David William Parker (born 1960) is a New Zealand Labour Party politician who currently serves as Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Minister of Transport and Associate Minister of Finance in the Sixth Labour Government. He previously served as a Cabinet Minister in the Fifth Labour Government, Deputy Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party and Deputy Leader of the Opposition from September 2013 to September 2014, and as interim Leader of the Labour Party from September to November 2014. He represented the Otago electorate at the 47th Parliament and has since served as a list MP.
Before politics
David Parker was born in Roxburgh and grew up in Dunedin, where he attended Otago Boys' High School. He studied law and business at the University of Otago, graduating with a BCom/LLB. He co-founded the Dunedin Community Law Centre.
Before entering politics, Parker worked as a litigation partner in the law firm Anderson Lloyd Caudwell. He later had a business career in the agri-biotechnology field, including A2 Corporation, Blis Technologies, Botryzen and Pharmazen.
Member of Parliament
Fifth Labour Government, 2002–2008
Parker was first elected to Parliament as a Labour member in the 2002 election, winning an upset victory over the National Party's Gavan Herlihy in the Otago seat.
In the 2005 election, the National candidate Jacqui Dean defeated him in his Otago electorate seat, but he returned to the House of Representatives from the Labour party list.
During the Fifth Labour Government, Parker served as Attorney-General and Minister of Transport and Energy from 2005 until March 2006. He resigned his position as Attorney-General on 20 March 2006 after an allegation that he had filed an incorrect declaration with the Companies Office on behalf of the property company Queens Park Mews Limited. On 21 March Parker also resigned his place in Cabinet as Minister of Energy, Minister of Transport, and Minister Responsible for Climate Change Issues. An inquiry by the Companies Office cleared him of the charge of filing false returns.
Prime Minister Helen Clark re-appointed Parker to the Energy and Climate Change portfolios and to the Land Information portfolio on 2 May 2006. (The Attorney-General portfolio remained with Michael Cullen, and Annette King took over Parker's former Transport portfolio.) In July 2007 Clark appointed Parker as the acting Minister for the Environment following the resignation of David Benson-Pope.
In the 2008 general election Parker and Dean both stood in the resurrected Waitaki electorate, with Dean winning by over 11,000 votes. Nevertheless, he returned to Parliament due to his list position.
Fifth National Government, 2008–2017
Following Labour's defeat in the 2008 general election, Parker became the Opposition spokesperson on Conservation, ACC and Shadow Attorney-General. On 15 June 2010, Opposition Leader Phil Goff appointed Parker to be Portfolio Spokesperson for Economic Development, a position formerly held by Shane Jones, and shifted the portfolio of Conservation to Chris Carter.
In the , Parker stood in the electorate, where he came third behind ACT New Zealand's John Banks and National's Paul Goldsmith, but was again returned as a list MP.
Following the 2011 general election, Parker ran for the party leadership in 2011, but withdrew part-way through the contest to support David Shearer's bid. Parker then became the Labour spokesperson for Finance and the shadow Attorney-General (from February 2013). From 17 September 2013, Parker was the deputy leader of the Labour Party. He retained his finance portfolio.
In the , Parker did not contest an electorate, but was number two on the Labour list. He was returned to Parliament on the party list.
Following the poor performance of the Labour Party in the 2014 general election, and the eventual resignation of David Cunliffe as leader, Parker was appointed interim leader of the Labour Party. He then unsuccessfully ran in the 2014 Labour Party leadership election and he came third in the leadership election behind Andrew Little and Grant Robertson. Little offered for Parker to continue as finance spokesperson, but Parker declined. Instead, Parker was assigned a range of portfolios including shadow attorney-general and spokesperson for trade and export growth, the environment and, after the resignations of former leaders Goff and Shearer, foreign affairs.