{"id":610969,"date":"2026-09-25T03:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T03:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610969\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T03:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T03:16:09","slug":"new-zealand-first-names-new-plymouth-deputy-mayor-murray-chong-as-election-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610969\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand First names New Plymouth Deputy Mayor Murray Chong as election candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">New Plymouth Deputy Mayor Murray Chong will contest the upcoming election as a New Zealand First candidate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">The party announced Chong as a candidate on Friday, saying he was a &#8220;dedicated local advocate&#8221; and previous business owner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">He served 13 years consecutively on council, before being chosen as deputy mayor in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;He is popular for his strong beliefs in honest public service, bureaucratic transparency and prudent use of public money,&#8221; the party stated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Chong previously stood as a candidate for New Zealand First in 2017.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;His campaign is anchored on growing our local economy through a return to oil and gas, protecting national sovereignty and restoring democracy by embracing &#8216;one country, one people, one law, one flag&#8217;,&#8221; the party said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Plymouth Deputy Mayor Murray Chong will contest the upcoming election as a New Zealand First candidate. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-610969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610969","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=610969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}