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“Now Some Nonsense From The Tories”

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Description: These images were taken for the November 19th, 1978 edition of the Tribune weekly newspaper, the first of which was published with the caption: “Andy and the Wizard will be holding a public meeting at the Terrace End School on Wednesday ‘in direct juxtaposition to Mr Muldoon who's holding a meeting in Palmerston North at the same time’. The Tory meeting starts at 8.00 pm. ‘We promise only true road show New Zealand politics, with the only real leader of men. Rather than see Muldoon hacking into television cameras and the press, come and see the Wizard hacking down people - verbally.’”

Excerpts from the article read: “Becoming the Government in New Zealand is only part of the Imperial British Conservative Party's aims - it also wants to take over Australia and England. ‘And it's our fanciful hope that one day we'll take over the world. But it'll take a while - we're not that confident’. So says candidate for the Palmerston North seat in next week's General Election, Mr Andy Smith. Three members of the party (its name has been shortened to the ‘Tory Party’ especially for the election), are standing for Wellington seats. Andy is the party's sole candidate in the rest of the North Island.”

…

“In the last General Election, party members all tried unsuccessfully to win the Riccarton, Christchurch Central and St Albans seats. The Wizard, who's based in Christchurch, introduced the party to New Zealand in 1973 after standing as a candidate for the party in Australian elections.

There are three party candidates for Christchurch seats this election, as well as the three in Wellington and Andy in Palmerston North. He claims the party has 200 or 300 card-carrying members in the country, ‘and the population of New Zealand is on our side’. ‘In the hearts of everybody there is a slightly silly attitude which coincides with some of our policies,’ he said.

The party is anti-bureaucracy. It would like to see New Zealand's 300,000 public servants reduced. It wants honesty and honour among politicians and wants an end to ‘dull and dry politics, which breed dull and dry politicians, which breed dull and dry Government, which breeds dull and dry New Zealanders’.

‘This is alien to the New Zealand people. They are very inventive, she'll be right people’. Over the last 50 years New Zealand politics have gone downhill, and creeping apathy has overtaken the people. We want to get New Zealand back along its former lines. ‘There's nothing wrong in what we are preaching - it's just a protest vote against totalitarianism.’ The party's ultimate aim is to have slaves. It also favours slavery for women, and men's liberation. Above all, it wants people to have fun. These aims are combined in Alf’s Imperial Army, and its regular flour bomb battles.”

These images form part of the Manawatū Evening Standard Negative Collection. Unfortunately, only negatives between April and December 1978 are held.