Timothy Andrew Barnett (born 4 August 1958) is a New Zealand politician who was the member of the

New Zealand House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the sole chamber of the New Zealand Parliament. The House passes laws, provides ministers to form Cabinet, and supervises the work of government. It is also responsible for adopting the state's budgets and a ...

for

Christchurch Central Christchurch Central is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate in the South Island city of Christchurch. The electorate was established for the 1946 election and, until 2011 had always been won by the Labour Party. Since 2008, the incumbent w ...

from 1996 to 2008, representing the Labour Party. He is a British immigrant to New Zealand and New Zealand's second openly

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

politician. Barnett moved to South Africa in 2009 to work in the field of

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

. He returned to New Zealand in 2012 when he was appointed by the Labour Party as their general secretary.

Early life

Born in Rugby, Warwickshire, England, on 4 August 1958, he moved to New Zealand in 1991 with his former partner, Jonathan Kirkpatrick. Educated at the London School of Economics, graduating with a B.Sc. (Honours) in Economics (Government) in 1981. In the United Kingdom he had been the inaugural executive director of the Stonewall Lobby Group, which was the first professional lobby group set up in that country to work for equal rights for

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with fema ...

and gay people.

Member of Parliament

He was elected to

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. ...

as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Christchurch Central in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on b ...

. He has been active in many community-based organisations in New Zealand, including the lesbian, gay and transgender (

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is ...

) section of the Labour Party, ( Rainbow Labour) which he helped to found in 1997, and is a supporter of

UniQ uniq is a utility command on Unix, Plan 9, Inferno, and Unix-like operating systems which, when fed a text file or standard input, outputs the text with adjacent identical lines collapsed to one, unique line of text. Overview The command is a ...

, the Queer Students Association at New Zealand universities. He was the Parliamentary promoter of the Prostitution Law Reform Bill, a Bill in his name, which became law in 2003 and thus made New Zealand the first country in the world to decriminalise

prostitution Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...

, and an outspoken supporter of the Civil Union Bill, which became law in 2004 and made New Zealand the first country outside Europe to legislate for equal relationship status for

and

couples. He was appointed Senior Government Whip after the 2005 election. He was known to be very active in his local electorate chairing a Youth Advisory Committee as well as being a regular contributor to the St Albans Neighbourhood News. At the 2005 general election, Barnett was re-elected with 52.35% of the vote and a majority of 6,694. He retired at the 2008 general election.

After Parliament

Barnett was appointed as the global programmes manager for the World AIDS Campaign in February 2009 and was based in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second larges ...

, South Africa. In July 2012, Barnett returned to New Zealand and was appointed as general secretary of the Labour Party. In October 2015, Barnett was appointed to the iwi tribal authority of the Ngai Tuhoe as the Group Manager for Iwi (Tribe) based at the Southern Hemisphere's largest living building, Te Uru Taumatua, in Taneatua. In that role Barnett held the portfolio's Health, Housing, Education and Social Well-Being. Barnett resided in the rural township of Ruatoki during that period. In June 2017, Barnett become the CEO of FinCap (The National Building Financial Capability Trust), a new nationwide organisation dedicated to serving and strengthening New Zealand's network of financial capability and budget advice agencies. Those local services support people facing urgent and deep financial problems to manage their debts and successfully find ways forward. FinCap has a network of 200 agencies throughout NZ and works with government and NGOs on a range of issues that aims to change of landscape of harm that debt and other associated factors has on the well being of all New Zealanders. To date, Barnett also supports and assist with iwi governance strategic planning as an advisor and a mentor to Members of the New Zealand Parliament.

References

External links

Tim Barnett's website (archived)

, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Barnett, Tim 1958 births Living people English emigrants to New Zealand Naturalised citizens of New Zealand Gay politicians Gay writers New Zealand Labour Party MPs New Zealand bloggers People from Rugby, Warwickshire LGBT members of the Parliament of New Zealand New Zealand MPs for Christchurch electorates Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives Alumni of the London School of Economics 21st-century New Zealand politicians Male bloggers Prostitution in New Zealand

Early life

Member of Parliament

After Parliament

Further reading

References

External links