Scoop's Meet The New MPs Project: Paul Quinn

Scoop's Meet The New MPs Project: Agnes Ginestet and Motoko Kakubayashi talk to National’s Paul Quinn

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• Scoop Audio: Mr Quinn talks about how he had no intentions of becoming a politician to begin with.

Before the 2008 election, Mr Quinn had already been successful in many fields. He had become a successful businessman and worked with some of New Zealand’s largest corporate companies. In the sports field, Mr Quinn had been the Maori All Blacks captain and until recently had administered the sport to a high level.

It was only after becoming frustrated with the direction the Labour government was taking New Zealand, he decided it was time to step out from the sideline and put his money where his mouth was.

He said he was worried about how the Labour government seemed to be making no progress with processing Treaty of Waitangi settlements.

Having assisted and resolved many claims with the Treaty of Waitangi and forestry issues, Mr Quinn said he knew he could use his specialist knowledge to good use if he became an MP.

Mr Quinn said he had not predetermined views about what working in Parliament would be like, but found politics to be a team game where every MP needed to play their part to succeed. Failure to do so could easily split a party just as it would in a sports team.

He said switching to a political career was not as easy as it sounded.

“You’ve got to have a certain mind to become an MP in many ways. It’s not an easy job.

“We were here till midnight last night, probably will again tonight,” he said.

Biography

Former Maori All Blacks rugby captain Paul Quinn traded life on the sports field for one in a Parliament office, but found team play had an equally important role in politics.

The National list MP grew up on a farm in Hawke’s Bay with three brothers and four sisters before going down to Canterbury to get his economics degree at Lincoln University.

Since then Mr Quinn has had a whirlwind career in Wellington. He started off as an analyst at the Reserve Bank in the 1970s, and then became captain of the New Zealand Maori All Blacks and Wellington Rugby in the 1980s.

In the late 1990s Mr Quinn started running his own strategic planning and advisory services company, MoCoM Ltd.

Until recently, he was a New Zealand Rugby Union board member and has been involved in several Treaty of Waitangi settlement negotiations between Maori and the forestry industry.

With so much success in business and sports, Mr Quinn said he never had any predetermined views about entering politics.

What drove him to become an MP was his frustration with the previous Labour government.

One of the things bothering him was the way Treaty of Waitangi settlements were being processed slowly.

Having a lot of experience in Treaty settlement issues, Mr Quinn said he thought he could contribute to the task effectively.

“My approach to things is that rather than sit on the sidelines and criticise, you should roll up your sleeves and put your best foot forward.”

After working in Parliament for almost a year now, Mr Quinn said political parties were like sports teams. Each party member needed to play their part to their best for their team to win.

Mr Quinn is currently a member in the Maori Affairs Committee and Justice and Electoral Committee at Parliament.

He has been married for more than 10 years and lives in Wellington.

INDEX QUESTIONS

1. What is your view on the decision taken by the Government in relation to the smacking referendum in terms of what it says about NZ democracy?
“The issue is that under our constitution, referenda are not binding and the PM had made his position very clear during the election campaign. It wasn’t his intention to change the law unless it could be proved that it wasn’t working and National is of the view that it is working.
Yes, over a million people signed the petition, but then 2.5 million didn’t, so we’ll see.
In the end you have a referendum every three years through an election. The truth is that you elect a government to govern, and if you don’t like them, you don’t vote for them next time around.”

2. What is your view on the merits of MMP vs FPP? Should there be another referendum on the subject and what is your preferred outcome?
“My understanding is that there will be another referendum on it. I think [MMP] could be tweaked. The concept of having list MPs or non-constituent MPs is quite a good idea, particularly to provide a broader profile of our society. Whether you need 120 in total is an issue. Could the representation be better, so that you could have 100 MPs, say. But I think that the big thing from my point of view is the thresholds. If you get 5% in Parliament or if you get one seat. [For example] Rodney Hide got less votes than NZ First, but because [Mr Hide] won a constituent seat there are four or five members in ACT, and I think there are two questions to ask there. One is, if you get one constituent seat and 3% of the vote, should you get another two or four MPs. The other question to ask is whether a 5% threshold is too low or too high. I personally think it’s too low because you can end up with a situation where the tail is wagging the dog. For instance, the Greens and Labour having to follow a Greens agenda.”

3. Name a dream team of seven members of Parliament - people who you think exemplify how an MP should conduct him/herself.
John Key, National Party
Chris Tremain, National Party
Nicky Wagner, National Party
David Parker, Labour Party
Maryan Street, Labour Party
George Hawkins, Labour Party
Hone Harawira, Maori Party

Agnes Ginestet and Motoko Kakubayashi are journalism students at Massey University

ENDS

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