The Honourable Maurice Williamson MP
Maurice Williamson at the NZ Open Source Awards
Minister of Customs
Incumbent
Assumed office 19 November 2008
Prime Minister	John Key
Preceded by	Nanaia Mahuta
Minister for Building and Construction
Incumbent
Assumed office 19 November 2008
Prime Minister	John Key
Preceded by	Shane Jones
Minister of Statistics
Incumbent
Assumed office 19 November 2008
Prime Minister	John Key
Preceded by	Darren Hughes
Minister for Small Business
In office 19 November 2008 – 12 December 2011
Prime Minister	John Key
Preceded by	Clayton Cosgrove
Succeeded by	John Banks
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Pakuranga
Incumbent
Assumed office 1987
Preceded by	Neil Morrison
Personal details
Born	(1951-03-06) 6 March 1951 (age 61) Auckland,  New Zealand
Political party	National
Profession	Computer programmer

Maurice Donald Williamson (born 6 March 1951) is a New Zealand politician, representing Pakuranga in the House of Representatives as a member of the National Party. He holds several ministerial portfolios outside the Cabinet: Building and Construction, Customs, Statistics and Land Information .^[1]

Before politics[link]

Williamson was born in Auckland but spent nearly all his school years in Matamata. After graduating with qualifications in computer science and applied mathematics from the University of Auckland, he worked for twelve years developing airline planning software for mainframe computers.

Williamson is married to Raewyn and has three children. He is an Honorary Fellow of the New Zealand Computer Society (HFNZCS).

Member of Parliament[link]

Williamson is a member of Parliament for the National Party, a centre-right political Party in New Zealand, and has been MP for Pakuranga since the 1987 elections. He has held a number of ministerial posts, including Minister of Communications, Minister of Broadcasting, Minister of Transport, and Minister Research, Science and Technology, and associate Minister of Health (1990-6). He was a strong supporter of reform of prostitution law.

His 2005 election campaign saw one of the strongest results for National across New Zealand.

Suspension[link]

He was suspended from caucus on 22 July 2003, after refusing to curtail his criticism of the National Party leader, Bill English, who he blamed for poor performance in the polls.^[2] After English was replaced by Don Brash, Williamson was reinstated. Since his return after suspension, Williamson has played an active role in National, and was elevated up the ranks to eighth position in the National lineup in 2008.^[3]

49th and 50th New Zealand Parliaments[link]

After the 2008 general election the National Party formed a minority government with 3 Confidence and Supply partners. Despite his high list placing, Williamson was not selected for cabinet due in part to a series of gaffes during the election campaign relating to the party's policy on road tolls.^[4] He was given ministerial responsibilities outside of cabinet for Customs, Building and Construction, Statistics and Small Business. One of the major matters under his governance is the ongoing Leaky homes crisis in the country, which he noted as having the government "stumped" due to its enormousness.^[5]

In June 2009, Dr Richard Worth left Parliament after Prime Minister John Key losing confidence in him as a Minister over sexual allegations^[6][7] Williamson was made the acting Minister of Worth's portfolios of Internal Affairs, National Library and Archives New Zealand which were subsequently passed on to Nathan Guy.

After the election of the 50th Parliament of New Zealand Williamson was returned to his seat and re-appointed as a minister in the second term of the National-led government. Williamson retained his 2008 portfolios of Customs, Land Information and Building and Construction but lost the role of Small Business Minister to John Banks as part of the new National-ACT Confidence and Supply deal. Williamson remains outside cabinet being joined by Jo Goodhew, Chester Burrows and Chris Tremain.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Profile at National party
• Profile at New Zealand Parliament
• Releases and speeches at Beehive.govt.nz
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.co.nz
• Voting record at CommoNZ (conscience votes)
• Maurice Williamson at Times Online
• Executive Government 1993-6: Maurice Williamson
• Executive Government 1996-9: Maurice Williamson

