Member of Parliament
| Parliament of New Zealand | ||||
| Years | Term | Electorate | List | Party |
| 1984–1987 | 41st | Waitaki | Labour | |
| 1987–1990 | 42nd | Waitaki | Labour | |
| 1993–1996 | 44th | Timaru | Labour | |
| 1996–1999 | 45th | Aoraki | 18 | Labour |
| 1999–2002 | 46th | Aoraki | 11 | Labour |
| 2002–2005 | 46th | Aoraki | 8 | Labour |
| 2005–2006 | 46th | List | 11 | Labour |
Sutton first stood for parliament in the election of 1981, becoming the Labour Party's candidate for the Waitaki electorate. He was unsuccessful against National's Jonathan Elworthy. In the 1984 election, however, he stood again, and won the electorate. Most rural electorates in New Zealand traditionally support the National Party, and so Sutton's victory as a Labour candidate was noteworthy.
Sutton retained his electorate in the 1987 general election, but was defeated in the election of 1990. He returned to farming for three years before being returned to Parliament as the MP for Timaru in the 1993 general election. The switch to the MMP electoral system caused significant redistribution of electorates for the 1996 general election, and Sutton became the MP for Aoraki, which included both of his former electorates.
Read more about this topic: Jim Sutton
Famous quotes containing the words member of, member and/or parliament:
“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than as a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.”
—Henry David David (1817–1862)
“For love ... has two faces; one white, the other black; two bodies; one smooth, the other hairy. It has two hands, two feet, two tails, two, indeed, of every member and each one is the exact opposite of the other. Yet, so strictly are they joined together that you cannot separate them.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“A Parliament is that to the Commonwealth which the soul is to the body.... It behoves us therefore to keep the facility of that soul from distemper.”
—John Pym (1584–1643)