APIAPE: Agents of Private Interest, Architects of Public Erosion

Exposé File: Laura McClure (formerly Laura Trask)

ACT Party | List MP | Spokesperson for Small Business, Education, Mental Health, Social Development Seniors

Laura McClure: Consent Rewritten, Justice Redacted

The Quiet Administrator of Colonial Continuity

Tribunal Technocrat · Crown Strategist · Softening Rights Behind Legal Language

Laura McClure, ACT Party MP
Image source: Office of the Clerk (11 March 2025)

Current Portfolios

Laura McClure, formerly known as Laura Trask, has introduced legislation that redefines dismissal as mutual agreement — even when it’s veiled coercion. Her Employment Relations (Termination of Employment by Agreement) Amendment Bill (95–1) lets employers propose severance with gag clauses, silences employee speech, and makes negotiation evidence inadmissible in court. This is not balance — it’s institutional gaslighting.

In a country where power imbalances at work already run deep, McClure’s bill weaponises discretion and shields employers from scrutiny. It is the legislative embodiment of “you agreed to leave”, even when you were forced to.

The Bill: Strategic Silence, Legalised Pressure

The Bill inserts new sections 101A and 101B into the Employment Relations Act:

Presented as a facilitative measure, it instead closes down the most vital channels of workplace accountability: transparency, collective knowledge, and grievance resolution.

McClure claims to “streamline” employment processes. In reality, her bill sets the blueprint for institutional coercion behind closed doors. It strips employees of visibility, silences patterns of abuse, and reframes forced exits as free choice.

Formal Opposition Submitted By: Ukes Baha | Read the full opposition

From Trask to McClure: Rebranding, Not Reform

Laura McClure, formerly known as Laura Trask, did not expect to enter Parliament. In her own words, “it was not an ideal situation that I wanted to be in, but at the same time, I’m very honoured.”[1] Yet despite losing the Banks Peninsula electorate race, she was elevated to the ACT Party’s tenth list spot — above sitting MPs — and entered Parliament on ACT’s wave of ideological positioning. Her political rise was not earned through public mandate, but orchestrated by internal favour and alignment with the party’s doctrinal agenda.

McClure’s personal background — pharmacy technician, fire safety consultant, and political volunteer — contrasts sharply with the power she now holds as ACT’s spokesperson on education, mental health, small business, and seniors. She offers no expertise in these fields, yet sets policy direction for them. Her appointment is not an anomaly but a reflection of ACT’s internal priorities: reward ideological loyalty, not competence.

While rebranded as McClure, her record as Trask remains active. She has long advocated for shrinking government, opposing collective bargaining, and criticising protections she frames as “extra rights” for specific groups. She describes New Zealand’s education system as “incredibly woke” — not because it fails to educate, but because it acknowledges social context. This is not reform. It is the quiet insertion of market priorities into public systems, wrapped in claims of fairness and neutrality.

Name changes do not obscure political consistency. McClure’s history, language, and legislative moves show clear ideological continuity — a foot soldier in ACT’s broader push to deregulate the state, disempower labour, and frame structural inequality as individual choice.

Legislative Pattern: ACT’s Employment Doctrine

McClure’s bill aligns precisely with ACT’s ongoing attempts to dismantle public protections across sectors. Compare her tactics to those seen in other ACT bills:

The pattern is clear: Change the language. Suppress the resistance. Protect the powerful.

What You Can Do

  1. Quote from The Press, via www.thepress.co.nz. Retrieved 3 November 2023.

Every case documented strengthens public memory—and demands accountability.
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