John Key was born in Auckland but moved to Christchurch when a child. He was educated at Burnside High School and then gained a B.Comm from the University of Canterbury.

John launched his investment banking career in New Zealand in the mid 80s. After 10 years in the New Zealand market he headed offshore, working in Singapore, London and Sydney for US investment banking giant Merrill Lynch. During that time he was in charge of a number of business units including global foreign exchange and European bond and derivative trading. In 1999 John was invited to join the Foreign Exchange Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY and on two occasions undertook management studies at Harvard University in Boston.

In 2001, he headed back to New Zealand to fulfil a long held ambition to stand for Parliament for the National Party. He won the Helensville seat in 2002 with a majority of 1589. John has risen through the ranks since then, becoming deputy finance spokesman and then finance spokesman, rising to number 7 prior to the 2005 election. At the 2005 election he again won the Helensville seat, this time with a majority of 12,778. He continued to be the Party’s finance spokesman and was ranked at number 4 before being elected Leader on 27 November 2006.

At the 2008 election, John again won the Helensville seat, this time with a majority of 20,547, and was elected as New Zealand’s Prime Minister. He is also the Minister of Tourism, Minister Responsible for Ministerial Services, Minister in Charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service, and Minister Responsible for the GCSB.

John is married to Bronagh and has 2 children. When he has some spare time he likes to spend time with the family, cooking, playing golf and watching rugby.

Top 5 Issues

1. Building a stronger economy
   • Balance the books sooner.
   • Borrow less so we can have lower interest rates for longer.
   • Keep personal taxes lower to encourage hard work.
   • Make New Zealand more competitive so our exporters can sell more overseas and create more real jobs.
   • Encourage savings and investments.
   • Use the mixed-Ownership model to fund infrastructure to help us grow faster.
   • Invest in skills training and tertiary education that gets results.
   
2. Building world-class infrastructure
   • Ultra-fast broadband for greater innovation.
   • More, and better, roads to ease congestion.
   • Investing in more rail and public transport.
   
3. Building a safer New Zealand
   • Staying strong on crime – tougher sentencing, stronger bail laws, and a focus on victims.
   • Keep working to lower the crime rate further so our families are safer.
   • Making our roads safer, so we can keep the road toll lower.
   
4. Rebuilding Christchurch
   • $5.5 billion recovery fund
   • Re-establishing essential infrastructure
   • More construction-related training
   
5. Building better public services
   • Better Schools – identifying and helping children falling behind, school reports in plain English.
   • World-class healthcare –more doctors and nurses, more operations, shorter waiting times.
   • Effective welfare- more people back into work, more incentives to work, payment cards for teens on benefits.
   

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