Editing Ruth Dyson (section)

==Early life and career==
Dyson was born in [[Lower Hutt]] in 1957. Her father served in the [[New Zealand Army]], and so Dyson's family frequently moved around the country. Dyson joined the [[New Zealand Labour Party|Labour Party]] in [[Westport, New Zealand|Westport]] in 1979, and worked as a campaign organiser for [[West Coast (New Zealand electorate)|West Coast]] Labour MP [[Kerry Burke]] in the [[1981 New Zealand general election|1981]] and [[1984 New Zealand general election|1984]] election campaigns. In 1985, she moved to [[Wellington]], where she worked with Labour MP [[Fran Wilde]] on the [[Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986|Homosexual Law Reform Bill]] before taking up a position as an advisor to Burke in the office of the [[Minister of Employment (New Zealand)|Minister of Employment]] in 1986. She worked as an organiser for Wilde's re-election campaign in [[Wellington Central (New Zealand electorate)|Wellington Central]] for the [[1987 New Zealand general election|1987 election]]. Dyson was then employed as an executive officer at Wellington Regional Employment and ACCESS Control.<ref name=who>{{cite book |title=Who's Who in the New Zealand Parliament 1996 |location=Wellington |publisher=[[New Zealand House of Representatives|Parliamentary Service]] |date=1996 |page=43}}</ref>

She held several senior positions in the Labour Party hierarchy. In 1984 she was elected the women's representative on Labour's New Zealand Council before becoming a member of the party executive in 1986. She was the elected vice president of the party at the 1987 Labour conference.<ref name=who/> At the 1988 conference in Dunedin Dyson won a highly contested campaign to win the party president from former president and maverick MP [[Jim Anderton]] by 99 votes (575 to 473).<ref>{{Cite news |author=Hewlett, Paul |title=Government sweeps clean at conference |date=4 September 1988 |work=[[Auckland Star]] |page=A3 }}</ref> After the defeat of the controversial [[Fourth Labour Government of New Zealand|Fourth Labour Government]] Dyson was self-employed as a training and employment consultant from 1990 to 1993.<ref name=who/>

In the lead up to the {{NZ election link|1993}} Dyson stood for the Labour nomination in the Christchurch seat of [[Lyttelton (New Zealand electorate)|Lyttelton]]. She beat 5 other local aspirants for the nomination and pledged to move from Wellington into the electorate before the election.<ref>{{Cite news |author=Espiner, Colin |title=Labour chooses Dyson for seat |date=25 July 1992 |work=[[The Press]] |page=1 }}</ref>