Advance New Zealand
The Advance New Zealand Party was a short-lived political party in New Zealand from 2020 to 2021. The idea was first unveiled in a newsletter from founder Jami-Lee Ross in April 2020. Ross has claimed that the party was a centrist and anti-corruption movement designed to appeal to voters "in the middle"; however, their main policies represent the political fringe rather than centre.
Ross had been a member of the centre-right New Zealand National Party until a public spat with leader Simon Bridges during which he accused Bridges of corruption. Ross was since accused of sexual harassment and bullying, and has been investigated for corruption himself.
In July 2020, Advance entered into an agreement with Billy Te Kahika's New Zealand Public Party, a conspiracy theory party that spread misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic on its Facebook page. It also reached agreements with several other small parties.
Advance did not win any seats in the 2020 New Zealand general election, receiving 1.0% of the party vote and not winning any electorate seats. Te Kahika and the Public Party split from Advance shortly afterwards. On 19 August 2021, Advance was deregistered from the list of registered political parties.
Background
had been a long-time stalwart for New Zealand's centre-right National Party, having been elected to the Manukau City Council in 2004 aged just 18, and later as a Member of Parliament for Botany at 25 in 2011. Botany is one of the safest seats for the National Party, and Ross continued to win Botany by comfortable margins. Ross became the party's Senior Whip in May 2017. After the National Party lost power at the 2017 election, Ross became a high-ranking figure in the Opposition led by new National leader Simon Bridges. He served on the business and transport and infrastructure select committees.In a highly publicised falling out in 2018, Ross accused Bridges of corruption involving a $100,000 donation to the party, filing a false return, and falsifying the name of a donor to hide the identity. Bridges denied all of the claims. Ross left the National Party in October 2018, just before the National Party voted to expel him. The party went through with the vote to expel him anyway. Ross then released the audio from conversations between him and Bridges which he said backed up his claim. In a press conference on 16 October, Ross announced his intention to resign his seat and contest the resulting by-election as an Independent candidate. Later, Ross chose to remain in Parliament and the election never took place. Ross was subsequently accused of sexual harassment and bullying behaviour towards staff members, National Party officials, and members of Parliament.
On 29 January 2020 the Serious Fraud Office announced they had charged four people in relation to the claims made by Ross in 2018 around the NZ$100,000 donation. It was said that none of the sitting National Party MPs at the time, including Simon Bridges, were among the four charged. On 19 February 2020, it was reported that Ross was one among four people charged by the SFO over a $105,000 donation made to the National Party in June 2018. The SFO alleged that Ross and the other defendants, three Chinese businessmen, had committed fraud by splitting the 2018 donation into sums of money less than $15,000, which were then transferred into the bank accounts of eight different people before being donated to the National Party. On 25 February, Ross and the other defendants appeared in court where they pleaded not guilty to the charges relating to the National Party donations.
Creation
With Ross's case still ongoing in the Auckland District Court, he announced his intention to create his own political party in an April 2020 newsletter. The party was described by Ross as a "new political movement" designed to appeal to "brave voices in the middle that speak truth to power". Initially, little was known about the party beyond its broadly centrist ethos and central issue of anti-corruption – in particular, opposition to the Chinese government's alleged influence on New Zealand. At the party's creation, Ross stated he would contest his seat of Botany as the Advance NZ candidate, going up against National candidate and former Air New Zealand CEO Christopher Luxon. However, just days before the close of nominations he announced he would not contest Botany and would instead run as a list-only candidate.In July 2020, the Advance New Zealand Party applied for registration with the Electoral Commission. It achieved registration on 6 August 2020. By mid-September, Ross claimed the party had 7,000 members.
Alliances with other parties
Advance New Zealand has had four component parties: the New Zealand Public Party, the New Zealand People's Party, Reset NZ, and Direct Democracy New Zealand. As of December 2020, only Direct Democracy remained as an officially registered component party.Jami-Lee Ross said that his plan for the party was based on the structure and make-up of the Alliance Party, and he proposed an arrangement where smaller parties would maintain their own identity and board, but stand candidates under a shared party list as Advance. Ross also said that he had invited the New Zealand Outdoors Party, New Conservative Party, The Opportunities Party, Social Credit, Heartland New Zealand Party and ONE Party to join Advance in the alliance. Winston Peters stated that Advance approached his party, New Zealand First, which he rejected, saying that Advance was "dangerous, particularly to Maori and Polynesian people".
