Richard Prosser

While he only received 588 electorate coming last of five candidates, New Zealand First received 6.59% of the party vote and so Prosser won a list seat in the 50th Parliament.

Richard Ivor Prosser (15 January 1967 – 10 June 2022) was a New Zealand politician, writer, and winemaker.

Prosser was born in Henderson, Auckland, on 15 January 1967.

He grew up in Waikato and attended Hauraki Plains College.

Prosser lived in Britain for several years before returning to New Zealand in 1990.

His work, prior to Parliament, included photographic technician, barman, engineering contractor, truck driver and sales representative.

Prosser also trained as a Reiki Master.

He moved to Otago in 1994 and took up wine making, and obtained a Certificate in Grapegrowing and Winemaking from Eastern Institute of Technology in 2001.

Prosser said that he wanted to restart the South Island Party, a political party which contested the 1999 general election.

Prosser stood for the Democrats for Social Credit in the 2005 election in the Otago electorate.

He was ranked fourth on their party list; the party received 0.05% of the party vote and did not get any MPs elected.

Prosser also ran in the 2007 Central Otago District local elections, both for mayor and for councillor for the Earnscleugh-Manuherikia Ward.

In both elections, he came last out of three candidates.

As of 2007, Prosser was calling for a separate South Island Parliament.

He founded a "pressure group" of the same name, which was active around 2008, but it did not register as a political party.

Instead, Prosser helped promote South Island First, another pressure group.

Prosser joined New Zealand First in 2010 after attending a party meeting.

He was a member of New Zealand First party and was a Member of parliament from 2011 to 2017.

While in Parliament, he voted against the Marriage Amendment Bill, which allowed same sex marriage.

By 2011 he was based in Canterbury, working as the South Island business development manager for an irrigation firm.

He was later elected to the party's board of directors, and then selected as a parliamentary candidate for the 2011 election.

He was ranked fourth on their party list.

He also ran as a candidate for the Waimakariri electorate.

As of 2011 he still believed that South Island self-determination would come in some form, though felt it would be "generations away".

Prosser advocated banning the burqa in New Zealand, saying "This is my culture and my country, not yours. Get some respect and conform."

He also advocated compulsory military training, calling those who would object "the pacifists, the weaklings, the other cowards and bludgers".

He also called for arming bank tellers, dairy owners and taxi drivers.

Prosser released the book Uncommon Dissent in January 2012 outlining his political opinions, in which he refers to himself as a "Kiwi Nationalist".

His claims in the book that "New Zealand society, Western society in general, has been hijacked by a conspiracy of Silly Little Girls" attracted heavy criticism from the Wellington Young Feminists Collective and the feminist blog Hand Mirror.

He attracted international attention in 2013 when he called for all young men who were Muslim or who "look like a Muslim" to be banned from Western airlines.

In 2013, Prosser voted against the Marriage Amendment Bill, which aimed to permit same sex marriage in New Zealand, with all of his fellow New Zealand First MPs. Prosser said that he had nothing against gays but would vote against the bill to preserve the institution of marriage.

Writing for Investigate magazine in February 2013, Prosser stated; "If you are a young male, aged between say about 19 and about 35, and you're a Muslim, or you look like a Muslim, or you come from a Muslim country, then you are not welcome to travel on any of the West's airlines".

For the 2014 general election he was ranked third on the party list and retained his seat.

However, for the 2017 general election, he was demoted to 15th on the list, which was too low to secure another term.

His roles in Parliament included membership of the select committees for Law and Order, Primary Production, and Social Services.

He was New Zealand First's spokesperson on various issues over the years, including agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and police.

For at least fourteen years, Prosser called for South Island separatism of some sort.

In May 2020, Prosser claimed on his website that the COVID-19 pandemic was a global conspiracy intended to transfer greater power to financial and political elites.

Prosser wrote the 'Eyes Right' column in the Investigate magazine for ten years.

In his columns, he suggested various political ideas including compulsory conscription in New Zealand.