Ruth Suzanne Dyson is a New Zealand politician. She is a member of the Labour Party and has been a Member of Parliament since 1993. Since the, she has represented the electorate.
Early years
Dyson was born in Lower Hutt. Her father served in the New Zealand Army, and so Dyson's family frequently moved around the country. Dyson joined the Labour Party in Westport in 1979, and worked as a campaign organiser for Labour MP Kerry Burke in the 1981 and 1984 election. In 1985, she moved to Wellington, where she worked with Labour MP Fran Wilde on the Homosexual Law Reform Bill. She worked for Wilde's re-election campaign in the 1987 election, and later held a number of senior offices in the Labour Party, including that of president.
Member of Parliament
Dyson first entered Parliament in the, winning the electorate against National's David Carter. In the, the Lyttelton electorate was abolished, and Dyson stood in, losing to Carter, who had in the meantime become an MP through winning the 1994 Selwyn by-election. She became a list MP owing to her position on the Labour Party's list. In the, however, she defeated Carter to win Banks Peninsula. She has remained the MP for the area since that time; however before the 2008 election the boundaries were changed and it was renamed Port Hills. When the Labour Party won power in the 1999 general election, Dyson was appointed to a number of minor ministerial roles, including Disability Issues and Associate Health and Associate Social Development. However, she resigned them on 31 October 2000 after being caught drink driving. She regained most of her ministerial responsibilities on 4 June 2001. In a reshuffle on 31 October 2007, Dyson took on the portfolio of Social Development, which she held until the Clark government lost power at the 2008 general election. Despite the swing against Labour at that election, Dyson won her new electorate of Port Hills with an increased margin than that of Banks Peninsula. In December 2009 Dyson's Resource Management Amendment Bill, which would amend the Resource Management Act 1991 to reintroduce a public interest test for projects seeking requiring authority, was drawn from the member's ballot. The bill was defeated at its first reading. Dyson was re-elected as the MP for Port Hills at the 2011 general election. She is currently the Labour spokesperson for Conservation, Senior Citizens, and Internal Affairs and chairs the Parliamentary Select Committee on Government Administration. When Lianne Dalziel confirmed that she would contest the 2013 Christchurch mayoralty, her Christchurch Earthquake Recovery portfolio was split and assigned to Dyson and Clayton Cosgrove in July 2013. Dyson contested the against Nuk Korako of the National Party and chose not to be placed on Labour's party list. Based on preliminary counts, Dyson has a majority of 1,865 votes over Korako. Following the formation of the Sixth Labour Government in 2017, Dyson was elected Labour's Senior Whip. In March 2019, Dyson indicated that she would not seek re-election at the 2020 general election. Since 25 March 2020, Dyson has been a member of the Epidemic Response Committee, a select committee that considers the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
