A school dropout and former butcher's apprentice will fight the June 9 byelection in the seat of Northcote for the National Party.
Local party members made the selection from a shortlist of five at a meeting in the electorate today.
Dan Bidois, 35, is a former student politician, former Fulbright scholar, ex-OECD economist with a Masters in public policy from Harvard and a Foodstuffs manager.
Bidois, who is of European and Ngati Maniapoto descent, lives in Botany and tried for the Pakuranga electorate in 2017.
The youngest of four children, he was raised and educated in Auckland, leaving school at 15 to complete a butchery apprenticeship.
"It's a true honour to be selected as National's candidate in Northcote," Bidois said in a statement.
"The hard-working people of Northcote are not a piggy bank for Phil Goff, Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters to raid to pay for pet projects on the other side of the Bridge that won't benefit us here," he said.
Labour will announce its candidate in the next few hours, from a shortlist of three.
The battle will really be between Richard Hills, an Auckland councillor aged 31, and Shanan Halbert, 35, head of relationships at Te Wananga o Aotearoa.
Northcote has been a safe one for National – it won the party vote there in 2017 with 49 per cent, while Labour had 34 per cent.
