Editorial: Labour MP Louise Wall leaves Parliament a high achiever

Louisa Wall will make her valedictory speech in Parliament on April 14. Photo / George Novak, File

Editorial

EDITORIAL

In New Zealand politics, there's a place for toeing the party line and it seems Labour MP Louisa Wall struggled to find that.

Former netball and rugby union international Wall leaves after 14 years with a list of achievements, as rival Christopher Bishop described, greater as an MP than almost every minister in the party she belonged to.

Wall legalised same-sex marriage; made revenge porn a crime; established safe zones around abortion clinics and allowed the late Katherine Harris to be named as the mother on the birth certificate of her daughter, Paige. Her Members' Bill to protect investigative journalism is with a select committee.

But, as Herald Political Editor Claire Trevett pointed out, Wall wasn't one to tug her forelock. "Her effectiveness and outspoken ways were acknowledged by Labour but not necessarily always welcomed."

She was cause-focused – at times to the expense of the party line. One example was her accusing China of organ-harvesting from Uyghurs and the Falun Gong. It's unlikely Wall would have made it to Parliament without the Labour Party ticket and her actions showed at times she had no compunction in biting that hand.

A Herald cartoonist's take on Louisa Wall's comment on China and its treatment of minorities. Illustration / Guy Body

She may have been fortunate to have had so many Private Members' Bills drawn but her single-mindedness got the legislation over the try line.

Would Wall have achieved as much if she had knuckled down and worked within the party structures? That's unlikely but we will never know, and it's a pity.

On blowing time on the game herself, Wall leaves politics with a better country for her efforts - and no doubt, a relieved party.