Member of Parliament
| Parliament of New Zealand | ||||
| Years | Term | Electorate | List | Party |
| 1990–93 | 43rd | Waitaki | National | |
| 1993–96 | 44th | Waitaki | National | |
| 1999–99 | 45th | List | 31 | National |
| 2001–02 | 46th | List | 26 | National |
He was first elected to parliament in the 1990 elections as MP for Waitaki, and was re-elected in the 1993 elections. He chaired parliament's Planning and Development Select Committee, which oversaw the passing of the Resource Management Act 1991. He also chaired parliament's Justice and Law Reform Select Committee. In the 1996 elections, however,in 1996 with the introduction of MMP to New Zealand the seat of Waitaki was dissolved.Neill did not win selection for the seat of Otago then held by the Hon. Warren Cooper and so stood only as a list candidate on the National Party list. In the first MMP elections he narrowly missed out on entering Parliament as a list MP.
In 1999, Paul East resigned from Parliament to take up a diplomatic post, and as Neill was the next candidate on National's list, he was brought into parliament as a replacement. Soon afterwards, however, Neill lost his seat in the 1999 elections, where he once again fell just below the cut-off. In 2001, Simon Upton resigned, and Neill was again the next candidate on the National Party list, allowing him to return to parliament.He was appointed as junior whip in the Hon. Jenny Shipley leadership period.In October 2002 the Hon. Bill English replaced Shipley as the leader of the National Party. Neill offered his resignation as whip and was appointed by English as National's spokesperson for Local Government. In 2002 he wrote National's manifeto's for Local Government, RMA Reforms and Conservation.
In the 2002 elections, Neill was highly placed on the National Party's list. However, English as the new leader of the National Party and Leader of the Opposition failed to improve the party's performance or ratings. In the 2002 elections, National suffered its worst electoral defeat ever, gaining barely more than twenty percent of the vote. Both party insiders and the general public were split as to how much to blame English for this loss, but Neill was a victim of this disastrous election result and lost his seat again — this time, however, he was substantially below the cut-off, and therefore was not called on to replace another departing list MP during the 2002/05 term. He did not stand in the 2005 elections.
Read more about this topic: Alec Neill
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