Moana Lynore Mackey (born 28 February 1974) is a New Zealand politician and has represented the

New Zealand Labour Party The New Zealand Labour Party, also known simply as Labour (), is a Centre-left politics, centre-left political party in New Zealand. The party's platform programme describes its founding principle as democratic socialism, while observers descri ...

in the

New Zealand Parliament The New Zealand Parliament () is the unicameral legislature of New Zealand, consisting of the Monarchy of New Zealand, Sovereign and the New Zealand House of Representatives. The King is usually represented by his Governor-General of New Zeal ...

from 2003 until 2014. She has

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

, Irish,

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

ancestry.

Early life and career

Born in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

, New Zealand, and raised in Gisborne, Mackey attended Mangapapa Primary School, Ilminster Intermediate and

Lytton High School Lytton High School is a co-educational state secondary school in Gisborne, New Zealand for students in Years 9 to 13. History Gisborne High School was the first and only state secondary school in Gisborne between 1909 and 1955. It was a co-edu ...

. While in

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

, Mackey would participate in Young Labour, the New Zealand Youth Orchestra and

Youth Parliament Youth councils, also known as youth cabinets, youth assemblies or youth parliaments, are a form of youth voice engaged in community decision-making. They are appointed or elected bodies that exist on local, state, provincial, regional, national, ...

. After leaving high school, she attended

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public university, public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of New Zealand Parliament, Parliament, and w ...

from 1993, graduating with a degree in

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

and

molecular biology Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactio ...

. Remaining in the Wellington area, she worked as a

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

, leading a team at an environmental laboratory in

Lower Hutt Lower Hutt () is a list of cities in New Zealand, city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. Administered by the Hutt City Council, it is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington#Wellington metropolitan area, Wellington metropoli ...

and from 2001 to 2004 was a member of the

Petone Community Board Petone (Māori: ''Pito-one'') is a large suburb of Lower Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand. It stands at the southern end of the Hutt Valley, on the northern shore of Wellington Harbour. Europeans first settled in Petone in January 1840, making it ...

. From 1999 to 2000, Moana Mackey served as President of Young Labour. She also worked in the

Trade Union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

movement.

Member of Parliament

Mackey entered Parliament on 29 July 2003 through the Labour

party list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can c ...

after Graham Kelly vacated his list seat. Her mother,

Janet Mackey Janet Elsdon Mackey (née Craig; 14 June 1953 – 22 July 2024) was a New Zealand politician. She was a Member of the New Zealand Parliament for the New Zealand Labour Party, Labour Party from 1993 until 2005. Early life and family Mackey was ...

, also sat as a Labour MP until 2005 – the two formed the first mother-daughter pair in New Zealand parliamentary history. In the election that year, Janet Mackey retired from politics, and Moana Mackey contested but lost the East Coast electorate seat (formerly held by her mother) to National Party candidate,

Anne Tolley 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 l ...

by 1,219 votes. However, she returned to Parliament as a List MP. Mackey unsuccessfully contested East Coast again in the 2008 general election, losing to Tolley by 6,413 votes. Mackey again returned to Parliament as a list MP for the Labour Party. Mackey was not placed high enough on Labour's list to return to Parliament following the election to be allocated a seat following a drop in support for Labour. In February 2017, Labour list MP

Jacinda Ardern Dame Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern ( ; born 26 July 1980) is a New Zealand politician and activist who was the 40th prime minister of New Zealand and Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party, leader of the Labour Party from 2017 to 2023. She was ...

won the 2017 Mount Albert by-election, which allowed the party to bring a new list MP to parliament. Mackey was the second-highest ranked Labour candidate not to enter parliament at the 2014 election. The person higher,

Maryan Street Maryan Street (born 5 April 1955) is a New Zealand unionist, academic and former politician. She was president of the New Zealand Labour Party from 1993 to 1995 and a Labour Party list member of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 200 ...

, announced she would decline the chance to return to Parliament. Mackey likewise declined the option to re-enter Parliament.

Post politics

Since 2015 Mackey has been employed in several advisory roles in

Wellington City Council Wellington City Council is a Territorial authorities of New Zealand, territorial authority in New Zealand, governing the city of Wellington, the country's capital city and List of cities in New Zealand#City councils, third-largest city by popul ...

's city planning team.

Early life and career

Member of Parliament

Post politics

Notes

References

Further reading