Helene Ritchie

Ritchie was born in Wellington to refugee parents who had fled the Holocaust in Prague, arriving in New Zealand in 1939 and 1940.

She grew up in the state housing area of Naenae.

She attended Hutt Valley High School and became head prefect.

She studied psychology, education, languages and dispute resolution at Victoria University of Wellington and Massey University of Palmerston North where she was awarded three postgraduate degrees: Master of Arts, Bachelor of Arts with Honours, Bachelor of Educational Studies, and an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree, and two diplomas: a Diploma of Education and a Diploma of Business Studies (conflict and dispute resolution).

Ritchie then worked as a secondary school teacher, later a university extension lecturer, an executive director of a trade union correspondence education service and in early childhood education.

Helene Ruth Paula Ritchie (born 16 March 1945) is a former local body politician, registered psychologist and mediator, and a board member from Wellington, New Zealand.

As Wellington's longest serving City Councillor of over 30 years, she led the Labour team to a majority position on the council.

Later, she was the first female deputy mayor and chaired the Wellington Airport Authority and its successor for eight years.

In 1966, she married Peter Deans Ritchie and had two children: Timothy in 1971 and Jonathan in 1972.

Ritchie came into politics in the 1970s through the women's movement and joined the Labour Party in 1976.

She helped develop the Working Women's Charter, led by trade unionist and M.P. Sonja Davies, and was a member of the Labour Women's Council.

She later took on leadership roles in the local Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL).

She undertook psychology training and was appointed as a psychologist in the Education Department in 1977 (initially assistant psychologist, then psychologist in 1978), focusing on children and families with special needs.

She helped to develop an approach away from deficit diagnosing and labeling to identifying strengths and needs and enhancing them through a psycho-social and educational approach and developing individual educational plans ("IEPs").

She ensured funding and approval for alternative schooling for young people who otherwise no longer attended traditional secondary schools, and establishment of a new 'Work Experience Unit' within a secondary school for young persons who found traditional schooling too challenging.

Ritchie was first elected to the Wellington City Council in 1977, serving for 12 years until resigning in 1989.

At a time when only four of 87 members of Parliament were women and only 13 women had ever served in Parliament, Ritchie was selected by Labour for the then safe National seat of Ohariu electorate in the New Zealand House of Representatives in the 1978 general election.

She was unsuccessful and placed second behind National's Hugh Templeton.

She sought selection for the safe Labour seat of Christchurch Central in a 1979 by-election.

Geoffrey Palmer, later briefly Prime Minister, was selected.

She also stood for selection in a number of other safe Labour seats, including the Napier electorate in 1980 where she lost to Geoff Braybrooke, who held the seat until 2002.

She was elected concurrently to the first Wellington Regional Council in 1980, from which she resigned in 1983.

During those 12 years, she was voted in as Labour's first female leader from 1980 to 1986, and was selected as the Labour candidate for Mayor (the first woman) in 1983, finishing runner-up to Ian Lawrence.

As Chair of the Airport Authority from 1980 for eight years and of all the Airport Authorities in New Zealand for five years, she defied Labour Minister Prebble's early attempt at privatisation of public assets.

Ritchie saw this as a betrayal of Labour's fundamental policies, and as contrary to her reason for joining the Party.

In 1986, Ritchie became Deputy Mayor to Jim Belich, the first woman to hold the position in the Capital.

Ritchie had also attempted to gain the Labour nomination for the Island Bay electorate in the lead up to the 1987 general election after Frank O'Flynn announced his retirement, but the nomination ultimately went to Elizabeth Tennet.

Ritchie stated she was "knocked for six" after failing to win the Island Bay nomination.

Soon after she stood for the Pencarrow electorate, but lost again, this time to trade unionist Sonja Davies.

She was dumped by her Labour colleagues on the council in 1988 following a series of feuds with Labour councillors over policy.

They advised the mayor they had lost confidence in her as deputy.

According to Ritchie, no reason was ever given and she thought the episode was "very unfair and unjust".

Along with many others, she left the Labour Party in 1989.

(Prebble and Douglas later left the Labour Party to become leaders of the right wing ACT Party, with Roger Douglas as founder.) Jim Anderton M.P. (later deputy Prime Minister) resigned from the Party in April 1989, saying, "I did not leave the Party, the Party left me".

and created the Alliance Party.

Ritchie rejoined the Labour Party after a gap of few years, but still stood for election as an Independent.

Upon Braybrooke announcing his retirement in 2001, Ritchie was invited by the electorate chair to again seek the Napier seat, but lost out on the nomination to Russell Fairbrother.

Ritchie led the declaration of Wellington as a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, chaired Wellington's Civic Centre project from its concept plan to Council decision, and chaired a six-year project that led up to the Wellington Town Belt Act 2016 expanding it by 130 hectares.

Ritchie represented the city council on boards of its subsidiaries, including museums and an airport.

She was elected twice to the Wellington Regional Council, and to the local district health board for 15 years.