What is WhereTheyStand?

WhereTheyStand aims to aggregate key data about New Zealand's politicians, Parliament, and political parties.

Historical reach

Information on WhereTheyStand goes back as far as the 51st Parliament (2014-2017). Members of Parliament who were members of that or any subsequent parliamentary terms have profiles on WhereTheyStand.

Site development

WhereTheyStand is a personal side project. I started it when I was in my first year of university in 2020, and have been slowly working on it in my free time ever since. I aim to keep it completly apolitical; editorial annotations to substantive content will be made rarely and with substantial disclosure.

If you would like to support the development of WhereTheyStand, please consider supporting me on Buy Me A Coffee.

Acknowledgements and inspiration

First, great Parliamentary monitoring sites overseas have given me a lot of ideas and inspiration for WhereTheyStand. TheyWorkForYou is a great site built by the mySociety charity in the UK. It sets a gold standard for sites like these and I can only hope to get there with WhereTheyStand one day.

Secondly, the data and information that is presented on WhereTheyStand comes from a wide range of organisations. They are not affiliated with WhereTheyStand, but public information they provide is used on WhereTheyStand:

• Information about bills, votes, members' expenses and financial interests comes from the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives.
• Substantive bill content comes from the Parliamentary Counsel Office.
• Ministers' expenses come from the Department of Internal Affairs.
• Links to company details in financial interests are provided by the Companies Office through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
• Party name and registration information comes from the Electoral Commission.
• Electorate boundaries and geographic statistics come from Stats NZ, the Representation Commission and the Electoral Commission.