Erica Stanford

Erica Louise Stanford (née Poppelbaum; born 1978) is a New Zealand politician and Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the National Party. She currently serves as the 49th Minister of Education and the 60th Minister of Immigration in the Sixth National Government of New Zealand.

Personal life
Stanford lives in Okura in the Auckland region and is the daughter of a Dutch immigrant father. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in politics from the University of Auckland, and cites a lecturer, Dr Raymond Miller, as the reason for her passion for politics. She is married, meeting her husband Kane while at Rangitoto College, and has two children.

Stanford has worked in export sales as well as producing local television shows. This included being the producer of a reality TV show called Noise Control, in which she and a camera operator followed a noise control team around Auckland. In filming one episode, a person pointed a gun at her and her cameraman; the episode was one of the most-watched in the series. She also produced the show Last Chance Dog, and wrote scripts and did other work on Piha Rescue for more than six years.

Political career
In 2013, Stanford started working in the office of Murray McCully, the MP for. She took the place of her sister who previously worked for McCully. She joined the National Party at the same time. When she started in the office, she worked there two days a week as one of three jobs while also having two children. She later worked there full time, and prior to running for parliament, she held the role of Senior MP Support. Stanford describes McCully as her mentor, calling him "a political master."

In opposition, 2017–2023
McCully retired from Parliament in 2017, and the National Party selected Stanford as his replacement for. Stanford had not previously stood for parliament or other office. The East Coast Bays electorate has been a safe seat for National since 1987; since then McCully held either East Coast Bays or, which covered a similar area. In the 2017 general election, Stanford won the electorate easily, with 66% of the vote.

In the 2020 election, Stanford stood again for East Coast Bays. During the campaign she also attended a debate of Auckland Central candidates, as National had not selected a new candidate for the electorate by the debate. Stanford retained East Coast Bays by a margin of 8,764 votes.

Stanford was promoted as the spokesperson for education and associate spokesperson for Ethnic Communities while retaining her portfolio for immigration on 6 December 2021, in the Shadow Cabinet of Christopher Luxon. This led to her ranking being promoted from 25 under the Shadow Cabinet of Judith Collins to 7 under the Shadow Cabinet of Christopher Luxon.

In Government, 2023–present
During the 2023 election, Stanford retained East Coast Bays by a margin of 20,353 votes, defeating Labour's candidate Naisi Chen. Following the formation of the National-led coalition government, she assumed the portfolios of Minister of Education and Minister of Immigration.

On 26 January 2024, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon added responsibility for the government's response to The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care to Stanford's portfolios. Stanford succeeds previous Ministers of Internal Affairs Jan Tinetti and Tracey Martin in having responsibility for the Royal Commission.

On 27 January 2024 Stanford, in her capacity as Education Minister, announced an inquiry into school property projects. She said that the Government had inherited an education system "bordering on crisis". Stanford confirmed that the Ministry of Education had identified 350 projects that had exceeded their budget and had paused 20 building projects.

On 7 April 2024 Stanford, as Immigration Minister, announced that the Government would be revising the Accredited Employer Worker Visa programme to address migrant exploitation and "unsustainable" net migration.

On 29 April 2024, Stanford announced the Government's top six educational priorities to mark the start of the second term. These included a clearer curriculum, focusing on literacy and numeracy, more consistent assessment and achievement reporting, better teacher training, targeted support for students with special needs and an evidence-based approach to educational improvement. That same day, the Government's school cellphone ban came into force. On 2 May, Stanford confirmed that the Government would be mandating a structured literacy approach in all state schools from 2025. In addition, Stanford confirmed that the Government would end funding for the existing reading recovery programme, which utilises a "whole language" approach based on using pictures to help children guess words.

On 26 May 2024, Stanford announced that the Government would invest NZ$53 million in education including in-school training for new teachers and recruiting, retaining and training 1,500 new teachers (including 300 overseas teachers) over the next four years.

In late June 2024, Stanford announced that low-skilled Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) holders at Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) levels 4 and 5 (the equivalent of NCEA Levels 1, 2 and 3) would no longer be able to sponsor work, visitor or student visa applications for partners and dependent children. Stanford had earlier said that changes to the AEWV scheme were prompted by the Government's desire to strike a balance between recruiting highly-skilled migrants and reducing pressure on infrastructure, health and education services. The Union Network of Migrants, a division of FIRST Union, criticised Stanford for failing to engage with migrants, community groups and migrant advocates

Views and positions
In her maiden speech Stanford spoke on matters of conservation, sustainability, marriage based on love rather than gender, and a desire to see political parties work with one another to seek enduring, practical solutions. In a 2018 interview, she said her priorities in her first term included resourcing police stations in her electorate, improving local roading projects, and supporting local schools.

Stanford's political views sit on the progressive side of the National Party. She supported decriminalising abortion and allowing euthanasia in conscience votes in 2019. She has sat on the environmental select committee and has been involved in developing National's environmental policies. In 2019 she supported students who were striking for climate action, despite her party leader and many other National MPs initially opposing them. She believes that the Green Party could work with National, saying that if the Greens "could just relax a little bit... they could do so much good." Stanford says that her blood "runs blue and it always will", but acknowledges a touch of green, saying "maybe it's a tealy blue".