Matt King (politician)

Matt King
1st Leader of DemocracyNZ
Assumed office
April 2022
Preceded byParty established
Member of the New Zealand Parliament
for Northland
In office
23 September 2017 – 17 October 2020
Preceded byWinston Peters
Succeeded byWillow-Jean Prime
Personal details
Born
Ronald Matthew King

1967 (age 56–57)
Political partyDemocracyNZ (since 2022)
National (until 2022)

Ronald Matthew King[1] (born 1967)[2] is a New Zealand politician who was a Member of Parliament for the National Party from 2017 to 2020. During his time as an opposition MP, King's roles included membership of the Justice, Māori Affairs, and Transport and Infrastructure Select Committees, and National's spokesperson for Regional Development (North Island), Rural Communities, and Transport. While in parliament he promoted a bill to create a new offense for "king hits" but it was defeated.

King has posted claims about COVID-19 vaccinations being dangerous, and says he does not believe that vaccinations have actually occurred in the numbers recorded. He has downplayed the severity of COVID-19 and discussed alternative and widely debunked treatments for it. In February 2022, King attended the 2022 Wellington occupation of parliament, after which he resigned from the National Party. In March 2022 King launched a new political party called DemocracyNZ.

  1. ^ "Daily progress for Tuesday, 7 November 2017". New Zealand Parliament. Archived from the original on 6 December 2017. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  2. ^ "Roll of members of the New Zealand House of Representatives, 1854 onwards" (PDF). New Zealand Parliament. 24 May 2019. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 September 2020. Retrieved 3 September 2020.