This is a chronological list of all the living people who have served as Prime Minister of New Zealand at each moment in New Zealand history. In 2016, Radio New Zealand published a podcast series of interviews of all five of the former prime ministers, although before the series was completed, the sitting Prime Minister resigned, becoming the 6th former prime minister, but he declined to participate in the series. In 2017, four of the then-six former PMs spoke jointly about increasing refugee immigration to New Zealand. There have been four time periods when there was only one living Prime Minister, first with the appointment of Henry Sewell in 1856 and most recently during the second term of Keith Holyoake following the 1968 death of Walter Nash. There have been two time periods when 12 living current or former prime ministers co-existed, with the longest being a three-year period beginning with the first appointment of Robert Stout in 1884. The most recent period was from the January 1891 appointment of John Ballance to the July 1891 death of Frederick Weld. If one includes future Prime Ministers as well as past and current Prime Ministers, there has been only one time period when 24 different Prime Ministers co-existed.
There have been four men who have been the only living Prime Minister: Henry Sewell, Peter Fraser, Sidney Holland and Keith Holyoake.
During two periods in the History of New Zealand, have there been 12 persons alive to have been Prime Minister. The first such period was from 16 August 1884 to 2 November 1887. The earliest of these periods consisted of each Prime Minister appointed consecutively. The longest period where there have been 12 living prime ministers was 3 years and 78 days, ending with the death of Alfred Domett in November 1887.
Henry Sewell was the only person to be both an only living Prime Minister and one of five or more living prime ministers.
There have been 23 administrations during which a Prime Minister has not died, the most recent being the administration of Bill English. This does not include the administrations of William Massey and Norman Kirk.
* Conversely, only during the administration of Richard Seddon has there been as many as five deaths during an administration. Only twice has there been as many as three deaths during an administration.
Although William Massey died in office in 1925, he holds the distinction of serving for the longest period without the death of a former Prime Minister during his term. Edward Stafford who served for a total period of 8 years and 326 days holds the distinction of serving for the longest period during which no Prime Ministers died without dying in office himself. In recent years, the Prime Minister who served the longest without a death in his term was John Key, who served for 8 years and 23 days.
The longest period between deaths of Prime Ministers was the 17 years and 319 days between the deaths of John Hall on 25 June 1907 and William Massey on 10 May 1925. The shortest was the 11 days between the deaths of Joseph Ward on 8 July 1930 and Robert Stout on 19 July 1930.
*If the longest period between deaths is to be exceeded, no Prime Minister must die before 17 December 2037.
Only five times have multiple Prime Ministers died in the same year.
Following his administration's end in 1863, Alfred Domett lived to see a record 19 administrations prior to his death in November 1887. George Waterhouse follows with 17 administrations after his own administration ended in 1873, prior to his death in August 1906. In modern times, the Prime Minister to have lived to see the most administrations following their own was Geoffrey Palmer, with seven so far following the end of his administration in 1990.
If one includes future as well as past and current prime ministers, the record sits at 24:
