Penelope Mary Bright (8 September 1954 – 4 October 2018) was a New Zealand activist who protested for increased government transparency, against the

1981 Springbok tour The 1981 South African rugby tour (known in New Zealand as the 1981 Springbok Tour, and in South Africa as the Rebel Tour) polarised opinions and inspired widespread protests across New Zealand. The controversy also extended to the United State ...

, and for other

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 ...

issues.

Biography

Bright studied at

Kuranui College Kuranui College is a State school, state Mixed-sex education, co-educational secondary school, secondary day school for the South Wairarapa located in Greytown, New Zealand. The college opened in February 1960 to replace the four district high ...

, and organised

Halt All Racist Tours Halt All Racist Tours (HART) was a protest group set up in New Zealand in 1969 to protest against rugby union tours to and from South Africa. Founding member Trevor Richards served as president for its first 10 years, with fellow founding member ...

while she was a high school student. Following high school, Bright worked as a sheet-metal welder and as a welding tutor at

Manukau Manukau (), or Manukau Central, is a suburb of South Auckland, New Zealand, centred on the Manukau City Centre business district. It is located 23 kilometres south of the Auckland Central Business District, west of the Southern Motorway, ...

Polytechnic. In 1998, Bright and others founded the Water Pressure Group. The Water Pressure Group was formed to challenge Auckland City Council's water company Metrowater and its use of

user pays User pays, or beneficiary pays, is a pricing approach based on the idea that the most efficient allocation (and consumption) of resources occurs when consumers pay the full cost of the goods that they consume. In public finance it stands in oppo ...

charges. In 2000, Bright and the Water Pressure Group attempted to hose the Bolivian embassy in

Remuera Remuera is an affluent suburb in Auckland, New Zealand. It is located four kilometres southeast of the city centre. Remuera is characterised by many large houses, often Edwardian era, Edwardian or mid 20th century. A prime example of a "leafy ...

using a vintage firetruck in protest against locked-out workers in

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

. Bright was arrested multiple times during her time as an activist, and by 2010 she had been arrested 22 times. Two notable arrests were when she was forcibly removed from two different

Auckland City Council Auckland City Council was the local government authority for Auckland City, New Zealand, from 1989 to 1 November 2010, when it and Auckland's six other city and district councils were amalgamated to form the Auckland Council. It was an elec ...

meeting by then mayors John Banks and

Dick Hubbard Richard John Hubbard (born 18 November 1946) is a New Zealand businessman and politician, founder and former principal of Hubbard Foods in Auckland, and mayor of Auckland City from 2004 to 2007. He was elected mayor of Auckland City on 9 Octob ...

. Bright received considerable media coverage for her use of the Privacy Act and Official Information Act, under which she filed many requests, particularly about how the different Auckland territorial and unitary authorities (e.g.,

Auckland Council Auckland Council () is the local government council for the Auckland Region in New Zealand. It is a territorial authority that also has the responsibilities, duties and powers of a regional council and so is a unitary authority, according to t ...

) spent money, and about their relationship with private business. In 2007, Bright stopped paying the rates on her house in Kingsland as a protest against what she perceived to be corruption in Auckland Council. In 2018, the

Auckland High Court The Auckland High Court is a Gothic Revival courthouse in central Auckland, New Zealand. It is one of three locations nationwide used by the High Court of New Zealand. It is registered as a Category I heritage building by Heritage New Zealand. ...

ordered the sale of Bright's house to recoup the missing rates and legal fees of $90,000. In 2018, Bright resolved the outstanding debts by agreeing to a rates postponement. In

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

and

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

, Bright was a candidate for the Auckland mayoralty. Bright was also a candidate for the

2017 Mount Albert by-election The 2017 Mount Albert by-election was a New Zealand by-election held in the electorate on 25 February 2017 during the 51st New Zealand Parliament. The seat was vacated following the resignation of David Shearer, a former Leader of the New Zeal ...

. Her best electoral showing was in a 2000 by-election for the Avondale/Roskill Ward of the

, in which Bright finished a close second with 31.61% of the vote, beating the

City Vision City Vision is a centre-left coalition of two political parties, the New Zealand Labour Party and the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, and community independents who contest Auckland Council (and previously Auckland City and Auckland Regiona ...

candidate into third place. In May 2018, Bright announced she had inoperable and incurable ovarian cancer. Bright died on 4 October 2018, aged 64.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bright, Penny 1954 births 2018 deaths New Zealand activists Activists from Auckland New Zealand political candidates Independent politicians in New Zealand Deaths from ovarian cancer People educated at Kuranui College