Nicolas Rex Smith (born 24 December 1964) is a New Zealand politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the National Party from 1990 to 2021. He served as a Cabinet minister, holding various posts including Minister for Building and Housing, Minister for the Environment, Minister for Climate Change Issues, and Minister of Local Government. For a brief time between October and November 2003 he was the deputy leader of the National Party, then in opposition under Don Brash.
Smith represented the Nelson electorate from 1996 to 2020 and, before that, was the member for Tasman from 1990 to 1996. Following his defeat in the Nelson electorate in the 2020 election, he served as a list MP for less than a year before retiring from parliament on 10 June 2021 after multiple allegations of bullying were made against him. Smith was elected Mayor of Nelson in the October 2022 New Zealand local elections.
Education and early career Smith was born in Rangiora, Canterbury, in 1964, the son of John Smith and Anne Smith. His father was born in New South Wales and came to New Zealand to start a contracting business, building drains and bridges. He has seven siblings; three sisters and four brothers. His father and two brothers all own independent construction crane hire businesses.
Smith was educated at Rangiora High School and was an AFS Scholar to the U.S. He studied at the University of Canterbury where he earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree with first-class honours in civil engineering, and a PhD with a thesis titled The Residual Strength of Soils and Landslide Stability.
Before entering parliament, he worked as an engineer for the Rangiora County Council, and as director of his family construction company. He also served on the Rangiora District Council, unsuccessfully standing while still at secondary school in 1983, and successfully standing again in 1986 aged 21.
Member of Parliament
Fourth National Government, 1990–1999
Nick Smith has been involved in the National Party since his university days. He stood in the 1990 election as the party's candidate in the Tasman electorate. For the 1996 election, Tasman was abolished, and most of its territory was merged into the neighbouring Nelson electorate. Smith opted to contest Nelson and defeated Labour incumbent John Blincoe in the election. He held Nelson until the 2020 general election.
As well as the full ministerial posts mentioned below, Smith has also been an Associate Minister of the Immigration, Social Welfare and Treaty Negotiation portfolios.
Cabinet Minister In 1996, after serving six years in parliament, Smith was elevated to Cabinet, becoming Minister of Conservation. With this appointment, he replaced the outgoing Minister, Denis Marshall, who had resigned as an eventual consequence of the Cave Creek disaster. In 1997 he gained the additional responsibility of Minister of Corrections. In early 1999, he dropped the Corrections portfolio and became Minister of Education. When National was defeated in the 1999 general election, Smith continued to serve as his party's education spokesperson.
Opposition years, 1999–2008 Leadership struggles Nick Smith was a supporter of Bill English's bid to replace Jenny Shipley as party leader. When English was successful, Smith's position within the party rose. When English was himself challenged by Don Brash, Smith was one of English's strongest defenders, working very hard to win support against Brash. Eventually, however, English was defeated.
Smith was appointed to the position of deputy leader, presumably to placate members of the English camp. He took up this position on 28 October 2003. Soon, however, he was challenged from within the party based on his behaviour after his elevation, which critics described as "irrational" and "paranoid". Smith's defenders said that the claims were exaggerated and that Smith was merely suffering from stress and exhaustion. Smith returned to Nelson on "stress leave".
When Smith returned to parliament, however, he found himself challenged for the deputy leadership by Gerry Brownlee. Smith and his supporters were angry at this, saying that Brownlee's supporters had taken advantage of Smith's absence to deliberately misrepresent Smith as unstable. Smith was also angry that neither Brownlee nor Brash (who appeared now to support Brownlee) had given any indication of the upcoming challenge. Smith was defeated and lost the deputy leadership on 17 November 2003.
Contempt of Court In late March 2004, Smith was found guilty of contempt of court. He had been asked to assist a constituent with a Family Court case and made several public comments which broke the court's confidentiality rules and were also found to have pressured a witness in the case. Smith's defence was that he was exercising his responsibility as a constituency MP to aid a constituent and that his public utterances in the matter had served the public interest, but these claims were rejected by the court. The Speaker, Jonathan Hunt, held that contempt of court was insufficient to warrant expulsion from Parliament, as it did not fall within the statutory definition of a crime.
Smith considered seeking a renewed public mandate through a by-election, but no by-election was held after leaders of other parties criticised the idea. Smith stood again in the 2005 general election and kept his seat with a greatly increased majority, his personal share of the vote increasing from 46.8% to 54.9% and his overall majority from 4,232 to 10,226.
Fifth National Government, 2009–2017 When National and the new leader, John Key, won the 2008 general election, Smith was appointed Minister for the Environment, Minister Responsible for Climate Change Issues, and Minister for the Accident Compensation Corporation, and was ranked sixth in Cabinet.
