The New Zealand League of Rights was the New Zealand offshoot of

Eric Butler Eric Dudley Butler (7 May 1916 – 7 June 2006) was an Australian political activist and journalist, who in 1946 founded the far-right Australian League of Rights, which he led until 1992. He was known as a staunch anti-communist and virulen ...

Australian League of Rights The Australian League of Rights is a far-right and antisemitic political organisation in Australia. It was founded in Adelaide, South Australia, by Eric Butler in 1946, and organised nationally in 1960. It inspired groups like the Canadian Leag ...

. Following speaking tours of New Zealand in the late 1960s, Eric Butler sought to establish a local version of his organisation. A New Zealand League of Rights was announced in 1970 but did not become operational until 1971. Its first director and co-founder was Sidney Wood. In 1979, David Thompson became its director and revitalised the organisation, publishing a New Zealand version of ''On Target''. The League increased its membership during the 1980s. Thompson was succeeded in the mid-1980s by Bill Daly who ran the League till its end. The organisation ceased activity in 2004. Like the parent organisation, the NZ League proclaimed its "loyalty to God, Queen and Country". Ciarán Ó Maoláin has stated the group adhered to an ideology of

Social Credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made them. To combat what he ...

and

anti-semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

, and was

white supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...

. Another writer, Paul Spoonley, has suggested that the New Zealand League's anti-Semitism was not as explicit as that found in the Australian and Canadian branches. The NZ League criticised the Social Credit Party for having strayed from the path indicated by C. H. Douglas and regarded itself as his true heir, but members maintained links with the party until the end of the 1970s, when the party indicated League members were no longer welcome.Spoonley (1987), p.106. League members would then turn towards the National Party. League members were also active in other groups such as the Voters' Association.

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