Lockwood Smith

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Parl.	Electorate	List Pos.	Party
41st	Kaipara	n/a	National
42nd	Kaipara	n/a	National
43rd	Kaipara	n/a	National
44th	Kaipara	n/a	National
45th	Rodney	8	National
46th	Rodney	5	National
47th	Rodney	11	National
48th	Rodney	9	National

Dr. Alexander Lockwood Smith (13 November 1948 - ) is a New Zealand politician. He is a member of the National Party. He has been the MP for first Kaipara and then Rodney since the 1984 elections, and has held a number of Cabinet positions, including Minister of Education, Minister of Agriculture, Minister for International Trade, and Associate Minister of Finance. Before entering politics, he was a lecturer at Massey University, a television presenter (presenting a children's quiz show called W3), and a marketing manager at the New Zealand Dairy Board.

[edit] As Education Minister

Dr Smith was Minister of Education from 1990 until 1996. During this period he implemented a number of changes to the tertiary education sector (i.e. universities and technical institutions). One of the highest-profile changes was a radical increase in student fees, as recommended by the Todd Report, which was commissioned by the government to address issues of funding.

As opposition education spokesman in 1990, he had campaigned for the removal of the Labour Government's tertiary tuition fee of $1250, promising to get rid of the fee if elected. In office, he kept this promise on a technicality: the burden of charging fees for courses was shifted from the government to the institutions, who were then forced to charge even higher tuition fees due to decreased govenrnment funding.

Smith's term as Education Minister also saw the introduction of means testing for student allowances, with the effect that students of middle-class parents were ineligible for allowances until they reached 25 years of age.

These activities inevitably resulted in considerable antithesis toward Smith from tertiary students, and he was made the subject of a considerable amount of protest activity. On one memorable occasion in 1994 Smith was forced to escape from a mob through a window at the University of Canterbury. On another an unflattering bust of him was sculpted out of horse manure.