ABSTRACT
New Zealand has one of the longest histories of televised party leaders’ debates in the world: the first one was broadcast in 1969. The changes in the frequency, content and presentation of debates have reflected the changes in New Zealand society and economy over the past five decades. From being an isolated outpost of Britishness in the South Pacific, with a highly regulated market, New Zealand’s adoption of neo-liberal policies and open immigration from the mid-1980s has produced one of the most heterogeneous societies and open economies in the world. When televised debates started, they were similarly constrained: a meeting of the leaders of the two main parties, one center-left, one center-right, which collectively dominated electoral politics, shown on a monopoly, single-channel, state broadcaster. Liberalisation of broadcasting in the 1980s, and a switch to a German-style proportional voting system in 1996, brought about a plurality of debates and formats, with multiple participants, in the early 2000s. But in recent years, the two major parties have engineered the exclusion of minor parties from the most high-profile broadcasts. The last four elections have seen presidential-style clashes between the two major leaders, with the minor parties separated off into less prominent time slots, and some newly formed parties excluded altogether.