The Right Honourable Winston Peters
13th Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand
In office 16 December 1996 – 14 August 1998
Prime Minister	Jim Bolger (1996–1997) Jenny Shipley (1997–1998)
Preceded by	Don McKinnon
Succeeded by	Wyatt Creech
1st Treasurer
In office 16 December 1996 – 14 August 1998
Prime Minister	Jim Bolger Jenny Shipley
Succeeded by	Bill Birch
26th Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 19 October 2005 – 29 August 2008[1]
Prime Minister	Helen Clark
Preceded by	Phil Goff
Succeeded by	Helen Clark (Acting) Murray McCully
35th Minister of Māori Affairs
In office 1990–1991
Prime Minister	Jim Bolger
Preceded by	Koro Wetere
Succeeded by	Doug Kidd
Leader of New Zealand First
Incumbent
Assumed office 1993
Preceded by	Party established
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Hunua
In office 1978–1981
Preceded by	Malcolm Douglas
Succeeded by	Colin Moyle
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Tauranga
In office 17 July 1984 – 17 September 2005
Preceded by	Keith Allen
Succeeded by	Bob Clarkson
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for New Zealand First List
In office 2005–2008
Personal details
Born	(1945-04-11) 11 April 1945 (age 67) Whangarei, New Zealand
Political party	New Zealand First (1993–present)
Other political affiliations	National (1978–1993)
Spouse(s)	(Divorced, two children)

Winston Raymond Peters (born 11 April 1945) is a New Zealand politician and leader of New Zealand First, a political party he founded in 1993. Peters has had a successful and turbulent political career since entering Parliament in 1978, first serving as a Cabinet Minister in the Bolger Government before being sacked in 1991. As leader of New Zealand First, he held the balance of power after the 1996 election and formed a coalition with National, securing the positions of Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer. However, the coalition dissolved in 1998 following the replacement of Bolger by Jenny Shipley as Prime Minister.

In 1999 New Zealand First returned to Opposition before entering into a government again with the Labour Party in 2005, in which he served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On 29 August 2008 he stood down as a Minister pending a police investigation into a funding scandal involving Peters and New Zealand First.

In the 2008 general election, New Zealand First failed to reach the five percent threshold and Peters did not regain his seat.^[2] As a result, neither Peters or New Zealand First were returned to Parliament. However, in the 2011 general election New Zealand First experienced a resurgence in support, winning 6.59 percent of the party vote to secure eight seats in Parliament.

Early life[link]

Peters was born in the Northland city of Whangarei. He is of mixed ethnicity, his father being Māori and his mother being of Scottish descent. His iwi affiliation is Ngāti Wai and his clan is McInnes. Two of his brothers, Ian and Jim, have also been MPs, and another brother Ron has also stood as a New Zealand First candidate.

After attending Whangarei Boys' High School and Dargaville High School Peters studied history, politics and law at the University of Auckland and graduated BA and LLB before working both as a teacher and a lawyer. He was a member of the University Rugby Club in Auckland and captain of the Auckland Māori Rugby team. He also played in the Prince of Wales Cup for the Māori All Blacks trials.^{[citation needed]} One brother, Wayne, played rugby for Otago and North Auckland in the then National Provincial Championship and was in the Junior All Blacks while another brother, Allan, represented Wanganui in rugby.

Member of Parliament[link]

National Party[link]

Peters entered national politics in 1975, standing unsuccessfully for the National Party in the electorate seat of Northern Maori. This followed a successful campaign by Peters and other members of his Ngati Wai iwi to retain their tribal land in the face of the Labour government's plan to create coastal land reserves for the public. The result was that virtually no ancestral land was taken by the government of the day in the Whangarei coastal areas, and the initiative helped inspire the 1975 Land March led by Whina Cooper.

Peters successfully ran again in 1978 but only after winning in the High Court an electoral petition which overturned the election night result for the seat of Hunua (an electorate in the Auckland area) against Malcolm Douglas, the brother of Roger Douglas. He lost this seat in 1981, but in 1984 he successfully stood in the electorate of Tauranga.^[3]

He became the National Party's spokesperson on Māori Affairs, Consumer Affairs, and Transport. In 1987, he was elevated to National's front bench, acting as spokesperson for Māori Affairs, Employment, and Race Relations. After National won the 1990 election, Peters became Minister of Māori Affairs in the fourth National government, led by Jim Bolger.

Peters disagreed with the party leadership on a number of matters, and frequently spoke out against his party regarding them. This made him relatively popular with the public. However, his party colleagues distrusted him, and his publicity-seeking behaviour made him increasingly disliked within his own party. While National may have tolerated his difference of opinion, they were far less willing to accept public criticism from a Cabinet minister which they determined was undermining the party. In October 1991, Bolger sacked Peters from Cabinet.

