| Camilla Belich | |
| Constituency Mp3: | Labour party list |
| Term Start3: | 6 December 2023 |
| Parliament3: | New Zealand |
| Predecessor3: | Andrew Little |
| Term Start4: | 17 October 2020 |
| Term End4: | 14 October 2023 |
| Birth Date: | [1] |
| Party: | Labour |
| Relations: | Jim Belich (grandfather) James Belich (uncle) |
| Profession: | Lawyer |
| Spouse: | Andrew Kirton |
| Children: | Three |
Camilla Vera Feslier Belich[2] is a New Zealand lawyer, trade unionist and politician. She has been a Member of Parliament, representing the New Zealand Labour Party, since 2020.
Belich was raised in Wellington, where her grandfather Sir Jim Belich was mayor from 1986 to 1992. Her parents were trade unionists.[3] As a teenager, Belich attended Wellington East Girls' College and was a member of the Wellington City Youth Council.[4] While in the seventh form, she was selected to represent Rongotai MP Annette King as a member of the third New Zealand Youth Parliament in 2000.[5] She would go on to be one of six former youth MPs to be members of Parliament in 2021.[6]
Belich studied te reo Māori and law at Victoria University of Wellington. She became involved in student politics and was co-president of the New Zealand University Students Association with Andrew Kirton, her future husband, in 2005.[7] [8] Kirton and Belich have three children, the third of whom was born after Belich was elected to Parliament.
Belich has worked as an employment lawyer, beginning her career at Oakley Moran, a Wellington law firm, before moving to London in 2009 where she worked for a law firm and later for Unison, the largest trade union in the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2016.[9] There, she won acclaim for her role in winning a high-profile case in the Court of Justice of the European Union about safe working hours.[10]
Returning to New Zealand, she joined the Wellington employment law firm Bartlett Law as a senior associate in 2017.[11] She specialised in employment discrimination cases. She also worked for unions in New Zealand as a barrister and solicitor, firstly on equal pay issues at the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions until 2019, and subsequently for the Public Service Association in Auckland.
Belich was considered as a possible Labour candidate in Rongotai for the 2017 general election.[12] She was selected as a Labour candidate in the 2020 general election. She ran for the electorate of, finishing second, but became an MP based on her ranking of 30th on the Labour party list.[13] [14] [15] In her first term, she was the deputy chair of the education and workforce select committee until 2023 when she became the chair of the committee as well as a junior government whip.[16]
In 2023, Belich inherited Duncan Webb's private members bill, the Companies (Directors Duties) Amendment Bill, which amended the Companies Act 1993 to remove doubt that company directors may consider matters other than maximising profit, such as environmental, social, and corporate governance and Treaty of Waitangi considerations, when discharging their duties.[17] The bill was described as "controversial" because it failed to receive select committee support, was perceived to increase the risk of litigation for companies and directors, and because it imposed no new obligations.[18] [19] Nonetheless, it passed its third reading on 1 August 2023 with Belich saying in the debate that the bill started from a misunderstanding that business must be profitable at all costs and that the bill, in its final draft, provided clarity to avoid future misunderstandings about company law.[20]
Ahead of the 2023 general election, Belich sought to succeed retiring former prime minister Jacinda Ardern in the safe Labour electorate of . Despite having Ardern's personal support,[21] Belich missed out with fellow list MP Helen White winning the selection.[22] She was later re-selected as Labour's candidate in Epsom.[23]
Belich was briefly unseated after the election. She placed third in Epsom, and her list placement of 26 meant she was the first list candidate not to be elected after the official results were announced. However, senior Labour MP Andrew Little opted not to take up his list seat and formally resigned from the House on 5 December. This resulted in Belich's election as a list MP to replace Little the following day.[24] [25] [26]
She assumed the junior whip, workplace relations and safety, and emergency management portfolios in the Shadow Cabinet of Chris Hipkins.[27]