Victor Billot is a former co-leader and electoral candidate for New Zealand's Alliance party. He is also known as a writer, musician, unionist, past editor of Critic magazine, and a performer in the bands Alpha Plan, [1] Age of Dog [2] and Das Phaedrus. [3]
Billot was a founding member of the NewLabour Party, which was set up in 1989 by Jim Anderton. [4] In 1991, NewLabour was one of four parties to form the Alliance political party.
He was a candidate for the Alliance in 2005 (at number eight on their list), 2008 (three), and 2011 (six), contesting the Dunedin North electorate. [5] [6] [7] In 2008, he was berated by the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, for all the faults of the National Party when she mistook him for a supporter of that party. [8]
At the party's 2006 conference, held in Wellington, no co-leaders were elected. Instead the party decided to concentrate on internal reorganisation; Billot was elected president. At the 2007 national conference, held in Dunedin, two co-leaders were elected, Billot and Kay Murray, with Paul Piesse returning to his former role as Party President. Billot was co-leader for one year. [9]
Billot persuaded his Wellington friend and businessman Jack Yan to stand for the Alliance in 2008; [10] Yan was number 12 on the list, but did not contest an electorate. [6]
Clare Curran, the New Zealand Labour Party MP for Dunedin South from 2008 to 2020, has repeatedly encouraged Billot to join her party. [11]
He stepped down from his role as Spokesman and occasional co-leader of the Alliance Party in March 2014. [12]
Billot still engages in left wing activism in Dunedin, campaigning against cuts to postal services in 2015. [13]
Billot was the National Communications Officer for the Maritime Union of New Zealand between 2003 and 2016. [14] In January 2017 he began working as publicist for the Otago University Press. [15] He writes a weekly column for Newsroom . [16]
Billot has published three poetry collections:
His work has also appeared in Australian and New Zealand literary journals including Cordite, [20] Meniscus, [21] Minarets [22] and Takahē. [23]
Billot has recorded several albums since the early 1990s with music groups in addition to a solo album, including:
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