Talk:Prime Minister of New Zealand/Archive 1

Archive 1

Hugh Watt

Hugh Watt who was the Prime Minister for the interim period following Norman Kirk's death should be included.

Here in Australia, Earle Page, Frank Forde and John McEwen are counted as Prime Ministers even though they served for an interim period after the deaths of the previous Prime Ministers.--The Shadow Treasurer 05:23, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Hugh Watt was never actually Prime Minister in any official sense — he filled that role for a time, but was never appointed to the office. Like Australia, we've had a few Prime Ministers who were appointed Prime Minister even though they were only there for an interim period (Francis Bell, for example), but Watt wasn't one of those. -- Vardion 07:28, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Timeline

Something is badly wrong with the timeline, making most of the names unreadable (at least on my computer). Could someone fix this? --Helenalex 22:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I had a fiddle with it. It's still not quite right, but should be improved. The problem seems to be something to do with alignment. If it still isn't acceptable, I suggest asking at the help desk for someone to come and fix it properly.-gadfium 00:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Split list

I would like to split the list section into a separate article, along the lines of the ones for the USA, the UK, Canada, and Australia. I think there are enough of them to justify a completely separate article. Any thoughts? --superioridad ^(discusión) 11:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you intending to add portraits and extra details as on those lists? That would be great. There'll be a few portraits missing; for those who are dead a fair use claim could be made on a photo from government archives.-gadfium 18:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

That is exactly what I am intending to do. If there are no objections, I'll get started just as soon as my internet connection stops acting up, probably later tonight. --superioridad ^(discusión) 03:14, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Photo

(comment moved here from article -- Avenue (talk) 13:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC))

Unfortunately, the photo of the current Prime Minister of New Zealand [P.M.], Helen Clark, on this page, appears to perpetually depict the P.M. as appearing far more youthful than seems apparent. The photo appears to have been sourced from the P.M.'s seemingly infamous 'pledge Card'. It is time that this error was corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.109.188.79 (talk)

It's the official portrait, and the pledge card also used it, but the portrait was released under the GFDL by the PM's office and not taken from the pledge card. I think almost all official portraits are intentionally flattering to their subjects. If you want to try replacing it with one of the several other free pictures of Helen Clark at commons:Helen_Clark, then do so, although other people may prefer to keep the official portrait in this article.-gadfium 20:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Maximum number of terms in office?

Anyone know if there is a maximum number of terms a PM can be in office?

Matt (talk) 23:32, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

There's none defined, hence there is no maximum. --Lholden (talk) 23:36, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

More timeline problems

Very minor changes to the timeline seem to prevent it from displaying properly, and often prevent it from displaying at all. Just updating the end date to the election date seems to trigger this bug, which is probably this one. This is going to make it a right pain to update to show the new PM in a few days time. Even when it displays, it's a bit ugly due to font problems (on both Windows and Linux) and because the graph is much taller than most people's screen height.

Any objection if I comment it out until such time as bug 16085 is fixed?-gadfium 00:23, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Done, I tried sandboxing it some weeks ago and found that the whole timeline template is not robust enough to be useful. It fails at date = 8 Nov 2008, although it accepts future dates, it fails to display links on left side of timeline and it failed when I tried adding a new PM. I then looked at the British version(s) which are laid out on a horizontal axis and tried adapting that - and found several more points of failure so I gave up on it. I suggest a graphical timeline for the time being. Fanx (talk) 12:07, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the timelines in List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom (graphical) look much better than this one did. If someone mentions here when the bug is fixed, I'll try implementing something in that format for here.— Preceding unsigned comment added by gadfium (talk • contribs) 11 November 2008

Since it's been two years, I thought I'd take a look at the timeline again. It still is doing something a little strange with the fonts, but isn't unreadable as it was previously. If anyone hates it, feel free to comment it out again.

A possible improvement, which should be easy to implement, would be to split it into two or three columns so it would take less vertical space. I imagine this would be done by replacing the single timeline with two or three timelines, split roughly by century or half-century, and then using {{col-begin}} etc to display them side by side. This might cause problems on small screens, though.-gadfium 20:31, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Capital letters

@Newzild has removed a lot of capital letters from this article in these edits - from what I've seen I think most of them are proper nouns, but I don't really know - could someone more knowledgeable give their thoughts? Ollieinc (talk) 09:38, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I did remove a lot of caps. It is correct to use caps in a sentence like this: "Prime Minister John Key said..." but it is not correct in a sentence like this: "New Zealand has had 37 prime ministers." This article was strewn with false caps.

Semi-protected edit request on 19 October 2017

It is Jacinda Adern as of Friday 20th October. She is the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Pollypocket000 (talk) 11:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. SparklingPessimist ^{Scream at me!} 15:00, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

You need a source? Take your pick. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/headlines.cfm?c_id=280 — Preceding unsigned comment added by But this is a different name (talk • contribs) 20:24, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

She's on the front page of Wikipedia as the new NZ PM with sourcing galore. 72.78.186.52 (talk) 02:41, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Not sworn in yet though, so Bill English is still officially Prime Minister. --Canley (talk) 04:01, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Winston Peters

Bringing the discussion here as I feel this could be quite contentious.

Since Winston is Acting Prime Minister and Jacinda is still Prime Minister even though she's on maternity leave, I've reverted the infobox. Feel free to revert back if there's a consensus otherwise. pcuser42 (talk) 22:10, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Constitutional inaccuracies in lead

Hi all, I've gone ahead and restored the lead to: "is the primary minister of the Crown. The prime minister chairs the Cabinet and selects its members, advises the Crown on the exercise of executive power, and acts as the head of government for New Zealand. The prime minister is appointed on the ability to command the confidence of the House of Representatives, and is responsible to Parliament."

The edit made by another user is not constitutionally accurate - as a Westminster democracy, the head of government is the Crown, who possesses and exercises all executive power for the government, as the primary minister of the Crown, the PM advises the Governor in Council on the exercise of these powers and thus acts as head of government and chief executive, but is not formally either role in its own right.

Appreciate any feedback on this :) WildComet (talk) 01:22, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I get where you're coming from on this, but there is a case that common usage, including in official New Zealand government documents (e.g. [1], [2]) that the Head of Government is the Prime Minister. I don't agree with the description of "chief executive" as that implies the prime minister is like a CEO, which is certainly not constitutionally accurate --LJ Holden 08:59, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

The prime minister is the head of government. --Hazhk (talk) 22:14, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

@LJ Holden and Hazhk: So with regard to the other language describing the role of the PM, there was a very lengthy discussion between myself and another editor over at Talk:Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. While the offices are not 100% the same, I'm sure we can recognize that as the office and the role is very much based on the one in the UK. As for my "agenda", it's nothing nefarious. Because this office is modelled and functions essentially the same as the one in the UK and indeed every Commonwealth realm, it makes sense to be consistent. I may start a discussion over at WP:POLITICS about this as it is tiring explaining this out across talk pages. WildComet (talk) 05:36, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't think your agenda is "nefarious". I disagree that the model and function is "essentially the same". In Commonwealth realms other than the UK, the prime minister only directly advises the monarch on the appointment of the governor-general. Our current text states, "They are responsible for (...) providing advice to the sovereign or the sovereign's representative, the governor-general." In your revision, this was changed to "advises the Crown", which is less informative. Regardless of the need to distinguish between 'head of government' versus 'acts as head of government', I simply think the current version of the lead reads better. I also wish to retain links that were removed, e.g. Ministers in the New Zealand Government. The current text was developed over time by multiple editors.--Hazhk (talk) 14:57, 14 March 2021 (UTC)