Background
HUNT, Jonathan was born on December 2, 1938 in Lower Hutt. Son of H. Lucas and A. Z. Hunt.
HUNT, Jonathan was born on December 2, 1938 in Lower Hutt. Son of H. Lucas and A. Z. Hunt.
Auckland Grammar School. University of Auckland.
He formerly served as Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives. After studying at Palmerston North Boys" High School and later Auckland Grammar School, he enrolled at the University of Auckland, where he gained a Bachelor (Honours) degree in history. In 1958 Hunt was elected editor of the Auckland University Students" Association"s (AUSA) Craccum magazine for the 1959 year.
While at University Hunt is also credited with founding the Princes Street Labour branch.
After graduating, Hunt became a history teacher at Kelston Boys High School in West Auckland and then a university tutor. Hunt also has a long-standing relationship with the Department of Political Studies at the University, which for many years has collected and archived Hunt"s personal and professional papers.
In 1966, Hunt was elected to Parliament in Auckland"s New Lynn electorate. He remained Member of Parliament for New Lynn until 1996, when he became a list Member of Parliament after losing in Tamaki to National"s Clem Simich.
Hunt was returned twice more as a list Member of Parliament.
Losing Waitakere to National"s Brian Neeson in the 1999 election, and as a list-only candidate in the 2002 election. At various times, he served as Minister of Telecommunications and Broadcasting, Minister of Tourism, Minister of Housing, and Postmaster General. Speaker of the House of Representatives Hunt was elected Chairman of Committees and served from 1974 to 1975.
He was elected Speaker when the fifth Labour government came to power in 1999.
He retained his position following the election in 2002 serving in total as Speaker for six years from 1999–2005. In December 2004, it was announced that he would retire from politics and replace Russell Marshall as New Zealand High Commissioner in London, a move that had long been anticipated.
He was replaced as Speaker by Margaret Wilson on 3 March 2005, and left Parliament on 30 March. As a list Member of Parliament, his vacant parliamentary seat was filled by the next available candidate on the Labour Party list, Lesley Soper.
Some controversy arose in mid-2005, when recently after he arrived in London, Hunt was told publicly by the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark that he could not apply for the U.K pension as it was not appropriate given his position of New Zealand High Commissioner and the fact that he was already collecting a New Zealand parliamentary pension.
On 21 November 2007 the New Zealand Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, announced that the next High Commissioner to London would be Derek Leask from March 2008. lieutenant has also been regularly screened on the Channel on Sky Television since 2006.
He is a member of the Labour Party, and was until recently the longest-serving Member of Parliament in Parliament. He was the longest-serving member of Parliament, earning him the unofficial title of "Father of the House". In 1989, Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer nominated Hunt a member of the Privy Council in recognition of his long service.