Peters remained as a National backbencher, continuing to criticise the party. In late 1992, when the National Party was considering possible candidates for the elections in the following year, it was decided that Peters would not be allowed to seek renomination for Tauranga. Peters unsuccessfully challenged this decision in the High Court, and in early 1993, he chose to resign from the party and from Parliament. This prompted a by-election in Tauranga some months before the scheduled general election. He stood as an independent and won easily.

New Zealand First[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2008)

Shortly before the 1993 election, Peters established New Zealand First and retained his Tauranga seat. Another New Zealand First candidate, Tau Henare, unseated the Labour incumbent in Northern Maori, helping to convince people that New Zealand First was not simply Peters' personal vehicle.

In the 1996 elections, the MMP electoral system delivered a huge windfall to New Zealand First. The party won 17 seats and swept all of the Māori electorates. More importantly, it held the balance of power in Parliament. Neither National nor Labour had enough support to govern alone. Neither party could form a majority without the backing of New Zealand First, meaning Peters could effectively choose the next prime minister.

It was widely expected that he would throw his support to Labour and make Labour leader Helen Clark New Zealand's first female prime minister. Peters had bitterly criticised his former National colleagues, and appeared to promise that he would not even consider a coalition with Bolger. However, after over a month of negotiations with both parties, Peters decided to enter into coalition with National. Michael Laws, the party's campaign manager, later claimed that Peters had already decided to join forces with National and used his negotiations with Labour simply to win more concessions from Bolger.

Whatever the case, Peters exacted a high price for allowing Bolger to stay on as prime minister. Peters became Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer (senior to the Minister of Finance), the latter post created especially for him. Initially, there were concerns about whether Peters would be able to work with Bolger, the National prime minister who had previously sacked him from Cabinet, but the two did not seem to have any major difficulties.

Later, however, tensions began to develop between Peters and the National Party, which only worsened after Jenny Shipley staged a party room coup and became prime minister. After a dispute over the privatisation of Wellington International Airport, Peters was sacked from Cabinet again on 14 August 1998. He immediately broke off the coalition and led New Zealand First back into opposition.^[4] However, several MPs, including deputy leader Henare, opted to stay in government and leave New Zealand First. It later came out that Henare had tried to oust Peters as leader, but failed. None of the MPs who opted to stay in government retained their seats in the next election.

New Zealand First was severely mauled in the 1999 elections, which saw Labour oust National from power. The party suffered for the rash of party-switching. Additionally, there was a wide perception that Peters had led voters to believe a vote for New Zealand First would get rid of National, only to turn around and go into coalition with National. New Zealand First collapsed to 4.3 percent of the vote, and would have been shut out of Parliament had Peters not managed to hold onto Tauranga by 63 votes. This only allowed New Zealand First to win five seats. Under New Zealand's MMP rules, a party that falls below the 5 percent threshold can still qualify for MMP by winning one electorate seat. Still in opposition, he continued to promote his traditional policies, but also became more noticeably concerned about immigration policies.

In the 2002 election, Peters performed well once again, campaigning on three main issues: reducing immigration, increasing punishments for crime, and ending the "grievance industry" around Treaty of Waitangi settlements. This message regained much support for both Peters and his party, especially from among the elderly who had in the past backed Winston Peters, and New Zealand First won 10 percent of the vote and 13 seats. Peters seemed to hope that Labour would choose to ally with New Zealand First in order to stay in power. However, Clark explicitly rejected this possibility, instead relying on support from elsewhere. This appeared to anger Peters considerably.

In a speech at Orewa in 2005, he criticised immigration from Asian countries as "imported criminal activity" and warned that New Zealanders were "being colonised without having any say in the numbers of people coming in and where they are from." He also accused the Labour Party of having an "ethnic engineering and re-population policy."^[5] In July 2005, Peters said New Zealand should err on the side of caution in admitting immigrants until they "affirm their commitment to New Zealanders' values and standards." On the same occasion, Peters claimed to know that Muslim extremists were regularly entering New Zealand, and accused Islam in New Zealand as "having two faces – a moderate face and a militant underbelly". However, he refused to identify the person or the source.^{[citation needed]}

2005 election[link]

Winston Peters greets U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at Auckland Airport in 2008

As the 2005 general election approached, Peters did not indicate a preference for coalition with either of the major parties, declaring that he would not seek the "baubles of office". He promised to either give support in confidence and supply to the party with the most seats, or to abstain from no-confidence votes against it, and that he would not deal with any coalition that included the Greens. He pledged to keep post-election negotiations to under three weeks following criticism of the seven week marathon it took to broker a deal with National in 1996.

