealand Prime Minister. For other persons of the same name, see Helen Clark (disambiguation).
The Right Honourable Helen Elizabeth Clark (born February 26, 1950) has served as Prime Minister of New Zealand since December 1999. In 2005 she started her third Prime-Ministerial term.
Early life
Helen Clark grew up as the eldest of a four-girl farming family from the Waikato. Her mother worked as a primary-school teacher and her father, a farmer, supported the National Party at the time of the 1981 election. Clark received her education at Te Pahu Primary School, Epsom Girls' Grammar School in Auckland and the University of Auckland, where she studied politics and graduated with a MA(Hons). She studied abroad in 1976 on a New Zealand University Grants Committee scholarship.
She worked as a Lecturer in Political Studies at the University of Auckland from 1973 until her election to Parliament in 1981. She married the sociologist Peter Davis (her partner of five years at that time) shortly before the 1981 election. Dr Davis currently works as a professor in medical sociology and heads the Sociology Department at the University of Auckland.
As a teenager she protested against the Vietnam War and campaigned against foreign military bases in New Zealand. Clark has declared her religious beliefs as agnostic[1].
Labour Party involvement
Clark has worked actively in the New Zealand Labour Party for most of her life. She served as a member of the party's New Zealand executive from 1978 until September 1988 and again from April 1989. She has held the positions of president of the Labour Youth Council, executive member of the Party's Auckland Regional Council, secretary of the Labour Women's Council and member of the Policy Council.
She represented the New Zealand Labour Party at the congresses of the Socialist International and of the Socialist International Women in 1976, 1978, 1983 and 1986, at an Asia-Pacific Socialist Organisation Conference held in Sydney in 1981 and at the Socialist International Party Leaders' Meeting in Sydney in 1991.
Member of Parliament
First elected to the New Zealand House of Representatives in 1981, representing the Mt Albert electorate in Auckland, Helen Clark was one of four women who entered Parliament in that election. She became only the second woman elected to an Auckland electorate and the seventeenth woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament. During her first term (1981 - 1984), she became a member of the Statutes Revision Committee. In her second term (1984 - 1987), she chaired the Select Committees on Foreign Affairs and Disarmament and Arms Control, both of which combined with the Defence Select Committee in 1985 to form a single committee.
Clark served in the Labour cabinets of David Lange (1984 - 1989), Geoffrey Palmer (1989 - 1990) and Mike Moore (1990), first as Minister of Housing and as Minister of Conservation, then as Minister of Health and later as Deputy Prime Minister. She functioned as Leader of the Opposition during the National Party administrations of Jim Bolger (1990 - 1997) and Jenny Shipley (1997 - 1999).
Clark served as Minister of Conservation from August 1987 until January 1989 and as Minister of Housing from August 1987 until August 1989. She became Minister of Health in January 1989 and Minister of Labour and Deputy Prime Minister in August 1989. She chaired the Cabinet Social Equity Committee and became a member of the Cabinet Policy Committee, of the Cabinet Committee on Chief Executives, of the Cabinet Economic Development and Employment Committee, of the Cabinet Expenditure Review Committee, of the Cabinet State Agencies Committee, of the Cabinet Honours Appointments and Travel Committee and of the Cabinet Domestic and External Security Committee.
From October 1990 until December 1993, Clark functioned as Deputy Leader of the Opposition, as Opposition spokesperson for Health and Labour and as a member of the Social Services Select Committee and of the Labour Select Committee. Clark became Leader of the Opposition on 1 December 1993.
Prime Minister
When the New Zealand Labour Party came into office as part of a coalition following the 1999 election, Clark became the second female Prime Minister of New Zealand and the first to have won office at an election. (The previous Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley took office as the result of a mid-term party leadership challenge.)
Clark has held the positions of Prime Minister and of Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage from 1999 until the present. She also has ministerial responsibility for the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and for Ministerial Services. Her particular areas of interest include social policy and international affairs.
As Leader of the Labour Party, Clark negotiated the formation of successive minority coalition governments. The first such coalition (1999 - 2002) linked the Labour Party with the Alliance party (1999). The coalition with the Alliance Party collapsed in 2002, with the ultimate result that Clark called an early election and then went into coalition with Jim Anderton's Progressive Party, a spinoff of the Alliance Party (2002, with parliamentary supply and confidence coming from United Future and a 'good faith' agreement with the Green Party). In 2005, following the election of that year, The Labour Party and the Progressive Party renewed their coalition, gaining supply and confidence support from both New Zealand First and United Future in exchange for giving the leaders of those parties ministerial positions outside Cabinet.
