Editing Values Party (section)

==Policies and beliefs==
[[File:Values Party canvassing at Nambassa 1979 & 1981, New Zealand.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Values Party at the 1979 and 1981 [[Nambassa]] alternatives festival.]]
Several party manifestos sketched a progressive, semi-[[utopian]] blueprint for New Zealand's future as an egalitarian, ecologically sustainable society. The party appealed especially to those elements of the [[New Left]] who felt alienated by the small [[Marxist–Leninist]] parties of the day, and by the centre-left politics of the [[New Zealand Labour Party]]. From its beginning, the Values Party emphasised proposing alternative policies, rather than taking only an oppositionist stance to the ruling parties.<ref>Rosalie Steward. [http://www.greens.org/s-r/13/13-03.html Politics in New Zealand from Beginning to Breakthrough], ''Synthesis/Regeneration'' 13 (Spring 1997).</ref>

Values Party policies included campaigns against nuclear power and armaments, advocating zero-population and -economic growth, abortion, drug and homosexual law-reform. Although the Values Party never sat in parliament, it drew considerable attention to these topics. Many political scientists{{which|date=February 2014}} credit the Values Party with making the environment a political issue, and with prompting other parties – even the German Greens – to formulate their own environmental policies.<ref name=":2" />