Defamation case 2010 In April 2010, The New Zealand Herald reported that Smith had his legal fees for two separate defamation cases in 1999 and 2005 paid by the taxpayer. Smith stated that the legal fees for the 2005 case "totalled about $270,000."
In June 2010, the New Zealand Herald reported that preservatives producer Osmose New Zealand was taking a defamation case against Smith in the High Court in Auckland. Osmose New Zealand alleges that Smith's statements made in July 2005 about the timber product, T1.2, destroyed the product's reputation caused the company to lose more than $14 million in estimated profits. On 10 June 2010, Smith settled the case by issuing an apology and making an undisclosed payment. Smith was quoted by the Dominion Post as saying "No public money is involved in the settlement, although I have been very grateful to have received $209,000 of public money from the Parliamentary Service".
Climate change Smith has been the National Party's Climate Change spokesman when in opposition and has held the post of Minister for Climate Change Issues.
In May 2005, Smith, while criticising the Labour Government's proposed carbon tax, stated to Parliament that the National Party intended to move to a comprehensive emissions trading permit system.
In November 2005, Smith made several statements criticising the Labour Government's proposed policy of implementing a carbon tax: "The madness of the Government's new carbon tax is that New Zealanders will be the only people in the world paying it. It will drive up the costs of living and undermine the competitiveness of New Zealand business for negligible environmental gain." "Labour Ministers may take pride in being toasted at International Climate conferences for being so bold and brave, but there is no justification for New Zealand going out in the cold by itself on this issue." "New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions made up only 0.4% of the global total and on a per capita basis our emissions are half those of countries like Australia and the United States. We are the only Southern Hemisphere country with binding legal obligations under Kyoto and giants like China and India have got off scot-free."
From January 2008, Smith was giving speeches as National's Climate Change Spokesman. In one speech, he stated there was no question that the destabilising of the Earth's climate, caused by increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, was the "number one environmental issue".
After the 2008 general election, Smith was appointed Minister for Climate Change Issues. The Nelson Mail described the appointment as the logical choice given Smith's role as the National Party's climate change spokesman and his role in the National 'Blue-Green' group.
In December 2008, Smith announced a review of the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme which had only just been adopted in September via the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading) Amendment Act 2008.
On 24 September 2009, Smith introduced the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill for its first reading in Parliament. This bill amended the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme and it received the Royal assent on 7 December 2009.
In November 2009, Smith stated in a speech to Federated Farmers that climate change is a global tragedy of the commons. It has significant consequences and the harm will fall on future generations. Economically, in terms of trade access, and environment, New Zealand must do its fair share. As it is a complex diabolical problem with huge economic implications for societies based on fossil fuel use, climate change policies must be substantive and realistic.
In 2010, Smith was reported by The Press as saying the basic science of climate change was sound and that climate deniers who leapt on errors by the IPCC should subject their "flaky" research to the same level of scrutiny as the IPCC reports.
Environment Canterbury While Environment Minister in 2010, Smith dismissed all the elected councillors at Environment Canterbury and replaced them with government-appointed commissioners. At the time, Smith's brother and his company were facing charges from the council.
In 2017, a statue of Smith defecating into a glass of water was placed outside the Environment Canterbury office by protestors.
Resignation Smith resigned from all his Cabinet portfolios on 21 March 2012, after admitting that he had written on Minister for Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) letterhead to the Chief Executive of the ACC on behalf of a former National Party activist. In accepting the resignation, John Key said "it's quite clear he should have made his conflict of interest also known, he shouldn't have had anything to do with the complainant, he should have delegated that responsibility as other ministers do".
Housing, conservation, and environment
On 22 January 2013, Smith was returned to the Cabinet"Members of Executive Council Appointed" (7 February 2013) 13 New Zealand Gazette 409 at 438 and appointed to the Offices of Minister of Conservation and Minister of Housing."Appointment of Ministers" (7 February 2013 13 New Zealand Gazette 409 at 438
Smith was re-elected in Nelson during the 2014 general election, defeating Labour candidate Maryan Street by 7,605 votes. Following the re-election of National, he served as Minister of Building and Housing and Minister of Environment.
Opposition, 2017–2021 Nick Smith was re-elected in Nelson during the 2017 general election, defeating Labour candidate Rachel Boyack by 4,283 votes. He became National's Spokesperson for Electoral Reform and State Services (including Open Government) portfolios in the Shadow Cabinet of Simon Bridges. Smith was named as the party's new spokesperson for Crown–Māori Relations in January 2019.
In March 2018, Smith became the Father of the House in March 2018, having served continuously since the 1990 general election. Following his resignation in June 2021, Smith was succeeded as "Father of the House" by Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard.