TheCountry Party of New Zealand was a political party which appealed to rural voters. It was represented inParliament from 1928 to 1938. Its policies were a mixture of rural advocacy andsocial credit theory.

The Country Party had its origins in the Auckland Farmers' Union, a branch of the New Zealand Farmers' Union which covered the oldAuckland Province. Members of the branch increasingly came to believe that theReform Party, which traditionally enjoyed much support in rural areas, was now putting the interests of farmers behind those of businesses in the city. The Auckland branch was also strongly influenced by the social credit theory ofmonetary reform, promoted byC. H. Douglas. Many farmers believed that the country's financial system did not treat them fairly and that they were being exploited by big-city bankers and moneylenders.^[2]

The Auckland branch grew increasingly frustrated with the Farmers' Union leadership, which did not support having an independent rural party. Eventually, members of the Auckland branch established the Country Party without the Union's backing. In 1928, the branch broke away from the Union altogether and gave its full backing to the Country Party.^[2]

In the1925 elections, the Country Party fielded five candidates but won only 0.3% of the vote. In the1928 elections it won theBay of Islands seat. In Parliament, the Country Party tended to align itself with the growingLabour Party, primarily because both parties were distrustful of the financial and banking industries.^[2]

In the1931 elections, the Country Party increased its share of the vote to 2.3%. In the1935 elections, the party's share of the vote dropped slightly, but it won two seats.Arthur Sexton was elected in theFranklin electorate.^[2]

In the1938 elections, the Country Party lost both its seats, as Labour decided to contest them. Rushworth had retired, partly because of Labour's intervention, and Sexton was defeated by theNational Party. The party won only 0.23% of the vote and disappeared soon afterwards. Most rural voters who had supported it turned to the National Party, which incorporated the Reform Party. Later, however, theSocial Credit Party would gain a certain amount of success in rural areas using much the same formula, and some see the Country Party as a forerunner to the more long-lived Social Credit.^[3]

The Country Party was revived for the1969 election by Clifford Stanley Emeny of New Plymouth (1920–2000), a World War II air force veteran. The party put forward candidates in 15 seats, and they attracted 6,715 votes. Emeny stood in Stratford where he got 1130 votes, the largest vote for the party; and in Egmont, New Plymouth, Tauranga and Waimarino. The other seats contested were Ashburton, Hamilton West, Otago, Pahiatua, Raglan, Rangitikei, Rodney, Waikato, Waitomo and Wallace.

The Country Party had changed its name to theLiberal Reform Party in 1970. In the1972 election, Emeny stood as a Liberal Reform candidate.^[4]

• Milne, Robert Stephen (1966).Political Parties in New Zealand.Oxford, England:Clarendon Press. pp. 76–78.

• McLintock, A. H. (1966)."COUNTRY PARTY". Encyclopaedia of New Zealand. Retrieved15 May 2015.

• Defunct agrarian political parties
• Defunct political parties in New Zealand
• Political parties established in 1924
• 1924 establishments in New Zealand
• Social credit parties
• Political parties disestablished in 1938
• 1938 disestablishments in New Zealand
• Agrarian parties in New Zealand

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