Washington in 1990. In September 1990 he stood for the Labour Party leadership against Foreign Affairs Minister Mike Moore. His candidature was a surprise to most given that he was not a member of cabinet. He was defeated by Moore by the wide margin of 41 votes to 15. After losing his seat in 1990, he attempted to regain a seat on the Auckland City Council. He stood as a candidate in a 1991 by-election for the Maungakiekie Ward, finishing runner-up to Ken Graham. In the 1993 election he returned to Parliament, now representing Onehunga which he took off National's Grahame Thorne. He was selected as the Labour candidate in Onehunga in preference to Chris Diack, a supporter of controversial former finance minister Roger Douglas. After missing out on the nomination Diack and his allies in the branch drained the electorate cash accounts by lump paying more than $6000 in outstanding debts to party headquarters, leaving just $7 to fund Northey's campaign in an act of spite. They then took ownership of an income-earning rental house from the Onehunga Labour Party and used it to instead fund the ACT Party (to whom Diack defected to in 1994) before finally being returned to the Labour Party after a long legal case in 2004. After re-entering Parliament Northey was aligned to Helen Clark who replaced Moore as leader. Clark appointed him Labour's Shadow Minister of Local Government and Youth Affairs. In the 1996 election he contested the Maungakiekie seat after boundary changes caused by the introduction of mixed-member proportional (MMP) representation, but was defeated in an upset by National's Belinda Vernon. He was not ranked high enough on Labour's list to remain in Parliament. In June 2020 it was revealed that the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service had spied upon Northey during his time in Parliament, under the pretext of his support for racial equality and nuclear disarmament. At the time he was chair of the Justice and Law Reform Select Committee, which was responsible for financial oversight of the SIS, and of legislation altering its powers. Return to local politics He has since entered local politics, serving on the Auckland City Council holding senior committee roles. He was elected to the Penrose Ward in 1998 until 2001 when he changed to the Maungakiekie-Tamaki Ward, holding his seat until the council was abolished in 2010. In 2007, Richard Northey became leader of