13 Facts About Phillida Bunkle

Phillida Bunkle was born on 1944 and is a former New Zealand politician.

Phillida Bunkle represented the Alliance in Parliament from 1996 to 2002, when she retired.

Phillida Bunkle was born in Sussex, England, and was educated at Keele University, England, receiving a BA with First Class Honours; Smith College, Massachusetts, USA, receiving a MA; and St Anne's College, Oxford.

Phillida Bunkle attended Harvard University, USA as a Kennedy Scholar and was the recipient of a Fulbright Award.

Phillida Bunkle taught at the university until her election to Parliament in 1996.

Phillida Bunkle was married for many years to Jock Phillips, a university colleague and noted historian.

The couple divorced in 1993, before Phillida Bunkle was elected to Parliament.

Phillida Bunkle joined the Green Party in 1992, and unsuccessfully stood as an Alliance candidate in the 1993 election in Onslow, placing third.

Phillida Bunkle took a strong anti-gambling stance, being patron of Compulsive Gambling Society Incorporated and introducing a Bill to restrict gambling.

Phillida Bunkle resigned these roles after a controversy surrounding her claims for a residential allowance, although she was later cleared of any deliberate wrongdoing.

In 2020, Phillida Bunkle wrote an essay for Newsroom about her time in politics, in which she alleged that bullying, factional power-play and misuse of funding had been commonplace in the Alliance, and that this was an example of an abusive culture throughout Parliament that persists to the present.

In 2003 Phillida Bunkle was appointed as a member of the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand.

Phillida Bunkle served two months before resigning her membership, citing her relocation to the United Kingdom as her reason for her resignation.