Deborah Russell

Deborah Faye Russell (born 14 January 1966) 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.

Russell was born in Whangamōmona, a small town in the Manawatū-Whanganui region, to parents David and Marie Russell.

She was raised Catholic and attended Sacred Heart Girls' College in New Plymouth.

She is married to academic Malcolm Wright; the couple share three daughters.

Russell graduated with a BCom (Hon) in Accounting and Finance from University of Otago in 1987.

This was followed by a BA (Hon) in Philosophy in 1996 from Massey University.

In 2001 she received her PhD in philosophy from Australian National University.

Russell worked in the private sector as an accountant, and in the public sector as a policy analyst.

She has lectured at universities in both Australia and New Zealand in taxation, ethics, business ethics, political theory and philosophy.

Russell was ranked 30 on Labour's party list, up three places from 2014.

She won New Lynn with a margin of 2,825 votes over National's Paulo Garcia, and entered Parliament.

In her first term, Russell was a member of the Environment Committee and the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

She was a senior lecturer specialising in taxation at Massey University, a position she held for six years until her 2017 resignation to contest the New Lynn electorate.

She wrote Tax and Fairness with Terry Baucher, which was published by Bridget Williams Books in May 2017 and interrogates whether New Zealand can be seen as an egalitarian country.

While studying at the University of Otago, Russell was briefly a member of the National Party.

Russell stood in the central North Island electorate of at the, but was defeated by the incumbent, National's Ian McKelvie.

Following her election defeat she provided political commentary in the media.

The New Zealand Herald reported that Russell impressed the party leadership with her performance as a commentator and received support in her bid to be the Labour candidate for the safer Auckland seat of in the, despite not having a pre-existing connection to the electorate.

In February 2017, after a competitive selection process, Russell was chosen as Labour's 2017 candidate for New Lynn.

She replaced former Labour Party leader David Cunliffe, who had, in the previous year, signalled his intention to retire from politics at the next election.

Russell promised to change her residence to the electorate if she was selected, and she now lives there.

She chaired the former from November 2017 until July 2019, and the latter from July 2019 until the 2020 election.

In 2018, Russell promoted a member's bill (the Companies (Disclosure of Payment Practice and Performance) Amendment Bill) intended to improve transparency around large companies' payment practices.

The bill followed advocacy from small business owners and The Spinoff against a change made by Fonterra to move to 60-day payment terms rather than the standard 30-day payment terms.

Ultimately Russell chose to withdraw the bill because the government introduced similar legislation that addressed the same problem.

During the 2020 New Zealand general election, Russell retained the New Lynn electorate by a final margin of 13,134 votes.

She wrote a weekly campaign diary chronicling her re-election efforts which was published by Newsroom.

In early November, Russell was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Revenue.

She also chaired the special select committee that was established to scrutinise the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill.

Another member's bill in Russell's name, the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill, was drawn from the ballot and introduced to Parliament in October 2021.

The bill was eventually transferred into the name of Marja Lubeck (due to Russell's promotion to a ministerial position) and passed unanimously in June 2023.

It provides employees with 12 months to raise a personal grievance related to sexual harassment, rather than the previous 90 days.

In a cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Chris Hipkins on 31 January 2023 Russell was promoted to be a minister outside Cabinet as the Minister of Statistics and Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission, succeeding David Clark, and additionally as an associate minister with responsibility in the justice and revenue portfolios.

She was responsible for the delivery of the 2023 New Zealand Census.

As Associate Minister of Justice, she received and announced the resignation of Meng Foon from his position of race relations commissioner over failures to declare conflicts of interests.

During the 2023 New Zealand general election, Russell lost the New Lynn electorate to National Party candidate Paulo Garcia by a margin of 1,013 votes.

He defeated incumbent Deborah Russell with a final majority of 1,013 votes.

However, she was re-elected to Parliament on the Labour party list.

In late November, Russell was appointed as spokesperson for revenue, science, innovation and technology, and associate spokesperson for education (tertiary) in the Shadow Cabinet of Chris Hipkins.