In the election, some of New Zealand First's traditional support moved to National. Peters himself narrowly lost his longstanding hold on Tauranga to National MP Bob Clarkson, but New Zealand First did well enough to receive seven seats (down from 13 in 2002), allowing Peters to remain in Parliament as a list MP. Soon after the 2005 election Peters launched a legal challenge against Clarkson. The case alleged that Clarkson had spent more than the legal limit allowed for campaign budgets during elections in New Zealand. This legal bid ultimately failed, with a majority of the judges in the case declaring that Clarkson had not overspent.

In negotiations with Clark after the election, Peters secured the ministerial portfolios of Foreign Affairs and Racing in the Labour-led government, a move which apparently lay at odds with his earlier promise to refuse the "baubles of office". He was a member of the Executive Council, although he was outside cabinet. He was able to criticise the government in areas not related to his portfolios, which experts said^[6] was an unprecedented situation. Considering his previous comments relating to immigration, there were mixed reactions from commentators.^[7] His selection for the Foreign Affairs portfolio created some measure of surprise within the country and beyond. National Party leader Don Brash said the choice was "astonishing", because "the whole region distrusts Winston Peters – Australia, Asia [...]. I think putting him as minister of foreign affairs does huge damage for our international reputation."^[8] The Age, in Australia, expressed surprise that the position had been given to an "outspoken, anti-migrant populist [and] nationalist".^[8]

Allegations concerning Peters' involvement with Simunovich Fisheries and former Member of Parliament Ross Meurant, who was engaged as both adviser to Peters and in undefined business activities with Peter Simunovich (managing director of Simunovich Fisheries), culminated in a Parliamentary Select Committee enquiry into what became known as the 'scampi enquiry'. The enquiry cleared Peters, Simunovich and Meurant of any wrongdoing.

In October 2006, Peters affirmed that he would continue to serve as leader for the 2008 election.^[9]

2008 election[link]

Peters tried to regain Tauranga in the 2008 election and lost to National's Simon Bridges by a margin of 11,742 votes, a much larger loss than in 2005.^[10] With New Zealand First gaining 4.07 percent of the vote and failing to reach the 5 percent threshold to enter Parliament without winning an electorate seat, Peters did not enter the 49th New Zealand Parliament.^[11] In his concession speech, Peters promised, "This is not the end", and alluded to the fact that while New Zealand First would not have any members in Parliament, it was still New Zealand's fourth largest political party, with 4.07 percent of the vote. Despite this, political commentators described the defeat as "the end of the road" for Peters.^[12]

Peters generally shunned the media spotlight following the election. In 2009, he caused a brief flurry of interest when it was revealed he was still using a ministerial car, some months after his election defeat.^[13] Later it was reported he had started writing a rugby column for a local magazine.^[14] He appeared on TV ONE's Q & A programme on 5 July 2009, confirming that he was still the leader of New Zealand First. He hinted at a political comeback and attacked the New Zealand government's review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.^[15] In late 2010 and early 2011 Peters made a number of appearances on television and radio where he made it clear his and New Zealand First's intention to contest the 2011 election. As of 2011 Peters and New Zealand First still register in major political polls. New Zealand First's annual convention in July 2011 received widespread media coverage and somewhat restored the media's interest in Peters and the party.^[16]

2011 election[link]

Winston Peters in August 2011

In the 2011 general election New Zealand First experienced a resurgence in support, winning 6.8 percent of the party vote to secure eight seats in Parliament.

Views and policies[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2008)

Considerable debate has centred on how to classify the politics of Winston Peters. He is commonly described as nationalist and populist.^{[citation needed]} He says he distrusts the corporate world – a fact sometimes used to label him as left-wing – but exhibits strong conservatism in his social policy, a right-wing stance.

Peters has a generally fraught relationship with the media with media interactions often described as confrontational. Peters attributes the hostility of media coverage to foreign-ownership of New Zealand media assets and their political agenda.^[17]

Peters has campaigned in previous elections for compulsory superannuation schemes for all New Zealanders. He has cultivated support amongst the elderly in particular, and his support has been concentrated among New Zealanders over 60 years of age. New Zealand First has also received significant support from young New Zealanders with a significant and active youth wing promoting a range of its student orientated policies.

