Well, now that we're all talking about it, I decided to do a write-up on most of New Zealand's minor parties, starting from 1938, when the modern-day National Party was created.
It's worth mentioning that, despite superficial similarities, NZ has a political environment unlike most other English-speaking countries. Without going into too much detail (and stereotyping):
* Consistently high turnouts - 74% in 2011 was the lowest participation in a very long time, and throughout the 20th century it was in the high 80s or low 90s
* Openness towards new ideologies, like the surprisingly progressive Liberals in the late 19th century, Labour's unashamedly socialist policies in the 1930s, the rise of green movement in the 1970s, economic liberalism in the 1980s and things like the Wellbeing Budget today
* The above means that, even during FPTP, there were more "third parties" with some relevance than you'd expect
So, here are the (at least a bit relevant) pre-MMP era small parties (best result in brackets).
Democratic Labour (1943, 4.3%) - a hard-left splinter from Labour
Democrat Party (1935, 7.8%) and their successors
People's Movement (1943, 0.9%) and
Liberal Party (1963, 0.9%) - classical liberal anti-socialist parties
Values Party (1975, 5.2%) - the first green party in the world, a product of the 70s counterculture and anti-nuclear movements that collapsed due to infighting but laid the ground for NZ's current relatively green orientation (bans on nuclear weapons, GMOs etc.)
Social Credit, later known as
Democrats (1981, 20.7%) was by far the largest FPTP-era third party. They started out supporting
social credit (duh)
which I like to call Vanilla Strasserism, a leftish but non-socialist ideology for people who are very angry about (((bankers))). Slowly, they drifted into a kind of vague centre-left populism, attracting many protest voters.
New Zealand Party (
1984, 12.3%) - a libertarian flash-in-the-pan personality cult around property magnate Bob Jones. Their high result was spurred by Robert Muldoon's economic policies that drove the country to the brink of bankruptcy.
Now, here are the parties that emerged in the last years of FPTP and after the transition to the proportional system:
NewLabour (
1990, 5.2%) - a very-much-not-Blairite (socialist, in fact) splinter from Labour
Green Party (
2011, 11.1%) A rather left-wing but most of the time still constructive ecologist party
Alliance (
1996, 10.1%) A merger of NewLabour, Greens, Democrats and Mana Motuhake, intended to be a big-tent left-of-Labour coalition. The ex-NewLabour part broke off to form the
Progressive Party (
2002, 1.7%) and the Alliance fell apart soon after.
New Zealand First (
1996, 13.4%) Explained above.
Mana Motuhake (1990, 0.6%),
Mana Māori (1996, 0.2%),
Mauri Pacific (
1999, 0.2%),
Māori Party (
2008, 2.4%) and
Mana Movement (
2014, 1.4%) - a string of parties advocating for Māori interests. All are left-leaning, but supported both Nats and Labour in the past. Mauri Pacific is somewhat notable for
becoming the home of several NZ First Māori MPsInternet Mana (
2014, 1.4%) - a slightly surreal coalition between Mana Movement and the Internet Party of a certain
Kim Dotcom, who couldn't actually stand, because he is a German citizen
Christian parties -
This diagram explains why I can't be bothered
United Future (
2002, 6.7%) a self-proclaimed centrist party created by some people from the aforementioned Christian parties. Supported both Labour and National, depending on political circumstances and amount of pork on offer
ACT aka Association of Consumers and Taxpayers (
2002, 7.1%), a creation of liber(al)tarians from both main parties. Started as a GOP copycat, but lately becoming more liberal.
Conservative Party (
2014, 4.0%) - the current GOP copycat
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party (
1996, 1.6%) - Surprisingly successful back in the 90s
The Opportunities Party (
2017, 2.4%) Formerly a personality cult around Gareth Morgan, with a chaotic mishmash of feelgood policies under the guise of rADiCal CenTrIsM
Still, despite what I said in the beginning, NZ is not becoming an European multi-party system. After the initial excitement, most third parties either diminished in size, fell apart and vanished, or became a personal fiefdom for their leader: Progressives for Jim Anderton, United Future for Peter Dunne or Mana for Hone Harawira.
