Larry Baldock

Political career

Baldock was elected to Parliament in the 2002 general election. Along with Murray Smith, Bernie Ogilvy, and Marc Alexander, Baldock failed to make it back to the 48th New Zealand Parliament in 2005, given United Future New Zealand's drop in electoral support to one-third the level at the previous general election. Like Smith, Ogilvy and Adams, Baldock is an evangelical Christian.

Future New Zealand

On 16 May 2007, his former colleague Gordon Copeland, then a United Future List MP, announced that he would be forming a new Future New Zealand party after expressing dissatisfaction with party leader Peter Dunne's support of the child-discipline bill. Baldock joined the new party.

After Copeland's announcement, Baldock held an inaugural party meeting in Tauranga, his city of residence, and stated that forty-five former members of the pre-merger Future New Zealand had attended, although the party had between sixteen and twenty members at that time. Former United Future List MP Bernie Ogilvy also joined Future New Zealand, as party secretary.

On 17 July 2007, the Future New Zealand website's Copeland Chronicle (June 2007) edition announced that "Future New Zealand" had achieved its five hundred member goal required for registration under the New Zealand Electoral Act 1993 as a viable political party. The newsletter also stated that Copeland and Baldock would now work on establishing a Board of Management and Board of Reference for the party.

The Kiwi Party

On 28 January 2008, Future New Zealand was renamed The Kiwi Party. Baldock became sole party leader, while Copeland concentrated primarily on parliamentary matters. Baldock successfully collected 310,000 signatures against the Child Discipline Act, which forced a referendum on the issue. Baldock has proposed giving parents the right to strike their children with implements stating, "I'm not opposed to the wooden spoon or ruler because you can control things with that better than you can with an open hand."

In the 2008 general election, Baldock stood for the Tauranga electorate, but came a distant fourth, with approximately five percent of the vote. The Kiwi Party also performed poorly, receiving 0.54% of the party vote nationwide.

Undaunted by its poor performance, the Kiwi Party held a conference in Christchurch in March 2009, and announced its intention to contest the 2011 general election. As The Family Party and New Zealand Pacific Party had been dissolved, it would have been the only Christian party in the contest.

Conservative Party involvement

It was announced on 14 October 2011 that Kiwi Party members would not be running candidates for the 2011 election, instead standing for the Conservative Party, of which Baldock was ranked at number 3 on the 2011 party list. Baldock also stood for the Conservatives in the Tauranga electorate in 2011 gaining just over 4% of the popular vote

In April 2013 the Electoral Commission announced it had referred Baldock to the police for filing a false expenses return and for exceeding the $25,000 cap on election expenses. The Police did not lay charges.

Larry Baldock declined to stand as the Conservative Party's candidate in Tauranga in August 2014 because he disagreed with the party's policy of abolishing the Maori seats and removing references to the Treaty of Waitangi from legislation.

He was removed from the Conservative Party's board before the end of 2014, and had his party membership suspended while he faced disciplinary action. The suspension was not related to his earlier policy disagreement.