Golriz Ghahraman is no longer an MP following her resignation amid multiple reports the former Green Party MP shoplifted which are being investigated by police.
Ghahraman today announced via a statement she would be leaving politics, apologising for her behaviour which allegedly included two incidents of shoplifting from Scotties Boutique in Ponsonby as well as a third allegation relating to Wellington store Cre8iveworx.
In her attempt to explain but not excuse her actions, Ghahraman cited the “extreme stress” she had been experiencing and linked it to previously unrecognised trauma. She said she was seeking help from mental health professionals.
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and James Shaw said it was clear Ghahraman was in a state of “extreme distress” and supported her decision to resign.
Ghahraman was born in Iran in 1981 amid the post-revolution conflict with Iraq.
In 2017, upon her ascension to Parliament, she told the Herald how many of her childhood memories were of war, including how people she knew would simply disappear on account of their actions or beliefs.
“We knew one guy... a 16-year-old, a friend’s cousin. He was writing graffiti on a wall and then he was gone,” she said in 2017.
“In the ‘80s people would just disappear. There’s unmarked mass graves of people who had registered as communists. The regime was particularly harsh on political dissidents.”.
The fighting lessened when she was 8 years old and when borders opened 12 months later, her family booked a Government-sanctioned “holiday” to Malaysia intending to seek asylum in New Zealand as political refugees. They were successful, declaring themselves to airport officials in Auckland during a stopover to Fiji.
In a 2022 Herald article, she spoke of the novelty of attending schools with boys after only having experienced single-sex schools in Iran. Ghahraman said she was also “agog” at people not wearing shoes.
She said she was glad to have picked up English well but was also disappointed by the “bittersweet realisation” that her original language was receding.
Growing up around Ponsonby, “the flamboyant centre of the rainbow community”, led to Ghahraman’s parents embracing open-mindedness.
“I grew up on sex positivity, that so long as there’s consent everything else is fine. They were open to me trying drugs and alcohol, so long as I did them with people I trusted, and in safe places, like at home with my best friends. They were all about us figuring out what we liked, finding our limits and reducing harm instead of saying, don’t do these things because they are immoral.”
After attending Auckland Girls Grammar, Ghahraman studied criminal law and went on to work as a defence lawyer in Manukau.
It was at university that Ghahraman first became involved with the Greens, saying she appreciated how the party saw the “interconnectedness of everything”.
“They are clear about why we can’t have mining in reserves or National Parks. They are clear that we have to say no to bottom trawling and oil and gas extraction. yet for some reason, some people see those things as really radical, but our survival depends on green legislation.”
As stated in a 2017 Guardian article, Ghahraman went on to study human rights law at Oxford University, which led to appearances in court representing the United Nations, including for the prosecution team at the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia. She also worked on a UN legal team that defended men charged with war crimes in the Rwandan genocide.
She returned to New Zealand in 2012 and became active again in the Green Party as its co-convenor.
She cited plans to prospect for coal in national reserves, child poverty and democracy issues - like dissolving Canterbury regional council - as incidents that jolted her into joining politics.
Ghahraman ran in the 2017 election as the party’s candidate for Te Atatū in West Auckland. She was the fourth most-preferred candidate behind winner Labour’s Phil Twyford, National’s Alfred Ngaro and New Zealand First’s David Wilson.
However, Ghahraman entered Parliament as a list MP after a boost in the special votes led to the party welcoming her as its eighth MP and New Zealand’s first Middle-Eastern woman and refugee was elected.
She told the Guardian of the abuse she received during the campaign, including claims she was a terrorist and that she would smuggle a bomb into the debating chamber.
In today’s press conference, Shaw said his former colleague had received a stream of threats - including threats of sexual and physical violence - throughout her time as an MP, which had led to multiple police investigations.
However, she also noted in 2017 how she’d received messages from many migrants of colour who said they could see their son or daughter becoming an MP following her rise.
During her first term, Ghahraman became a member of the Foreign Affairs, Trade, Defence and Education and Workforce select committees. She held several portfolios for the Greens, including defence, foreign affairs, human rights and women.
Ghahraman last year confronted the Iranian ambassador with images of Mahsa Amini and other protesters killed by the Islamic Republic in an at-times heated select committee meeting at Parliament.
She, alongside many of her Green Party colleagues, had consistently advocated for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, criticising the former’s “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, and supported Palestinians.
In 2018, Ghahraman was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disorder of the central nervous system (CNS) which includes the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. She first became aware of the disorder when she lost sight in her left eye for a time.
Ghahraman told the Herald in 2022 her experience pushed her to advocate on behalf of disabled communities and to make Parliament and New Zealand politics more accessible.
“I think everybody has sympathy for the disabilities community but I don’t think everybody’s on that page of understanding that means actually you make space, you make resources available, you have to be as a party more accessible and bring those voices in.”
Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.
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