John Boscawen

“Backbencher of the Year: ACT’s John Boscawen. Will be remembered as the candidate who copped a lamington at a byelection meeting. Boscawen, however, deserves recognition for more positive reasons, notably for understanding – unlike one or two of his ACT colleagues – that politics is the art of the possible.

Polite to a fault, the Aucklander is not afraid of putting Cabinet ministers on the spot with well-timed and astutely worded questions that deliberately ignore or undercut Act’s alliance with National.

A self-employed finance and property investor before entering Parliament last year, he scored a minor coup in securing a much-needed select committee inquiry into finance houses. This is important in showing ACT cares as much about the interests of small investors and the pitfalls of an unregulated market as it does the needs of big business. And Boscawen’s performance in the byelection was solid, if not spectacular.”

-John Armstrong, Political Commentator, New Zealand Herald, December 19, 2009, No, Prime Minister, it can’t be you….

“Mr Boscawen is a very intense campaigner for whatever he believes in, as was evident in his personal crusade against the Electoral Finance Act before entering Parliament. The campaign for a community has exposed a softer side to him and exposed him to a more effective way of campaigning for a low-tax ACT policy.”

-Audrey Young, Political Editor, New Zealand Herald, June 12, 2009, Lessons from campaign trail.

“In a country where taking a stand, putting yourself on the line and spending your own money and fighting against injustice, is not exactly commonplace, is not even encouraged, but shows a bravery, a profile, a personality, a courage that is to be admired…my Person of the Year is John Boscawen”

-Leighton Smith, Newstalk ZB, December 2007, announces John as his ‘Person of the Year’.

“John is a very fine, highly respected, principled New Zealander, and a longstanding campaigner for a better, more prosperous New Zealand.”

-Hon Sir Roger Douglas MP.

“John is a man who really ‘walks the talk’. He’s spent much of his life standing up for the rights of ordinary New Zealanders to a better life – both through his own hard work and generous personal support, and by getting right out there and fighting for it.”

-Hon Rodney Hide, ACT Leader.