, regarded as New Zealand's first premier Assuming that
Henry Sewell is counted as the first prime minister,
42 individuals have held the office since it was established. Some of these people have held it on several separate occasions, with the record for maximum number of times being shared between
William Fox and
Harry Atkinson (both of whom served four times). The longest that anyone has served in the office is 13 years, a record set by
Richard Seddon. The first holder of the office, Henry Sewell, led the country for the shortest total time; his only term lasted just 13 days. The shortest term belonged to Harry Atkinson, whose third term lasted only seven days, but Atkinson served longer in total than did Sewell. The youngest was
Edward Stafford, who was appointed premier in 1856, at 37 years, 40 days old. The oldest was
Walter Nash, who was 78 years old when he left office in 1960 (and 75 upon taking office in 1957). New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world to have had three female heads of government and one of only three countries to have had a female head of government directly succeed another. The first female prime minister was
Jenny Shipley of the
National Party, who replaced
Jim Bolger in late 1997; Shipley was succeeded by
Helen Clark in 1999.
Jacinda Ardern, the second female leader of the
Labour Party after Clark, became prime minister in 2017. The origins of the office of prime minister are disputed. Use of the words
prime minister as a descriptive term dates back to the First Parliament, where they are applied to
James FitzGerald and
Thomas Forsaith. FitzGerald and Forsaith had no official titles, however, and New Zealand had not yet obtained self-government. As such, they are not usually considered prime ministers in any substantive sense. The first person to be formally appointed to a position of executive leadership was
Henry Sewell, From that point, the title "premier" was used almost exclusively for the remainder of the 19th century. Nevertheless, in the Schedule of the
Civil List of 1873, provision was made for the salary of the head of government "being the Prime Minister". Stafford also clashed with the governor over control of
native affairs, which was eventually to fall within the premier's powers.
Party leadership styled himself "Prime Minister" at the turn of the 20th century Premiers were initially supported by unorganised factions based on personal interests, and their governments were short-lived. The political position of the premier was enhanced by the development of modern
political parties. Premier
John Ballance organised the first formal party in New Zealand, the
Liberal Party, forming the
Liberal Government in 1891. There was little real
parliamentary opposition until 1909, when
William Massey organised his
conservative faction to form the
Reform Party. Thereafter political power centred on parties and their leaders. (Subsequent governments were led by prime ministers from the Reform,
United,
Labour and
National parties. After 1900,
Richard Seddon, the incumbent head of government, used the title of "prime minister". The change of title was reflected in the
New Zealand Official Yearbook of that year. The expanding power of the prime minister was kept in check by the need to build consensus with other leading members of the Cabinet and of the governing party, including those who represented various ideological wings of the party. Other institutions, including Parliament itself and the wider state bureaucracy, also acted as limits on prime ministerial power; in 1912
Thomas Mackenzie was the last prime minister to lose power through an unsuccessful
confidence motion in the House of Representatives. Until the premiership of Helen Clark, it was customary for senior members of the legislature, executive and judiciary—including the prime minister—to be appointed to the
Privy Council, granting them the style "Right Honourable". This practice was discontinued at the same time as the abolition of knighthoods and damehoods in 2000 from the
New Zealand royal honours system. National's
John Key became prime minister in 2008 and moved to restore titular honours, but did not resume appointments to the Privy Council, meaning Key was styled "The Honourable". On 3 August 2010, the Queen granted the style "Right Honourable" to the offices of prime minister, governor-general,
speaker of the House of Representatives and
chief justice, to be held for life by those appointed to these roles. On 21 June 2018, Labour's
Jacinda Ardern became the first prime minister of New Zealand (and second elected head of government in the world) to give birth while in office. Ardern was also the first prime minister to lead a single-party
majority government since the introduction of MMP, doing so from 2020 to 2023. == Deputy prime minister ==