Meet Vincent Andersen, the New Zealand First candidate standing in the Coromandel Electorate. Vincent dropped into The Coromandel Informer’s office last week and we were pleased to meet him.
Vincent grew up in Matamata, where his parents farmed. By the time he was ten, the family had moved into Matamata township, where his father started a wheelie bin company. After Matamata College, he studied Computer Science and History at the University of Otago, then moved into Information Technology (IT) work, including several years at Vodafone. IT alone wasn’t quite enough for him – while living and working in Auckland, he also joined a band as its drummer, enjoying it alongside his day job. In 2012 the whole band relocated to the United Kingdom to follow the dream, gigging around London for five years and recording quite a lot of music together as Lunar Pupil. Through it all, Vincent kept his day job, working as Global Technology Procurement Manager for a company called Belron.
While in the UK, Vincent met his future wife, Fiona, and the two married. They moved back to New Zealand together in 2021, during Covid, wanting to be closer to family, and Vincent took over running the wheelie bin company his father had started.
Politics has interested him since childhood. He recalls, around age ten, reading the history section of the encyclopaedia and wondering whether history was “over,” and says he has always wanted to be part of making it, rather than just reading about it. Looking back on what the country lived through from 2020 onward, he felt he needed to stand up and help be part of the solution, pushing back where needed, against what he saw as unjust and not right. He describes it as a civic duty to know what’s happening and to care about people first. It was the values and principles of NZ First – Nationalist, Patriotic, Socially Conservative, and Common Sense – that drew him to the party specifically.
He outlines the party’s five pillars, sitting atop its 15 founding principles:
• Fair democracy and equal citizenship
• Building a prosperous nation
• Protecting community and country
• Sovereignty and responsible government
• Self-sufficiency and pragmatic environmentalism
Vincent says NZ First is driven by principles and values, putting New Zealanders’ wellbeing first and using common sense to shape policy accordingly. He’s proud that the party is willing to call itself nationalist, insisting nationalism isn’t a dirty word but simply pride in the country paired with a commitment to look after it. He points back to a time when New Zealand ranked among the very top OECD countries, with a population of only a million, arguing that hard work and common sense got the country there – and that bold policy is now needed to climb back out of the current doldrums.
On the party’s change agenda to restore New Zealand, Vincent covered several areas:
Energy and regulation: Oil and gas reserves mapped and opened for investment to build a self-sufficient industry, insulated from global shocks.
Power prices: The combination of generation and retail under the same companies (the ‘Gentailers’) since privatisation is the problem. NZ First would break up the monopolies so generation and retail are separated.
Banking: He advocates buying back the BNZ, arguing foreign ownership of the major banks, drains financial control and capital from New Zealand, and that a locally owned bank would allow more domestic investment.
Mining: He describes NZ First as a strong supporter of mining, wanting the industry expanded to produce needed materials and create jobs, with a policy that half of all royalties stay in the region where the mining occurs. He acknowledges opposition to mining exists but argues responsible mining can coexist with environmental care and prosperity, and that unnecessary regulation – while everyone has a personal duty to protect the environment – has instead contributed to economic hardship.
Paris Accord: NZ First is calling for withdrawal from the Paris Accord, arguing it would save New Zealand roughly $20 billion in carbon credits and is an important step toward keeping the country competitive. He notes that China, the US and India together account for over half of global emissions and sit outside Paris, while New Zealand contributes only around 0.17% of human emissions – arguing continued participation in the Paris Accord amounts to costly virtue signalling at the country’s economic expense.
Immigration: Asked about NZ First’s apparent lack of empathy toward migrants, Vincent says the party’s policy is to bring in the people New Zealand needs, rather than people who simply need New Zealand. He points to cases where a student visa eventually leads to permanent residency, followed by the rest of the family, and argues there needs to be much tighter targeting of who the country actually lets in.
Vincent says NZ First is asking for the Party Vote in Coromandel, and that he’d be very happy to also receive the Candidate Vote.
NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones Meeting, Thames this Saturday, 15 August, at 2pm, at the Thames War Memorial Civic Centre, 200 Mary Street, Thames.
Contact: vincent.andersen@nzfirst.nz
◾️See NZ First advert re Shane Jones visit to Thames on page 3.
