Ginny Andersen


Virginia Ruby Andersen is a New Zealand politician and Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the Labour Party.

Personal life

Andersen lives in Belmont, Lower Hutt and worked for the New Zealand Police as a policy unit manager from 2006 to 2017. Her great-uncle was Bill Andersen, a noted activist and trade union leader. Prior to working for the Police, Andersen worked at the Office of Treaty Settlements and was also a private secretary and senior political adviser in Parliament to several Labour MPs including Trevor Mallard, David Cunliffe, Mark Burton, and Margaret Wilson.

Political career

Andersen stood in the electorate of at the, and was only narrowly defeated by the long-standing incumbent, Peter Dunne of United Future by a margin of just 610 votes. Andersen served as the Labour Party's Vice-President from 2015 to 2017 when she stood down in order to focus on her parliamentary candidacy.

Member of parliament

In October 2016, Andersen was selected as Labour's candidate for the electorate of for the against Hutt City Councillor Campbell Barry and list candidate Sarah Packer. She replaced long-serving member of parliament Trevor Mallard as the Labour Party candidate who had, in July of that year, stated he would serve as a list-only candidate for the election with the intention of becoming Speaker of the House. In the last election Mallard had won Hutt South by only 709 votes over National's candidate, Chris Bishop. Andersen was ranked 28 on Labour's party list, an increase of 9 from 2014. While Andersen lost the Hutt South election to Bishop, she entered parliament via the Party list under New Zealand's MMP electoral system.
Andersen is Labour's Hutt South candidate for the 2020 New Zealand general election, however has dropped 19 places to 47 on Labour's list.