Talk:New Zealand Government/Archive 1

Govts by term
The table does not seem to be in the correct order... --Helenalex 08:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Several Governments are (roughly) equal in term, but which are you querying? Perhaps a table in chronological order AND this one by length of term? Hugo999 10:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Coalitions
This has probably been raised before, but since each government since 1996 has relied upon one or more coalition partners, how correct is it to use terms like "the fifth Labour government"? For example, the offical NZ Government website (beehive.govt.nz) refers to three distinct governments (labour/alliance 1999-2002, labour/progressive coalition 2002-2005 and labour/progressive coalition 2005-2008). Unless a party can govern alone, the traditional multi-term 'governments' are a thing of the past, and there will always be a need to distinguish between each term of government when coalition partners change. It seems inaccurate and potentially biased to define governments in a way that minimises the role of coalition partners. Without those partners, the leading partner would not have been able to form a government. It is more accurate to link the achievements and controversies of each actual government (eg 1999-2002 not 1999-2008) to all the parties involved in each government, not just the leading party. I realise this is a more complex approach, but if the consensus is to keep combining a series of governments into one government defined only by the leading partner, then perhaps some commentary at the start of the page would be appropriate. --Januarian (talk) 22:07, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There probably should be more of an explanation, but I am against having seperate pages for each permutation. For example, we would obviously have seperate pages for the 4th national govt and the national/nz first coalition formed in 1996, but wouldn't we also need another page on the national/mauri pacific/alamein kopu thing which they bodged together after that coalition collapsed? If it's misleading to group the first two together, surely it is also misleading to group the second and third 'governments' together. I think there is usually enough consistency within groupings led by one major party to justify having them all on one page, although we probably do need to reorganise the 4th national and 5th labour pages to reflect the changing coalitions and how this affected policy. --Helenalex (talk) 00:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved.  Ron h jones (Talk) 01:05, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Governments of New Zealand → Government of New Zealand — Relisted. ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 08:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC) Unless I'm mistaken, and the plural is correct. The singular "Government" is used in most other similar articles, e.g. Government of Australia, Government of India, Government of the United Kingdom. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 23:55, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, the scope of this article is really a list of governments, and as such it's different to the articles that you have quoted. To that end, I don't support your move request, but I won't lose sleep if it does get moved / others don't share this view.  Schwede 66  01:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the list is only one aspect of the article, not the main subject. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 20:57, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Support - this article should first and foremost describe the general form of government in a little more detail than it does. Any article whose primary scope is a list should start "List of".  If there have been multiple forms of government, this article should describe the current state of affairs, with much of the historical detail in another article somewhere.  The lists themselves are somewhat disingenuous - how is it defining a "term"?  Conventionally, in a Westminster system a "term" runs from the administration of the oaths to the dissolution.  Referring to each party's turn in office with an ordinal is less than helpful, unless they are commonly or customarily referred to as such (e.g. the United States Congress convenes for fixed terms, and historically those terms have been numbered).  If a table is needed, use a WP:sortable table.  81.111.114.131 (talk) 17:25, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Support. We do need a general article on the Government of New Zealand, and at present this is it. If justified, split out the list of governments, perhaps to List of Governments of New Zealand, but the length of the current article would make that premature at present. Andrewa (talk) 10:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Support, although it doesn't make any material difference. --Lholden (talk) 22:26, 8 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Support provided that the list is split out. Adabow  ( talk )  00:26, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Category name
With the page now having been renamed (moved), should the relevant Category:Governments of New Zealand be renamed, too?  Schwede 66  05:11, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Can't see why not. --Lholden (talk) 05:31, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this article, since the governmental process is described on the Politics page?
Why bother having a "Government of New Zealand" page, which basically says nothing useful, and a "Politics of" page which says everything? I can see there's been some rather tedious wiki-lawyering about it, but I came looking for info about the governance of NZ, and found this page which is pretty useless - and only links to the proper page, "Politics of", at the bottom.

