Paul Goldsmith (politician)

Paul Jonathan Goldsmith (born 1971) is a New Zealand historian and politician. The biographer of several leading right-wing political and business figures, he was first elected a list member of the New Zealand House of Representatives for the National Party at the.

Goldsmith is Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Minister of Justice, Minister for State Owned Enterprises, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, and Minister for Media and Communications in the Sixth National Government. He was previously an Auckland City Councillor between 2007 and 2010, and a Cabinet minister in the Fifth National Government.

Early life and family
Goldsmith was born in 1971 in the Auckland suburb of Mount Eden to parents Lawrence, a mathematics teacher, and Margaret, a palliative care nurse. He has an older brother and sister.

The Goldsmith family descends from Charles George Goldsmith, a migrant from Liverpool who settled in the East Cape area early in New Zealand's colonial history. Charles Goldsmith had four wives—two Māori (Ngāti Porou), and two Pākehā—fathering 16 children. However, Goldsmith has clarified that he is not himself of Māori descent.

Goldsmith attended Auckland Grammar School and received an MA in history from the University of Auckland in 1996. His thesis was on the life of missionary William Colenso and Dame Judith Binney was his master's supervisor.

Paul Goldsmith is married to Maria. They have four children. He is a pianist and a second-dan black belt in taekwondo.

Career before politics
He began working as a historian for the Waitangi Tribunal in March 1995, contributing to the Tribunal's work on historic claims in Taranaki and Wairarapa. After a year, he moved to working for John Banks, then the National Party minister of local government, as a press secretary and speech writer. Goldsmith also began a biography of Banks during this period. Banks was not reappointed a minister after the 1996 election; Goldsmith moved to working for the environment minister Simon Upton and, after the 1999 election, the new Labour minister of foreign affairs Phil Goff.

In 2000, Goldsmith became a public relations adviser and worked for Tranz Rail and the University of Auckland.

Historian and biographer
Goldsmith has written the biographies of John Banks, Don Brash, William Gallagher, Alan Gibbs and Te Hemara Tauhia as well as a history of taxes, Puketutu Island and a history of the Fletcher Building construction company. The biographies were criticised in 2021 by labour historian Ross Webb as "hagiographies" of those involved in New Zealand's economic reforms in the 1980s and 1990s.

His Don Brash biography, Brash: A Biography, was a source of controversy. When it was released in 2005 he maintained it was not commissioned by the National Party, but investigative journalist Nicky Hager revealed it was indeed commissioned by the National Party and was in fact the party's first big-budget item in the campaign.

Early political career
Goldsmith contested the Maungakiekie electorate in the 2005 general election for the National Party. At this time, National was led by Don Brash, whose biography by Goldsmith was published the same year. Goldsmith was defeated by the incumbent, Labour's Mark Gosche, and due to his low list placing (59 on the National Party list), did not enter Parliament.

Goldsmith successfully stood for the Auckland City Council Hobson Ward at the 2007 local body elections as a member of Citizens & Ratepayers. He was appointed deputy finance chairman by Mayor John Banks and chaired the community services committee. During his term, Goldsmith was criticised by the Auckland City Mission and the Green Party for instructing council officers to investigate removing homeless people from the city centre and refusing to rule out arresting homeless people to do so.

He sought but missed out on the Citizens & Ratepayers candidacy in the Ōrākei ward of the new Auckland Council at the 2010 Auckland elections, and was instead selected to contest Albert-Eden-Roskill. He finished third, behind Christine Fletcher and Cathy Casey, in the two-member ward.

Fifth National Government, 2011–2017
Goldsmith stood in the Epsom electorate at the 2011 general election, but lost the electorate vote to John Banks, who earlier in 2011 had joined ACT New Zealand. Goldsmith had been expected to lose; National leader John Key encouraged National voters to elect the ACT candidate in Epsom to keep the smaller party in Parliament. Goldsmith was ranked 39th on the National Party list and was elected as a list MP sitting in the 50th Parliament. During his first term in parliament, Goldsmith was deputy chairperson and, from 2013, chairperson of the finance and expenditure select committee. He was also a member of the local government and environment committee.

