Owen Jennings
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Owen Jennings is a former New Zealand politician. He was an MP from 1996 to 2002, representing the ACT New Zealand party.
Before entering politics, Jennings was a farmer. He was first elected to Parliament in the 1996 elections, becoming a list MP. In 1998, he unsuccessfully attempted to become an electorate MP, contesting the Taranaki-King Country by-election. He surprised commentators by winning second place, pushing the Labour Party into third.
In 1997, Jennings made comments under Parliamentary Privilege regarding about the New Zealand Wool Board's sponsorship of a Barbarians rugby team tour of Great Britain. In an interview to a newspaper about the comments, Jennings said he "did not resile" for the comments and was successfully sued for defamation by senior Wool Board official Roger Buchanan. Appeals against the action ultimately failed. Parliamentary Report on the comments.
In May 1998, Owen Jennings hosted a meeting of Nelson businessman Jeff Law in his Parliamentary Office. A financial investment scheme was pitched to a group of Wellington Businessmen by Law who were offered a return of $67 million for an outlay of $450,000. The scheme offered was widely regarded to be a pyramid scheme or a similar scam.
In the 1999 elections, he remained a list MP.
As the defamation case was still unresolved by the time of the 2002 elections, Jennings was ranked only twelfth on ACT's party list, making it doubtful that he would return to Parliament. Penny Webster, another former farmer, was also ranked lowly, leading to speculation that ACT was no longer campaigning for the rural vote. Jennings did not return to Parliament.
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