John Gary Blincoe (born 1952) is a former

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

politician. He was an MP from

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

to 1996, representing the Labour Party.

Early life and family

Blincoe was born on 14 March 1952 in Nelson, New Zealand. His parents were Victor and May Blincoe (according to his eldest daughter). He attended Hampden Street School, Nelson College Preparatory School and

Nelson College Nelson College is the oldest state secondary school in New Zealand. It is an all-boys school in the City of Nelson that teaches from years 9 to 13. In addition, it runs a private preparatory school for year 7 and 8 boys. The school also has ...

, the latter two from 1963 to 1969.''Nelson College Old Boys' Register, 1856–2006'', 6th edition Later, he was educated at

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well kno ...

, New Zealand where he gained two degrees: one in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

and the other in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

. Prior to becoming a member of New Zealand's

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

, he had been employed by the Wellington City Council as well as by the

Accident Compensation Corporation The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) ( mi, Te Kaporeihana Āwhina Hunga Whara) is the New Zealand Crown entity responsible for administering the country's no-fault accidental injury compensation scheme, commonly referred to as the ACC sch ...

. Blincoe currently lives in Wellington and has two children. Blincoe served as the President of NZUSA during 1976. He rose to prominence when he became convener of the Wellington Clean Water Campaign which opposed the council on the Moa Point sewerage treatment plan.

Early political career

In 1983 Blincoe unsuccessfully sought the Labour Party nomination for the seat of Tasman following the retirement of Bill Rowling, but lost to Ken Shirley. Later that same year, he stood unsuccessfully for the

Wellington City Council Wellington City Council is a territorial authority in New Zealand, governing the country's capital city Wellington, and ''de facto'' second-largest city (if the commonly considered parts of Wellington, the Upper Hutt, Porirua, Lower Hutt and ...

on a Labour Party ticket. In 1986 he contested the Labour nomination for

Mayor of Wellington The Mayor of Wellington is the head of the municipal government of the City of Wellington. The mayor presides over the Wellington City Council. The mayor is directly elected using the Single Transferable Vote method of proportional representat ...

, but lost to local businessman Jim Belich. He was then elected to the City Council in the Brooklyn Ward in

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 **Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal enter ...

and then in the Southern Ward in

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs ...

, before resigning from the Council in 1991 when he was elected to Parliament.

Member of Parliament

Blincoe was first elected to Parliament in the 1990 election as MP for Nelson, replacing the outgoing Philip Woollaston. In November 1990 he was appointed as Labour's spokesperson for Conservation by Labour leader Mike Moore. He was re-elected in the 1993 election, but in the 1996 election, the seat of Nelson was expanded into rural areas formerly part of the Tasman electorate. Blincoe was defeated by the incumbent Tasman MP, Nick Smith of the National Party.

1999 election

In the 1999 election, Blincoe missed out on a seat, as a list candidate under mixed-member proportional (MMP) representation, by a narrow margin once special votes had been counted. Initially it appeared that Blincoe would have a seat in Parliament, as well as a party member directly following him on the Labour party's list. With the counting of special votes, however, the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...

crossed the minimum 5% threshold of votes and received an electorate MP, which in turn allowed them to have seats in Parliament. In addition,

Winston Peters Winston Raymond Peters (born 11 April 1945) is a New Zealand politician serving as the leader of New Zealand First since its foundation in 1993. Peters served as the 13th deputy prime minister of New Zealand from 1996 to 1998 and 2017 to 2020, ...

won the constituency seat of

Tauranga Tauranga () is a coastal city in the Bay of Plenty region and the fifth most populous city of New Zealand, with an urban population of , or roughly 3% of the national population. It was settled by Māori late in the 13th century, colonised by ...

by a narrow margin of sixty-two votes over a National Party candidate, and this enabled his New Zealand First party to acquire extra list seats in Parliament. Once seats had been proportionally re-allocated with both the Green Party and New Zealand First in mind, fewer list seats were available for other parties, and consequently John Blincoe was not allocated a seat.

Post Parliament

Blincoe worked as an environmental adviser to Prime Minister

Helen Clark Helen Elizabeth Clark (born 26 February 1950) is a New Zealand politician who served as the 37th prime minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, and was the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009 to 2017. She was ...

during the 2000s and has worked on environmental matters since then. He, along with Ray Ahipene-Mercer, led the Wellington Clean Water Campaign, which successfully sought to have Wellington to treat its sewage, and stop dumping it, raw, in the sea."Councillor's journey from pop to politics." ''The Evening Post'', 5 May 2000, edition 3, page 8.

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