Paulo Garcia

Paulo Reyes Garcia is a New Zealand lawyer and politician. He is a Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the New Zealand National Party and the first New Zealand MP of Filipino descent.

Early life and career Garcia was born in the city of San Juan, part of the conurbation of Metropolitan Manila, Philippines in 1965. He is a graduate of the University of the Philippines, and also attended the Academy of American and International Law in Texas in the United States of America. He was a barrister before entering parliament. In the Philippines, where he practised for ten years, his focus was commercial law, particularly as it applied to foreign and multinational companies operating in that country. After moving to New Zealand, he practised immigration law with a focus on investor migration.

Member of Parliament

First term, 2019–2020

In the Garcia stood for National in the electorate and was placed 50 on their party list. He came second to Deborah Russell with 38.55% of the vote and was not ranked high enough on National's party list to be immediately allocated a seat in Parliament.

In February 2018 Garcia and several other "next in line" list candidates attended National's parliamentary caucus meeting to help ease their transition into parliament should they enter during the course of the parliamentary term. Garcia later entered Parliament in 2019 upon the resignation of National MP Nuk Korako. He was declared elected on 16 May 2019. He became New Zealand's first MP of Filipino descent. In 2020 he was briefly deputy chairperson of the Parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, defense and trade and a National Party spokesperson on land information and associate spokesperson on foreign affairs and justice.

In February 2020 the National Party board decided that Garcia would be a list-only candidate in the 2020 general election. National polled poorly at the election and Garcia lost his seat in Parliament.

Second term, 2023–present Ahead of the 2023 New Zealand general election, Garcia was selected as the National Party candidate for New Lynn again. He defeated incumbent Deborah Russell with a final majority of 1,013 votes. In his second term he is deputy chair of the social services and community committee and has also been a member of the justice committee and petitions committee. His member's bill was supported by Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) mixed martial arts fighter Israel Adesanya.

On 16 December 2025 Garcia announced he would retire at the 2026 general election.