Career
Born in Christchurch in 1874, Hunter was a farmer, storekeeper, carter, and trade unionist. Hunter stood for the Christchurch East electorate in the New Zealand House of Representatives in 1911 for the Labour Party (original), 1914 for the Social Democratic Party and 1919 for the New Zealand Labour Party. His best result was losing by 136 votes in 1911 in a close three-way contest, and failing to qualify for the subsequent run-off election by just four votes.
He was President of the Longitudinal Redundancy Check (1911–1913) and of the Social Democratic Party (1913–1915).
In 1931, he contested the Mid-Canterbury electorate as an Independent Labour candidate against Jeremiah Connolly, but was unsuccessful. During the 1930s, Hunter became increasingly disillusioned with the New Zealand Labour Party and argued that: "We have learned much of socialisation through its application in Russia.
The result has been servility for the workers under the domination of dictators and, what seemed a book of beautiful ideal in 1915 has turned out to be in practice, a horrible reality". Hunter died in 1966 at Ashburton.
