Labour is announcing its new North Shore candidate - George Hampton who is also part owner of a Mr Whippy franchise. Video / Alex Burton
A Harvard-educated Fulbright scholar, who also part-owns beloved New Zealand ice-cream franchise Mr Whippy, will be contesting Auckland’s North Shore electorate for Labour in the upcoming election.
George Hampton, 41, was today confirmed as Labour’s candidate after going through selection uncontested.
The former Canterbury University student left New Zealand in 2011, studying at both Harvard and Columbia universities. He has held the role of New Zealand deputy ambassador in Austria and worked on former Prime Minister Helen Clark’s bid to become United Nations Secretary-General in 2016.
Hampton had previously worked for Clark as a political advisor in the run-up to the 2008 election, taking over from then-staffer and current PM Chris Hipkins.
Labour's George Hampton will be fighting an uphill battle contesting the safe blue seat of North Shore. Photo / Alex Burton
Hampton’s aunt is Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban - an MP from 1999 to 2010 who served as Minister of Pacific Island Affairs and Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector.
Since 2018, Hampton had been working for the UN on global renewable energy projects and policy, but has moved back to New Zealand with his partner and new baby daughter with his eye on becoming North Shore’s newest MP.
“I’m honoured to have been selected as Labour’s candidate for North Shore, and I’ll work hard to win the seat and give local people a strong voice inside a Chris Hipkins Government that is acting on the cost of living and has the best policies and plans to make life easier for families.”
In the seat’s 74-year history, only once has it been won by Labour, in 1946 when Allan Martyn Finlay beat National’s Henry Morton by a slim margin.
However, Hampton was optimistic with respect to his chances against current MP National’s Simon Watts, citing the superior party vote Labour received over National in 2020 - a year which saw widespread support for Labour and then-PM Jacinda Ardern, known as the “red wave”.
“It shows there is a group of people who are prepared to look at Labour and what we’ve got to offer,” Hampton told the Herald.
Hampton has never lived on the North Shore but said family members had lived in the area for about 50 years, his mother helping to found a local playcentre.
Mr Whippy co-owner George Hampton says he prefers a chocolate-covered single cone with a flake. Photo / Alex Burton
His passion for business in his youth - he spent summers selling raspberries from a car boot as a student - has continued to the point when in 2020, he and others purchased the Mr Whippy franchise after a friend alerted him to the fact that it could be available.
“There was a rational business case but also a strong emotional pull,” Hampton said.
“It’s such an iconic Kiwi brand. One thing I know about business, it’s to love the business that you’re in.”
Hampton, whose preferred Mr Whippy option was a chocolate-covered single cone with a flake, even hinted at a possible world-first in plans to electrify the Mr Whippy fleet, potentially in the next few years.
“It’s a ‘watch this space’ and hopefully we can sort out the engineering side of it.”
With a keen interest in climate change and geopolitics, Hampton hoped he could contribute to a Labour unit driving towards progression in both areas.
“As a country, we are now being hit with some of these forces and I want to be part of a team that’s dealing with those things in an ambitious way.”
