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The Rt. Hon. Helen Clark
37th Prime Minister of New Zealand
Incumbent
Assumed office December 5, 1999
Deputy	Jim Anderton (1999 - 2002) Michael Cullen (2002 - Present)
Preceded by	Jenny Shipley
Constituency	Mount Albert, since 1981
Personal details
Born	February 26, 1950 Hamilton, New Zealand
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Peter Davis

Helen Elizabeth Clark (born February 26, 1950) became Prime Minister of New Zealand in December 1999 and entered her third successive term in that office in 2005. As of 2006, she is ranked by Forbes magazine as the 20th most powerful woman in the world.

Early life

Clark grew up as the eldest of four daughters of a Waikato farming family. Her mother worked as a primary-school teacher and her farmer father supported the National Party at the 1981 election. Clark studied at Te Pahu Primary School, at Epsom Girls' Grammar School in Auckland and at the University of Auckland, where she majored in politics and graduated with a MA (Hons) in 1974. Her MA thesis research focused on rural political behaviour and representation.

Clark worked as a junior lecturer in Political Studies at the University of Auckland from 1973 to 1975, studied abroad on a University Grants Committee post-graduate scholarship in 1976, and then lectured in political studies at Auckland while undertaking her PhD (which she never completed) from 1977 until her election to Parliament in 1981.

She married sociologist Peter Davis, her partner of five years at that time, shortly before that election (under pressure from some members of the New Zealand Labour Party to marry despite her own feelings about marriage - her biography reports that she cried throughout the ceremony, although she attributes that to a headache) . Dr Davis currently works as a professor in medical sociology and heads the Sociology Department at the University of Auckland.

As a teenager Clark protested against the Vietnam War and campaigned against foreign military bases in New Zealand. She has declared herself agnostic.

Involvement in the Labour Party

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 was chair of the University of Auckland Princes Street branch of the Party during her studies, she 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

Template:Infobox polstyles

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 Mount 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 Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Select Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control, both of which combined with the Defence Select Committee in 1985 to form a single committee.

In 1987, Clark became a Cabinet Minister in the Fourth Labour Government, led by 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.

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 held the posts of Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Opposition spokesperson for Health and Labour and member of the Social Services Select Committee and of the Labour Select Committee. Clark challenged Mike Moore for the leadership of the Labour Party and won, becoming Leader of the Opposition on 1 December 1993. She led the Opposition during the National-Party administrations of Jim Bolger (1990 - 1997) and Jenny Shipley (1997 - 1999).

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.

I think it's inevitable that New Zealand will become a republic and that would reflect the reality that New Zealand is a totally sovereign-independent 21st century nation 12,000 miles from the United Kingdom

— Prime Minister Helen Clark,

Clark supports New Zealand becoming a republic. Support for a republic also exists elsewhere within the Labour Party. Clark's term in office has seen a number of alleged moves towards a republic, such as the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council and the setting up of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, the abolition of titular honours in Knighthoods and Damehoods, and the abolition of the title "Queen's Counsel" (replaced by "Senior Counsel"). Some critics of Clark's government have derided her support for a republic, arguing that the Prime Minister has no mandate for such moves, which people who see such things see as "republicanism by stealth". However, Clark is not the only Prime Minister of New Zealand to discuss the issue favourably in public; her predecessor, National Prime Minister Jim Bolger also indicated his support for a republic in 1994, during his tenure as Prime Minister.

On 10 January 2007, Clark passed Sir Joseph Ward to become New Zealand's seventh longest serving Prime Minister. On 16 September 2007 Clark will pass Sir Sidney Holland into sixth and on 24 July 2008 she passes Sir Robert Muldoon to be fifth longest-serving Prime Minister . Should Clark's government be re-elected at the New Zealand general election, 2008 Clark could serve until November 2011, passing Sir Keith Holyoake to become New Zealand's third-longest serving Prime Minister. Clark would need to stay in office until January 17, 2013 - a period of slightly over thirteen years - to be the longest-serving Prime Minister in New Zealand's history.

Achievements

Social policy

Clark's government has 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 and raised the minimum wage six times in as many years. Changes have also occurred in tertiary-education financing, with the abolition of interest on student-loans — firstly for those currently studying, then extended to all borrowers living in New Zealand. Other changes introduced during Clark's term in office include legal provision for civil unions, the introduction of 14 weeks' paid parental leave, and the Property (Relationships) Act, which treats property division after the breakup of de facto relationships the same as after the breakup of legal marriages. Some of these measures, though initiated by other members of parliament or political parties, nevertheless gained Administration support.

Economic Growth

Some commentators have praised Helen Clark (along with the Minister of Finance Michael Cullen) for overseeing a period of sustained and stable economic growth, with an increase in employment that has seen a gradual lowering of the unemployment rate to 3.6%. Although her critics acknowledge these factors, many such critics maintain that the growth has come about as the result of wider economic factors, and that increases in the sickness benefit have caused (at least in part) the decrease in unemployment. On the other hand, total beneficiary numbers (a measurement that includes both unemployment- and sickness-beneficiaries) have shrunk under Helen Clark's leadership. Other economic concerns for Clark's government include a persistently high current-account deficit and an unofficial poverty-rate of about twenty percent.