Can someone explain this anomaly, and fix it? Gymnophoria (talk) 13:05, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not wiki-lawyering. If you read the article you'll see that this is not actually about the governance of New Zealand but specific Governments (note capital G, meaning we're talking about individual ministries). This page is the header to the individual articles (e.g. the First Labour Government). --LJ Holden 21:20, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Correct name for the New Zealand Government
I think, under the concept of the Royal Prerogative in New Zealand, just as here in the UK, the NZ Government can really pretty much call themselves/itself whatever it/they like(s), bearing in mind that just as here in the UK, New Zealand does NOT have a single written and codified constitutional document either! -- 87.102.116.36 (talk) 06:07, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

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Requested move 29 May 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Consensus against Her Majesty's Government (United Kingdom), no consensus for other proposals. There might be consensus for the New Zealand move if discussed by itself, which I recommend if the current name is objected to. buidhe 01:36, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

– Per WP:NCGAL, official English names of federal central governments like these should be used as the article title if such names exist. This has had precedent as the reasoning behind the recent move from "Government of Australia" to Australian Government.
 * Government of New Zealand → New Zealand Government
 * Government of the United Kingdom → Her Majesty's Government (United Kingdom)
 * Government of Malaysia → Malaysian Government
 * Government of Singapore → Singaporean Government
 * Government of Thailand → Thai Government

The New Zealand Government in particular is called that on its official logo, official website, official signage, and in legislation.

