Spare a thought for the endangered organisation that is the Kiwi Party, formerly known as the Christian Democrats and Future New Zealand. For a party that polls less than 0.1 percent in most polls, it received at least three articles that covered it on Saturday, a week before New Zealand’s forthcoming general election.

In the New Zealand Herald, Larry Baldock (54) moaned about his early life, given that he was brought up by a solo mum, smoked pot, did LSD and joined the Hare Krishnas during the seventies. He argued that he went down the path of drugs and alternative religion before converting to fundamentalism at 21. As for his political vehicle, it wants its pro-belting sympathisers to vote for them so they can reverse Section 59 Repeal and restore the ‘right’ to hit children as a National coalition partner, and insists they’re ‘centrist’ and don’t like ACT. Oh, and the Kiwi Party isn’t exclusively fundamentalist. Really it isn’t.

In another article, Focus on the Family and Family First both distanced themselves from the Kiwi Party’s antics, arguing that they were ‘non-partisan’, and said that the Kiwi Party wasn’t using their pro-belting petition, but the one that Larry Baldock himself was circulating. Baldock said he got privacy law advice, and would only write to those who signed their petition. We learn that the Kiwi Party only has two thousand members, was too unorganised to obtain free parliamentary broadcasting time, and hasn’t received any large donations.

In the New Zealand Catholic, Gordon Copeland was working the other side of the pews, trying to appeal to anti-abortionists. He pointed out that he had an anti-abortion private members bill on ‘informed consent’ (read: forcing women to read anti-abortion propaganda before they terminate their pregnancies), and said Key and English supported the idea. Copeland said he was ‘frightened’ by the decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria. New Zealand Catholic also noted that the Tamaki/Mortlock Family Party was also anti-abortion, and went further than the Kiwi Party.

In February 2009, Larry Baldock resurfaced alone as Kiwi Party spokesperson. Oddly, he seems to prepare media releases in tandem with Family First.

And there are some quite amusing contradictions. Family First and the Kiwi Party both statres their approval of dietary content deregulation in school canteens as a sign of the retreat of that favourite libertarian statist bogeywoman, “Nanny State.”

However, both seem quite prepared to enthusiastically condone recriminalisation of sex work, despite the waste of taxpayers money on Gordon Copeland’s failed earlier anti-sexwork referendum.

In March 2009, there were  further signs of undeath from the Kiwi Party, which held a get-together in Auckland last weekend, still hasn’t updated its website, and which now wants to try to piece together a cabal of pro-spanking minor parties to force the government to hold a referendum on Section 59 Repeal.

Not Recommended:

Kiwi Party: http://www.thekiwiparty.org.nz

Kevin Abraham: “Kiwi Party seeks support of anti-abortionists” NZ Catholic: 01.11.08: http://www.nzcatholic.org.nz

Simon Collins: “Campaign targets pro-smack petitioners” NZ Herald: 01.11.08: http://www.nzherald.co.nz

Juliet Rowan: “Unconventional past for Kiwi Party traditionalist” NZ Herald: 01.11.08: http://www.nzherald.co.nz