Cam Calder

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Cam Calder is the public name of Campbell Gordon Calder, born in 1952. He is a New Zealand doctor and former politician who served as a National Party Member of Parliament from June 2009 to September 2014.

He grew up in New Plymouth after his father died when Cam was six. He has two brothers and a sister. He went to Westown School and New Plymouth Boys’ High School, then studied dental surgery at the University of Otago. He also trained with the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons and later retrained in medicine at Magdalene College, Cambridge. An accident during his medical studies left him without sight in one eye. He worked as an emergency medicine doctor in England and later in New Zealand.

Before entering Parliament, he was the clinical research director for a medical and sporting equipment company. He lived in France from 2001 and led the French New Zealand Business Council. He also worked with the international pétanque community and is credited with helping bring pétanque to New Zealand. He represented New Zealand in the 1995 Pétanque World Championships in Brussels, where the team finished 36th. He is married to Jenny, and they have two children.

Cam Calder joined the National Party in 2003 and held various party roles. In the 2008 election he stood in Manurewa and was on the party list (ranked 58). He did not win the electorate, and National lost a seat, so he did not enter Parliament then.

He entered Parliament in June 2009 after the resignation of Richard Worth. He tried again for Manurewa in 2011 and lost, but he stayed in Parliament as a list MP. During his time, he served on several committees, including law and order, local government and environment, health, justice and electoral, transport and industrial relations, and education and science (which he chaired).

In 2012 he introduced a private member’s bill to ban high-powered laser pointers in public places; the law passed in July 2014 with cross-party support. He announced in October 2013 that he would retire at the 2014 election, and Simeon Brown took his place as the National candidate for Manurewa.

After leaving Parliament, Calder worked as an observer in Sri Lanka’s 2015 presidential election. He has expressed views on various issues, such as opposing criminal penalties for smacking in the 2009 child discipline referendum, supporting a higher alcohol purchase age of 20, and voting for the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013. In 2021 he wrote a column criticizing certain elements of the new New Zealand history curriculum.