Helen Clark
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Early life
Image:Helenclark2.jpg 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.
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
Helen Clark first gained election to the New Zealand House of Representatives in the 1981 general election as one of four women who entered Parliament on that occasion. In winning the Mt Albert electorate in Auckland, she became only the second woman elected to represent 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 ousted Mike Moore to 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 spin-off 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.
Helen Clark's achievements
Much of 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. Clark's government has also brought in significant changes to the welfare system, such as child tax credits in the Working for Families package. Her government has also changed industrial relations law to strengthen the position of trade unions and raised the minimum wage six times in as many years.[1]
Even though some commentators saw stable government within the relatively new MMP electoral system unlikely, Clark's supporters credit her with maintaining two terms of stable MMP government, as well as being able to form the current government given the close election result.
In 2005, Forbes ranked Clark as number 24 of "The 100 Most Powerful Women" in the world.
Of current NZ politicians, Clark is most preferred to be Prime Minister according to recent surveys such as the Herald DigiPoll [2] published by the New Zealand Herald on April 10 2006. This poll showed that 57 per cent of those indicating a preference wanted Clark to be Prime Minister, compared to 22 per cent for Leader of the Opposition Don Brash. Incumbent Prime Ministers are usually most popular in these polls but Clark's current lead is relatively substantial.
International relations
Image:Deputy Secretary of Defense.jpg 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 March 2003, regarding coalition actions in Iraq, Clark told the newspaper Sunday Star Times that, "I don't think that September 11 under a Gore presidency would have had this consequence for Iraq." She later sent a letter to Washington apologising for any offence that her comment may have caused.
See also: Foreign relations of New Zealand
Controversies
In 2000 Labour MP Chris Carter investigated the background of one of Clark's Cabinet colleagues, Maori Affairs Minister Dover Samuels. During the investigation, Clark referred to Peter Yelich as a murderer. However Yelich had been convicted of manslaughter. Yelich sued Clark for defamation, resulting in an out-of-court settlement. In a press release, opposition MP ACT leader Richard Prebble assessed the settlement as $20,000 for defamation and $35,000 to keep it confidential. .
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. Police found evidence for a prima facie case of forgery, but decided that it was not in the public interest to prosecute.
In 2000, the then Police Commissioner, Peter Doone, resigned after the Sunday Star-Times alleged he had prevented the breath testing of his partner Robyn, who was driving the car they were in, by telling the officer "that won't be necessary". Both Doone and the officer involved denied this happened. Doone sued the Sunday Star-Times for defamation in 2005 but the paper revealed they had checked the story with Clark. She confirmed that this was the case, but denied that she was trying to get Doone to resign and defended being the source as "by definition I cannot leak".[3] Opinion on the significance of what was termed "Doonegate" varied. [4]
In 2005 a motorcade involving Police, Diplomatic Protection Squad, and Ministerial Services staff reached speeds of up to 172 Km/h when taking Clark and Cabinet Minister Jim Sutton from Waimate to Christchurch Airport so she could attend a rugby match in Wellington. Two police drivers eventually received convictions for driving offences. In December 2005 an appeal quashed the conviction of a civilian driver. Clark distanced herself from the matter, saying that she was busy working in the back seat and had no influence or role in the decision to speed and did not realise the speed of the vehicle. However, one witness, testifying in court, described Clark as looking around and enjoying the trip.
Some criticism has arisen that Clark supported some of her ministers (notably David Benson-Pope) when they faced allegations of improper behaviour, but gave less support to others such as Lianne Dalziel and Taito Phillip Field.
Biography
- Brian Edwards: Helen: Portrait of A Prime Minister: Auckland: Exisle Publishing: 2001: ISBN 0908988206
See also
External links
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{{Persondata |NAME=Clark, Helen Elizabeth |ALTERNATIVE NAMES= |SHORT DESCRIPTION=Prime Minister of New Zealand, politician, academic |DATE OF BIRTH=February 26, 1950 |PLACE OF BIRTH=Hamilton, New Zealand |DATE OF DEATH= |PLACE OF DEATH= }}
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