Holly Walker
| Holly Walker | |
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Walker in 2011
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| Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Green party list |
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In office 2011 – 2014 |
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| Succeeded by | James Shaw |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 15 November 1982 |
| Nationality | New Zealander |
| Political party | Green |
| Spouse(s) | David Haines |
| Children | 1 |
| Alma mater | |
| Website | Official website |
Holly Ruth Walker (born 15 November 1982) was a member of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 2011–2014, as a Green Party list MP. She is currently a writer and book reviewer.
Walker was born in Lower Hutt in 1982. She was raised by a mother on the Domestic Purposes Benefit and attended Waterloo School, Hutt Intermediate School and Hutt Valley High School, where she was deputy head girl.
From 2001 she studied at the University of Otago, graduating with a BA (Hons) in English and Politics, as well as winning a Blue for her achievements with the Otago University Debating Society. In 2005 she was the editor of student magazine Critic Te Arohi, the year's winner of the Aotearoa Student Press Association's award for Best Student Publication. In September 2005 Critic's annual "Offensive Issue" included a fictional diary of a man who used drugs to stupefy and rape women. The Office of Film and Literature Classification banned the issue in early 2006, after Walker's tenure as editor had ended. At the time of the ban she said the article was "defendable in that it highlights a very important issue", but when Critic interviewed her in 2012 she called it "a mistake to publish that particular article the way that we did".
She moved from Dunedin to Wellington and in 2006 began working as a media adviser to the Green Party. The next year she moved to the Office of Treaty Settlements, working as an analyst. 2007 also saw her named a Rhodes scholar, leading to a master's degree in Developmental Studies from the University of Oxford, awarded in 2009.
After two years in Oxford, Walker returned to New Zealand and the Green Party. She spent 2009-11 as a Political and Media Adviser to the party's MPs, leading a poverty research project for the party, and she co-convened the Young Greens of Aotearoa in 2010.
Placed twelfth on the Green Party list for the 2011 election, Walker was elected to Parliament when the Greens gained 14 seats.
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