National MP for Rangitikei Ian McKelvie is not backwards in coming forward with his views. Recently he’s come out against the gun buyback, the proposed capital gains tax, and the End of Life Choice bill, and perhaps unsurprisingly, in favour of his new boss, the “experienced and talented” Simon Bridges.
He says his hardest time in politics was witnessing the fallout from the Jamie-Lee Ross scandal – he “didn’t come [to parliament] to play personality politics.”
But the MP has a new cause for optimism now – two portfolios he was handed as the National Party builds its policy platform for the 2020 election – fishing and racing.
McKelvie had been Manawatu’s mayor for nine years when, in 2011, the then Rangitikei MP Simon Power resigned, and he was asked by National to stand.
The McKelvie family wealth comes through agricultural properties, with the Rangitikei MP’s family having lived within two kilometres of his home since 1850. The family has been farming on the Manawatu coast for six generations and more than 130 years.
The family sheep and beef farm is now run by McKelvie’s two sons, Cameron and Angus, and their families.
2018: $65 million