Chris Carter

Christopher Joseph Carter (born 4 May 1952) is a former New Zealand Labour Party and independent Member of the New Zealand Parliament.

He was a senior Cabinet Minister in the Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand, serving lastly as Minister of Education, Minister Responsible for the Education Review Office and Minister of Ethnic Affairs.

Carter was born on 4 May 1952, and brought up in the Auckland suburb of Panmure.

He was educated at St Peter's College, Auckland and at the University of Auckland where he received an MA (Hons) in history.

Before entering politics, Carter had served as a teacher and as a poultry farmer.

His partner is Peter Kaiser, a headmaster, and they have been together for over 40 years.

In a local-body election in 1988 he stood as a candidate for the Te Atatu ward of the Auckland Regional Authority, but was unsuccessful.

He placed third out of six candidates.

In the lead up to the he contested the Labour nomination for the seat of Te Atatu.

One of six contenders, he emerged one of the two front-runners alongside news service manager Dan McCaffrey.

At the selection meeting McCaffrey was successful.

At the he stood as the Labour candidate for Te Atatu and won the seat.

He was the Member of Parliament for the Te Atatu electorate, where he was first elected in 1993.

In 1993 he was appointed Labour's spokesperson for Ethnic Affairs.

In 1994, Carter was named by the Speaker of the House Peter Tapsell for calling John Banks a hypocrite over his anti-abortion stance on abortions.

The Te Atatu seat was abolished for the and he lost the newly created Waipareira electorate to National's Brian Neeson by just 107 votes, and not having been placed on the Labour list for the election.

He did not win re-election (to the replacement seat, Waipareira) in 1996, but won a new and expanded Te Atatu seat in 1999.

After losing his seat, Carter started one of the first branches of New Zealand Rainbow Labour for centre-left lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people (LGBT) and others during the 1996–1999 term.

At the the Te Atatu seat was recreated and he won the seat once again.

From 1999 to 2002 he was Labour's junior whip.

After being re-elected in Carter was elevated to cabinet and was appointed Minister of Conservation, Minister of Local Government and Minister of Ethnic Affairs.

In 2004 he was additionally appointed Minister for Building Issues.

Carter was the first openly gay man ever appointed as a New Zealand Cabinet minister.

He had been a strong advocate of gay equality for some time, and continued this role on entering Parliament.

At the, Carter was re-elected to his seat with 59.4% of the vote, a majority of 10,447.

Labour lost power in the.

Carter was re-elected, but his majority was almost halved to 5,298.

On 10 February 2007, Carter and Kaiser were joined in the first civil union for a Cabinet Minister or Member of Parliament since civil unions in New Zealand were introduced after legislation was passed in December 2004.

At the Carter stood unsuccessfully as the Labour Party candidate in the Albany electorate, losing to National's Don McKinnon.

In 2010, he was suspended from the Labour Party caucus following a dispute with party leader Phil Goff, shortly afterwards he became an independent MP.

He was expelled by the Labour Party for breaching the Party's constitution in bringing the Party in disrepute, on 11 October 2010.

On 14 June 2010, 4 days after the release of ministerial credit card records, Carter along with two other MPs Shane Jones MP and Mita Ririnui MP (Lab – Lists) were demoted by Opposition Leader Phil Goff MP for misuse of such credit cards.

In the case of Carter, he was accused of purchasing personal items with the card, which was outside the rules for Ministerial expenditure as a minister under the former Clark government over a six-year period.

Carter repaid the money in full, a total of $26 ($NZ).

In September 2011 Carter resigned from Parliament following his appointment to a United Nations position in Afghanistan where he served for 4 years.

In 2015 he was appointed to head UN operations in Rakhine State in Myanmar where he served for 3 years.

In 2018 he rejoined the New Zealand Labour Party and stood for election as a Labour Party representative in the 2019 New Zealand local elections.

Carter was elected and appointed as Chairperson of the Henderson Massey Local Board with 11,250 votes.

He also won election in 2019 as one of the seven elected board members of the Waitemata District Health Board with 14,593 votes.

Both positions have three year terms.