| Tony Brunt | |
| Office1: | 1st Leader of the Values Party |
| Deputy1: | Geoff O'Neill |
| Successor1: | Reg Clough |
| Term Start1: | 30 May 1972 |
| Term End1: | 25 August 1974 |
| Office2: | Member of the Wellington City Council |
| Term Start2: | 12 October 1974 |
| Term End2: | 11 October 1980 |
| Constituency2: | At-large |
| Birth Name: | Anthony John Brunt |
| Birth Place: | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Alma Mater: | Victoria University |
| Party: | Values |
| Profession: | Journalist |
Anthony John Brunt (born 1947) is a New Zealand journalist, activist and politician. He was the founder and leader of the environmentalist Values Party in the 1970s.
Brunt was born in Auckland in 1947 and later became a journalist. He briefly changed profession and became a trade union organiser before returning to his career in journalism.[1] He then moved to Wellington to study political science at Victoria University of Wellington.[2]
Brunt became politically active and formed the environmentalist Values Party in the early 1970s and served as its inaugural leader. He founded the party to serve as a response to the "barren and miniaturist" political culture that existed in New Zealand at the time.[3] Then aged 25, Brunt was the youngest leader of a political party in New Zealand history.[4] He went on to contest the Wellington electorate of Island Bay at the 1972 election, where he placed third out of six candidates, gaining 7.6% of the vote.
Two years later, he stood for the Wellington mayoralty and City Council on a Values ticket. He placed third for mayor but was easily elected to the council. Brunt's candidacy for the mayoralty was viewed as having drawn away many left-wing voters from the Labour Party. Labour mayor Frank Kitts lost office in a very close race and blamed the Values vote for his defeat.[5] In 1977 he again stood for both positions and was again elected only as a councillor, topping the poll with more votes than any other candidate.[6] Brunt opposed extending the Wellington Urban Motorway to the foot of Mount Victoria.[7] While he was a member of the Council, Brunt was also employed by the Commission for the Environment as an investigating officer.[8] He did not stand for re-election in 1980.
In the 1980s Brunt was chairman of the campaign committee of the Save the Rivers campaign to protect New Zealand's best wild and scenic rivers.[9] Brunt later moved back to Auckland and settled in the suburb of Hillsborough. In 2000, he became the chairman of the Friends of Puketutu Trust, a lobby group campaigning for the Manukau Harbour island of Puketutu to be classified as a regional park.[10]
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