In 2007, Peters was bestowed with the chiefly Samoan title Vaovasamanaia, meaning "beautiful, handsome, awesome, delighted and joyful."^[18]

Funding controversies[link]

Peters attracted media attention in 2008 over controversial payments for legal services and party donations. He had received $100,000 in 2006 to fund legal costs of challenging the election of Bob Clarkson to the Tauranga electorate. The money came from Owen Glenn, a wealthy New Zealand businessman and philanthropist based in Monaco. Under parliamentary rules any gift to MPs over the value of $500 must be relinquished. Peters denied knowing about the source of the money but this was not corroborated by his lawyer Brian Henry and Glenn contradicted Peters' denial.^[19]

The Vela family, prominent in the racing industry, had donated $150,000 to Peters over a four year period. The payments were made in sums of $10,000 in order to remain within rules governing political party funding.

The Dominion Post published details from New Zealand First sources that before the 2005 election $25,000 had been donated to the party from Bob Jones via the Spencer Trust. The Trust is administered by Wayne Peters, a brother of Winston Peters. Jones confirmed that he had paid the money to the Spencer Trust and was asked by Winston Peters to make the donation.^[20] Peters denies that he had asked Jones for a donation to the party.^[21] The donation was not declared to the Electoral Commission as required by law.^[22]

On 29 August 2008, Peters offered to stand down from his portfolios as Foreign Affairs and Racing Minister,^[23] pending an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office as to whether the donations from Sir Robert Jones and the Vela brothers reached the New Zealand First party as intended.^[24] On 10 September 2008, Winston Peters gave evidence to the Privileges Committee of the New Zealand Parliament in an attempt to refute evidence given by Owen Glenn. The Privileges Committee returned a report on 22 September recommending that Peters be censured for "knowingly providing false or misleading information on a return of pecuniary interests".^[25][26] Parliament passed a motion censuring Peters the following day. All but three of the parties in Parliament (New Zealand First, Labour, and Progressives who abstained) supported the censure.^[27]

Peters was later cleared by the Serious Fraud Office with respect to political donations, however some matters were referred back to the Electoral Commission as it was determined that, while no fraud had taken place, some electoral law matters with regard to funding declarations were not complied with.^[28] The police subsequently decided that no offence had been committed.^[29]

See also[link]

• Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (New Zealand)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Hames, Martin. Winston First: The Unauthorised Account of Winston Peters' Career (Auckland: Random House, 1995).

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Winston Peters

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Winston Peters

• New Zealand First: Winston Peters biography
• The Beehive: Winston Peters biography
• Winston Peters – personal website

Grant Robertson MP
Deputy Leader of the Opposition
Incumbent
Assumed office 13 December 2011
Leader	David Shearer
Preceded by	Annette King
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 13 December 2011
Leader	David Shearer
Preceded by	Annette King
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Wellington Central
Incumbent
Assumed office 8 November 2008
Preceded by	Marian Hobbs
Majority	1,904[1]
Personal details
Born	(1971-10-30) October 30, 1971 (age 40) Palmerston North,  New Zealand
Political party	Labour
Residence	Northland, Wellington, New Zealand
Profession	Senior Research Marketing Manager, Otago University Wellington School of Medicine
Website	www.grantrobertson.co.nz

Grant Robertson (born 30 October 1971) is a New Zealand politician and Member of Parliament. He was elected to represent the Labour Party in the seat of Wellington Central at the 2008 general election.^[2] Robertson replaced Marian Hobbs, who had retired.

Early life[link]

Robertson was born in Palmerston North. His family also lived in Hastings before settling in Dunedin. Robertson studied political studies at the University of Otago, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with honours in 1995.^[3] His honours thesis studied the restructuring of the New Zealand University Students' Association in the 1980s.^[4] Robertson served as President of the Otago University Students' Association in 1994 and New Zealand University Students' Association in 1996.^[3]

Professional life[link]

Robertson joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade after leaving university. His overseas postings included the United Nations in New York. Robertson also managed the NZ Overseas Aid Programme to Samoa – a $7.7 million fund with projects in diverse areas such basic education, healthcare, public sector capacity building, small business development, empowerment of women.^[3]

Robertson returned to New Zealand during the first term of the Fifth Labour Government to work as a Ministerial advisor to Minister for the Environment Marian Hobbs and later Prime Minister Helen Clark. During his time in Clark's office, Robertson was rumoured to have the nickname "H3" during the 2005 General Election (H1 being Clark, and H2 being Chief of Staff, Heather Simpson).^[5]

