New MP Dan Bidois' tribute to the women who shaped his life

National Party MP Dan Bidois with his mother Leah Bidois and Deputy Leader Paula Bennett, left. Photo / Chris Loufte

New Northcote MP Dan Bidois told his fellow MPs how a helping hand from former PM Sir Robert Muldoon to his grandmother Millie helped plant an interest in politics in him.

Bidois delivered his maiden speech in Parliament on Tuesday after winning the Northcote byelection on June 9 after the resignation of former MP Jonathan Coleman.

Bidois spoke of his background, including his adoption at the age of nine months old into "a humble working class family" – his father is a truck driver and mother a saleswoman.

He paid tribute to the women who had shaped his life – his mother Leah and grandmother Millicent, or Millie. He said his grandmother was a widow at 35 and became a staunch National Party supporter after Muldoon, her local MP, helped her into a state house in Glen Innes in the 1960s.

"She was a person of deep contrasts. For example, even though she was a National supporter she did have a soft spot for Winston [Peters]. I guess none of us are perfect.

And even though she was poor, Maori and doing it rough as a widowed mum, she believed in personal responsibility and freedom of choice."

He said his mother had taught him grit and determination, once working eight different jobs to make ends meet.

He said his own life was far from perfect. "I spend most of my high school years either in detention, chasing girls or getting into mischief."

His first job was as a butcher's apprentice but he had since gone on to the University of Auckland and then to Harvard, earning a grand total of four degrees.

"That a high school dropout can later graduate with a masters degree from Harvard speaks to the promise of growing up in a fair and equitable country like New Zealand."

He said it was that story that he sought to uphold as an MP, and he believed in the power of a dynamic economy and free enterprise to allow that.

He listed climate change, automation and artificial intelligence, the ageing population and the shift of geopolitical power from the West to the East as among the biggest challenges the country faced.

Bidois also promises to be a voice for his electorate, saying it had its fair share of challenges. He said infrastructure investment had not matched the scale and pace of growth over the past 20 years.