But the political chaos that ensued for the two years following the coup was as great if not greater than those that it preceded. It led to instability and the Government was dumped at the 1999 election, for Clark’s Government.
After the unsuccessful attempt to muscle Clark out of the leadership, she had another three years of preparation.
On that morning of May 28, 1996, she famously prepared for a delegation of five MPs – Michael Cullen, Phil Goff, Jim Sutton, Annette King, Koro Wetere – who sought an appointment with her before a regular caucus meeting on a Tuesday at Parliament.
Anticipating that they would be putting pressure on her to step aside as leader, with polls as low as 15% with four months to go to the election, she quickly roped in five “witnesses” to the meeting, her former press secretary Mike Munro recounts in his recent book Ringside.
They were Clark loyalists David Caygill, Jonathan Hunt, Trevor Mallard, Steve Maharey and Judith Tizard. Clark stared down the visitors and told them they could move a leadership motion in her at caucus that day, but the motion never eventuated.
While it was never stated who should replace her, Cullen, in his memoir Labour Saving, says the only viable candidate at that point had been Mike Moore – the embittered former Labour leader whom Clark had rolled in a coup shortly after the 1993 election.
It was an unusual attempt to unseat the leadership in that there was no subterfuge, besides fairly consistent white-anting by Moore. It was a civilised invitation from senior MPs more in sorrow than in anger. And there was safety in numbers. Retribution would have been difficult.
Clark decided to draw the plotters closer to her orbit, assisted by the voluntary retirement of Caygill, her loyal deputy and finance spokesman. He was replaced by Cullen, who wrote in his book: ”Thus began a 12-and-a-half-year partnership of stability and mutual respect between Helen and me which saw us win three elections on the trot, something that Labour had not done since 1943.”
With the distance of time, it could easily be argued that the unsuccessful attempt to remove Helen Clark ultimately contributed to a successful Government, and the successful coup of Jenny Shipley’s failed in terms of improving National’s fortunes.
Perhaps the most successful nascent coups of the past 30 years were the ones against Don Brash as National leader in 2006 and against Andrew Little as Labour leader in 2017 because neither of them are remembered for being coups.
They weren’t coups in the classical sense of a vote being taken. But they were both resignations tendered with at least the possibility of a vote of no-confidence being taken against them.
Brash resigned in November and was replaced by John Key, who went on to win three elections and lead New Zealand as Prime Minister for eight years.
And after Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins persuaded Little that he did not have the support of the caucus to continue in 2017, he resigned 54 days before the election in favour of Jacinda Ardern, who secured a role for Labour in Government for the next six years.
The turning point was when Labour’s Māori caucus, which had staunchly supported Little remaining, backed an offer to Kelvin Davis of being Ardern’s deputy.
Winston Peters was the kingmaker at the 2017 election, and some of us believe his New Zealand First party would have gone with Labour whether Little or Ardern were leader.
So long as the overall numbers added up, Labour gaining less support under Little would likely have meant an even stronger New Zealand First relative to a bigger party.
While Labour’s share of the vote increased under Ardern, the total combined vote for Labour, New Zealand First and the Greens was reshuffled rather than increasing substantially.
The initial sinking of support for Labour was a direct result of the speech by Greens co-leader Metiria Turei admitting to historical benefit fraud.
Such was the pile-on against Turei that Labour-left voters initially threw their support behind her and the Green Party, at the expense of Labour.
Nobody anticipated that a speech by Turei at the Green Party AGM about welfare would have resulted in Jacinda Ardern taking the leadership of Labour. But it did and, ironically in the circumstances, before Turei finally resigned, Ardern ruled her out as a minister in any Government she led.
The Governor-Genaral Dame Patsy Reddy after the swearing-in of Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister and Winston Peters as Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters in October 2017. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The inept attempted coup against Prime Minister Christopher Luxon this week will obviously be classed as a failure because Luxon is still there and, in the short-term at least, is stronger than he was before the attempt.
Broader historical judgments about it should be reserved.
If, for argument’s sake, National’s polling plummeted to the mid-20s over two months on the back of disunity, and Luxon fell on his sword, the role of the failed coup might be rewritten.
More so if Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop or Erica Stanford took over at the last minute and led a recovery back to Government.
In another scenario, if Luxon’s personal ratings and party polling improved in the wake of what might be seen as a display of decisive leadership in dealing with the attempted coup, and he led National to a second term, the role of the failed coup would be seen in a different context.
Luxon sacked Chris Penk from Cabinet within hours of the emergency caucus on his leadership and Penk announced his retirement from politics within hours of his sacking.
It is debatable whether Penk, a popular MP, needed to retire – and to have done so swiftly was not particularly wise.