New Zealand Public Party
On 26 July 2020, Ross announced that he was merging Advance New Zealand with the New Zealand Public Party. Public Party leader Billy Te Kahika became co-leader of Advance. Te Kahika was ranked first on Advance's party's list for the 2020 election, and he contested the electorate of Te Tai Tokerau, though under the NZ Public Party banner. All other party candidates ran under the Advance NZ banner. Stuff reported after the election that Ross had said in text messages to party members in August saying, “Without Billy we have no viable chance of election to Parliament” and that "If there’s no viable chance , then I’m going to go back to Plan A and bowing out of politics there is no point continuing." Stuff also reported that Ross was asked to participate in a post-election coup to replace Te Kahika as leader of the Public Party, but said he had no interest in doing so.The New Zealand Public Party, which subscribes to many conspiracy theories, is known for spreading misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as opposition to 5G technology, 1080 poison and fluoridation. On 16 August 2020 the Electoral Commission announced that it recognised the Public Party as a component party of Advance New Zealand.
On 26 October, just over a week after the 2020 election, Advance NZ split with the Public Party. While as of 6 November 2020 it was still an officially recognised component party of Advance, by December 2020 it was removed as a component party.
New Zealand People's Party
Ross appeared in a Facebook video of 29 July 2020 and stated that the New Zealand People's Party would be joining with Advance. The Electoral Commission confirmed that the People's Party was a component party of Advance on 18 August. The People's Party is a formerly-registered political party which contested the 2017 general election and two by-elections in 2016 with a particular focus on the rights of immigrants. The leader of the People's Party, Anil Sharma, was ranked seventh on Advance's party list.By December 2020, the People's Party was removed from the list of Advance component parties.
Reset NZ
On 18 August, the Electoral Commission also announced that Reset NZ was recorded as a component party of Advance New Zealand. According to Reset NZ's website, the party's main policy is to dissolve Parliament, replace it with an interim governing body of three leaders and a "brain trust" of 21 people selected by the leaders, and develop a new government structure, which would include a constitution and the banning of "career politicians". Founder Michael Stace was fourth on Advance's party list.By December 2020, Reset NZ was removed from the list of Advance component parties.
Direct Democracy New Zealand
On 18 August, the Electoral Commission also announced that Direct Democracy New Zealand was recorded as a component party of Advance New Zealand. According to its website, the party advocates for binding referendums, and opposes large-scale immigration, and "race-based" policies. As of December 2020, Direct Democracy is the only component party of the four to still be associated with Advance.2020 election
Claims and challenges
In late August, Advance posted a video claiming that the Government had passed legislation forcing New Zealanders to be vaccinated against COVID-19. According to news outlet Agence France-Presse, the advertisement included footage from parliament video that had been edited mid-sentence to change the meaning of an MP's speech. Any use of parliamentary footage in political advertising is against parliamentary rules, and the Speaker of the House ordered the removal of the footage from social media. Advance refused to comply. Co-leader and MP Jami-Lee Ross was referred to the Parliamentary Privileges Committee by the Speaker of the House, which unanimously agreed Ross had broken parliamentary rules. However, with Parliament about to be dissolved, it decided that the next steps would be for the next Privileges Committee to determine.In late September, Advance was excluded from the Newshub Nation multi-party leaders' debate scheduled for 3 October 2020, and co-leaders Ross and Te Kahika filed an urgent interlocutory injunction application at the Auckland High Court against MediaWorks. However, the court ruled against them.
On 8 October, Advance NZ was ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority to remove its election advertisement that claimed COVID-19 deaths were comparable to the seasonal flu, saying it was "unfounded and socially irresponsible." Newspapers owned by NZME said they would comply with the order and not run the ad again, but Ross said that the party would not comply with the ruling and that the ASA should not try to interfere in election debate and free speech. On 16 October, the Advertising Standards Authority upheld most of the complaints against the Advance NZ and New Zealand Public parties but withdrew one.
On 15 October, Advance NZ's Facebook page was taken down during the middle of live feed by Te Kahika. Facebook justified its actions on the grounds that the party had repeatedly violated their policies by spreading misinformation about COVID-19 on their platforms. Co-Leader Te Kahika denounced Facebook's actions as "election interference." The party stated that the day before the take-down they had been warned they would be unpublished for violating Facebook's community standards.
In early 2021, Claire Deeks, who was ranked third on the party's list during the 2020 election, set up Voices for Freedom. The group had four complaints upheld against it by the Advertising Standards Authority for flyers they distributed that contained COVID-19 misinformation.