page_title: 2005 New Zealand general election
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: 2005 New Zealand general election / Background
caption_attribution_description: Election billboards advertising parties standing candidates in the 2005 New Zealand general election. The billboards advertise (from left) the Maori Party, Labour, (a vandalised billboard for the Destiny Church), National, the Greens, and a small billboard for the Libertarianz.
context_page_description: The 2005 New Zealand general election on Saturday 17 September 2005 determined the membership of the 48th New Zealand Parliament. One hundred and twenty-one MPs were elected to the New Zealand House of Representatives: 69 from single-member electorates, including one overhang seat, and 52 from party lists.
  No party won a majority, but the Labour Party of Prime Minister Helen Clark secured two more seats than nearest rival, the National Party of Dr Don Brash. With the exception of the newly formed Māori Party, which took four Māori seats from Labour, most of the other parties polled lower than in the previous election, losing votes and seats.
  Brash deferred conceding defeat until 1 October, when National's election-night 49 seats fell to 48 after special votes were counted. The official count increased the Māori Party share of the party vote above 2%, entitling them to three rather than two list seats from the party vote. With four electorate seats, the election night overhang of two seats was reduced to one, and as National had the 120th seat allocated under the party vote, National lost one list seat that they appeared to have won on election night.
context_section_description: The governing Labour Party retained office at 2002 election. However, its junior coalition partner, the Alliance, lost most of its support after internal conflict and disagreement and failed to win parliamentary representation. Labour formed a coalition with the new Progressive Coalition, formed by former Alliance leader Jim Anderton. The Labour-Progressive coalition then obtained an agreement of support ("confidence and supply") from United Future, enabling it to form a stable minority government. The National Party, Labour's main opponents, suffered a major defeat, winning only 21% of the vote (22.5% of the seats).
  The collapse of National's vote led ultimately to the replacement of its Parliamentary party leader Bill English with parliamentary newcomer Don Brash on 28 October 2003. Brash began an aggressive campaign against the Labour-dominated government. A major boost to this campaign came with his "Orewa speech" (27 January 2004), in which he attacked the Labour-dominated government for giving "special treatment" to the Māori population, particularly over the foreshore and seabed controversy. This resulted in a surge of support for the National Party, although most polls indicated that this subsequently subsided. National also announced it would not stand candidates in the Māori seats, with some smaller parties following suit.
  The foreshore-and-seabed controversy also resulted in the establishment of the Māori Party in July 2004. The Māori Party hoped to break Labour's traditional (and then current) dominance in the Māori seats, just as New Zealand First had done in the 1996 election.
  A large number of so-called "minor" parties also contested the election.  These included Destiny New Zealand (the political branch of the Destiny Church) and the Direct Democracy Party.
caption: Election billboards advertise the parties and candidates standing nationwide and in each electorate
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