Christopher Joseph Carter is a former New Zealand Labour Party and independent Member of the New Zealand Parliament. He was a senior Cabinet Minister in the Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand, serving lastly as Minister of Education, Minister Responsible for the Education Review Office and Minister of Ethnic Affairs. He was the Member of Parliament for the Te Atatu electorate, where he was first elected in 1993. He did not win re-election in 1996, but won a new and expanded Te Atatu seat in 1999. In 2010, he was suspended from the Labour Party caucus following a dispute with party leader Phil Goff, shortly afterwards he became an independent MP. He was expelled by the Labour Party for breaching the Party's constitution in bringing the Party in disrepute, on 11 October 2010. In September 2011 Carter resigned from Parliament following his appointment to a United Nations position in Afghanistan where he served for 4 years. In 2015 he was appointed to head UN operations in Rakhine State in Myanmar where he served for 3 years. In 2018 he rejoined the New Zealand Labour Party and stood for election as a Labour Party representative in the 2019 New Zealand local elections. Carter was elected and appointed as Chairperson of the Henderson Massey Local Board with 11,250 votes. He also won election in 2019 as one of the seven elected board members of the Waitemata District Health Board with 14,593 votes. Both positions have three year terms.

The Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand was the government of New Zealand from 10 December 1999 to 19 November 2008. Labour Party leader Helen Clark negotiated a coalition with Jim Anderton, leader of the Alliance Party. While undertaking a number of substantial reforms, it was not particularly radical compared to previous Labour governments.