Bryan Sinclair

Bryan Sinclair is a former New Zealand university student leader, a former political adviser, a lawyer and a strategic communications consultant.
Student politics
Sinclair's first involvement in national politics was during the 1990s as the spokesman for the political lobby, Student Choice, a group of students who promoted freedom of association at New Zealand university campuses. Student Choice won three consecutive referendums at Waikato University, and in doing so made Waikato the first university students association in 70 years to achieve voluntary membership status. Later, the Waikato Students Union was the first to return to compulsory union membership. The WSU has not returned to VSM despite regular referendums on the issue.
Sinclair was elected Vice President of the Waikato Student Union in 1997, under the presidencies of Student Choice co-founders Ben King and Rick Marshall. There he helped to implement a radical restructuring plan to separate the association’s advocacy role from its commercial trading activities. Sinclair served as a director of a number of small media companies, and in conjunction with well known Waikato broadcaster, Joe Dennehy, he formed a private radio company, UFM, to take over the commercial activities of the loss making student radio station, Contact 89FM.
By 1998, Student Choice had gone on to win referendums at other university campuses, including (the country’s largest). The group then successfully lobbied the National/NZ First Coalition Government of the mid 1990s for the introduction of legislation, making student union membership voluntary at all New Zealand tertiary education institutions.
Career and political links
By 2000 Sinclair was working in advertising in Auckland, and later for a period in Sydney, Australia. In 2001 he worked on the campaign that resulted in the landslide election of the controversial, pro-infrastructure candidate, John Banks, as Mayor of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city.
An ever colourful character, Sinclair once topped the George FM breakfast show “Hot list” (August 2002), after successfully persuading overseas artists to make their music videos in New Zealand and Australia, instead of the United States.
Sinclair most recently rose to prominence as the special adviser to Don Brash, the Leader of New Zealand’s National Party, and Leader of the Opposition. Sinclair first assisted Brash with his bid for the Nationals leadership in 2003, unseating the incumbent Bill English. Sinclair then served for more than two years as a private advisor to Brash, who was the former long-serving Governor of New Zealand’s Reserve Bank.
During the 2005 General Election campaign, Sinclair inadvertently became a news story himself when a series of private emails to Brash revealed Sinclair’s criticisms of aspects of the National's election campaign strategy and also criticisms of some other National Party senior figures. In the news stories that followed the release of the stolen emails, Sinclair was linked with a number of wealthy political donors, high profile business and political figures, former Ministers, members of the Business Roundtable, and members of the right wing liberal ACT Party, many of whom were understood to have backed the libertarian Brash for the Nationals leadership in 2003.
National went on to lose the General Election by a slim margin after a fierce election campaign. Nevertheless Brash was credited with rebuilding National, doubling the Party’s membership and funding, producing the slickest political advertising campaign seen in New Zealand, and getting an additional 21 National Party Members of Parliament elected. National had come from its worst election result ever (in 2002) to within 2% of forming a Brash-led National government.
In the months following the Election, Sinclair walked from his senior role to move to Australia, where he now heads up Sinclair Thomas, an issues management, strategy and government relations consultancy, under the chairmanship of Australian public relations guru Ian Kortlang.

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