Prime Minister of New Zealand ministerial power; in 1912 Thomas Mackenzie was the last prime minister to lose power through an unsuccessful confidence motion in the House of Representatives. One change brought about by the First World War was direct participation in governing the British Empire. Previously, New Zealand prime ministers had attended occasional colonial and imperial conferences, but they otherwise communicated with London through the governor (a position then appointed by the British government). In 1917, however, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George offered the New Zealand prime minister a seat in the Imperial War Cabinet, the British Empire's wartime coordinating body. In 1919,
Prime minister Minister of Communications, Foreign Affairs, Regional Cooperation, Economy and Interior. The term "prime minister" in its French form, "premier ministre", is attested in 17th Century sources referring to Cardinal Richelieu after he was named to head the royal council in 1624. The title was however informal and used alongside the equally informal "principal ministre d'État" ("chief minister of the state") more as a job description. After 1661, Louis XIV and his descendants refused to allow one of their ministers to be more important than the others, so the term was not in use. The term "prime minister" in the sense