Chris Trotter

In July 2018, Trotter joined the Free Speech Coalition, a group of former politicians, lawyers, journalists, and academics that pursued legal action against the Mayor of Auckland and former Labour leader Phil Goff for denying Auckland Council facilities to two Canadian alt-right activists Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux. Trotter justified his defense of the two alt-right activists' free speech by arguing that left-wing opponents of the tour lacked the courage to debate the alt-right. By 2021, Trotter was involved with the Coalition, which had relaunched itself as the New Zealand Free Speech Union. The organisation is led by former National Party adviser Jonathan Ayling and claims to be a bipartisan organisation with both right and left-wing members.

In February 2008, he said that Labour leader and prime minister Helen Clark should stand down before that year's general election and be replaced by Phil Goff, who he thought may have been Labour's only hope of regaining ground with struggling families. He later recanted, arguing that Goff, who became leader after the 2008 election, should have stood down in his turn before the 2011 New Zealand general election, arguing that David Cunliffe should replace him.

Christopher Marshall Trotter (born 1956) is a political commentator in New Zealand. He is the editor of the occasional Political Review magazine.