The leftward and other blatherings of Span (now with Snaps!)

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

CHP close up their church

Release on Scoop that the party formerly known as Graham Capill's Christian Heritage Party has decided to call it a day.

Leader Ewen McQueen is quoted as saying:

“For any Christian political party to succeed it needs to be a vehicle that will
unite the Christian vote. We do not believe that Christian Heritage simply
carrying on under its current banner (or even under a different name) will
achieve this. It is time for something completely new.”
Apparently there was a discussion by their National Council, a recommendation to wind up to members, and then a postal ballot amongst the membership. Ninety seven percent voted to end the party.

McQueen also indicated that the key issues of abortion (as in let's not have any) and marriage (as in everyone ought to be in one) were not being addressed by any of the current political parties.

I wonder if this term will see the wind-up of a relatively large number of the minows (ie those outside Parliament). And if many of those from Christian Heritage will seek a new home in United Future or National?

Update, same day, 4.01pm: Posts up on this at No Right Turn and Kiwiblog as well.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"and marriage (as in everyone ought to be in one)"

Well that's a lie.
CHNZ have no problem with single people.

Anonymous said...

This must be the first of the non-Personality Cult parties to have wound itself up formally? Interesting that it is not because the battle is won, or because someone else is waging the battle better, but because no-one knows what they are working towards.

The other minnows have to their advantage the support of their various communities (no matter how small those communities are) such as Libertarians or Dope Smokers, say.

This supposed Christian party had no (realistic) unifying goal, even though it had a unifying philosophy, which leads me to think that ideas are fine, but useless without a specific end to work towards. Perhaps that is why the Labour Party is no longer a socialist party, but a centrist party with social liberal aspirations?

Span said...

Anon, "lie" is a strong word. When I wrote that I thought about putting "every woman" instead of "everyone", but I stand by my opinion of CHP's policy and approach to people.

When a political party espouses a position which "affirms" family yet doesn't support recognition of families not based around a marriage, and it also clearly supports a role for women that sees them exist only through their husband then I don't think my statement is too long a bow to draw.

PabloR - CHP was a personality cult, remember Graham Capill?

Anonymous said...

Span,agree to disagree? Didn't CH have co-leaders for a while there? Plus I'm fairly sure their support had flatlined well before Capill's criminal activites became public knowledge.

Span said...

PabloR, I think it had co-leaders when it was part of the Christian Coalition, but I'm not sure. I thought the party was called "Christian Heritage Graham Capill Leader" on the ballot paper in 2002 or maybe 1999? Or maybe I'm just getting confused with "Jim Anderton's Progressive Party" ;-)

Quite happy to agree to disagree of course. I completely agree that it had flatlined prior to Capill's unmasking - even prior to him standing down as leader. I had the impression that CHP didn't have much support outside Chch after the late 90s?

Swimming said...

It didnt have much support in Chch either....