Denis Marshall
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The Honourable Denis Marshall QSO |
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|---|---|
| 4th Minister of Conservation | |
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In office 2 November 1990 – 30 May 1996 |
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| Prime Minister | Jim Bolger |
| Preceded by | Philip Woollaston |
| Succeeded by | Simon Upton |
| Minister of Lands; Minister of Survey & Land Information; Minister of Valuation Department | |
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In office 2 November 1993 – 10 December 1996 |
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| Prime Minister | Jim Bolger |
| Associate Minister of Agriculture; Associate Minister of Employment | |
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In office 2 November 1990 – 10 December 1996 |
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| Prime Minister | Jim Bolger |
| Minister of Forestry | |
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In office 1996 |
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| Prime Minister | Jim Bolger |
Denis William Anson Marshall, QSO (born 23 September 1943) is a former New Zealand politician. He was an MP from 1984 to 1999, representing the National Party, and a Government Minister until 1996. His Ministerial career ended when he resigned about six months after the release of the Commission of Inquiry report into the Cave Creek Disaster, and a year after the accident itself in which 14 people died and a further 4 were seriously injured, and during which time he was Minister of Conservation. He had been under pressure to resign since the report's release.
He was educated at Norwood School, Gisborne, Hereworth School, Havelock North, Christ's College, Christchurch and Lincoln University as part of the Kellogg New Zealand Rural Leadership Programme and was a Nuffield Farming Scholar to the United Kingdom 1983.
Marshall was a member of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 1984 to 1999. Having first joint the National Party in the 70s, he was first elected to Parliament for Rangitikei in the 1984 election, defeating Social Credit Party leader Bruce Beetham. He held the seat against Beetham in the 1987 election, and retained it until his retirement at the 1999 election.
Marshall served in a number of Ministerial roles, beginning in 1993 and ending in 1996. He was Minister of Lands, Valuation, Department of Survey Land & Information from 1993 to 1996, and Minister of Forestry in 1996. Other notable positions between 1997 and 1999 include Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Transport and Environment Committee, Chairman of Special Select Committee on Dairy Industry Restructuring, and Producer Boarder Reform.
Denis Marshall's best known post was as Minister of Conservation from 1990 to 1996 during which he also acted as Associate Minister of Agriculture and Associate Minister of Employment. He resigned from his role as a Minister in May 1996, roughly a year following the April 1995 Cave Creek disaster in which 14 people died. A Commission of Inquiry found that whilst many individual mistakes contributed to the accident, a root cause was that the Department of Conservation had been under-funded and under-resourced for the role it was expected to achieve, and from the time of its creation in 1987 it had remained disorganised internally with few consistently used project and safety management systems, or formally qualified staff for much of the required work. Intense scrutiny of the Minister followed, as well as scrutiny of the government's funding priorities.
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