Our Parliamentary CV

Achim Hanne

This may be obvious, but the role of an MP is fundamentally different to a typical job. You work weird hours, commute across the country, and risk losing your job every three years. Even if you make it through selection and become a party’s candidate, your employer is not some manager or company, but the voters that put you there—many of whom may look no further than the party logo beside your name. For that reason, MPs’ work histories rarely receive much attention unless they are being used to defend their credentials or attack their experience. Yet, in a country where MPs are often seen as out of touch, should we be paying more attention to what careers our elected representatives come from?

Spoiler alert: I did. This year, with the help of a friend (thanks, Duncan!) I researched every Member of Parliament, compiling their publicly available job histories and noting common careers and trends. 

The first thing I realised was how hard it is to place certain jobs into neat boxes. Parliamentary press secretaries, for example, are ostensibly employed by parliament—making them public servants—but because they work for a specific MP they have more in common with political staff than someone working in a ministry. Likewise, whilst police officers and other frontline roles sit within the public sector, the experience of a corrections officer is very different to a policy analyst. 

The second thing I learned was how hard it is to assemble an accurate work history for every MP. Some report every job they’ve had—Christopher Luxon’s LinkedIn contains everything from Prime Minister to his year as a newspaper deliverer in 1982—while others have barely two sentences on a party profile. For that reason, my data should be treated as incomplete, although it still provides some useful insights.

Parliament by the Numbers

The most common jobs in the data were ‘political employee’ (party researchers, staff, and MP’s parliamentary employees), lawyer, and local-government representative. Their prevalence varies by party; almost 20 percent of National MPs in my data have a political background, while more than 25 percent of Labour MPs are former lawyers. Three Green MPs and two NZ First MPs have local-government experience, including Celia Wade-Brown (Green—List) and Andy Foster (NZ First—List) who are both former Wellington mayors. 

Another common background is in the public sector. Among the 12 former ministry or commission advisers I identified are Marama Davidson (Green—List), who worked at the Human Rights Commission; Nicola Grigg (National—Selwyn), who worked at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise; and Barbara Edmonds (Labour—Mana), who worked at Inland Revenue.

That tally is matched by Parliament’s farmers, where Labour’s Damien O’Connor (List) stands alone beside 11 coalition MPs. Likewise, of Parliament’s seven MP’s with military backgrounds, only former NZ Army Officer Dan Rosewarne (Labour—List) comes from outside the National party. Tim Costley (National—Ōtaki) and recently sacked former Defence Minister Chris Penk (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi) provide the Air Force and Navy representation respectively, with the rest coming from the NZ Army or Army Reserve.

The ACT Party may be excited to have broadcaster Paul Henry running for election this year, but he is merely the latest in a long line of journalists and broadcasters entering politics. Twelve current MPs come from this background, spanning National, Labour, the Greens, NZ First, and Te Pāti Māori. 

Many MPs also come from business backgrounds. While it is difficult to determine exactly how many MPs directed or founded their own business, notable individuals include Scott Simpson (National—Coromandel), former chief executive of Make-A-Wish NZ, and Chlöe Swarbrick  (Green—Auckland Central), who ran a fashion design label. 

I counted roughly nine former teachers, eight emergency-service workers, three doctors, and three medical researchers. The list goes on, and at some point just becomes background noise. So rather than give an itemised list of every career represented in parliament, let’s look at a few more in detail. 

Cabinet

Within Christopher Luxon’s cabinet, lobbyists are particularly well represented. Finance Minister and National Deputy Nicola Willis (List) was formerly a Government Affairs Manager at Fonterra, while Attorney-General Chris Bishop (National—Hutt South) worked for tobacco company Philip Morris. Casey Costello (NZ First—List), Nicole Mckee (ACT—List), and Brooke Van Velden (ACT—Tāmaki) all have worked as lobbyists in the past as well. 

Among Paul Goldsmith’s (National—List) eleven portfolios is Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, fitting for a former Waitangi Tribunal Historian. Practising doctor Shane Reti (National—Whangārei) was replaced as Health Minister in 2025 by Manurewa Board Member and banker Simeon Brown (National—Pakuranga). 

Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones (NZ First—List) is a former chair of Sealord, while Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour (ACT—Epsom) was previously an engineer and think-tank analyst. There is a long-standing and lively debate over whether ministers should have professional experience in the areas they oversee, but the 2026 cabinet does not seem to care one way or the other.

University

Parliament contains a surprisingly large number of former university lecturers, covering a wide range of academic fields. Labour’s Health Spokesperson Ayesha Verrall (List) is a former pathology lecturer, whilst Shane Jones appears once more as a former lecturer in Māori studies. 

The most left-field specialisation for an MP is Lawrence Xu-Nan (Green—List), a former Egyptologist at the University of Auckland. Perhaps he feels a little more at home in the pyramid-style architecture of the Beehive?

Good news for Aidan Donoghue: nine former student-union presidents sit in the current parliament. These include former VUWSA presidents Tamatha Paul (Green—Wellington Central) who held the role in 2019, and Leader of the Opposition Chris Hipkins (Labour—Remutaka) who served from 2000 to 2001. The other seven are spread across universities and polytechnics around the country. 

Hang in there Aidan—you’ll get your chance. 

But parliament is not all lawyers, lobbyists, and public servants. Some MPs merit mentioning purely because they did something interesting before becoming an MP. 

Outliers and Trailblazers

Steve Abel (Green—List) was a campaigner with Greenpeace in the years leading up to Parliament, but when he wasn’t working to save the planet he also enjoyed a very successful music career, winning the 2009 ‘Saddest Song in the World’ competition. Meanwhile, Kahurangi Carter (Green—List) has worked as a banker, Ministry for the Environment advisor, and actor. 

Andrew Bayly (National—Port Waikato) appears to have a reasonably standard CV for a National MP, with experience in finance, the private sector, and serving as an NZ Army Officer. But a quick look at his party profile reveals a former British parachutist who has visited both poles and ridden camels throughout Jordan while studying T. E. Lawrence. Before becoming a Marlborough District Councillor, NZ First’s Jamie Arbuckle (List) made his living selling asparagus at the Redwoodtown Market.

From the Labour benches comes Georgie Dansey, a former teacher who ran a gym before entering Parliament and occasionally performs as wild-haired, overall-clad drag king Peter Pansy. She is joined by Shadow Leader of the House Kieran McAnulty (Labour—List), whose CV includes working as a WINZ manager, TAB bookmaker, and volunteer firefighter—an unusual combination within his party’s caucus.

What Does This Mean?

Writing a CV is something that almost every New Zealander older than 15 has probably done at some point. Maybe it was at high school, for a summer job, or at the beginning of a professional career. You’ve probably used—or deliberately avoided—the detailed LinkedIn history or the Canva template. So has your MP. 

Yet one thing that kept striking me as I researched this piece was that very few MPs seem to draw much attention to those work histories when making a case for election. The other thing I found myself wondering was whether that matters at all.

In the era of political factionalism and party politics, it is unlikely that an individual candidate’s qualifications will sway your vote one way or the other. We do not have a Parliament of independents.  Crossing the floor is rare in New Zealand, and MPs will vote with their party on nearly every decision, regardless of their personal background. 

Yet those backgrounds can still do good work behind the scenes. Kieran McAnulty has spent his time in Parliament trying to improve compensation for fellow firefighters injured in the line of duty, while Tim Costley has drawn on his RNZAF experience to seek recognition for New Zealanders deployed in humanitarian-aid and disaster relief scenarios. They are not headline party policies, but they show how personal experiences can help MPs identify problems that otherwise might be missed. 

The unfortunate takeaway of the 2026 Parliament is that its work histories do not resemble the New Zealand workforce particularly well. There are very few tradespeople, IT specialists, or nurses in the chamber, while jobs such as truck driver are completely unrepresented. This leaves gaps in Parliament’s collective experience of the issues faced by large parts of the population. 

There is no cut-and-dry solution to those gaps. At the end of the day, it is easy to see why a lawyer or public servant will have more interest in legislation than the average Kiwi, and employment is only one lens through which to see parliamentarians' experience. 

What matters most is that our MPs, whatever their backgrounds, look for the problems that matter to New Zealanders and work publically and behind the scenes to make life in this country easier, safer, and happier. And hey, a little more information about their work histories would be nice too.

The New Zealand general election will be held on 7 November 2026. Eligible voters must enrol by 25 October.