29th Parliament of New Zealand
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Parliament House, Wellington
Overview
Legislative body	New Zealand Parliament
Term	27 June 1950 – 31 July 1951
Election	1949 New Zealand general election
Government	First National Government
House of Representatives
Members	80
Speaker of the House	Matthew Oram
Prime Minister	Sidney Holland
Leader of the Opposition	Walter Nash from 17 January 1951 — Peter Fraser until 12 December 1950 †
Legislative Council Abolished: 1 December 1950
Members	54
Speaker of the Council	Thomas Bishop
Leader of the Council	William Polson
Sovereign
Monarch	HM George VI
Governor-General	HE Lt. Gen. The Lord Freyberg

The 29th New Zealand Parliament was a term of the Parliament of New Zealand. It opened in 1950, following the 1949 general election. It was dissolved in 1951 in preparation for the 1951 general election. The governing Labour Party had been defeated in the election by the National Party. This marked the end of the First Labour government and the beginning of the First National government.

Additionally, this Parliament saw the final meeting of the Upper House; the Legislative Council, which was abolished on 1 December 1950, making the New Zealand Parliament a unicameral legislative body.

1949 general election

The 1949 general election was held on Tuesday, 29 November in the Māori electorates and on Wednesday, 30 November in the general electorates, respectively.^[1] A total of 80 MPs were elected; 49 represented North Island electorates, 27 represented South Island electorates, and the remaining four represented Māori electorates; this was the same distribution used since the 1946 election.^[2] 1,113,852 voters were enrolled and the official turnout at the election was 93.5%.^[1]

Sessions

The 29th Parliament sat for two sessions, and was prorogued on 18 July 1951.^[3]

Ministries

The National Party under Sidney Holland won the 1949 election, defeating Labour's second Fraser Ministry. Holland remained in power until 1957, when he stepped down due to ill health.^[4]

Historical context

The National Government appointed 25 new members to the New Zealand Legislative Council (the so-called Suicide Squad), so that the Legislative Council Abolition Bill could be passed. With that legislation, the Legislative Council voted itself out of existence, and New Zealand has been unicameral since the last meeting of the Upper House on 1 December 1950.^[5]

Members

Overview

The table below shows the number of MPs in each party following the 1949 election and at dissolution:

Notes

• The Working Government majority is calculated as all Government MPs less all other parties.

Initial MPs

The table below shows the results of the 1949 general election:

Key

  Labour   National

Table footnotes:

By-elections during 29th Parliament

There was one by-election during the term of the 29th Parliament.