Bianca Beebe is a public health researcher and labour organiser whose work focuses on an empirical study of law to understand (and change) how regulatory regimes affect people’s material conditions. Her policy development centers groups frequently cast to the margins of society because that is where she finds the greatest disparity between what a policy is supposed to do and what the evidence says it actually causes. One of the things that drew her to Opportunity Party was the fourth value in the constitution: “Efficacy–we are our results.” Bianca wants all of government to operate with that sense of accountability.

After obtaining her Master of Public Health degree at Johns Hopkins University in the USA, Bianca co-founded a non-profit, and collaborated alongside several others, that advocated for sex workers, people living with HIV, and people who use drugs. She is consequently accustomed to securing legislative wins in an exceptionally hostile political environment. As a co-founder and current chair of the New Zealand sex workers’ advocacy group Fired Up Stilettos, she has consistently rejected the left-right binary, and has instead cultivated positive relationships with MPs from every political party across the spectrum. She rejects the term ‘centrism’ as politically meaningless, and instead describes Opportunity’s role as ‘consensus builders.’

As an unabashed nerd and sci-fi speculative fiction devotee, Bianca is here to build the New Zealand we dream of.