His daughter Judith replaced him as MP for Panmure in 1990. She was a member of the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) and resigned after entering parliament. Tizard stood as the Labour candidate to fill the vacancy on the ARC. In a surprise result he was defeated in the by-election by Bruce Jesson of the incipient Alliance party. Tizard was annoyed but not surprised with the loss saying "It's no skin off my nose if the public want to be misguided and vote for a bunch of splinters." At the 1992 local-body elections he stood as a candidate for the newly created Auckland Regional Services Trust, but was unsuccessful.