During the, Goldsmith contested the Epsom electorate and came second to new ACT candidate David Seymour. Ranked 30th, Goldsmith was re-elected as a list MP. He was appointed a minister outside Cabinet from November 2014 until December 2016, responsible for commerce and consumer affairs. He was also associate minister for ACC. At the same time, he served on the Education and Science and Social Services select committees. Goldsmith was promoted into Cabinet for the government's final year, as Minister for Science and Innovation, Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, and Minister for Regulatory Reform.

Opposition, 2017–2023
During the, Goldsmith was re-elected as a list MP after coming second place in the Epsom electorate. At the beginning of the parliamentary term, as an opposition MP, he was the party spokesperson for arts, culture and heritage. Following the March 2018 National Party portfolio reshuffle, Goldsmith became spokesperson for revenue and economic and regional development. Later in the year, he lost the revenue portfolio, but became transport spokesperson.

In 2019, Goldsmith assumed the spokesperson role for finance and infrastructure and the third-ranked member of the National caucus. Stuff.co.nz writer Thomas Coughlan described him as "possibly the most libertarian or right-wing person to hold the shadow finance portfolio." Political columnist Danyl McLauchlan said Goldsmith was "possibly the only remaining member of his party who could be described as 'neoliberal'." Goldsmith was additionally spokesperson for state-owned enterprises between February and May 2020 and for the Earthquake Commission between May and November 2020. Between March and May 2020, Goldsmith was a member of the Epidemic Response Committee, a select committee that considered the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Goldsmith's budget for the National Party's 2020 election campaign was found to have several errors, some of which Goldsmith accepted. Re-elected for a fourth term as a list MP, Goldsmith lost the finance role after the election and became spokesperson for education and a member of the education and workforce committee until 2021. When Christopher Luxon became National leader in 2021, Goldsmith became justice spokesperson.

Sixth National Government, 2023–present
Goldsmith won a fifth term as a National list MP in October 2023. Though he failed to unseat ACT leader David Seymour, he was re-elected on the National Party list.

On 27 November 2023, Goldsmith was announced as the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Minister of Justice, Minister for State Owned Enterprises and Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations in the Sixth National Government.

On 7 February 2024, Justice Minister Goldsmith announced that government funding for cultural reports would be stopped under the new National-led government. On 6 March 2024, the Government passed urgent legislation ending taxpayer funding for cultural reports.

On 25 February 2024, Justice Minister Goldsmith and Police Minister Mark Mitchell announced that the Government would introduce legislation to ban gang insignia in public places, enable Police to disperse gang gatherings, allow Courts to ban gang members from communicating for at least three years, and giving greater weight to gang membership during sentencing. Goldsmith argued that the Government needed to take action in response to a 51% increase in gang membership (over 3,000 individuals) over the past five years.

On 24 April, Luxon appointed Goldsmith as Minister for Media and Communications during a cabinet reshuffle. Goldsmith replaced Melissa Lee, who had faced criticism for her response to Warner Bros. Discovery New Zealand's closure of Newshub.

On 11 July, Goldsmith and Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced the formation of a new retail crime advisory group to engage with victims, workers, business owners, retail experts and advocacy groups to combat retail crime. The advisory group will be allocated NZ$1.8 million a year and expected to last two years.

Social and political views
Goldsmith voted in favour of legalising same-sex marriage in 2012 and 2013 and in favour of prohibiting conversion therapy in 2022. He opposed the End of Life Choice Bill in 2017 and 2019 and voted for the Abortion Legislation Bill in 2019 but not 2020.

Goldsmith has stated that he would vote against the legalisation of cannabis at the 2020 referendum. He believes New Zealand should wait and observe the effects of cannabis legalisation in Canada before making a decision.

In June 2021, Goldsmith attracted controversy for stating that colonisation had been "on balance" good for Māori because it had led to the creation of New Zealand. He believes that New Zealand's reconnection with the rest of the world following isolation for centuries was always going to be a "traumatic experience". Goldsmith refused to apologise for the comments, calling himself "a proud New Zealander."