In the, Jones was elected MP for Waitemata, standing as a National Party candidate. As such Dail Jones was the first person from Pakistan to become a New Zealand Member of Parliament. In the following election, the Waitemata seat was abolished, and Jones was elected as the MP for Helensville. He retained this electorate until the 1984 election, when Helensville electorate was abolished. Jones contested the new electorate, but was defeated by the Labour Party candidate, Jack Elder. Jones was Junior Whip for National in 1979. From April 1982 to June 1984, Jones was Deputy Chairman of Committees. Jones is known as one of the few New Zealand MPs to have been injured in a politically motivated attack; in 1980, while serving as a National Party MP, he was stabbed in the chest by an elderly constituent in his electorate office leaving him with a punctured lung. The assailant, Ambrose Tindall, was obsessed about a traffic ticket totaling $15.
Considerably later, in the, Jones returned to Parliament as a list MP for the New Zealand First party, which had been established during Jones' time outside Parliament. He was ranked in tenth place on the New Zealand First list. He was New Zealand First spokesperson on foreign affairs, trade, customs, the courts, and the attorney-general's role. He lost his seat in the, when he was again tenth on the party list. He was elected President of New Zealand First when Doug Woolerton resigned. More recently, there have been frictions between Jones, Doug Woolerton and New Zealand First social liberalBrian Donnelly over the repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, legislation that allowed the use of parental corporal punishment against children. Dail Jones stated that "custard is more dangerous than second-hand smoke.... milk... is worse than second-hand smoke". He also attracted criticism in February 2008 from Winston Peters for suggesting that New Zealand First had received large anonymous donations. On 15 February 2008, Jones was returned to Parliament as a list MP once more, replacing Brian Donnelly, who had been appointed as New Zealand's High Commissioner to the Cook Islands. He was tenth on the New Zealand First party list in. Two people ahead of him on the party list, Susan Baragwanath and Jim Peters, declined the position, and he resigned as party President after becoming an MP. In March 2008, he was critical of fellow NZ First MP Peter Brown's views on Asian immigration. In the, Jones was 14th on the New Zealand First party list, but the party lost all its parliamentary seats, winning no electorates and polling below the 5% threshold. He left politics after this election.
