Premiers and chief ministers of provinces and territories of New Duveland

This is an article related to the Commonwealth of New Duveland

The premiers and chief ministers of the provinces and territories of New Duveland are the heads of the executive governments in the eight provinces and two self-governing territories of New Duveland. They perform the same function at the province and territory level as the Prime Minister of New Duveland performs at the national level. The King of New Duveland and the province governors are the formal repositories of executive power; however, in practice they act only on the advice of province premiers and ministers except in extreme circumstances, such as a constitutional crisis.

Background

Each of the provinces in New Duveland are governed under the Westminster system of parliamentary government. Each province has an elected legislature. Following a general election, the province governor appoints as premier the member of the lower house of the province legislature who can command a simple majority of votes on the floor of the house. The governor is the head of province and acts only on the advice of the head of government - the premier. The premier must resign the commission to the governor for losing the confidence of the legislative assembly, either because their party is defeated at a general election or losing a vote of confidence in the house. (Premiers may also resign for other reasons, such as losing the confidence of their own party).

The provinces of New Duveland were founded as British and French colonies, and executive power was held by a governor (or sometimes a lieutenant-governor) appointed by the British government (see Governors of the provinces of New Duveland). From the 1820s the power of the governors was gradually transferred to legislative bodies, at first appointed, later partly elected, and finally fully elected. Moanarua gained full responsible parliamentary government in 1855, McKenzie, Norfolk and Tasman in 1856, and the Montmaneu Islands (owing to its much smaller population) in 1890. Lapérouse, Devereaux and New Caledonia would follow suit upon their unification acts in 1963 and 2018 respectively.

Until the rise of the New Duveland Labor Party in the 1890s, the New Duveland colonies did not have formal party systems, although many colonial politicians called themselves Liberals or Conservatives. Ministries were usually formed on the basis of personal or factional loyalties and rose and fell with great frequency as loyalties changed. Colonial politics were commonly regarded as parochial, corrupt and cynical, and in many cases they were. Moanaruan Premier William Munro, for example, fled the colony to escape his creditors in 1890, and McKenzie Premier Sir John McIlwraith was notoriously corrupt.

The rise of Labor forced the colonies to move towards a two-party system of Labor versus non-Labor, although province politics remained more personalised and less ideological than national politics for many years. The first minority Labor government was formed by David Johnson in Norfolk in 1899, and the first majority Labor government was led by James Fisher in McKenzie in 1910. Since about 1910 province politics have followed much the same party pattern as the New Duveland national politics (see Politics of New Duveland).

Since 1952, every premier of every province has been a member of the New Duveland Labor Party, the Liberal Party of New Duveland, the National Party of New Duveland, or the New Duveland Greens.

Although the legislative powers of the provinces are defined in the Constitution, the real power of the premiers of New Duveland has been declining steadily ever since Federation in 1901, as the power and responsibility of the national government has expanded at the expense of the provinces. The most important transfer of power came in 1943, when in the interests of national unity during World War II the provinces gave up their power to levy their own income taxes to the Commonwealth. Since then the provinces' finances have essentially been controlled by the Commonwealth.

Relations between the premiers and other levels of government

For many decades, the premiers met with each other and the prime minister at Premiers' Conferences. From 1992 to 2020, such meetings occurred through the Council of New Duveland Governments (CONDG), which also includes the chief ministers of the territories and a representative of local government. Since 2020, the National Cabinet allows meetings between the prime minister, province premiers and chief ministers of the territories, however local government representation has been removed.

Current premiers of the provinces

Party		Territory	Portrait	Name	Term start	Title	Province Government
	Liberal Party	Devereaux		Jean Dubois	12th January 2019	Premier	Deveraussien Government
	Liberal Party	Lapérouse		Élisabeth Dumas	28th March 2018	Premier	Lapérousean Government
	Labor Party	McKenzie		William Sinclair	5th November 2018	Premier	McKenzian Government
	Labor Party	Moanarua		Mark Hākoni	17th September 2017	Premier	Moanaruan Government
	Greens	Montmaneu Islands		Katerina Pōrirua	9th July 2023	Premier	Montmaneu Islands Government
	Labor Party	New Caledonia		Amélie Perrin	22nd December 2022	Premier	New Caledonian Government
	Liberal Party	Norfolk		John Anderson	3rd February 2016	Premier	Norfolk Government
	Labor Party	Tasman		Michael Rousseau	14th October 2022	Premier	Tasman Government

Current chief ministers of the territories

Party		Territory	Portrait	Name	Term start	Title	Territory Government
	Liberal Party	Avaiki		Viliami Tu'ipulotu	27th April 2021	Chief Minister	Avaikian Government
	Greens	Macquarie		David Clark	8th August 2015	Chief Minister	Government of Macquarie