26 Facts About Maureen Pugh

Maureen Helena Pugh was born on 1958 and is a New Zealand politician.

Maureen Pugh was the mayor of Westland from 2004 to 2013.

Maureen Pugh first became a Member of Parliament for the National Party in 2016, leaving Parliament in 2017 and returning in 2018.

Maureen Pugh was initially a list MP, before winning the West Coast-Tasman electorate in 2023.

Maureen Pugh stood down at the 2013 elections and was succeeded as mayor by Michael Havill.

Maureen Pugh contested the West Coast-Tasman electorate unsuccessfully for the New Zealand National Party in the 2014 general election.

Maureen Pugh would have got a list seat on preliminary results, but National's proportion of the party vote reduced in the final results and the Green Party's Steffan Browning won the seat she would have taken.

Maureen Pugh remained first in line should a vacancy arise in a list seat held by a National Party MP during the 51st New Zealand Parliament, and following Tim Groser's resignation in December 2015 she was sworn in as a member of parliament on 9 February 2016 after the summer recess.

Maureen Pugh contested the West Coast-Tasman electorate unsuccessfully in the 2017 general election.

Maureen Pugh ranked higher, at 44, in the National Party list, and preliminary results again showed National had won enough seats for her to gain one.

Maureen Pugh was again in line to enter parliament if there were resignations, and she and several other "next-in-line" list candidates attended National's parliamentary caucus retreat in February 2018 to help ease their transition into the caucus should they enter parliament.

In March 2018, Bill English resigned from parliament and Maureen Pugh was declared elected as a list MP.

Maureen Pugh voted with the majority against Bridges in the May 2020 leadership election.

Maureen Pugh contested the West Coast-Tasman electorate unsuccessfully in the 2020 general election.

Maureen Pugh had been anticipating missing out again after the counting of special votes for the final results and had already started packing her Wellington apartment, which she would have to send back.

In February 2022 Maureen Pugh expressed support through Facebook for Convoy 2022, a protest group who travelled to Wellington to occupy the grounds of parliament, protesting vaccine mandates, with some opposing the vaccine itself.

Maureen Pugh later amended the post, then deleted it, and said she did not realise many of the protesters were against COVID-19 vaccination.

On 11 June 2024, Maureen Pugh was confronted by a group of protesters who were opposed to the National-led coalition government's proposed Fast-track Approvals Bill in the Golden Bay town of Takaka.

Maureen Pugh was meeting with members of the Takaka Community Board to foster relations with the local government body.

Maureen Pugh revealed in 2016 that she does not believe in pharmaceutical drugs, saying that she never takes any kind of medication and has only ever given her children chiropractic treatments.

Maureen Pugh was one of the last Members of Parliament to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.

On climate change, Maureen Pugh stated in 2023 that, while she believed in it, she had yet to see evidence of anthropocentric causes of that change.

Maureen Pugh later reversed her position, saying that she accepted that human-induced climate change was real and that it was a factor in extreme weather such as Cyclone Gabrielle.

Maureen Pugh noted that the West Coast pays about 25 percent more for its electricity than other regions, and considered that local electricity generation could help to bring prices down and so attract more businesses.

Maureen Pugh said in 2023 that recent minimum pay increases had encouraged some employers to consider automation and that the consequences of those rises hadn't been thought through.

Maureen Pugh said she was unhappy about recent changes to the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme.