Trevor Young


Trevor James Young was a New Zealand politician of the Labour Party.

Biography

Early life

Young was born in 1925 in Turua on the Hauraki Plains. The son of Leslie Robert Young, he grew up in Cambridge and Blenheim, and attended Wellington College. He married Ailsa Hazel Anderson, the daughter of John James Anderson, in 1952. They had two sons.
Young and his family settled in Naenae and he gained employment with the Public Trust. He had other jobs with the New Zealand Forest Service and Ministry of Defence before becoming the general superintendent of the New Zealand Alliance, an organisation opposed to the sale of alcoholic beverages. He studied law studies part-time at Victoria University of Wellington, graduating in 1958 with an LLB.

Political career

Young joined the Labour Party and in 1947, Young became a Lower Hutt city councillor at the age of 22. He remained a member of the city council until 1968 when he resigned upon his election to Parliament.
He represented the electorate of Hutt in Parliament from 1968 to 1978, and then the Eastern Hutt electorate from 1978 to 1990, when he was replaced by Paul Swain. In total he gave 43 years of service in local and national politics. He was the chair of the New Zealand branch of Parliamentarians for Global Action.
From 1974 until 1978 he was the Labour Party's junior whip. He was Shadow Minister of Energy, Shadow Minister of Tourism and Shadow Minister of Police. From 1984 to 1990 he was the deputy Chairman of Committees. According to Western Hutt MP John Terris Young was never afraid to speak his mind and his forthright manner and Christian values probably cost him political advancement.
He was also associated with the temperance movement. He was likewise a member of Amnesty International and patron of the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards from 1987 to 1995.

Later life and death

Young studied to learn Swedish and became a director of Ansvar Insurance. In the 1988 Queen's Birthday Honours, Young was made a Companion of the Queen's Service Order for public services.
He remained politically active and even at the age of 80 was delivering leaflets and canvassing votes at the for Rimutaka Labour MP Chris Hipkins.
On 13 May 2012, Young died at the age of 86.