Perhaps he feared there would be moves to remove him as a candidate for Kaipara ki Mahurangi and/or remove him from the party – although party president Sylvia Wood tells me there was no thought given to either of those scenarios.
MPs have been punished for a lot less. Chris Carter was suspended from caucus and expelled from Labour in 2010 after being revealed as the person sending anonymous letters to the press gallery criticising Goff and suggesting others could do better. He was reinstated to the party in 2018.
Expulsion has not always been a punishment for disloyalty.
Former National MP Maurice Williamson was suspended from the caucus for disloyalty but later re-admitted.
Maurice Williamson was suspended in July 2003 for publicly criticising leader Bill English, who had led the party to a disastrous election result the previous year.
I well remember covering the party’s annual conference at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Christchurch and Williamson holding an entertaining stand-up with media in the foyer, comparing the party under English to the Titanic.
Williamson: “I’m yelling: Will somebody tell the orchestra to shut up? Will everybody get up on deck and man the lifeboats.”
After Don Brash took over the National leadership in October 2003, he brokered a deal with the board to end the suspension. It involved Williamson writing to the board with expressions of contrition.
Brash took the leadership from English after a novel sort of coup run in part by political operative Matthew Hooton, who is now editor-in-chief of The Post. It was like no other coup before it because his challenge was announced by public declaration at a press conference at the Tamaki Yacht Club.
Despite claims by some that it was inept, because there had been a lot of humming and haa-ing about whether to challenge, the result suggests it was highly successful.
On the basis of votes promised, English was confident he would win. But rumours emerged that when the secret vote was counted, the vote was tied, and that one of the whips who was a scrutineer decided to change his vote to Brash to break the deadlock, knowing that a tied vote would be as damaging for English as a loss.
Brash won and then came within a whisker of toppling the Labour Government at the 2005 election. But party insiders reported that while Brash’s leadership looked like a rough ride from the outside, it was worse on the inside, and that he would be given only one shot at leading the Government, not another in 2008.
He was given the dignity to step down in 2006, to be replaced by John Key, but if he hadn’t resigned, he would have been ousted. Key won in 2008 and Labour was back in Opposition with Helen Clark anointing Phil Goff as her successor. No contest was held but the pressures built up, particularly in Labour’s second term in Opposition, after David Shearer replaced Phil Goff.
One of the most unusual long-running coups took place within Labour, with the party’s ruling New Zealand Council and former president Moira Coatsworth having a big role in replacing Shearer with David Cunliffe.
Shearer had beaten Cunliffe in the caucus vote in 2011, after Goff stepped down. The New Zealand Council, many of whom supported Cunliffe, played a big role in supporting constitutional rule changes that removed the sole right of caucus to elect leaders. It gave the unions and members a vote as well.
Under pressure from poor performance, Shearer stepped down a year out from the 2014 election and Cunliffe was elected under the new rules. But pointedly, Cunliffe did not win the caucus vote.
Key presided over a great period of stability for National. The next National coup did not happen until 2020, in Opposition, when Todd Muller challenged Simon Bridges.
Todd Muller in May 2020 shortly after ousting Simon Bridges as National Party leader, with Muller’s deputy, Nikki Kaye. Photo / Audrey Young
The vote on Bridges’ leadership was called quickly, not unlike the vote Luxon called this week with a day’s notice. Hooton, a commentator at the time and supporter of Muller, said Bridges had made a fatal error in calling the vote and that Muller’s supporters would have lost their nerve if Bridges hadn’t called the vote.
Former party president Michelle Boag thought it was a mistake to have called a vote so quickly. She thought that if it had been timed for the following week, more contenders other than Muller would have joined the contest and Bridges might have survived.
The leadership challenge was initially successful but what may have looked like sweet success for critics of Bridges turned to disaster.
Muller lasted only 53 days before having a mental breakdown and being forced to resign. Judith Collins reluctantly replaced him.
And a year after her poor election result, and with divisions still rife in the caucus, rumours of an impending coup by Bridges drove her to overplay her hand. She issued a late-night statement demoting Bridges for an apparently bad-taste joke he had made five years earlier, and for which he apologised at the time. It was an inexplicable action and the last straw for a leader who was fast losing support.
The caucus moved a no-confidence in her the next morning with no alternative stated. It was enough to get rid of her.
Over time, she rehabilitated herself in both the Opposition and as a respected minister in the current Government. She retired earlier this year to become President of the Law Commission.
Chris Penk was given most of her former portfolios.
After Collins’ demise as leader in 2021, the next step was to elect a new leadership team, the main choices being to give Bridges a second chance, or to elect someone who had been there only a year, namely Christopher Luxon.
He united the party in Opposition but has not been as successful as Prime Minister, having now survived two confidence votes in his leadership in four months.