Paulo Garcia | |
---|---|
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for New Lynn | |
Assumed office 14 October 2023 | |
Preceded by | Deborah Russell |
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for the National Party List | |
In office 16 May 2019 –17 October 2020 | |
Preceded by | Nuk Korako |
Personal details | |
Political party | National |
Profession | Lawyer |
Paulo Reyes Garcia is a New Zealand lawyer and politician. He is a Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the New Zealand National Party and the first New Zealand MP of Filipino descent. [1] [2]
Garcia was born in the city of San Juan,part of the conurbation of Metropolitan Manila,Philippines in 1965. [3] [4] He is a graduate of the University of the Philippines,and also attended the Academy of American and International Law in Texas in the United States of America. He was a barrister before entering parliament. In the Philippines,where he practised for ten years,his focus was commercial law,particularly as it applied to foreign and multinational companies operating in that country. [4] [5] After moving to New Zealand,he practised immigration law with a focus on investor migration. [5] After initially working for McLeod &Associates and Corban Revell Lawyers,he established his own firm,Garcia Law. [5]
Paulo Garcia was appointed honorary consul of the Philippines in Auckland in 2012,and was also involved in establishing the New Zealand Philippines Business Council. [4] [6]
Years | Term | Electorate | List | Party | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2019–2020 | 52nd | List | 50 | National | |
2023 –present | 54th | New Lynn | 34 | National |
In the 2017 election Garcia stood for National in the New Lynn electorate and was placed 50 on their party list. [7] He came second to Deborah Russell with 38.55% of the vote and was not ranked high enough on National's party list to be allocated a seat in Parliament.
In February 2018 Garcia and several other "next in line" list candidates attended National's parliamentary caucus meeting to help ease their transition into parliament should they enter during the course of the parliamentary term. [8] Garcia later entered Parliament in 2019 upon the resignation of National MP Nuk Korako. [9] He was declared elected on 16 May 2019. [10] He became New Zealand's first MP of Filipino descent. [4] He is the first person born in the Philippines who has been elected to the national legislature of another country. [11] In 2020 he was briefly deputy chairperson of the Parliamentary committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade and a National Party associate spokesperson on foreign affairs and justice. [12]
In February 2020 the National Party board decided that Garcia would be a list-only candidate in the 2020 general election. [13] National polled poorly at the election and Garcia lost his seat in Parliament. [14]
Ahead of the 2023 New Zealand general election, Garcia was selected as the National Party candidate for New Lynn again. [15] He defeated incumbent Deborah Russell with a final majority of 1,013 votes. [16]
ACT New Zealand, also known as the ACT Party or simply ACT, is a right-wing, classical liberal, right-libertarian, and conservative political party in New Zealand. It is currently led by David Seymour, and is in coalition with the National and New Zealand First parties, as part of the Sixth National government.
Ron Stanley Mark is a New Zealand politician of the New Zealand First party, and former soldier, who served as Minister of Defence between October 2017 and November 2020. He served as mayor of Carterton from 2010 to 2014, and again from 2022 defeating incumbent Greg Lang.
New Lynn is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate, returning one member to the New Zealand House of Representatives. Deborah Russell of the Labour Party represented the electorate from the 2017 general election before being defeated by National's Paulo Garcia in the 2023 election.
Tāmati Gerald Coffey is a New Zealand broadcaster, politician, and former Member of Parliament.
Port Hills was a parliamentary electorate of New Zealand that existed for the 2008 through 2017 general elections. Ruth Dyson of the Labour Party had previously held the Banks Peninsula electorate since the 1999 election that was largely replaced by Port Hills, and held Port Hills for its entire existence before retiring ahead of the 2020 election. The Port Hills electorate was mostly urban, and lost the more rural Banks Peninsula areas of the old electorate to the Selwyn electorate that was also formed for the 2008 election.
Louisa Hareruia Wall is a New Zealand former double international sportswoman, former politician, and human rights advocate. She represented New Zealand in both netball as a Silver Fern from 1989 to 1992 and in rugby union as a member of the Black Ferns from 1995 to 2001, including as a member of the 1991 World Netball Championships runner-up team and 1998 Women's Rugby World Cup winning team.
Raymond Huo is a New Zealand politician who was a Member of Parliament from 2008 to 2014 and from 2017 to 2020. He was first elected in 2008 as the New Zealand Labour Party's first MP of Chinese descent. He was the third Chinese New Zealander to enter Parliament, after the National Party's Pansy Wong and ACT's Kenneth Wang.
Alfred Ngaro is a New Zealand politician, serving as leader of NewZeal since 2023. He was a list member of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 2011 to 2020, representing the National Party.
Simon David O'Connor is a New Zealand politician and a former member of the New Zealand House of Representatives for the National Party. He represented the Tāmaki electorate from 2011 to 2023.
Munokoa Poto Williams is a New Zealand Labour Party politician and a member of Parliament. She was elected in a 2013 by-election and served as Minister of Conservation and Minister for Disability Issues in the Sixth Labour Government.
Jennifer Teresia Salesa is a New Zealand politician and member of the Labour Party who has served as a Member of Parliament since 2014. She was first elected as MP for Manukau East, and after its abolition in 2020 won the replacement electorate of Panmure-Ōtāhuhu. She served as a Cabinet Minister in the Sixth Labour Government as Minister for Building and Construction, Minister of Customs and Minister for Ethnic Communities from 2017 until 6 November 2020.
Tutehounuku "Nuk" Korako is a New Zealand politician and member of Canterbury Regional Council. He was previously a list Member of Parliament, representing the National Party, from 2014 to 2019.
Mahesh Jaichand Bindra is an Indian-born New Zealand politician who represented New Zealand First as a list MP in Parliament between 2014 and 2017. He was the party's ethnic affairs spokesperson.
Deborah Faye Russell is a New Zealand academic and politician. She is a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party and served as Minister of Statistics and Minister Responsible for the Earthquake Commission from February to November 2023.
Helen Ione White is a New Zealand politician. In 2020 she became a Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the Labour Party. In 2023, she was chosen by Labour to contest the Mount Albert electorate, previously held by former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. White won the seat, holding it for Labour, but by a significantly reduced margin of 18 votes.
Willow-Jean Prime is a New Zealand politician. She was first elected a Member of the New Zealand House of Representatives at the 2017 general election as a list representative of the New Zealand Labour Party. She was elected as the Member of Parliament for Northland at the 2020 general election and was re-elected as a list MP in 2023.
The 52nd New Zealand Parliament was a meeting of the legislature in New Zealand, which opened on 7 November 2017 following the 2017 general election and dissolved on 6 September 2020. The New Zealand Parliament comprises the Sovereign and the House of Representatives, which consists of 120 members.
Mark William James Patterson is a New Zealand farmer, lobbyist and politician. He is a Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the New Zealand First party.
Anahila Lose Kanongata'a is a New Zealand social worker and politician. She served as a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party from 2017 to 2023.
The Shadow Cabinet of Simon Bridges was the official Opposition in the 52nd New Zealand Parliament between 11 March 2018 and 22 May 2020. It comprised all members of the New Zealand National Party, which was the largest party not a member of the Government.