David Benson-Pope
New Zealand politician
David Henry Benson-Pope (born 23 February 1950) is a New Zealand politician. He is a former Member of Parliament for Dunedin South from 1999 to 2008 and was Minister of Social Development and Minister for the Environment in the Fifth Labour Government from 2005 to 2007.
Benson-Pope previously served as a Dunedin city councillor from 1986 to 1999 and returned to local government for a second period from 2013 to 2025.
Early career
Born in the Dunedin suburb of St Kilda on 23 February 1950, and educated at King's High School, Benson-Pope received his tertiary education at the University of Otago and Christchurch Teachers' College. While studying education he was president of the Students' Association at the college, and national president of the Student Teachers' Association of New Zealand.
Working as a teacher at Bayfield High School, where he taught German and outdoor education for 24 years, Benson-Pope became involved in the teachers' unions and was first elected to the Dunedin City Council on a Labour Party ticket in October 1986. He was re-elected to the city council four more times and resigned in 1999, after winning election to Parliament.
Member of Parliament
Benson-Pope was selected to succeed Labour's deputy leader Michael Cullen as the Dunedin South candidate for the 1999 election when Cullen moved to Hawke's Bay. He easily defeated National candidate Russel Keast to retain the seat for Labour. During his first term, Benson-Pope was a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Regulations Review Committee and Education and Science Committee.
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This entry incorporates text from “David Benson-Pope” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.