Melissa Lee MP
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for National Party List
Incumbent
Assumed office 2008
Personal details
Born	이지연 1966 South Korea
Nationality	South Korea  Malaysia  New Zealand
Political party	New Zealand National Party

Melissa Lee (Korean: 이지연) (born circa 1966) is a New Zealand politician. She was elected to the House of Representatives as a list MP for the National Party in the 2008 election. She is currently Parliamentary Private Secretary for Ethnic Affairs under Judith Collins.^[1]

Early life and career[link]

Lee was born in South Korea and grew up in Malaysia before moving to Australia and then to New Zealand in 1988 with her family. She has a MA Hons (First Class) in Communication Studies. She spent twenty three years in journalism including a five-year stint at the Sunday News and writing for numerous publications including the New Zealand Herald and The Listener.^[2] She was also the producer of the TV magazine series, Asia Downunder.^[3]

Member of Parliament[link]

In November 2008, Lee became a list MP in the New Zealand parliament. Her maiden speech included sections in English, Māori, and Korean. In English, she mentioned crime, education, and anti-Asian racism issues in New Zealand. In the Māori section, she mentioned the history of Māori first coming to New Zealand by canoe from Hawaiki and compared it to her own migration to New Zealand by aeroplane. Near the end of her speech, she thanked, in Korean, all the people that had given her support "simply by virtue of [their] shared heritage."^[4]

Lee is the second Korean, and first Korean woman, to be elected to a non-Korean national legislature. The first Korean to be elected to a foreign national-level office is Jay Kim, who was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1992.^[5]

She was ranked as the world's 51st most beautiful female politician in a poll conducted between 10 December 2008 and 19 April 2009 by the Spanish newspaper, 20 minutos (20 minutes).^[6][7]

Allegations were made in May 2009 that her production company Asia Vision had spent New Zealand on Air money making a promotional video for the National Party ahead of the 2008 election. Lee called the allegations "ridiculous", saying that all work on the video was done by volunteers. The Green Party referred the video to the Electoral Commission, saying that it should have been declared as an election expense.^[8] She was later cleared of misuse of funding by an investigation conducted by New Zealand on Air.^[9]

Lee used NZ$100,000 of contingency funding to increase the markup for Asia Downunder in violation of her contract with New Zealand on Air, which she described as "an innocent error".^[10]

In April 2011, Lee courted controversy when, after she had made a speech supporting the controversially rushed through copyright law 92A,^[11] it was later discovered that hours earlier she had tweeted "Ok. Shower... Reading ... And then bed! listening to a compilation a friend did for me of K Pop. Fab. Thanks Jay."^[12] which appears to be in direct contradiction of her stance on law 92A.^[13]

Mt Albert by-election[link]

A Lee billboard in Mt Albert, 2009

On 16 April 2009, Lee announced her candidacy for the National Party nomination in the Mount Albert by-election 2009.^[14] and subsequently defeated previous local candidate, Ravi Musuku, to win selection on 4 May 2009.

On 13 May, Lee told a candidates' meeting that the SH20 Waterview Connection could divert criminals from South Auckland away from the electorate. Lee apologised the next day, saying "if South Auckland people (find) my comments offensive, I apologise. It wasn't about them. It was about criminals." Prime Minister John Key later said the remark was a "stupid statement to make".^[15] Later that day she apologised again saying, "I apologise unreservedly for the comments I made regarding South Auckland... I sincerely regret my remarks."^[16]

In the by-election, Lee attracted only 3,542 votes, coming a distant second to Labour's David Shearer with 13,260 votes. In the 2011 election she increased her electoral vote and the party vote came within 150 votes difference between National and Labour but failed to take the seat for a second time; However on 20 December 2011 John key announced she, alongside John Hayes would be appointed a Parliamentary Private Secretary, a role that had been in disuse for Several years; she was Appointed to the portfolio of Ethnic Affairs with regard to the heavy workload of Judith Collins being appointed Minister of Justice .

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Melissa Lee

• Official website
• Melissa Lee - MP Profiles - NZ National Party
• - New Zealand Parliament - Lee, Melissa