Moana Lynore Mackey is a New Zealand politician and has represented the New Zealand Labour Party in the Parliament of New Zealand since 2003.
Education
Born in Auckland, New Zealand and raised in Gisborne, Mackey attended Mangapapa Primary School, Ilminster Intermediate and Lytton High School. After leaving high school, she attended Victoria University of Wellington from 1993, graduating with a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology.
Career
She has Māori, Irish, Scottish and Spanish ancestry. While in high school, Mackey would participate in Young Labour, the New Zealand Youth Orchestra and Youth Parliament. From 1999 to 2000, Moana Mackey served as President of Young Labour.
She also worked in the Trade Union movement.
She currently lives in Gisborne. Mackey entered Parliament on 29 July 2003 through the Labour party list after Graham Kelly vacated his list seat.
Her mother, Janet Mackey, also sat as a Labour Member of Parliament until 2005 — the two formed the first mother-daughter pair in New Zealand parliamentary history. In the elections that year, Janet Mackey retired from politics, and Moana Mackey contested but lost the East Coast electorate seat (formerly held by her mother) to National Party candidate, Anne Tolley by 1219 votes.
However, she returned to Parliament as a List Member of Parliament. Mackey unsuccessfully contested East Coast again in the 2008 general election, losing to National"s Anne Tolley by 6,413 votes.
Mackey again returned to Parliament as a list Member of Parliament for the Labour Party.
Membership
Remaining in the Wellington area, she worked as a scientist, leading a team at an environmental laboratory in Lower Hutt and from 2001 to 2004 was a member of the Petone Community Board.