page_title: Social Credit Party (New Zealand)
section_title: Early history (1953–1972)
hierarchical_section_title: Social Credit Party (New Zealand) / History / Early history (1953–1972)
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Vernon Cracknell, 1969
context_page_description: The New Zealand Social Credit Party is a political party which served as the country's "third party" from the 1950s through into the 1980s. The party held a number of seats in the New Zealand House of Representatives, although never more than two at a time. It renamed itself the New Zealand Democratic Party from 1985 to 2018, and was for a time part of the Alliance from 1991 to 2002.
  The party is based on the ideas of social credit, an economic theory established by Major C. H. Douglas. Social Credit movements also existed in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom although the relationship between those movements and the New Zealand movement was not always good.
context_section_description: Social Credit gained support quickly, and in the 1954 elections, the party won 11.13% of the vote. The party failed to win seats in parliament under the first past the post electoral system. The party's quick rise did, however, prompt discussion of the party's policies. National saw Social Credit as a threat in the 1957 election and established a caucus committee to challenge their theories. Gustafson comments that the successes in some seats (Hobson, Rangitikei, East Coast Bays and Pakuranga) came from a "peculiar and infrequent combination of factors", with votes in those seats coming from "a handful of committed monetary reformers plus alienated National voters and the tactical voting of Labour supporters in a seat where Labour could not win".
  In 1960 P. H. Matthews replaced Owen as leader. It was not until the 1966 elections, however, that the party won its first representation in parliament. Vernon Cracknell, an accountant, won the Hobson electorate in Northland, a region that had been a stronghold of the Country Party. Cracknell narrowly defeated the National Party's Logan Sloane, the incumbent, after having placed second in the previous two elections.
  Cracknell did not prove to be a good performer in parliament itself, however, and did not succeed in advancing the Social Credit manifesto. Partly due to this, and partly due to an exceptionally poor campaign, Cracknell was not re-elected in the 1969 elections, returning Sloane to parliament and depriving Social Credit of its only seat.
  The following year, a leadership contest between Cracknell and another prominent Social Credit member, John O'Brien, ended in disaster, with brawling between supporters of each candidate. The damage done to the party's image was considerable. O'Brien was eventually victorious, but his blunt and confrontational style caused him to lose his position after only a short time in office. He split from Social Credit to found his own New Democratic Party.
caption: Vernon Cracknell, leader 1963–70, MP for Hobson 1966–69.
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