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Christian Heritage New Zealand (formerly known as the Christian Heritage Party) is a New Zealand political party promoting Christian -based Social Conservatism . It does not currently hold any seats in Parliament . POLICIES According to Christian Heritage New Zealand's self-description, the party aims "to provide leadership that takes the initiative in building a culture that affirms marriage, strengthens families, and celebrates life as a precious gift of God. We believe these are the key issues that need to be addressed if we are to make an impact for the next generation." It describes its three key policies as "Affirming Marriage, Buildng Families and Celebrating Life". This, in effect, represents a "family values" platform of protecting the traditional family unit, a focus on law and order, and an emphasis on personal responsibility. Christian Heritage NZ is very socially conservative. It favours law changes that strengthen heterosexual Marriage and prevent Same-sex Marriage . They are anti-abortion, but for most of its existence, the CHP supported the reintroduction of the death penalty in New Zealand, which had been abolished in 1961. Christian Heritage NZ supports restrictions on prostitution and support mandatory standards for television to reduce violence and pornography. In economic policy, Christian Heritage is moderately right-wing, and also makes a point of stressing that "economic policy cannot be viewed in isolation" from social matters. In education the party stresses parental influence over the curriculum and parent's rights to chose the school their child will attend. The party is supportive of victim's rights. The party supports New Zealand's constitutional monarchy. In foreign affairs the party supports New Zealand's alliance with Australia and a resumption of its alliance with the United States while supporting New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy. Christian Heritage NZ claims it has broad based support from members of various Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic church, although many of its past members appeared to be members of the tiny Reformed Churches Of New Zealand , composed largely of conservative Calvinist Dutch immigrants. It has always required that all of its members publicly declare themselves as Christians. This stance has caused criticism, with some saying it limits the party's potential base. HISTORY While it is usually argued that the Christian Heritage Party Of Canada was the inspiration behind the formation of New Zealand's Christian Heritage Party, there may also be another explanation. As Dirk Vanderpyl noted in his book ''Trust and Obey'' (1994), many Reformed Churches Of New Zealand members came from a narrow slice of Netherlands society, centred in Zeeland, Veleuwe and Overjissel. In those Netherland provinces, the Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij ( Political Reformed Party -Eng.)(SGP) had existed since 1922, and stood as a model for separatist Reformed fundamentalist political activism. However, the SGP has only ever existed as a ' Testimonial Party '- which raises some intriguing questions about the role of the Christian Heritage Party of New Zealand. Inspired by a party of the same name in Canada that had existed for three years, the Christian Heritage Party was founded in 1989 to promote " Biblical principles", although the party's leadership generally claims that its policies are advantageous even for those who are not Christian. The party's founder and first President was Bill Van Rij and its initial leader was a former National Party candidate, John Allen. The party's first convention, held in 1990, established the group's structure. In 1991 Graham Capill , a Reformed Churches Of New Zealand pastor, was confirmed as the party's leader. During the nineties, there were recurrent complaints from non-Reformed evangelical Christians that the CHP never managed to transcend their initial base, and remained centred in this three-thousand member sect. Eighteen Christian Heritage candidates contested seats in The 1990 General Election . The party did not gain any seats, but did secure over 10,000 votes across the country. Subsequently, the party's candidate, Clive Thomson, finished fourth in a By-election in the electorate of Tamaki . In the 1993 Elections , the Christian Heritage party polled 2.02%, making it easily the largest party outside parliament, a position the party retained in the 1996, 1999 and 2002 general elections. In 1994 , the Christian Heritage Party gained new competition when a National Party MP, Graeme Lee , formed Christian Democrats (originally named the United Progressives). Lee had originally considered joining Christian Heritage, but eventually declined because of the party's requirement that all members publicly declare themselves as Christians. Later, however, Christian Heritage and the Christian Democrats reached an agreement to contest the 1996 Elections together. This resulted in the formation of the Christian Coalition , with Capill and Lee as its co-leaders. Lee would be first on the party list, since he was already in Parliament. Shortly before the election, there was much speculation as to whether the Christian Coalition would reach the "five percent threshold" necessary to gain proportional representation in New Zealand's MMP