Liz Craig


Elizabeth Dorothy Craig is a New Zealand politician and Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the Labour Party. As a public health physician, she has become known for her research work on child poverty.

Private life

Craig was born in and received her secondary education at Spotswood College in New Plymouth. She was married to David Craig, and she has two children. In January 2020 she married Philip Melgren.
Prior to the, she lived in Dunedin. For the 2014 election, the family split its time between Dunedin and Romahapa in The Catlins. In 2016, when her selection for the Invercargill electorate was confirmed, she started looking for a house in Invercargill and has lived there since.

Career before politics

Craig is a public health doctor and child poverty advocate. In 2009, she won a $50,000 Dunedin School of Medicine's research development investment award, and she established a child and youth health policy research unit with that funding. She was the director of the New Zealand Child and Youth Epidemiology Service of the University of Otago. In 2012, she warned that New Zealanders had to get used to poor children suffering from Third World diseases. She was part of a group that compiled an annual child poverty monitor, and the group has been credited with making the issue one of the core topics of the. Craig resigned as director from the research group, and as editor of the child poverty monitor, prior to the 2014 election.

Political career

Craig stressed that her political views were formed through her work on child poverty, and "not the other way around".
She joined the Labour Party in 2010 and was a contributing author of Labour's children's policies for the 2011 and 2014 elections. She stood for Labour in the electorate in the, placing second. Ranked 32 on the Labour list, she was not returned on the list either. In May 2016, she won the Labour nomination unopposed for the electorate for the. Craig was placed 31 on Labour's party list. The Invercargill electorate was held by National's Sarah Dowie, but Craig halved National's party vote majority. Craig did not win the electorate, but entered parliament via the Party list.