Andrew Bayly

Andrew Henry Bayly (born 1962) is a New Zealand businessman, adventurer, and politician. He was elected to the New Zealand Parliament at the 2014 general election as the MP for Hunua, representing the New Zealand National Party. He is currently the MP for Port Waikato.

He was Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Minister of Statistics, and Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing in the Sixth National Government. He resigned his ministerial portfolios in February 2025 after he physically touched a staff member during an argument.

Early life and family

Bayly was born in Whanganui and has a twin brother. He attended Wanganui Collegiate School and graduated with a degree in accounting and finance from Massey University. He was a merchant banker and is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, the NZ Institute of Management, the NZ Chartered Institute of Corporate Management, and the UK Chartered Association of Certified Accountants.

In the 1970s, while a student, Bayly accidentally shot his brother in the leg while climbing a fence with a gun. While his brother was left with heavy scarring, his leg was saved.

Bayly was an officer in the New Zealand Army Territorials and also served in the British Parachute Regiment. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London.

Bayly is married and has three children.

Business career

Bayly worked as a merchant banker, founding the Cranleigh firm with his brother Paul, where he offered corporate advisory and capital markets advice to a range of government entities, local authorities and corporate clients. Cranleigh has offices in New Zealand, Australia and Singapore.

He was a director of numerous companies, the chair of the board of New Zealand Financial Planning and a trustee of the Enterprise Franklin Development Trust, the economic development arm of the Franklin Council.

Bayly is a former director o
Envirofert
an organic compost product company that received the prestigious “Green Ribbon Award” in 2010 for making an outstanding contribution to protecting the environment. Envirofert receives around 40,000 tonnes of green waste and building products every year, and turns most of it into beneficial products, including compost and gypsum.

Adventurer

Bayly had a long career in adventure racing, including competing in three Coast to Coast events, marathons and Ironman events. He is a mountaineer and has climbed Aoraki / Mount Cook, Mount Aspiring / Tititea, and four mountains in Antarctica, including Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. In the summer of 2012/13, he dragged a sled to the South Pole. In 2016, he and one of his children dragged sledges to the North Pole, raising $10,000 for the Kōkako Recovery Programme in the Hunua Ranges.

In January 2019, Bayly and one of his children spent a month on a guided trek of across Jordan on camels, retracing the routes of Lawrence of Arabia when he worked with Arab forces during the First World War, as described in his book, ''Seven Pillars of Wisdom''. Traveling and eating with some Bedouin, Bayly was able to confirm a number of the claims made by Lawrence. However, Bayly disputed Lawrence’s claim that he could ride his camels up to 80 to 120 miles a day. Taking into account the time involved in collecting firewood and cooking and time for prayers, Bayly’s experience was that a fully laden camel could ably cover up to in a day, but only for a few days at most. Bayly’s article about their experience was published in the T. E. Lawrence Society journal, August 2019 edition.

In late December 2022, Bayly travelled to the northernmost province of Mongolia with one of his children to spend time with the Dukha people, one of the last groups of nomadic reindeer herders in the world. They spent two weeks living with a Dukha family, riding reindeer a day, herding the reindeer and protecting them from attacks by wolves. One of the aims of the trip was to raise awareness of the Dukha and the precarious nature of their lives. Climate change has adversely affected the terrain inhabited by the Dukha and has led to a decline in reindeer herds. Given the harsh realities of their life and the reducing herds, the Dukha are unlikely to continue their nomadic way of life, and the tradition is likely to die over the next couple of decades. Bayly engaged a New Zealand film producer and arranged for a Mongolian cameraman to accompany them to record the trip, with a view to making a documentary that will eventually be promoted overseas.

Political career

In Government, 2014–2017

Bayly was elected to Parliament at the 2014 general election, as the National MP for Hunua with a majority of 17,376 votes. He replaced Paul Hutchison who retired. He had the fourth highest majority of all electorate seats in New Zealand. During the 51st New Zealand Parliament, Bayly served as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, as deputy chair of the Regulations Review Committee, and as chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee.

In September 2016, Bayly proposed a private member's bill to Parliament that would give landlords more power to test and remedy their rental properties of dangerous levels of methamphetamine contamination. The bill would have placed an obligation on the landlord to provide rental accommodation free of methamphetamine contamination while giving them more power to confront the problem in their properties. While it was not selected for introduction, a similar bill was introduced by the National Government in 2017 and was later passed unanimously by Parliament under the Labour Government in 2019.

Bayly also successfully steered the Arbitration Amendment Bill through Parliament which passed through the House unanimously and which significantly enhanced arbitration proceedings and how they are conducted in New Zealand.

