United–Reform Coalition

The 1931 Cabinet:
Front row (L-R): Ransom, Coates, Forbes, Stewart, Ngata and Young.
Back row (L-R): Jones, Cobbe, Hamilton and Masters.

The initial coalition between United and Reform had formed in September 1931,[2] following the collapse of an earlier coalition between United and Labour. Fearing that splitting the anti-Labour vote would result in a Labour government even if it received fewer votes than United and Reform combined, the two centre-right parties formed a coalition and an election agreement. Part of the agreement was that all sitting members who support the coalition would in turn receive the official endorsement as coalition candidate. This pragmatic decision caused trouble in those electorates where the voters were not satisfied with the incumbent's performance, for example in the Wairarapa and Otaki electorates.[3]

In the subsequent election, the coalition won 54.0% of the popular vote, compared to 34.3% for Labour. Although Reform won 28 seats to United's 19, United leader George Forbes remained Prime Minister.

The government focused primarily on getting New Zealand out of the depression by cutting government spending and thus balancing the national budget. It dealt with widespread unemployment by initiating relief work, which involved compelling the unemployed to work on a range of projects ranging from useful public works to pointless activity. The government was widely seen as heartless, encapsulated by the commonly believed but probably untrue story that Prime Minister George Forbes had told a delegation of unemployed men to go and eat grass. In the 1935 election, Labour won 46.1% of the popular vote, while the coalition won only 32.9%. However the result in terms of seats was an electoral wipeout, with Labour winning 53 seats to the coalition's 16. A further eleven seats were won by minor parties and independents.

Following their defeats, the United and Reform parties merged to become the National Party. The 1931 election and 1935 election showed the hazard of vote-splitting. In 1931 only 24 of 53 electorates where Labour stood had only one anti-Labour candidate: e.g. Auckland West had H. R. Mackenzie from United and John Allum from Reform, who together got little more than half the votes of the winner - Mickey Savage. And in Auckland East there were four anti-Labour candidates and the seat went back to Labour.[4]

• Gustafson, Barry (1986). The First 50 Years : A History of the New Zealand National Party. Auckland: Reed Methuen. ISBN 0-474-00177-6.
• Bassett, Michael (1982). Three Party Politics in New Zealand 1911–1931. Auckland: Historical Publications. ISBN 0-86870-006-1.