The Phoenix Party was a short-lived left-wing political party in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

It was founded by Gerald Williams, formerly an organiser for the Labour Party

New Zealand Labour Party

The New Zealand Labour Party is a New Zealand political party. It describes itself as centre-left and socially progressive and has been one of the two primary parties of New Zealand politics since 1935....

. During Norman Kirk

Norman Kirk

Norman Eric Kirk was the 29th Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1972 until his sudden death in 1974. He led the Parliamentary wing of the New Zealand Labour Party from 1965 to 1974. He was the fourth Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand, but the first to be born in New Zealand...

's leadership of Labour (1965–1974), Williams came to disagree with a number of Labour Party policies, particularly over the policy of giving state funding to church schools. Believing that the Labour Party was becoming moribund, Williams founded the Phonenix Party. The name is an allusion to the mythical Phoenix

Phoenix (mythology)

The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....

, representing Williams' hope that the party would "rise from the ashes" of the Labour Party.

Williams was the party's only candidate, and attracted a certain number of protest votes. In the 1969 elections

New Zealand general election, 1969

The 1969 New Zealand general election was a nationwide vote to determine the shape of the New Zealand Parliament's 36th term. It saw the governing National Party win a fourth consecutive term, under Prime Minister Keith Holyoake.-The Election:...

, he contested the Dunedin Central

Dunedin Central

Dunedin Central was a parliamentary electorate in the city of Dunedin in Otago, New Zealand from 1881 to 1890 and 1905 to 1984.The electorate was represented by nine Members of Parliament:* Thomas Bracken 1881-84 & 1886-87* James Benn Bradshaw 1884-86...

 electorate, placing fourth (with 365 votes). He continued to criticise the Labour Party by means of satire. Williams later became a member of the Values Party

Values Party

The Values Party, considered the world's first national-level environmentalist party that pre-dated any fashionable Green terminology, was established in 1972 at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, one of its initial leaders being Tony Brunt...

, the world's first national-level environmentalist political party.