In Opposition, 2017–2023

At the 2017 general election, Bayly retained Hunua by a margin of 19,443 votes. However, National did not win the election. Bayly held various party spokesperson roles under National's four leadership configurations that term. These included building regulation under Bill English; revenue, building and construction under Simon Bridges; revenue, commerce, and state-owned enterprises under Todd Muller and Judith Collins. He was also an associate finance spokesperson under the final three leaders. In the 2017–2020 term, Bayly continued as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

In September 2019, Bayly was ejected from Parliament for attempting to disrupt Parliamentary proceedings during his questioning of Housing Minister Megan Woods about the Ihumātao dispute.

For the 2020 general election, Bayly's electorate of Hunua was disestablished. A new electorate, Port Waikato, comprising part of the old Hunua electorate and part of the old Waikato electorate, was created. Bayly contested Port Waikato and was re-elected by a margin of 4,313 votes.

Bayly was regarded as a "close ally" to National leader Judith Collins. When she reshuffled her shadow cabinet on 11 November 2020 and promoted Bayly to third rank with the positions of shadow treasurer (senior to the finance spokesperson Michael Woodhouse) and National Party spokesperson for infrastructure and statistics. This was a promotion of 14 places in National's shadow cabinet, and Bayly was described by reporters as the "big winner" in the reshuffle, but also as "relatively unknown" and "little-known." Some media comment focussed on Bayly's title of shadow treasurer, despite there being no person in the Government with the role of Treasurer to shadow, although Collins suggested re-establishing that role if National were to win the next general election. Bayly was given responsibility for revenue policy, budget preparation and review, monetary policy, KiwiSaver and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. However, Bayly was criticised for being "invisible" and ineffective.

On 10 November 2021, the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill was passed. This was a member's bill in Bayly’s name, although it had been introduced by former New Zealand First MP Mark Patterson in the previous term of Parliament. The bill changes the criteria for New Zealand superannuation so that older migrants, and New Zealanders who spent large portions of their lives overseas, must wait longer to qualify.

Following the appointment of Christopher Luxon as party leader on 30 November 2021 and a subsequent reshuffle of the shadow cabinet in early December, Bayly was demoted to 15th position and given responsibility for revenue, small business, commerce and consumer affairs, building and construction, and manufacturing.

In Government, 2023–present

Bayly contested Port Waikato in the October 2023 general election, but the electorate vote was postponed to a by-election in November after another candidate died. In the interim, Bayly was elected as a list MP. He won the by-election with a margin of 11,432 votes over New Zealand First candidate Casey Costello.

In the Sixth National Government, which formed during the by-election period, Bayly was appointed as a minister outside Cabinet with responsibility for commerce and consumer affairs, statistics, and small business and manufacturing.

In October 2024 Bayly apologised after telling a worker at an export business he had visited to "take some wine and fuck off", and calling him a "loser". The worker wrote a formal letter of complaint after the incident. Bayly described his behaviour at the visit as "unbecoming of a government minister", and denied being intoxicated.

Following a cabinet reshuffle on 19 January 2025, Bayly became the Minister responsible for the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). He continued as commerce minister, but lost responsibility for statistics and small business and manufacturing.

In February 2025, Bayly resigned as a Minister after an "animated discussion" where he placed his hand on a staff member's upper arm. He issued a public apology for his actions. Bayly's commerce and ACC portfolios were assumed by fellow National MP Scott Simpson. While Prime Minister Christopher Luxon defended the National Party's handling of the incident, Labour leader Chris Hipkins criticised Luxon's perceived slow response to an earlier bullying incident in 2024.

On 5 March 2025, Bayly was granted retention of the title ''The Honourable'', in recognition of his term as a member of the Executive Council. On 10 March, Radio New Zealand reported that Bayly had taken two weeks' leave from Parliament to trek to Mount Everest's base camp in Nepal. A spokesperson for Luxon stated it was rare for National to grant personal leave while Parliament was sitting, with requests being considered on a case-by-case basis. Bayly returned to Parliament at the end of March and in April was appointed the chair of the Justice committee.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bayly, Andrew
1962 births
Living people
New Zealand National Party MPs
Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives
New Zealand MPs for North Island electorates
New Zealand Army officers
People educated at Whanganui Collegiate School
British Parachute Regiment soldiers
New Zealand bankers
New Zealand accountants
Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society
Candidates in the 2014 New Zealand general election
Candidates in the 2017 New Zealand general election
Candidates in the 2020 New Zealand general election
Candidates in the 2023 New Zealand general election
People from Whanganui
New Zealand list MPs
Government ministers of New Zealand