20 Facts About Lianne Dalziel

Lianne Dalziel resigned from Cabinet on 20 February 2004 after apparently lying about a leak of documents to the media, but was reinstated as a Minister following Labour's return to office after the 2005 election.

Lianne Dalziel resigned from Parliament effective 11 October 2013 to contest the Christchurch mayoral election.

Lianne Dalziel graduated with a law degree and was admitted to the Bar.

Lianne Dalziel served as the legal officer for the Canterbury Hotel and Hospital Workers' Union, and later became the union's Secretary.

Lianne Dalziel participated in national groups such as the Federation of Labour and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.

Lianne Dalziel entered Parliament as a Labour Party MP for Christchurch Central in 1990, replacing outgoing former Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer.

Lianne Dalziel held this seat until the 1996 election, when she became a list MP under the new MMP electoral system.

Lianne Dalziel held the seat in the 2002,2005,2008 and 2011 elections.

Lianne Dalziel expressed enthusiasm for the chance to utilise her law degree in politics as Shadow Attorney-General.

When Labour won re-election in the 2002 election, Lianne Dalziel became Minister of Commerce.

Williams states that as Minister of Commerce, Lianne Dalziel worked closely with National's Simon Power and built "cross-party unity on various issues".

Lianne Dalziel's position became difficult after she was accused of giving certain documents to the press to bolster the case for a decision her Associate Minister had made.

The decision, concerning the deportation of a Sri Lankan teenager who was seeking asylum but who had originally lied about the reasons, was controversial, and Lianne Dalziel leaked the notes of the teenager's lawyer to TV3, attempting to discredit the teenager's case for asylum.

Lianne Dalziel tried to avoid admitting to being the source of the documents, but was forced to admit that the leak had been at her direction.

Lianne Dalziel offered her resignation which Prime Minister Helen Clark accepted.

Rumours of Lianne Dalziel standing as Mayor of Christchurch go back to at least 2009.

The newspaper expressed surprise by this pairing, given that Lianne Dalziel was a Labour Party member, and Johnson a member of the Young Nats, the youth arm of the National Party.

Lianne Dalziel was elected Mayor of Christchurch in the October 2013 mayoral election, with a margin of almost 50,000 votes over the next candidate, businessman Paul Lonsdale.

On 17 December, the Serious Fraud Office cleared Mayor Lianne Dalziel, stating that it found no evidence of criminal conduct relating to donations made to the Mayor by several Chinese businessmen during the 2019 mayoral election.

Lianne Dalziel died of prostate cancer in August 2020, aged 69 years.