The former Financial Markets Authority chair will contest the seat held by the Prime Minister.
Craig Stobo, who resigned as chair of the Financial Markets Authority in May, will contest Botany for New Zealand First against Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
The party named him on Friday 28 August.
“Standing for New Zealand First offers me the opportunity to speak freely on issues of public importance,” Stobo said in the announcement.
“I am looking forward to representing the public who also share my views and who want to hear their representatives speak frankly on key issues that affect them and their families.”
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters was at a Grey Power meeting at the Pakuranga Bowling Club hours after the announcement.
“Craig Stobo will go seriously well, because he’s a top-class candidate,” Peters told the Howick & Eastern Post.
“High-quality background, a superb economics degree, first-class honours.”
Stobo grew up in Oamaru and took a first-class honours degree in economics at Otago University, the party’s announcement says.
He chaired a review of investment income taxation for finance minister Dr Michael Cullen in 2004, and the establishment board of the Local Government Funding Agency in 2011.
Stobo left the Financial Markets Authority after an independent review of his conduct by Wendy Aldred KC, released on 4 May.
The review found aspects of his public commentary “did not meet the standards of political neutrality expected of the Chair of an independent Crown entity and financial markets regulator”.
It also found he had delayed disclosing a governance-related interest longer than was appropriate.
New Zealand First’s announcement says the finding covered a personal submission Stobo made to the select committee on the Treaty Principles Bill, and his questioning of mandatory climate reporting.
He also resigned as an independent director of the New Zealand Local Government Funding Agency, which borrows on the bond market and lends to councils, effective 28 August. The agency said so in a market announcement the same day.
Luxon has held Botany since 2020. He won it in 2023 by 16,323 votes.
Labour is standing Dr Anae Neru Leavasa, a general practitioner who was MP for Takanini from 2020 to 2023. ACT is standing Ali Dahche, who co-owns a restaurant in Pakuranga.
The election is on Saturday 7 November.
