Jo Moir
Political editor
Harete
Hipango-Brownlie is the latest in a string of former
politicians to announce they’re running for New Zealand
First at this year’s election.
Once a National MP, she
won the New Zealand First candidacy for the Whanganui
electorate on Wednesday night – there were no other
nominations for the seat.
Speaking to RNZ,
Hipango-Brownlie said she felt the values of New Zealand
First aligned best with hers, which was something she began
to realise when she was still serving as an MP for National
during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It really was during
that time that things started to resonate with me that this
wasn’t sitting comfortably, not only with me but a good part
of New Zealand and New Zealanders, what we went through
during that mandated period and divisiveness and seeing the
undermining of democracy.”
“I took the view that
political parties and leadership at that time could have
stood up and spoken up more for New Zealanders, and I was
suitably impressed even though he was out of Parliament at
the time, seeing leadership on the ground there with Winston
Peters getting out amongst the people,” she told
RNZ.
She previously held the Whanganui seat from 2017
to 2020, returning to Parliament on the list in May 2021
after the resignation
of Nick Smith.
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At the 2023 election she contested
Te Tai Hauāuru – the first National MP to contest a Māori
seat since the 2002 election – but finished third behind Te
Pāti Māori’s Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Labour’s Soraya
Peke-Mason.
She announced her switch of party
allegiance when
she attended the New Zealand First convention as a
member in Palmerston North last year.
Hipango-Brownlie
joins other former MPs Stuart Nash, Alfred Ngaro, and
Michael Laws, who have all announced in recent months they
are contesting the election for the Winston Peters-led party
after previously holding seats in Parliament with Labour and
National.
New Zealand First has described
Hipango-Brownlie as “another great addition” to the
team.
A spokesperson for the party told RNZ, “Harete
brings a lot of experience as a former MP having previously
held the Whanganui seat, in addition to her extensive
experience across law, health, governance, and public
policy”.
Hipango-Brownlie said the divisiveness
“that’s been perpetrated through some of the political
parties” in recent years was growing tired for many New
Zealanders.
“There can be a fusion of the different
values that we have to make us stronger and better. So,
that’s why I’ve been drawn to New Zealand First. I think
it’s very much important that there’s opportunity for
everybody.”
Hipango-Brownlie – a lawyer of more than
three decades – remains close to former National Party
leader and minister Judith Collins, returning to Parliament
in May for her valedictory speech and farewell
party.
Collins was the only person from her former
party that she gave a heads-up that she was running for New
Zealand First, which she said was out of
“respect”.
She said she didn’t feel obliged to talk to
anybody else because she could see the “writing was on the
wall” when she left Parliament in 2023.
“So I didn’t
feel that I had any sense of obligation to the National
Party. I think in the same way that I sensed that, they
didn’t have any towards me after the election outcome
results.”
Hipango-Brownlie said the National’s Party
traditional core values they once held “had left many of
us”.
Her re-entry to politics in 2021, under Collins’
leadership, raised eyebrows in the National Party caucus at
the time with several MPs describing her as more hindrance
than help to the party.
One MP described her as
someone who “sailed her own waka”.
Responding to that
last year at the New Zealand First convention,
Hipango-Brownlie told RNZ her colleagues’ comments and
concerns about her had not driven her away from
National.
“Not at all. Not at all. What prompted me to
be here … is that New Zealand First, I think, is
resonating the general feel of New Zealanders,” she
said.
“I was criticised generally. All politicians are
criticised and open to publicly fodder and feed – no sooner
was I in here than I got sent an article on New Zealand
First, so couple of pot shots still being taken – goes with
the territory.”
In the past Hipango-Brownlie has
courted controversy when in 2022 she asked a staffer
to edit her Wikipedia page online after seeing material
she considered false and distressing to her family.
A
year earlier she came under fire for attending a Voices for
Freedom anti-vaccination
rally.
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