Mojo Mathers

Mojo Celeste Mathers (née Minrod, born 23 November 1966) is a New Zealand politician and a former Member of Parliament (MP) for the Green Party. She became known through her involvement with the Malvern Hills Protection Society and helped prevent the Central Plains Water Trust's proposal to build a large irrigation dam in Coalgate. She was a senior policy advisor to the Green Party between 2006 and 2011. Mathers was elected to the 50th term of Parliament in 2011, becoming the country's first deaf Member of Parliament.

Early life and career Mathers was born in London, UK in 1966. Her parents named her after the Muddy Waters' 1957 version of the song "Got My Mojo Working". Her grandfather was the British legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart and her grandmother Jenifer Hart a British senior public servant, author and daughter of prominent electoral reformer Sir John Fischer Williams.

Mathers was born profoundly deaf "after oxygen was cut to her as newborn baby during a difficult birth". She is not, however, mute, and is a lipreader. She only began to make significant use of Sign Language in the late 2000s (saying she had "found it very useful for some situations"), preferring to lipread and communicate orally before that.

She has three children.

Moving to New Zealand, Mathers worked for the Green Party as a senior policy advisor between 2006 and 2011. In her personal life, she "strive to reduce [her] personal impact on the environment by being vegetarian, supporting GE free, non-toxic, organic, fair trade and local, [and] using public transport". winning 1,631 votes. In 2008 she was ranked 13th and contested Christchurch East, winning 1,843 votes. On neither occasion was she elected.

In 2009, Mathers wrote submissions opposing clauses of the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill 2009 and arguing for the "setting of minimum environmental standards" across the country. She also wrote in opposition to the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill 2009, arguing it "would substantially weaken the existing emissions trading scheme, reducing incentives to reduce emissions while providing large ongoing subsidies to climate polluters at enormous cost to the taxpayer".

In 2011, Mathers described her areas of policy interest as "rural issues, biodiversity, forestry and water, as well as animal welfare, disability and women's rights". and stood again in Christchurch East. She finished third in her constituency, with 4.5% of the electorate vote, but was elected as a list MP.

During her two terms in parliament she held various spokesperson roles including Animal Welfare, Civil Defence, Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Disability Issues, Food and Natural Health. She served on the Commerce, Government Administration and Local Government and Environment select committees. In November 2015, a member's bill in Mathers' name which would establish an adjudicator to resolve disputes between supermarkets and suppliers was drawn. The bill was defeated at its first reading with the Green Party, Labour Party, NZ First and the Māori Party voting in support and the National Party, Act and United Future opposed.

Mathers lost her seat at the 2017 general election, despite no change in her list ranking, because the Green Party received a smaller share of the party vote.

Life after politics

In 2019 Mathers started working as a policy advisor for Disabled Person's Assembly of New Zealand (DPA). She was appointed chief executive of the DPA in 2023.

Honour In the 2019 New Year Honours, Mathers was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to people with disabilities.