The Advance New Zealand Party was a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

political party. It advocated for multiculturalism and the interests of ethnic minorities, and a substantial segment of its membership came from New Zealand's

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...

communities.

History

Advance NZ was registered on 10 August 1995. In the

1996 New Zealand general election The 1996 New Zealand general election was held on 12 October 1996 to determine the composition of the 45th New Zealand Parliament. It was notable for being the first election to be held under the new mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral sy ...

, it submitted a party list of ten candidates, headed by England So'onalole. It also stood candidates in six electorates. It received 949 party votes (0.05% of the total), and did not win any seats. Advance New Zealand merged into

United New Zealand United New Zealand was a centrist political party in New Zealand founded in 1995. It merged with the Christian-based Future New Zealand party to form the United Future New Zealand party in 2000. History Formation United was founded on 28 June 1 ...

in 1997. Party leader England So'onalole made the decision to join United after much consultation with the party executive and membership, agreeing that United was the only party in parliament compatible with the values of Advance New Zealand. England stated "We assessed that we couldn't trust the economy to a Labour-Alliance grouping, National hasn't the community concern we seek, and New Zealand First has shown itself to be less than trustworthy with their attitude to immigrant populations."

References

Political parties established in 1996 1995 establishments in New Zealand Defunct political parties in New Zealand Political parties of minorities {{NewZealand-party-stub