36 Facts About Simon O'Connor

Simon David O'Connor was born on 25 February 1976 and is a New Zealand politician and a former member of the New Zealand House of Representatives for the National Party.

Simon O'Connor represented the Tamaki electorate from 2011 to 2023.

Simon O'Connor was a keen fencer and was president of the Auckland University Fencing Club.

Simon O'Connor completed training to be a Catholic priest, which involved working on the island of Taveuni in Fiji for two years at a vocational training centre, prison chaplaincy at Mount Eden Prison, military chaplaincy at Waiouru Army Base, and spending time with people in hospitals and hospices.

Simon O'Connor did not seek ordination, deciding instead to study and pursue a career in politics.

Simon O'Connor graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Political Studies, a Bachelor of Theology, and a Master of Arts with First Class Honours.

Simon O'Connor has worked as a contracts manager for Southern Cross Insurance.

Simon O'Connor was the chairperson of Monarchy New Zealand between 2010 and 2012 and remains a board member.

Simon O'Connor has been involved in the National Party since 2005.

Simon O'Connor was deputy chair of the party's Northern Region before seeking the National nomination for the Maungakiekie electorate in 2008.

Simon O'Connor lost the selection contest to Sam Lotu-Iiga, who went on to win the seat, but O'Connor was appointed as a list candidate for the 2008 general election, ranked 72nd.

Simon O'Connor was selected as the party's candidate in the Tamaki electorate following the withdrawal of sitting MP Allan Peachey shortly before the 2011 election and was elected to Parliament.

Simon O'Connor was re-elected at both the 2017 general election and the 2020 general election.

Simon O'Connor held various National Party spokesperson roles during this period, including corrections, customs, arts, culture and heritage and internal affairs.

Simon O'Connor briefly resigned his portfolios in late 2021 when his brother-in-law, Simon Bridges, was demoted by National leader Judith Collins.

Simon O'Connor chaired the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade committee from 2017 to 2020 and was a member of the Justice committee from 2021 to 2023.

Ultimately, the challenge was unsuccessful and Simon O'Connor was confirmed as the National Party candidate for Tamaki at a party meeting in November 2022.

Simon O'Connor spoke at the Unsilenced conference alongside Tamaki and British activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull.

In 2020, Simon O'Connor became a co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international group of legislators working towards reform on how democratic countries approach China, and specifically, the Chinese Communist Party.

In 2023, Simon O'Connor asked Parliamentary Written Questions seeking information on the deployment of Chinese made cameras in New Zealand government offices.

Simon O'Connor wrote to representatives of Bytedance, owners of social media platform TikTok, asking about the privacy of New Zealanders' data.

Simon O'Connor subsequently welcomed the decision of the New Zealand Parliamentary Service to ban Tiktok on any devices connected to the parliamentary network over the risk of compromise the platform posed to sensitive data.

Media reported that Simon O'Connor was involved with assisting a defector from the Chinese Consulate-General in Auckland, reportedly the first such defector to New Zealand since the end of the Cold War.

In November 2023, Simon O'Connor was invited by the Taiwanese government to visit Taipei and meet with President Tsai Ing-wen, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, and other senior political representatives as part of the Indo-Pacific Formosa Club initiative.

Simon O'Connor repeatedly called for New Zealand to introduce a Magnitsky-style sanctions regime in New Zealand.

Simon O'Connor joined with Labour MP Louisa Wall in calling for New Zealand to introduce modern slavery legislation.

In 2022, Simon O'Connor joined other elected representatives from around the world in Washington DC as part of the Interparliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism.

In June 2023, Simon O'Connor welcomed the Tibetan Sikyong, Penpa Tsering, to the New Zealand Parliament and hosted a lunch for him with several other Members of Parliament.

Later in 2023, Simon O'Connor challenged the Iranian Ambassador to New Zealand Reza Nazarahari over the violent repression of protests when the Ambassador attended a select committee hearing at Parliament.

Simon O'Connor criticised Iran's detention of two New Zealanders, Topher Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray, who were held for nearly four months without charge before being released.

Simon O'Connor joined several protests against the regime's brutal crackdowns organised by Iranians in New Zealand.

Simon O'Connor voted conservatively on most conscience issues, although he opposed raising the drinking age back to 20 in 2012 and he supported the introduction of Easter Sunday trading.

On 10 September 2017, two weeks before the general election and on World Suicide Prevention Day, Simon O'Connor criticised then-Labour leader Jacinda Ardern for being "concerned about youth suicide" but being "happy to encourage the suicide of the elderly, disabled, and sick" by way of her support of the End of Life Choice Bill.

In late June 2022, O'Connor published a Facebook post welcoming the United States Supreme Court's overtuning of Roe v Wade.

Simon O'Connor subsequently removed the post after National Party leader Christopher Luxon stated that the post was "causing distress" and did not represent the party's position on abortion.

Simon O'Connor denied that he had been "gagged" by Luxon and explained that he had offered to taken down the post because it had attracted " toxic and unhealthy" comments.