Gerry Brownlee
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Gerard Anthony Brownlee (born 1956), generally known as Gerry Brownlee, is a New Zealand politician. He currently serves as deputy leader of the National Party, the second largest party in the New Zealand Parliament, which forms the core of the opposition.
Brownlee was born in Christchurch, and has lived there for his whole life. After leaving high school, he worked in his family's timber business, and received training in carpentry. Later, he qualified as a teacher, and taught woodwork and crafts at high school level.
In the 1993 elections, Brownlee was the National Party's candidate for the Sydenham electorate, where he campaigned against Jim Anderton of the newly formed Alliance; he was unsuccessful. In the 1996 elections, he contested the seat of Ilam, and won by a comfortable margin. He has remained the MP for Ilam since that point, although his majority has declined steadily.
In Parliament, Brownlee has served as the National Party's Junior Whip and as its spokesperson on superannuation, energy, transport, local government, and the ACC. He is considered by most to be a powerful performer in Parliamentary debate and has come into the spotlight on a number of occasions, mostly as the result of his somewhat aggressive political style. In early 2002, a court ordered Brownlee to pay damages to a protestor whom he had threatened.
Gerry Brownlee received criticism during the 1999 election campaign for ejecting an elderly protestor from a platform containing several National Party candidates with what was considered by many, including watching media, to be excessive force.
Brownlee was sometimes considered as a potential challenger to the party leadership of Bill English. Eventually, however, English was toppled by Don Brash, a former governor of the Reserve Bank and Brownlee was seen as being high on the list of potential deputy leaders, but declined to pursue the position. The contest was eventually won by Nick Smith.
Shortly after being elected, however, Smith opted to take several weeks of stress leave, saying that he was exhausted from the protracted leadership disputes. When Smith returned to Parliament, Brownlee challenged him for the deputy leadership. When Smith was informed of the challenge, he resigned, and Brownlee was elected unopposed. Initially Smith alleged that Brownlee had undermined him during his period of stress leave but those allegations were later dropped in the interests of party unity.
Since being elected deputy leader, Brownlee has continued his confrontational and colourful style of political debate. In 2003, following the controversy surrounding the Orewa speech, he was appointed the National Party's spokesman for Maori Affairs in place of Georgina TeHeuHeu, who resigned from the spokesmanship after refusing to endorse party leader Brash's comments. His approach to this portfolio involved criticising the government's policies regarding perceived special treatment for Māori, an issue at the core of National's 2005 election manifesto.
Brownlee has been suggested as a potential replacement for current National Party Leader of the Opposition Don Brash, although it is worth noting that no National Party Deputy Leader has replaced their parliamentary leader, whether in government or opposition, for the last twenty years. The last to do so was Jim Bolger, when he replaced his predecessor Jim McLay in 1986.
