Colin Craig (born 8 January 1968) is a New Zealand businessman and perennial candidate who was the founding leader of the Conservative Party of New Zealand.
Craig is a millionaire who owns companies that manage high-rise buildings. His current company manages about $1.3 billion of assets. Upon entering politics in 2011, he opposed same-sex marriage, foreign ownership of land and housing, and "anti-smacking" legislation. On 19 June 2015, Craig resigned as leader of the Conservative Party following allegations of inappropriate behaviour surrounding the party's former press secretary Rachel MacGregor (to which he admitted later at a second press conference on 22 June 2015 with his wife) and tensions with the party's governing board. Craig has since admitted to inappropriate conduct with MacGregor but has denied charges of sexual harassment a claim being challenged in the courts by several people including Craig himself. On 27 June, Craig was formally suspended from the Conservative Party. Since then, his suspension has been invalidated which would enable Craig to contest the Conservative Party's leadership. On 16 November 2015, Craig announced that he would not be contesting the Conservative Party leadership in lieu of a police investigation against him over his Party's spending during the 2014 general election.
Personal life
Born in Auckland and raised in the suburb of Howick, Craig attended Macleans College and graduated from the University of Auckland with Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Arts degrees before completing post-graduate study at Massey University. He has one daughter with his wife Helen. His father, Ross Craig, served as a Rodney District councillor until 2010.
Craig is a conservative Christian brought up in the Baptist denomination, but does not attend a church. As of June 2014, he is resident in Fairview Heights on Auckland's North Shore.
Views
Craig has stated he is not sure that "legislating morality" works well. However, he has described legalisation of same-sex marriage as "social engineering", and is also opposed to gay adoption, adolescent access to abortion, and voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide. In May 2012, Craig described New Zealand's young men and women as "the most promiscuous in the world" based upon surveys such as David P. Schmitt's International Sexuality Description Project research statistics and anecdotal evidence from New Zealand gynaecologists, a statement which was dismissed by Prime Minister John Key and other political leaders like Tariana Turia and Winston Peters.
Following a series of child poverty items on current affairs show Campbell Live and a fundraising effort from the show to raise money for school lunches, Craig said children sent to school without lunch should go without. Instead, their parents should be charged the "cost of rectifying their bad behaviour".
In September 2012, Craig had 20,000 leaflets delivered to residents in the Helensville electorate, claiming locals had told him Helensville MP and Prime Minister John Key was "too gay" to be their representative in Parliament.
In April 2013 Craig sided with controversial Danish politician Marie Krarup after she called a traditional Maori greeting "grotesque". Craig said no visitors should have to face a "bare-bottomed native making threatening gestures" if they didn't want to.
Following the legalisation of same sex marriage in April 2013, Craig said "the day of reckoning" would come, that it was a "failure of democracy" and that "[it] was not a vote of the people of New Zealand," adding "If it had been, the answer would have been no."
Craig has been known to take offence at satirical articles directed at him, including a piece on the satirical website The Civilian, which he said published a story designed "to make him look ridiculous". He threatened to sue the site unless they published a retraction and paid him $500. Craig withdrew the threat the following day.
In November 2013 Craig rejected the scientific consensus on climate change by claiming that humans were not to blame for climate change, instead blaming sunspots and "the circulation of planets".
Political career
March for Democracy
Craig first emerged as a conservative activist in 2009 when he organised and funded a "march for democracy" to protest government decisions not to adhere to three citizen's initiated referendums: