Pamela Corkery (born 1956) is a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

journalist, broadcaster, and former politician who served one term (1996–1999) as a member of

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

for the

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

Alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or sovereign state, states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an a ...

party.

Private life

Corkery (née Mc Nutt) was born in the

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

, and grew up in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

. She has been married three times, and has two children.

Member of Parliament

A well-known journalist and talk-back host in

, she first entered politics standing as an independent candidate for the Auckland mayoralty in 1995. She then became a high-profile parliamentary candidate for the

party, and was elected to Parliament as a

list MP A list MP is a member of parliament (MP) elected from a party list rather than a geographic electoral district. The place in Parliament is due to the number of votes the party won, not to votes received by the MP personally. This occurs only in ...

in the 1996 election. She left Parliament in 1999 after one term. In her 1999 book ''Pam's Political Confessions'', she wrote, "Politicians are, by and large, far more self-deluding, devious, bloated, insecure, egocentric wankers than I had feared." (p. 9).

Professional career

After leaving Parliament, she returned to her work as a

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

, and talk-back host at

Radio Pacific Trackside (previously known as TAB Trackside) is a New Zealand horse racing and sports broadcast network, incorporating two free-to-air television channels. The TV channels are available on Sky (New Zealand), Sky as well as Freeview (New Zealan ...

. Corkery presented the live interview show ''The Last Word'' on TV One from March 2003 until the show was cancelled in September 2003. She appeared in a 2008 episode of the TV travelogue '' Intrepid Journeys'', being shot at point-blank range with a 9 mm pistol, while wearing a

ballistic vest A bulletproof vest, also known as a ballistic vest or bullet-resistant vest, is a type of body armor designed to absorb impact and prevent the penetration of firearm projectiles and Fragmentation (weaponry), explosion fragments to the torso. The ...

in Colombia. She has fronted two documentaries for the TV3 show ''Inside New Zealand'', looking at the nation's gangs. For ''The Gangs'', which aired in 2008, she spent 18 months with the gangs, including filming an operating

methamphetamine Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug use, recreational or Performance-enhancing substance, performance-enhancing drug and less commonly as a secon ...

lab. The second documentary ''The Truth about Asian Crime'' aired in 2009; police cancelled interviews planned for the programme, saying they believed Corkery had a conflict of interest. With business partner Rebekah Hay, she announced in 2010 that she would be opening Pammy's, "the world's first legal bordello ..exclusively for female clients". The Auckland bordello ran an ad in ''

The New Zealand Herald ''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation in New Zealand, ...

'' offering NZ$240 an hour for male

prostitutes Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-p ...

. Her application for a resource consent was withdrawn in April 2011.

Internet Party

In May 2014, Corkery was hired as the press secretary to Laila Harré, the leader of the newly established Internet Party. During the 2014 general election campaign, Corkery labelled a journalist a "puffed-up little shit" at the campaign launch for the Internet Party on 25 August 2014. The comments were made in reaction to requests by journalists for interviews with party founder

Kim Dotcom Kim Dotcom (né Schmitz; born 21 January 1974), also known as Kimble and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, is a Finnish-German Internet entrepreneur and political activist who lives in Glenorchy, New Zealand. He rose to fame in Germany in the 1990s as a ha ...

about comments he had made suggesting he had hacked a German credit rating system. Following the 2014 election, despite no formal announcement of her resignation from the role as press secretary, Corkery has not engaged with the Internet Party publicly, and returned to occasional editorial pieces with the ''New Zealand Herald'' and other media services.

References

External links