Former NZ First MP Tracey Martin reveals election defeat relief

Former NZ First deputy leader Tracey Martin has revealed her relief at the party failing to get back into Parliament in 2020 because it saved her having to quit.

In an exclusive interview on Q+A with Jack Tame, Martin said the party she joined in 2008 had shifted away from what she was comfortable with being connected to.

“The policy places that were coming out of caucus – and they were majority caucus decisions so you stand by them – but they no longer represented or made me feel comfortable,” Martin said.

“In one way it was lucky for me that NZ First didn’t get back, because I was finding myself in a really tricky spot. If we had got back into Parliament I’m not sure that the direction they were taking with decisions I could have maintained.”

Martin was one of the architects of NZ First’s return to Parliament in 2011, and the party spent two terms in opposition before joining a coalition with Labour in 2017, supported by the Greens.

She maintained NZ First made the right decision to go with Labour rather than National, but acknowledged that she was much closer to Labour politically than many of her caucus colleagues.

Martin said “if I didn’t feel I could shift the conversations within caucus”, she would have quit, rather than crossing the floor and joining Labour.

“Nobody elected me there – they elected NZ First there, and I just happened to be on that ticket,” said Martin, who served as a list MP.

That echoed a controversial law change NZ First got through the coalition – the so-called ‘waka-jumping’ bill – which meant MPs who tried to switch parties could be removed from Parliament by their party leaders.

On the future of NZ First, Martin resigned her party membership and believed the direction of the party was out of step with the direction of the country.

She also has a bet on their future electoral prospects with former colleague Ron Mark, who believed the party would get back into Parliament in 2023.

Martin is currently a board member for Waka Kotahi, is the chair of NZQA, and led the working group on public media. In her spare time, she is writing a romance novel.