East Cape/Bay of Plenty

Martin Gibson

Martin Gibson grew up in Gisborne, and returned home six years ago after travelling the world and understanding that there really is no place like home.

Like many Generation X Kiwis, Martin left it late to get married buy a house and start a family, but has been making up for lost time. He and his wife Anuya welcomed their first child Safia into the world in May this year, while both of them run businesses from home.

Anuya is a UK-trained doctor who is also qualified in appearance medicine, and runs a clinic out of their home, while Martin runs a small marketing consultancy.

After he finished school, Martin completed a BSc in Earth Sciences, and a Post-graduate diploma in Marketing.

His early career included four years with American chemical giant DuPont selling engineering polymers. After that he travelled through North America and Mexico for a year, then returned to Auckland and a role as a quarry engineer, establishing an urban quarry for Fulton Hogan in Auckland..

As a boy, Martin admired the life experience accumulated by men like Jack London, and took on a diverse range of jobs both in New Zealand and overseas.

He has worked in shearing gangs, forestry, retail, sales & marketing, beekeeping, building, security and cleaning contracting, accumulating a broad range of skills and stories on the way.

Upon his return to Gisborne, he managed the Waiohika venue for 20,000 people at Gisborne’s Rhythm & Vines festival, and for the past five years he worked as a journalist for The Gisborne Herald, where he developed a broad network of contacts within the community, and got to see who was good at getting funding, and who was good at getting things done..

At 6’8” and 120kg, Martin Gibson would be one of New Zealand’s larger MPs, and he says the time is right for a different kind of person to get involved in politics.

“If you look at what the country needs from its leaders now, it is the exact opposite of what we have come to expect from politicians.

“We need people who can build unity and encourage co-operation rather than trying to polarise New Zealand into left and right or brown and white in order to gain power.

“We need vision for New Zealand’s unique provincial areas like the East Coast, instead of cookie cutter versions of the same party lines for everywhere. I really like United Future’s vision to make New Zealand the best place to live work and raise a family.

“As a lover of New Zealand’s unique wildlife, I was also drawn to United Future’s practical environmentalism that includes people in the environment, and is not automatically bound to radical socialism or feminism.

“Aside from the occasional fist fight my family have lived here in harmony with Maori for 170 years. It is time we started working together and playing to our strengths instead of being divided and ruled through dog whistle politics on both sides of the political spectrum.”

With the poverty and debt New Zealand is facing it is time for fresh thinking, says Mr Gibson.

“People of my generation will have to live below our means in years to come to pay off the billions we are borrowing to live above our means, but there are other ways to help communities rise to the challenges we face. In particular it is time we focused less on the amount people earn, and more on the levers of poverty, that keep them that way.

“With co-operation, vision, common sense, compassion and hard work we can put together tools to allow communities to solve their own problems, rather than trying to run places like the East Coast using puppet strings from Wellington pulled by faceless bureaucrats.”

On his father’s side Mr Gibson’s family have been in the East Coast region for seven generations – his mother’s family hail from Northland for six generations.

His great great great grandparents taught Te Kooti to read the Bible and gave him his first job. His great great grandmother was the first Pakeha woman born in Turanganui a Kiwa, which became Gisborne.

His great grandparents had a farm in the Waioweka Gorge near Gibson’s Bridge, and his family live in Matawai, Gisborne, and Te Kaha.