electoral system. If the party gained more than five percent of the vote, it would be entitled to a share of parliamentary seats equivalent to its support, probably gaining it five or six MPs. However, when the final vote was tallied, the party had only 4.4% support. In May of 1997, the Christian Coalition collapsed, with the two component parties going their separate ways. The causes of this breakdown are debated. According to the Christian Heritage Party, it was the Christian Democrats who left the alliance, but other accounts disagree (either blaming Christian Heritage or blaming both). Points of contention included the extent to which the party would admit people who were not Christian but who shared compatible views - after the split, the Christian Democrats would conceal the explicitly religious nature of their party, which was eventually renamed Future New Zealand. Christian Heritage stood Ewen McQueen as its candidate in the 1998 Taranaki-King Country byelection. McQueen outpolled candidates for the larger New Zealand First and Green parties. Six months before the 1999 Elections , Frank Grover , leader of the Liberal Party , a component of The Alliance , defected to Christian Heritage, giving it one seat in Parliament. Grover had been an Alliance list MP. In the elections, however, Christian Heritage gained 2.4% of the vote, insufficient to entitle the party to any seats. In the Elections Of 2002 , Christian Heritage had high hopes. It hoped that by focusing on a single electorate, Wairarapa , it could gain entry to parliament and bypass the 5% requirement. However, the result was disappointing - the party itself gained only 1.4% of the vote, and its Wairarapa candidate, deputy leader Merepeka Raukawa-Tait , came third. Much of Christian Heritage's support appeared to bleed over to United Future New Zealand , a merger of Future New Zealand (a successor to the Christian Democrats) and Peter Dunne 's United New Zealand . In the aftermath of the election, there was considerable tension between the party's central leadership and the Wairarapa branch. Allegations of financial mismanagement were made against both sides, and Raukawa-Tait criticised Graham Capill's leadership of the party. Capill, in turn, criticised Raukawa-Tait, and rebuked her for her comments. Raukawa-Tait and the entire Wairarapa Electorate Committee eventually resigned. Not long after the election, Capill announced his retirement as party leader. A year later, when Capill's retirement came into effect, the party appointed Ewen McQueen to replace him. The party also reaffirmed its determination to carry on contesting elections (rather than remove itself from the list of parties and become a pressure group). In 2003 the party also adopted the name Christian Heritage New Zealand, or CHNZ, (rather than the original Christian Heritage Party, or CHP). In November 2004 Graham Capill resigned from the party citing differences of opinion about the party's direction. On 1 April 2005 Capill pleaded guilty to Indecently Assaulting an eight year old girl, and on 14 July 2005 was jailed for nine years. Capill's conduct was swiflty condemned by the new party leadership. In the 2005 General Elections , Christian Heritage saw its support collapse even further. The party stood only seven candidates, and only won 2,821 votes (out of more than 2 million cast) for 0.2 percent. It appears much of its support bled over to National, United Future, and newly formed Destiny New Zealand . The loss of support to Destiny was somewhat surprising, since Destiny is based around the Charismatic Destiny Church and McQueen is himself Charismatic. After the election, controversy arose when former CHNZ Policy Director Mark Munroe defended Capill in a private email, arguing that his serial paedophile offenses did not fit the 'biblical definition of rape.' Ewen McQueen and the CHNZ Board pressured Munroe for his resignation, which ultimately occurred. Since Munroe resigned, the CHNZ website has not been updated. A "TESTIMONIAL PARTY?" As noted in the above paragraph, the CHP may have been modelled on a prior Dutch Reformed fundamentalist separatist political party, the Political Reformed Party , given the particular provincial origins of Dutch immigrant New Zealand CHP founders. If this is the case, it is possible that the CHP was consciously modelled on the Netherlands template of a Testimonial Party . In Dutch politics, "testimonial parties" do not expect concrete political outcomes from their meagre parliamentary representation, but are there purely on 'principle.' While the Dutch proportional representation electoral system permits this due to its demographically based nature, New Zealand's Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system has a German-style five percent threshold, which must be passed by a political party if it is to gain parliamentary seats without the safety valve of a constituency seat. However, the CHP has never been able to circumvent the five percent threshold on its own. It can therefore be argued that voting for Christian Heritage New Zealand acted as a 'spoiled vote' reservoir for conservative Christian political ambitions, given that it only ever was a New Zealand 'testimonial party,' based on an inapplicable Dutch model in a foreign political context where it could never work. SEE ALSO
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