James McDowall

McDowall stood for ACT in the Hamilton East electorate in the 2017 general election, but received only 140 votes.[3] He was also placed 13th on the ACT party list, but ACT did not win enough party votes to be entitled to any list MPs.[4]

McDowall led the development of ACT's firearm policy in response to the Government's 2019 Arms Amendment Act.[5]

In the 2020 general election, McDowall was placed 6th on the ACT party list and ran for the electorate of Waikato.[6] He focused on raising awareness of ACT rather than his own individual electorate.[3] McDowall came third in Waikato,[7] while ACT won 7.6% of the party vote, entitling it to ten MPs including McDowall.[8][9] During the Commission Opening of the 53rd New Zealand Parliament, McDowall repeated his oath in Cantonese, attracting significant attention – "over a million views" – in Hong Kong.[10][11] In 2022, he shared on his Facebook that he led the pre-Parliamentary prayer in Cantonese, even garnering praise from Veteran Hong Kong TV host and actor – Patrick Dunn.[12]

McDowall is the ACT Party's spokesperson for Economic Development, Research, Science and Innovation, Immigration, Defence, and Tourism.[13] As ACT's immigration spokesperson, McDowall has often criticised the Labour government, such as its Covid border policies and their impact on access to seasonal workers,[14][15][16] its proposed new "priority" application system[17] and its proposed law changes intended to prevent migrant worker exploitation, but which McDowall said would actually enable bad employers to exploit migrants more.[18] The Green Party's spokesperson, Ricardo Menéndez March, acknowledged the work of McDowall and others to "put immigration on the agenda."[19] McDowall said in 2021 that "ACT would dump Labour’s ‘once in a generation’ immigration reset" and that it "would signal a return to the pre-COVID immigration settings as soon as public health concerns allow".[20]

McDowall supported a law which allowed people to change the gender on their birth certificate. Speaking about the bill, which passed unanimously through parliament, he said it “advanc[ed] liberalism and actually reduc[ed] Government interference in people's lives by enabling choice”.[21]

In November 2022, McDowall was selected as the ACT Party candidate for the 2022 Hamilton West by-election.[22] He came third with ten percent of the vote.

McDowall is retiring from Parliament at the 2023 election. According to his party leader, David Seymour, McDowall "has a young family and has indicated to us that while he is very proud to have served the last three years in Parliament, he is not seeking re-election in 2023”.[23]