{"id":316301,"date":"2026-03-06T17:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T17:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/316301\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T17:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T17:24:16","slug":"former-mp-jackie-blue-quits-national-to-join-opportunity-party-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/316301\/","title":{"rendered":"Former MP Jackie Blue quits National to join Opportunity party"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025 <\/a>was a hatchet job on 180,000 workers and is representative of a political system that lacks the courage and foresight New Zealand urgently needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI will never forget or forgive what this Government has done to low-paid workers – mostly women.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said workers were \u201cbelittled and mocked\u201d during MPs\u2019 debate on pay equity changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome MPs refused to meet affected workers in their own electorates. Procedure was weaponised against the very people Parliament exists to protect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue will join Opportunity<\/a> to mentor new leader Qiulae Wong.<\/p>\n

She is praising Wong for having the courage to enter \u201cthe nasty business of politics\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpportunity is standing on a platform for transformational action and fairness – two things I have dedicated my career to progressing. That\u2019s why I\u2019m proud to join them and support their 2026 election campaign\u201d.<\/p>\n

She joins former Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway, who also advises Wong in his capacity as the party\u2019s general manager.<\/p>\n

Blue is the former Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025 was a hatchet job on 180,000 workers and is representative of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15497,2740,81548,19755,6368,3556,111,43,139,69,6452,4762,106487,61],"class_list":["post-316301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-blue","tag-former","tag-jackie","tag-join","tag-mp","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opportunity","tag-party","tag-quits","tag-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}