Political Career
| Parliament of New Zealand | ||||
| Years | Term | Electorate | List | Party |
| 1990–1993 | 43rd | Te Atatu | National | |
| 1993–1996 | 44th | Waitakere | National | |
| 1996–1999 | 45th | Waipareira | 35 | National |
| 1999–2002 | 46th | Waitakere | 34 | National |
Neeson represented a number of West Auckland electorates in his career, with frequent boundary changes meaning that he never ran in any electorate as an incumbent. He was first elected to Parliament in the 1990 election as MP for the Te Atatu seat, and in the 1993 elections, he successfully contested the Waitakere seat. In the 1996 elections, he successfully contested the Waipareira seat, and in the 1999 elections, he contested the Waitakere seat once again.
In the 2002 elections, he sought the National Party nomination for the new seat of Helensville, which had absorbed most of the Waitakere electorate. However, he was controversially defeated for selection by John Key, a new candidate. Neeson considered his non-selection to be a betrayal, believing that National Party president Michelle Boag had deliberately engineered his defeat in order to further her "rejuvenation" of the party. Neeson quit the National Party and stood as an independent, but placed third.
Read more about this topic: Brian Neeson
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or career:
“In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)