Sir Alexander Lockwood Smith (born 13 November 1948) is a New Zealand politician and diplomat who was High Commissioner of New Zealand to the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2017, and Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2008 to 2013. Smith is a member of the New Zealand National Party and served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1984 until his retirement to pursue diplomatic roles in 2013. He represented first the Kaipara electorate and then Rodney, and has held a number of Cabinet positions; he was Minister of Education from 1990 to 1996 and subsequently served as Minister of Agriculture, Minister for International Trade, and Associate Minister of Finance. Early years Smith attended Auckland Grammar School in 1961. He has a PhD in Animal science from the University of Adelaide. Before entering politics he lectured at Massey University, worked as a television quizmaster for the children's quiz shows It's Academic and The W 3 Show, and was Marketing Manager at the New Zealand Dairy Board. Member of Parliament Smith was first elected in 1984 as the MP for Kaipara. He represented this electorate until it was abolished in 1996 during the shift to mixed-member proportional (MMP) representation. Following the election he was the representative for Rodney until the election where he stood as a list-only candidate and was elected as a List MP. Minister in the Fourth National Government Smith served as Minister of Education from 1990 until 1996 in the Fourth National Government of New Zealand. During this period he implemented a number of changes to the tertiary education sector (universities and technical institutions). One high-profile change involved a radical increase in student fees, as recommended by the Todd Report, which the government had commissioned to address issues of funding. As opposition education spokesman in 1990, Smith promised to remove the Labour Government's tertiary tuition fee of $1250, if elected. Once in office, he kept this promise on a technicality: he shifted the burden of charging fees for courses from the government to the institutions, who then had to charge even higher tuition fees due to decreased government 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 became ineligible for allowances until they reached 25 years of age. In 1996 Smith took up the Agriculture and Trade Negotiation portfolios: Wyatt Creech succeeded