Product Code Database
Anne Merrilyn Tolley (née Hicks; born 1 March 1953) is a New Zealand politician.
Tolley was elected as a member of the Napier City Council in 1986 and served as deputy mayor from 1989 until 1995. In 1999 she was elected to Parliament as a list MP representing the National Party. She was unseated in 2002 but returned in 2005 as the new East Coast MP. Between 2008 and 2017 she was a senior minister in the Fifth National Government, holding the offices of Minister of Education, Minister of Social Development, Minister of Corrections, Minister of Police and Minister of Local Government. She established Oranga Tamariki and was the first Minister for Children from 2016 to 2017.
She was Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2017 to 2020. In 2021 she was appointed chair of the commission overseeing the Tauranga City Council.
While on Napier City Council, Tolley was involved in the establishment of a local-authority trading enterprise to run Marineland and the Napier Aquarium, the Emerson Street redevelopment project, and the redevelopment of McLean Park. She sought re-election in the 1995 local elections, but was defeated.
In her first term, Tolley sat on the governance and administration committee and served as the National Party spokesperson for early childhood education and women's affairs. In 2000, her members bill—the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Prohibition of Child Pornography) Amendment Bill—was introduced. The bill responded to, and sought to overturn, the Court of Appeal's decision on Moonen v Film and Literature Board of Review, which had found that the right to freedom of expression in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 held even in the Film and Literature Board of Review's consideration of photographs depicting children in sexualised poses. The bill was eventually voted down because the government did not consider Moonen to sanction child pornography. Issues around censorship were progressed soon after through an inquiry into the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 and a government amendment passed in 2005.
In the 2002 election, she unsuccessfully contested the Napier seat against Braybrooke's successor, Russell Fairbrother. Along with many other National MPs, Tolley did not escape the collapse of the party's vote that year, and so did not return to Parliament as a list MP. She did return at the 2005 general election, having won the East Coast electorate over Labour candidate Moana Mackey, daughter of the previous East Coast MP Janet Mackey. She held the electorate at the four subsequent elections.
She served as the first woman National Party whip from December 2006 until February 2008 when she became the party's education spokesperson. When National won the 2008 general election, she became the first woman Minister of Education. She continued in senior roles in the Fifth National Government until its defeat in 2017 and thereafter became Deputy Speaker. In that role, she chaired a cross-party steering group steering group to develop a parliamentary code of conduct, as an outcome of an independent review into bullying and harassment in the parliamentary workplace. This occurred after interrupting Youth MP Lily Dorrance's speech at the 2022 Youth Parliament, leaving Dorrance "humiliated", which Tolley said made her "all the more aware of the issues".
At the end of 2019, Tolley declared her intention to run as a list-only candidate in the 2020 general election in hope of being able to be appointed Speaker of the House if National were able to form a government. She was succeeded as National's candidate for the East Coast electorate by Rotorua District Councillor Tania Tapsell. However, in June 2020, with National polling poorly, Tolley announced that she would instead retire at the 2020 election. She gave her valedictory statement on 23 July 2020.
In June 2010, Tolley expressed concerns about a Parliamentary Library research paper that was critical of National Standards, calling it "unprofessional", "highly political" and so biased it could have been written by the union opposing the policy. Such papers are required by the Parliamentary Library to be politically neutral. A month later the New Zealand Principals Federation voted to support regional associations which boycotted training for National Standards. Tolley reminded principals that in her view it would be quicker and give better results to contact herself or the Ministry of Education with concerns about the changes, than to speak through the media.
The stand-off between Tolley and teachers was embarrassing for the Government and resulted in Cabinet changes after National was re-elected in November 2011. Hekia Parata was made Education Minister while Tolley was demoted in the Cabinet rankings, becoming Minister of Corrections and Police, succeeding Judith Collins who was promoted to Minister of Justice.
In June 2012, Tolley as Police Minister was responsible for crushing the first "boy racer" car under the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Act.
From September to December 2016, Tolley had an additional appointment as Minister for Youth. On 20 December 2016 she became the Minister for Children and the Minister of Local Government and held these roles, along with Minister of Social Development, until the Government was defeated at the 2017 general election.
Along with former state services minister Paula Bennett, Tolley was accused by New Zealand First party leader Winston Peters in 2017 of leaking information about his incorrectly filed superannuation application. Tolley admitted having told her sister of the situation before it was reported by media, but was not found to have alerted media.
|-
|-
|-
|-
|
|
