About

Biography

Hi, I am Brett Herron and I am putting my hand up to serve.

Being an elected public representative was never a life ambition, a goal or an expectation. I got here by accident, in a way, when I became shocked and disappointed that the South African democracy we hoped for, and for which many people died for, was being subverted by corruption, greed and carelessness.

I grew up in apartheid South Africa.

A white boy with all the privileges that came with my gender and race in a society designed by the apartheid government to be perverted and cruel.

I wasn’t unconscious about this. I hated it and I tried to do my little bit to oppose it.

I graduated from University just as Madiba was being released and the liberation movements unbanned. The “rainbow nation” was being born and I had faith that our new democratic government would set about fixing the injustices of the colonial and apartheid decades.

Then I read Andrew Feinstein’s book After the Party.

That was my wake-up call that everything was not alright. Far from it. And, I had no choice but to get involved. I didn’t know what getting involved would be and through a series of unexpected events, requests and opportunities I am now a member of parliament representing GOOD.

Here is a little about me
I am lawyer by profession. I graduated with a B.A and postgraduate LL.B degree from the University of Natal (now University of KwaZulu-Natal) and was admitted as an attorney in 1994.

From 2018 to 2020 I attended the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where I completed an MSc in Cities degree. I was awarded a Bloomberg Scholarship for Public Service.

I served in executive city office, in Cape Town for almost a decade. In 2010 I was appointed as the Mayco Member for Community Services.

In 2011 I was re-elected to the Council and was appointed the Mayoral Committee Member for Transport. Between 2011 and 2016 I led the implementation of what was at one point regarded as Africa’s most successful Bus Rapid Transit system, the MyCiTi Bus.

Following the August 2016 local government elections I was re-elected to the Council and appointed as the Mayco Member responsible for Transport & Urban Development. In the reconfigured government I was responsible for Transport, Spatial Planning and Housing.

I championed a new approach to urban development which included a new spatial form, spatial integration and what we called a “180-degree about-turn on housing delivery”.

I resigned from the DA (Democratic Alliance), my position on Mayco and from Council after the DA blocked several affordable housing projects I had initiated because the projects were on well-located public land.

 

For GOOD

In February 2019, I was a founding member of the GOOD party, which contested the general elections just three months later. I serve as GOOD’s Secretary-General.

In May 2019, I was elected to the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, where I served on the Standing Committees for Human Settlements, Transport and Public Works, and Environment and Development Planning.

In February 2022, I was sworn in as a Member of Parliament in the National Assembly. I spent much of 2022 and 2023 serving on the Section 194 Ad Hoc Committee investigating the impeachment of the Public Protector, and on the Human Settlements Portfolio Committee.

In May 2024, I was re-elected to the Western Cape Provincial Parliament. I currently serve on the following Standing Committees:

  • Infrastructure
  • Mobility
  • Premier and Constitutional Matters

GOOD is a member of the Government of National Unity (GNU), and I represent the party on the GNU’s dispute resolution body, the Clearing House.

Business & Qualifications

I am also an entrepreneur. Since 2002 I have owned an accredited legal skills training business which provides paralegal and related training at campuses in Cape Town, Pretoria, Randburg and Durban.

I am also a founding partner in ComplexCity, a urban consultancy established in 2020, with three other graduates of the MSc in Cities degree programme.

Qualifications:

  • B.A. (University of Natal)
  • LL.B (University of Natal)
  • MSc in Cities (London School of Economics)
  • Admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa
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