Walls was a Member of Parliament for Dunedin North from 1975 to 1978.[1] A member of the National Party, he won the normally safe Labour seat as part of Robert Muldoon's landslide victory of 1975. He was the first National MP to represent a significant portion of Dunedin, a long-standing Labour stronghold, in 21 years. Walls was defeated after only one term by Labour's Stan Rodger; to date, he is the last National MP to represent Dunedin.
Following his defeat, Walls attempted to re-enter parliament by seeking the National nomination for the Auckland seat of East Coast Bays in a 1980 by-election. He made the initial five person shortlist, but after being hospitalised suddenly, he was too ill to travel to Auckland for the selection meeting.[2][3]
Local-body politics
Walls was first elected onto Dunedin City Council in 1980.[4] Prior to that he served on the St. Kilda Borough Council (1962–1965) and on the Otago Harbour Board (1965–1974; Chairman 1971–1973). He was Mayor of Dunedin for two terms from 1989 to 1995, when he was defeated by Sukhi Turner.[4] He was re-elected to the Dunedin City Council as a councillor in 1998. He remained a city councillor until 2010 and was chair of the Finance and Strategy Committee from 2007 to 2010.[5][6] In the 2010 Dunedin local elections, he stood in the Central ward, but was unsuccessful.[7]
