Farewell after 30 years at the heart of events that shaped our democracy
Saturday, 4 July 2026
A man universally beloved by Parliamentarians but close to invisible to the voting public is retiring after three decades of service.
Outgoing Speaker’s Assistant Roland Todd has been a constant presence in the halls of power since 1995, though many would not recognise him.
A trusted sounding board and confidant to eight Speakers, the 65-year-old has helped run the House, looked after Parliament’s grounds and worked to ensure protest groups - no matter how small - got time to shine on the forecourt.
The Post found him enjoying his favourite breakfast - eggs Benedict - at Copperfield’s cafe on Friday morning, a few hours before he clocked off work for good.
“It’s time to enjoy and spend more time doing things I want to do. This place here ties you up from eight in the morning until 10 at night when the House sits, or midnight as they're doing at the moment.
“I'm not missing that at all. I'm not doing it. Someone else has to do it now.”
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The interview over breakfast was interrupted several times by people who wanted to wish him well for his new venture; working at a funeral home.
It might seem like a strange next step but Todd said it was working at a funeral home in his 20s - before he came to Parliament - that he learnt about life and how to treat people, including eight terms’ worth of MPs.
“Everyone’s got different reactions to death. You learn how to read the room, what people are going through and how they’re going to react throughout the years.
“Here [at Parliament], the thing I have done the most is take the political party side out of everything. When someone walks through the door, whether it be a very well-known MP or a very new MP…I don't go ‘they’re from such and such party’, I don’t look at it that way.
“I think well, they’re here to ask for something or if I can help them. I take that whole political party thing away and treat them just like everyone else that will come in there.”
Born in Wellington Hospital in 1961, Todd went to Miramar Central School, Evans Bay Intermediate and Rongotai College, though he quit school before he got School Certificate.
“I didn't like school. In those days if you weren’t that bright you were put in a not-that-bright class and left there. In the end I thought I could either fail, which I thought I was going to do anyway, or I can start working.”
Todd never saw himself doing “outside” work, like digging holes in footpaths, but had always been interested in “admin” and started working as an office junior at the defunct Town Clerk Office at the Wellington City Council in 1977, delivering mail and newspapers as a 16-year-old.
Todd left senior clerk a decade later to pursue another interest he’d had since a young age; funerals. He worked for the Lychgate Funeral Service from 1987 to 1995.
“There’s a certain person that can do that job. Some would never go there and it's like me not wanting to be a politician, but at the funeral home, you either have it or you don’t.
“You have to be able to walk out that door and leave it behind you because you do see some nasty things and you do see some very sad things, like cot deaths and young people that have died. You have to be able to walk away from that.”
Todd has taken the same “leave work at the door” approach to his time at Parliament, though that doesn’t mean he hasn’t left for the day only to return a short time later.
“I remember one of my jobs was to lock up the mace at night that’s in my office. When I first got here I used to live on the Terrace and I remember walking up the Terrace to home, I got into bed at half ten, and I thought ‘I don’t think I’ve locked the mace!”
“You know what I did? I got out of bed, I walked all the way back down here to make sure I locked it and I had but it really didn’t matter if I didn’t? Who’s gonna steal the bloody thing? And how are you going to get it out the building!”
Todd’s job has changed a lot over the years, evolving from a job that more closely resembles a butler to the first point of contact and advice within the Speaker’s office.
One of the many responsibilities he’s now passed on is running a calendar of sorts to “book” protests of all shapes and sizes on Parliament’s forecourt.
“We have never ever said no to a protest since I’ve been here. Everyone's entitled to come here.”
Todd was at Parliament for the anti-mandate, anti-lockdown occupation that started with people pitching tents on the lawn and ended with fires and violence.
“They didn't ask come, they just turned up. There were other groups already booked in come over that time for other reasons and they just couldn’t come because they were there.
“Although it’s great to have your say, they overrode other people's right to also have their say about what they are thinking, about what their problems are. They took their problems as being the only ones around.”
He said it was a “very intense time”.
“Not only because of what was going on out there, but the Speaker was also the landlord, it was all coming through our office; police were always there and updating the Speaker and all these kinds of things.
“It was intense and when you looked out the window, you didn't feel happy, it looked awful, and you thought this it's not right, this is not the New Zealand I know.”
Todd has been at the centre of many significant moments in New Zealand history and - having had a front row seat to how politics has evolved over the last three decades - he has observed changes in the House.
“MPs treated themselves with more respect in the House when I first started here than they did now.”
Debates had become too personal, he said, though he doesn’t blame anyone.
“It’s unfortunate. They could stick to the public matter and debate the issue. It’s probably not their fault, the way things have developed with social media and social media is starting to creep itself into the House.”
It was also “unfortunate” that the days of all MPs getting to their feet to speak from their minds - and not a piece of paper - to contribute to “real debate” were over, he said.
“Rather than having to have speech notes in those days people spoke off the cuff, or they spoke about their local area if they were a local MP. You should be able to do that without having to read it.”
Todd said he had voted in every election but wasn’t a “party-political person” and liked to vote on what was good for the country, rather than what was personally good for him - with one exception.
“A certain party quite a few years back was going to introduce compulsory superannuation for everyone and I voted for them because, you know why, it was the only way I would do it. They’re talking about that now. I think it has to happen.”
The Post asked him if he thought the superannuation age should be raised.
“This is going to sound awful, but they can do what they like now,” he said, chuckling.
“I was worried when they said they were going to do it last time and I thought, 'oh god, no, I want to go at 65.”
Todd plans to spend more time relaxing at his Avalon home in Lower Hutt, where he lives with his partner of 15 years, Vilo, and golden labrador, Freya.
He will also do some part-time work for a friend at the Croft Funeral Home and continue as a drummer in the City of Wellington Pipe Band.
It will be a quieter life for someone that’s been privy to decades worth of backroom discussions about political scandal and the numerous issues brought to the Speaker’s office on any given sitting week.
While he’s left Parliament for good, there’s one job Todd plans on keeping forever; keeping what he knows to himself.
“I've seen too many books written…I’m thinking one or two about royalty, where someone was trusted with information and then wrote a book. That, to me, I don’t think is correct.
“It might be a good read, but I think you upset your own person because that person trusted you, and you're all of a sudden written a book, and I don't think that's correct.
“That's why I won't be writing the book.”