Member of Parliament
| Parliament of New Zealand | ||||
| Years | Term | Electorate | List | Party |
| 1990–1991 | 43rd | Roskill | National | |
| 1991–1992 | 43rd | Roskill | Independent | |
| 1992–1993 | Changed allegiance to: | Liberal | ||
| 1993 | Changed allegiance to: | NZ First | ||
| 1999–1999 | 45th | List | 10 | NZ First |
He was elected to Parliament for the seat of Roskill in the 1990 elections as part of the New Zealand National Party, a previously safe-seat of the previously ruling Labour Party, largely on a platform of opposition to the of the "Rogernomics" economic reforms that had occurred during the 1980s in New Zealand. He openly identified with the pro-interventionist 'Muldoonist' faction of the National Party, once saying "I joined the National Party because of Sir Robert Muldoon". His campaign slogan was "Let's rescue Roskill".
Myles, however, quickly fell out with the leadership of the National Party (that had simultaneously become the Government) due to the party's own swing toward privatisation and the slashing of the Government's expenditure on social policy enthusiastically implemented by Finance Minister Ruth Richardson (see Ruthanasia). His disgust with the continuation of these reforms by Prime Minister Jim Bolger led to his identification with the rebels within the National Party, like Michael Laws and Winston Peters, who together had major confrontations with the dominant neo-liberals within the party's relatively gargantuan Caucus.
Read more about this topic: Gilbert Myles
Famous quotes containing the words member of, member and/or parliament:
“We live in a highly industrialized society and every member of the Black nation must be as academically and technologically developed as possible. To wage a revolution, we need competent teachers, doctors, nurses, electronics experts, chemists, biologists, physicists, political scientists, and so on and so forth. Black women sitting at home reading bedtime stories to their children are just not going to make it.”
—Frances Beale, African American feminist and civil rights activist. The Black Woman, ch. 14 (1970)
“He was a tough, burly thick-headed gentleman, with a loud voice, a pompous manner, a tolerable command of sentences with no meaning in them, and, in short, every requisite for a very good member indeed.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“What is the historical function of Parliament in this country? It is to prevent the Government from governing.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)