After the 2005 Election, Robertson left the Prime Minister's office to work as the Senior Research Marketing Manager for the University of Otago based at the Wellington School of Medicine.^[6]

Member of Parliament[link]

• See: Wellington Central in the 2008 New Zealand General Election

In late 2006, sitting MP for Wellington Central, Marian Hobbs announced that she would be retiring at the 2008 General Election. Robertson was considered to be a front runner ^[7] and was subsequently selected unopposed.^[8] Robertson ran a well-staffed campaign, based on local issues like the closure of the Crossways Community Centre and threats to the Public Service. He was also involved in the formation of a Wellington inner-city residents' association.^[9]

On 1 September 2008, the Labour Party published its list for the 2008 general election and ranked Robertson at number 46.^[10]

In the Wellington Central electorate, Robertson defeated National candidate, Stephen Franks by 1,904 votes.^[1] Robertson's plurality, although far less than the 6,180 vote difference held by his predecessor from the previous election,^[11] was a reflection of a large swing in party votes to the National Party from Labour in the electorate, and Robertson's status as a non-incumbent candidate.

In his maiden statement (given on 9 December 2008), Robertson alluded to his sexuality as a part, but not the whole, of his identity:

"I am proud and comfortable with who I am. Being gay is part of who I am, just as is being a former diplomat, a fan of the mighty...Wellington Lions, and a fan of New Zealand music and New Zealand literature. My political view is defined by my sexuality only inasmuch as it has given me an insight into how people can be marginalised and discriminated against, and how much I abhor that. I am lucky that I have largely grown up in a generation that is not fixated on issues such as sexual orientation. I am not—and neither should others be."^[12][13][14]

Robertson was appointed Labour's spokesperson for State Services, and associate spokesperson for Arts, Culture and Heritage and Foreign Affairs by Labour leader Phil Goff.^[15]

In May 2010 Robertson's Ethical Investment (Crown Financial Institutions) Bill was drawn from the member's ballot.^[16][17][18] According to Robertson, the Bill "sought to have clear and consistent criteria for ethical investment in the legislation that govern our major investment funds such as the Super Fund and ACC".^[19] Although the Bill gained support from MPs in the Green and Maori parties, the Bill was defeated at its first reading.^[20]

On 15 June 2010, Opposition Leader Phil Goff appointed Robertson to be Portfolio Spokesperson for Tertiary Education, in addition to taking the parliamentary second row and being promoted to number 20 in the line-up, the highest of the 2008 intake of Labour MPs to be promoted at that point. This was the first shadow cabinet reshuffle since Labour had lost the 2008 general election to National, as a result of the Ministerial Credit Card scandal involving three Labour MPs.^[21] In the election year reshuffle, on 2 February 2011, Robertson was further promoted to the front bench to take the Health portfolio.^[22] Commenting on the promotion, Phil Goff said that Robertson has "made a very strong impact in a very short time" and that he "has a promising future ahead of him"^[23]

At the 2011 general election, Robertson re-contested Wellington Central against eleven other candidates. He subsequently was re-elected with 49.2 percent of the electorate vote, increasing his majority to 6,376 over National Party candidate Paul Foster-Bell.^[24]

Following the election and Annette King's resignation as party deputy leader, Robertson was elected by the Labour caucus as the new deputy leader.

Trans-Tasman Rankings[link]

The political publication Trans-Tasman has reviewed Grant Robertson each year since he became an MP, as part of their annual review of Parliament (known as Roll Call). MPs are scored between one (lowest) and ten (highest) out of ten for their work during that year:

Personal life[link]

Robertson lives in Northland, Wellington, with his partner Alf,^[3] whom he met through playing rugby together for the Wellington-based Crazy Knights, New Zealand's first gay rugby team.^[12] After 10 years in a relationship, they held a civil union ceremony in January 2009.^[28]

Robertson is the grandson of Bob Wilkie, who ran unsuccessfully for Labour in the Wairarapa electorate in 1954 and 1957.^[29]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official MP website
• Robertson's Parliament Profile
• Video clips of speeches given by Robertson in Parliament (inthehouse.co.nz)
• Robertson's official Twitter page
• Robertson's official Facebook page
• Robertson's page on the New Zealand Labour website (includes media statements issued by him)

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