Vanushi Walters
Vanushi Sitanjali Walters is a New Zealand lawyer and politician who served as Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the Labour Party representing the Upper Harbour electorate from 2020 to 2023. She returned to Parliament as a Labour list MP in May 2025, following the resignation of David Parker.
Early life
Walters was born in August 1981 in Sri Lanka. She is the great-granddaughter of Ratnasothy Saravanamuttu, a member of the State Council of Ceylon and the first native Mayor of Colombo, and Naysum Saravanamuttu, Ceylon's second female MP. Her second cousin was the murdered Sri Lankan journalist and human rights activist Richard de Zoysa. At the age of five she moved to New Zealand, via Zambia and Scotland, with her parents Jana Rajanayagam and Prithiva Rajanayagam.Walters graduated with conjoint Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws (Honours) degrees from the University of Auckland in 2005, and earned a master's degree in international human rights law from the University of Oxford.
Legal career
Walters is a human rights lawyer and has worked in private practice, the public sector and for non-profit and community organisations. She was general manager for YouthLaw Aotearoa and a member of Amnesty International's International Board. She was a senior manager at the Human Rights Commission and was a trustee of Foundation North.Member of Parliament
At the Walters stood for parliament for the Labour Party in the electorate and was ranked 22nd on the party list. She won the seat over National candidate Jake Bezzant by a final margin of 2,392 votes. She became New Zealand's first Sri Lankan-born MP.Walters delivered her maiden statement on 2 December 2020, announcing an intention to address racism, human rights injustices and climate change and listing Sir Bob Harvey, Chris Carter and Lecretia Seales as her mentors. During her first term in parliament she was deputy chair, and later chair, of the justice select committee. She led the New Zealand delegation to the 2023 International Parliamentary Union meetings in Bahrain, where she drafted an emergency resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and Rwanda.
At the 2023 election, Walters once again stood in but was defeated by National's Cameron Brewer by 11,192 votes. Walter's list placement was also too low to make it into parliament, making her one of the 14 first-term Labour MPs to lose their seat at the election. Following David Parker's resignation, Walters returned to Parliament as a list MP on 12 May 2025. She is the Labour Party shadow attorney-general and associate spokesperson on foreign affairs, and a member of the justice select committee.