Matthew Doocey MP |
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Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Waimakariri |
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Assumed office 20 September 2014 |
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Preceded by | Kate Wilkinson |
Matthew Maurice Doocey is a New Zealand politician who was elected to the New Zealand parliament at the 2014 general election as a representative of the New Zealand National Party.
Doocey is a member of the well-known Carter family. Family patriarch Maurice Carter, a Christchurch City Councillor for over 40 years (1956–1989), was his grandfather, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, David Carter, is his uncle. Doocey grew up in Christchurch and attended St Bede's College for his secondary schooling. The Dooceys bought their current home in Redwood, which currently falls into the Waimakariri electorate, in April 2011.
Doocey stood in the 2013 Christchurch East by-election, placing second behind Poto Williams. At the time, Doocey was a manager for the Canterbury District Health Board. The party's Canterbury Westland Regional Chair, Roger Bridge, noted that a sitting government has never won a by-election in an electorate that it did not already hold. Bridge later conceded that it would be "very, very hard for us to win". When Kate Wilkinson, National MP for the Waimakariri electorate, announced in early November 2013 that she would retire at the end of the term of the 50th Parliament, rumours immediately surfaced that Doocey is going to replace her as the candidate in the Waimakariri electorate, and the Christchurch East by-election was for him to gain experience in contesting an election.