As for the UK's government, it is officially named "Her Majesty's Government" or its contraction "HM Government" in its official logo, official website, sponsored signage, and rather consistently in legislation  Hill Crest&#39;s WikiLaser! (BOOM!)  18:30, 29 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Support as per the reasons given for the New Zealand Government and Her Majesty's Government. ItsPugle (talk) 23:41, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose with some:
 * Full oppose: Government of Malaysia → Malaysian Government : the Government of Malaysia's website says Government of Malaysia in the logo.
 * Alternative: Government of Thailand → Thai Government Royal Thai Government as per the government's website.
 * Alternative: Government of Singapore → Singaporean Government Singapore Government as per the Singapore Government's about us page. ItsPugle (talk) 12:24, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The article has a section about local government. The article therefore appears to be about the wider topic of the government of New Zealand, rather than just the New Zealand Government. There may be an argument for narrowing the article down to being about just the New Zealand Government, but that needs to be resolved before we give further consideration to changing the article name. I also question how well informed the requester is about the topic, given they mistakenly think NZ has a federal government. Nurg (talk) 09:54, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * This article is quite explicitly about the central government of New Zealand (see its tag), as with consensus for all articles of this form (Government of Canada, Government of Singapore etc). That section in question simply describes the relationship in terms of responsibilities of local and central government; it's not a description of the entire local government system, which is found in Local government in New Zealand (I've added this to the ). For what it's worth, I also think it's best not to engage in argumentum ad hominem - the phrase federal has, for some linguistic groups, lost its connotation to the idea of federation and is just another synonym for national or central. ItsPugle (talk) 10:20, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I have changed the term "federal government" to "central government" in the RM proposal to deal with this ambiguity. Hill Crest&#39;s WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 16:36, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The article has been modified and my objection addressed. Thanks for that. Nurg (talk) 11:03, 4 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Support, but tentatively. In primary sources (e.g. the .govt.nz websites) the government refers to itself as the "New Zealand Government", and this is evidenced by the official wordmark. The same is true of the New Zealand Parliament. However, I'm unsure if this is a compelling enough reason to move the article, since all other countries' article use the form "Government of XX". I won't comment on the Government of the United Kingdom article; I don't understand why we would discuss that here. --Hazhk (talk) 21:40, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * There's been a few changes recently to use this more accurate and common form of government (Australian Government, Queensland Govenrment etc), so the majority of articles still use that stock-standard generic form. In terms of why they're all named like that, there's no consensus nor policy that I could find that gives any explaination (in fact, the only policy that I could find actually supports using these proposed names) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ItsPugle (talk) 04:56, 31 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose Thailand, no comment on the rest. (1) As ItsPugle mentioned above, the commonly used English name is "Royal Thai Government". (2) However, "Royal Thai Government" (or รัฐบาลไทย / Thai Government) isn't actually the formal name of any legally recognised entity. None of the various recent constitutions define or name it, nor does the State Administration Act. In most cases, the term is used to refer specifically to the executive, so it's narrower in scope than what the article currently covers. --Paul_012 (talk) 15:40, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Consensus appears to show that Government of xyz articles are meant to be purely executive (with a slight nod to other branches in the lead), and that the Politics of xyz pages are for all branches. Politics of xyz probably isn't eh beast article name, but that's another discussion. ItsPugle (talk) 22:43, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, the naming of the entire group of articles is a mess. I've never been able to remember what is supposed to cover what. In any case, the Government of Thailand article, since its earliest version, has never covered just the executive. If the consensus you mentioned is to be applied, major restructuring of the articles will have to be done first, and that might be a case for separately creating a new Royal Thai Government article rather than renaming this one. --Paul_012 (talk) 23:54, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose for Singapore – Article 2(1) of the Singapore Constitution refers to the “Government of Singapore”. — SGconlaw (talk) 19:11, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The Singapore Constitution was written in 1965, and as per WP:COMMONNAME, the Government calls itself the "Singapore Government" on all government publications. All government websites are branded with a top statement saying A Singapore Government Agency Website (for example in gov.sg) - Standard 3.8. "Singapore Government" is also 6x more likely to be searched than "Government of Singapore" ItsPugle (talk) 22:43, 31 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment I think it's worth just reminding everyone that we need to base our decisions off WP:NCGAL, WP:COMMONNAME and the other appropriate naming conventions. If a government is formally called the Governemnt of xyz in a constitution from the 19th or 20th Century, but is referred to in recent publications as xyz Government, then the latter would comply with the existing policy and consensuses and should become the page's title. The same applies in reverse. While legislation is important here, it shouldn't be the sole reasoning for either support or oppose. ItsPugle (talk) 22:43, 31 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose Her Majesty's Government (United Kingdom), "Her Majesty's Government" has only about 2 million Google hits compared to about 42 million for Government of the United Kingdom. We don't just go by WP:OFFICIALNAMES, but rather the most common usage in secondary sources. Procedural oppose on the others as I do not see the benefit of bundling; each case is unique and should be argued on its own merits. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:47, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Support the New Zealand case as per the nom; I have no opinion on any of the other cases and don't think it's a good idea to combine this all into one nomination.  Schwede 66  08:12, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: To say again, I don't think that all of these requests should have been bundled together. I note there seems to be wide support for moving Government of New Zealand, and the "oppose" comments are referring to the other articles. --Hazhk (talk) 20:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Strongly Oppose Every other page is Government of (nation's name here) and it is easier to find this way. Also, people who are not under the Monarchy of Queen Elizabeth II may not understand why it is called "Her Majesty's Government" and therefore it would be incredibly confusing and harder to find. Epicneter (talk) 16:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose We need to be consistent with most other countries, where Government of Country X is the convention. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 08:09, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The current wording is far clearer and more consistent. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:36, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose on the UK Government page - there are multiple governments that serve Her Majesty and although the UK one is the only one which takes that title, arguably the Welsh Government is Her Majesty's Government in Wales, the Scottish Government and NI Government the same. Keep it to Government of the United Kingdom as the WP:COMMONNAME. The UK particularly requires special treatment as the four nations are in a very different arrangement to most of the other countries on this proposal in having a near federal system. Llemiles (talk) 18:26, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: I think this should be closed since 7 days has passed. This was a flawed proposal. I think there is a consensus to move this page but no consensus to rename other pages in the proposal. --Hazhk (talk) 12:09, 7 June 2020 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 1 July 2020
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 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Consensus to move. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  21:17, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Government of New Zealand → New Zealand Government – The discussion in the section above appeared to favour a page move, but the proposal failed due to the other page moves being rejected. This page ought to be renamed because 'New Zealand Government' is the term used in official sources cited throughout the article. The official govt.nz portal and related government websites use the name 'New Zealand Government' exclusively. Neither 'New Zealand Government' nor 'Government of New Zealand' appear to have much use in legislation, so I think we should defer to the term the government most commonly uses to refer to itself. I note the new name would be consistent with the New Zealand Parliament article.--Hazhk (talk) 20:32, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Support as per the move rationale of the previous proposal and as per Hazhk's rationale.  Schwede 66  21:10, 1 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Support, as per previous RM's points and the tabled evidence. ItsPugle (talk) 22:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per nom's rationale and arguments shown in previous RM. WP:NCGAL calls for using the official name in these cases, and the proposed name would also be slightly favoured in terms of WP:CONCISE. Thus, by all means, do it.  Impru 20 talk 10:52, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. 122.60.80.64 (talk) 23:07, 7 July 2020 (UTC)