Hilary Calvert

Hilary Jane Calvert (born 5 October 1954) is a lawyer and a former member of the New Zealand parliament for the ACT Party. Following the resignation of ACT MP David Garrett in September 2010, she assumed a position in the House of Representatives as the next MP on ACT's list. In 2013 she was elected to the Dunedin City Council, after a failed campaign for mayor. Calvert also served on the Otago Regional Council (ORC) between 2019 and 2022. In 2025, Calvert was re-elected to the ORC as part of the Vision Otago ticket. She subsequently became the Council's chairperson.

Early years Before entering Parliament, Calvert was a Dunedin-based lawyer who specialising in property law. She is a former member of the Otago Central Rail Trail Charitable Trust.

Calvert is married to Alistair Broad and has three adult daughters. Both Calvert and Broad are trained lawyers, but have given up their practising certificates. Calvert now manages her property portfolio.

Parliamentary career, 2010–2011 David Garrett resigned as an ACT list MP over a passport controversy on 17 September 2010. Garrett then resigned from Parliament on 23 September 2010 and Calvert was declared elected to the House of Representatives the next day. While an MP, she served on several committees and was the ACT Party Whip.

Calvert did not appear on the party list released for the 2011 general election.

Dunedin City Council, 2013–2016 She challenged incumbent Dave Cull for the Dunedin mayoralty in the 2013 local body elections and also sought a seat on the Dunedin City Council. She contested these elections as an independent, unsure whether or not she was still a member of ACT. She was a councillor on the Dunedin City Council until 2016.

Otago Regional Council, 2019–2022, 2025–present In the 2019 local elections, she won a seat on the Otago Regional Council (ORC). While Calvert did not run for re-election to the Otago Regional Council during the 2022 regional election, In mid-October 2025, Calvert and incumbent councillors Michael Laws and Gary Kelliher were elected to the ORC on the Vision Otago ticket. In response to the Sixth National Government's announcement in late November 2025 that it would pass legislation to dissolve the regional councils and transfer their functions to district and municipal councils, Calvert supported the proposed restructure but expressed concern that Port Otago and its assets could be used to pay off other councils' debts. In April 2026, Calvert met with New Zealand First Member of Parliament Mark Patterson, who confirmed that the Government had abandoned plans to replace the regional councils with combined territories boards before the end of the 54th New Zealand Parliamentary term after consulting with local government bodies.

In mid-May 2026, Calvert and Laws expressed disagreement with Dunedin City councillors Lee Vandervis, Andrew Simms and Russell Lund op-ed column in the Otago Daily Times proposing that a Dunedin-Waitaki authority take over control and management of Port Otago as part of the Sixth National Government's local government reforms. Calvert and Laws contended that Port Otago was a regional asset, with the former stating: "I would expect Otago people would fight hard to resist any ill-founded suggestion that whatever Dunedin City chooses to do they will be in a position to contra their rather large debts against more than their fair share of Port Otago."

Views and perspectives Calvert does not agree with attempts to ban farming chickens in cages, saying "We care about people ahead of silly little chickens."