There has been one biography published of Clark: Helen: Portrait of a Prime Minister, by Brian Edwards, 2001. ISBN 0908988-20-6.
Helen Clark's achievements
Helen Clark's term as Prime Minister has seen New Zealand enjoy economic growth at levels unseen for many years. At the time of the 2005 election, New Zealand had the lowest unemployment of all industrial nations. Many people credited Clark with achieving stable government within what some people regarded as New Zealand's hitherto unwieldy Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system.
International relations
New Zealand has, during Clark's terms of office, pursued what she and her supporters call an "independent" foreign policy, evidenced by the retention of nuclear-free status (possibly at the cost of a free trade agreement with the USA) and a refusal to participate in the Iraq invasion without UN sanction.
In general, New Zealand foreign policy under Clark has continued to focus on New Zealand being a well-regarded world and regional citizen contributing to peacekeeping, aid and disaster relief.
Controversies
Clark has received criticism from critics and her opponents for her conduct while in office, with accusations of corrupt practices by her and/or her party.
Labour and five other political parties were investigated for alleged breaches of election spending rules relating to the 2005 election. None were eventually prosecuted [2]. Labour was accused of overspending by over four hundred thousand dollars in the 2005 general election, and using public money to finance their campaign. Under New Zealand's political system, parties may only spend up to a certain amount on campaigning. The Electoral Commission, the independent body charged with ensuring that campaign rules are adhered to referred the Labour Party to the police[3]. According to the commission's data, Labour disclosed expenditure of $2,798,603, $418,603 more than the party's $2,380,000 limit. On this point, the police decided that "there was insufficient evidence to indicate that an offence under s214b of the Electoral Act had been committed."[4] Additionally, claims allege Labour used over $400,000 of taxpayer's money to produce a number of pamphlets and "pledge cards" promoting Labour, and that this constituted advertising for the party but it was not authorised by the party secretary as required. This was also investigated by the police, who decided that "there was sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case" of an offence under section 221 of the act (which requires party advertising to be authorised in writing by the secretary). However they also decided that no prosecution should be laid, preferring instead to warn Labour that similar future offences would risk prosecution.
Claims have also been made that the Labour government allegedly used public money to promote their party in the past. Before the 2005 campaign, public funds were used to erect bus billboards showing the Labour election phrase "You're better off with Labour"[5]. However the Speaker of the House, Margaret Wilson (also a Labour MP) ruled that this was advertising for the National Budget and not the party itself.
In 2000, Labour MP Chris Carter investigated the background of one of Clark's Cabinet colleagues, Maori Affairs Minister Dover Samuels. Carter left a message on Peter Yelich's answering machine, asking for information about Samuels. When the media obtained and exposed the answering-machine message, Clark raised questions about Yelich's character. Yelich has a conviction for manslaughter: however, Clark incorrectly referred to him as a murderer, and Yelich sued Clark for defamation. An out-of-court settlement ensued. In a press release, Clark's former cabinet colleague turned political opponent and ACT leader Richard Prebble gave alleged details of the settlement: $20,000 for defamation and $35,000 to keep it confidential[6].
Clark signed a painting for a charity auction that one of her staff members had painted. After it emerged that she had not painted it ("Paintergate"), a staff member bought the painting back and destroyed it. The police decided that, although there was a case to answer, it was not in the public interest to prosecute[7].
In 2000, the then Police Commissioner, Peter Doone, resigned after he allegedly interfered to prevent the breath-testing of the driver of his car. It later (2005) emerged that Clark had authorised the release to the media of information[8], apparently to discredit Mr Doone. These events led Clark's political opponents to accuse her of arrogance and an abuse of her position.
In 2005, Clark's motorcade drove at excessive speed through the South Island of New Zealand. Police, Diplomatic Protection Squad and Ministerial Services staff had facilitated a high-speed motorcade between Waimate and Christchurch Airport (reaching up to 172 km/h) to get Clark to a rugby match in Wellington. The two police officers involved received convictions for their driving, whilst the civilian driver was not convicted. Clark stated that she was busy working in the back seat and did not realise the speed of the vehicle, although one witness testified in court that Clark was looking around and enjoying the trip[9].
In early 2006, some people began to criticise Clark for alleged double standards: standing by some of her ministers (notably David Benson-Pope) when they faced allegations of improper behaviour, while others (such as Lianne Dalziel and Taito Phillip Field) received less Prime-Ministerial support.
Like most incumbent Prime Ministers in New Zealand, Clark has continued to poll as the preferred Prime Minister.
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See also
External links
The content of this page is retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Clark under GFDL
