Michael Laws

Michael Laws (born 1957) is a New Zealand politician, broadcaster and writer.

Laws was born in Wairoa on 26 June 1957.

He moved with his parents to Whanganui where he received his pre-tertiary education at Tawhero Primary School, Whanganui Intermediate School, and Whanganui Boys' College.

His father, Keith Laws, a schoolteacher, became rector (principal) of Waitaki Boys' High School in Oamaru and then of Scots College, Wellington.

On leaving school, Laws worked at the Whakatu freezing works before entering the University of Otago, graduating with first-class honours in history and won an Otago University sporting blue.

He later obtained a Master of Arts from Victoria University.

This appeared to contravene the Local Government (Members' Interests) Act 1968.

Laws claimed "there had been no profit to either company or individuals," and an official inquiry by the Auditor-General confirmed it found only a minor and unintentional breach of regulations in not declaring his wife's shareholding.

However, Laws' conduct during the matter attracted strong criticism.

Laws had claimed the poll had been carried out by a person named Antoinette Beck, who was supposedly based in Australia.

It later became known Beck was not a real person, her signature had been applied by Laws' parliamentary secretary, and that the poll contract had been awarded to Laws' wife's company.

After these facts emerged, Laws resigned both from Parliament and the council.

He also became a public speaker and captained both the New Zealand Universities and New Zealand debating teams in the early-mid-1980s.

During his time at Otago, he attracted controversy as a key member of a student organisation that supported the 1981 Springbok Tour.

Having become involved in the New Zealand Young Nationals (the youth wing of the National Party), Laws worked as a parliamentary researcher for National between 1985 and 1989.

Most of this time he spent as a senior researcher and press secretary, including assisting the dissident National MP Winston Peters from 1987 to 1989.

In the 1987 election, Laws stood as the National candidate for the Hawkes Bay seat, but narrowly lost to the incumbent Bill Sutton of the Labour Party.

Laws was a Member of Parliament for six years, starting in 1990, initially for the National Party.

In the 1990 election, however, Laws wrestled the seat from Sutton to enter Parliament with a majority of 2,895 votes.

Finally, Laws became involved in discussions with Mike Moore, former leader (1990–1993) of the Labour Party, to establish a new centrist party.

It did not eventuate, however, with Laws claiming that Moore showed unwillingness to commit to it.

In early 1991, he even organised public seminars designed to avoid his government's new superannuation surtax policies.

The Bolger administration later abandoned the surtax, but Laws earned the ongoing enmity of his colleagues for his stance.

He also championed the unsuccessful Death with Dignity Bill, which aimed to legalise voluntary euthanasia.

The terminal illness of Cam Campion, a fellow dissident in Laws' first term in parliament, prompted this advocacy.

"Waka-jumping"—where an MP left a party between elections to join another but retain their seat in Parliament—became common during Laws' parliamentary career and rumours frequently circulated that he planned to join a new party.

When Gilbert Myles and Hamish MacIntyre left National to found the new Liberal Party, they invited Laws to join them, but he declined.

Later, when Peters was expelled from National and eventually formed New Zealand First, it was reported that Laws had considered changing parties but eventually decided that the new party lacked the organisation and principle for success.

In the 1993 election he retained his seat with an increased majority, despite the National Party generally losing support.

Laws never had a good relationship with the National Party's senior hierarchy.

As a researcher, he had done much of his work for Winston Peters, whom party leader Jim Bolger looked upon with disapproval.

Tensions persisted between Laws and Bolger after Laws became an MP, made worse by Laws' declaration that he would attempt to follow popular opinion in Hawke's Bay rather than National Party policy.

Laws voted against his party on a number of issues, joining several other dissident MPs to oppose the economic policies of the Minister of Finance Ruth Richardson.

Laws has held several roles in local government since 1995.

He has been elected as a councillor to Napier City Council (1995–1996), Whanganui District Council (2013–2014) and Otago Regional Council (2016 – present), as a member of Whanganui District Health Board, and as Mayor of Whanganui (2004–2010).

Laws had also been elected (in October 1995) as a Napier city councillor.

In that role, Laws awarded a contract to conduct a Napier City Council communications poll to a company part-owned by his wife.

In Parliament he voted against his party on multiple occasions and in 1996 defected to the newly founded New Zealand First party, but resigned from Parliament the same year following a scandal in which he selected a company part-owned by his wife for a government contract.

Laws has also been a media personality, working as a Radio Live morning talkback host and a longstanding The Sunday Star-Times columnist.

In the end, Laws' relationship with the National Party deteriorated to the point where he no longer attended caucus meetings, and he decided to join New Zealand First in April 1996.