Stable government

Even though some commentators saw stable government within the relatively new MMP electoral system as 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, and then higher at number 20 in 2006. Clark has actively promoted New Zealand arts, and this has partially been responsible for the growth in New Zealand music being played on radio.

Crime rate

Police statistics report a drop in the rate of recorded offences by population over the period of Clark's leadership, which continued the trend shown in years prior to her leadership. This corresponds with a survey of victims of crime, which reported very little change in the number of victims of crime between 1995 and 2001, despite a slight increase in population. Crime figures for 2005/2006 showed an increase in a recorded crime over the previous financial year, but rates remain lower than 1999.

Foreign policy

New Zealand has, during Clark's terms of office, pursued what she and her supporters call an "independent" foreign policy. New Zealand retains a nuclear-free zone status, a stance also taken by the opposition National party, (possibly at the cost of a free trade agreement with the USA), and refused to participate in the Iraq invasion without UN sanction.

In March 2003, regarding the U.S. led coalition actions in the Iraq War, 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.

Helen Clark has always enjoyed very good relations with China. In a report in the "People's Daily", Chinese President Jiang Zemin indeed referred to her as an "old friend". He hoped to "establish bilateral long-term and stable overall cooperative relations with a healthy development geared to the 21st century", and "broad prospects for bilateral economic cooperation". Clark had strongly supported China's entry into the WTO.

Controversies

In 2000, Labour MP Chris Carter investigated the background of one of Clark's Cabinet colleagues, Māori Affairs Minister Dover Samuels. During the investigation, Clark referred to John Yelash as a murderer. However, Yelash had been convicted of manslaughter. Yelash sued Clark for defamation, resulting in an out-of-court settlement.

Clark signed a painting for a charity auction that someone else had painted. A political controversy arose about it, and after it emerged that she had not painted it, the matter was referred by Opposition politicians to the Police. The Police found evidence for a prima facie case of forgery, but decided that it was not in the public interest to prosecute. A staff member bought the painting back and destroyed it.

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". Helen Clark also responded by saying that National's friends were funding Mr Doone's defamation suit. Opinion on the significance of this was varied.

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. The drivers involved were subsequently convicted on driving offences, but these convictions were quashed on appeal in December 2005 and August 2006. Clark said 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.

Clark was criticised for some of Labour's election campaign spending during the 2005 election campaign. The Labour Party, like all parties represented in Parliament, was entitled to spend some public money, but the Auditor-General found Labour, and all but one other party, had spent more than they were entitled to. In Labour's case, $768,000 was the sum nominated as not properly authorised. Despite disagreeing with the Auditor-General's conclusion, Clark announced Labour would refund the public purse. See 2005 New Zealand election funding controversy.

Honours

Helen Clark was awarded the Star of the Solomon Islands in 2005 in recognition of New Zealand's role in restoring law and order in the Solomon Islands . This award allows her to use the post nominal letters SSI .

Biography

• Brian Edwards: Helen: Portrait of A Prime Minister: Auckland: Exisle Publishing: 2001: ISBN 0-908988-20-6

References

1. "The 100 Most Powerful Women". Retrieved 2006-11-11.
2. ""Helen Clark"". Retrieved 2006-06-30.
3. Edwards, Brian (2001). "Campaign '81". Helen, Portrait of a Prime Minister. pp. 144–150. ISBN 0-908988-20-6.
4. The Evening Post 23 February 2002
5. Monarchist League of New Zealand Press release 18 March 2006
6. "Colin James: Clark heading for fifth place but is that her limit?". Retrieved 2007-01-10.
7. "Labour Party of New Zealand -Achievements". Retrieved 2006-05-11.
8. "Helen Clark, The Most Powerful Women". Retrieved 2006-05-11.
9. "Crime Statistics for calendar year ending 31 December 2005". Retrieved 2006-11-25.
10. "New Zealand National Survey of Crime Victims 2001 - Summary". Retrieved 2006-11-25.
11. "Crime Statistics for fiscal year ending 30 June 2006". Retrieved 2006-10-02.
12. "Questions for Oral Answer, Wednesday, 9 April 2003". Retrieved 2006-05-11.
13. "President Jiang Meets New Zealand PM". Retrieved 2006-05-11.
14. "Research Note no.9 2002-03". Retrieved 2006-05-11.
15. "PM confirmed story, says editor". Retrieved 2006-05-11.
16. "The PM'S slow leak". Retrieved 2006-05-11.
17. "Motorcade police officers' convictions quashed". Retrieved 2006-08-31.
18. "PM 'enjoyed' convoy ride". Retrieved 2006-05-11.
19. Website of the NZ government: PM awarded the Star of the Solomon Islands. Retrieved on 2006-09-24
20. Medals of the World - Solomon Islands: Star of the Solomon Islands. Retrieved on 2006-09-24

See also

• Politics of New Zealand
• New Zealand

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• New Zealand Labour Party
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