Member of Parliament
| Parliament of New Zealand | ||||
| Years | Term | Electorate | List | Party |
| 2008–2011 | 49th | Tauranga | 51 | National |
| 2011 – present | 50th | Tauranga | 30 | National |
In 2008, Bridges stepped down from his positions within the National Party to seek his party's candidacy for the seat of Tauranga in the 2008 election, after incumbent Tauranga MP Bob Clarkson (National) announced that he would not be standing for re-election. Bridges was successful in his campaign, appointed in June 2008 as the National Party candidate for the seat; he was eventually listed as #51 on the National's party list. Several polls during the campaign indicated that Bridges would win the seat by a large margin.
For the 2008 general election, the seat of Tauranga was contested by 11 candidates, including New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. In the election, Bridges won the electorate vote with a majority of 11,742 votes, which saw him become the new MP for the seat of Tauranga, and barred New Zealand First from winning any parliamentary seats, as it did not meet the 5% party vote threshold either. Bridges began his parliamentary career when the new Parliament convened on 8 December 2008. He was re-elected in the 2011 election.
Read more about this topic: Simon Bridges
Famous quotes containing the words member of, member and/or parliament:
“One of the most highly valued functions of used parents these days is to be the villains of their children’s lives, the people the child blames for any shortcomings or disappointments. But if your identity comes from your parents’ failings, then you remain forever a member of the child generation, stuck and unable to move on to an adulthood in which you identify yourself in terms of what you do, not what has been done to you.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“The very existence of society depends on the fact that every member of it tacitly admits he is not the exclusive possessor of himself, and that he admits the claim of the polity of which he forms a part, to act, to some extent, as his master.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“He felt that it would be dull times in Dublin, when they should have no usurping government to abuse, no Saxon Parliament to upbraid, no English laws to ridicule, and no Established Church to curse.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)