Sunday 20th September, 2009

Q+A’s Paul Holmes interviews with Jacinda Ardern & Nikki Kaye

The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be seen on tvnz.co.nz at,
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Jacinda Ardern & Nikki Kaye Interviewed By Paul Holmes

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Labour's Jacinda Adern...A List Member...And National's And National's Nikki Kaye, Who Won Auckland Central For National. Welcome To You Both...

PAUL: So how do we find the politics, how do we find the Parliament near the end of your first year – Jacinda?

JACINDA: Well, I’m enjoying the experience. I think it’s an enormous privilege to be in a place like that and I did have the opportunity to watch it from the inside for a period I spent a bit of time working in there, but doing the job is quite another thing altogether.

PAUL: Right, we’ll talk about that shortly. How do you find it…what’s the most interesting thing you’ve found about the place (Nikki)?

NIKKI: The people you meet and the stories they tell you and just the constituency work I think is pretty interesting helping people.

PAUL: Normal people –

NIKKI: Yeah

PAUL: - But what about being in Parliament itself?

NIKKI: I think Wellington is a very different place to being in the community and the politics are always at times going to be pretty harrowing but I’m really enjoying it, I’m loving it.

PAUL: Harrowing? In what way?

NIKKI: Well I think sometimes what you see on TV in terms of the heckling and sometimes the long hours that you spend in Wellington can be tough sometimes, but I always enjoy getting back to the electorate and that’s when you actually realise that you’re making a difference for people.

PAUL: Does the word harrowing resonate with you (Jacinda)?

JACINDA: No, I’m not sure that’s a word that I would use. I mean there is a bit of theatre that goes on but I think the thing that brought me into that place still stays with me now and I do remember the very first time that I realised how special the job was. I was volunteering for Harry Duynhoven the MP in New Plymouth, and I was sitting in the office one day, I was about 18 or so, and an elderly man walked in and he was a grandfather looking after his grandchild, his grandchild had chronic asthma, he couldn’t afford to buy him his school books or to care for him properly and I remember thinking two things – I want to live in a place that supports a gentleman like that, and what an impressive and amazing job it is to be in a role where that man knew he could come to his local MP and help him.

PAUL: To be able to do something about it…

JACINDA: Absolutely. the harrowing I think is a sideshow to all that.

PAUL: Do you get a thrill from that as well –from helping?

NIKKI: Absolutely. I mean I think my point is that the part I enjoy the most is being in the community and in my electorate actually with my constituents and I’ve had some pretty hard cases as well, they’re people who’ve asked for drugs to be funded and you know that actually they’re not going to be funded.

PAUL: Of course, you are both MPs but you are a constituent MP, you’ve got an electorate (Nikki) and you’re a list MP (Jacinda). Does that give you more mana do you think with your senior colleagues that you do have a constituency?

NIKKI: I think it was a pretty big win and there are often times when you can talk on an issue and you really know you’ve got the people behind you in your electorate – I think there is something there in that.

PAUL: As a list MP, and a young list MP at that, are you made to feel a bit lesser than say a constituency MP?

JACINDA: No, not at all I think that part of is that because we accept that this system that uses list MPs, MMP, has made our parliament look more like New Zealand so list MPs are an important part of doing that. Now me personally, I would love to represent a constituency one day but I accept…

PAUL: Hallmarked Auckland?

JACINDA: Well, there are different options out there but..

PAUL: Now then Nikki, the word is she wants Auckland!!

NIKKI: Oh really…

JACINDA: There are a few people…I mean it’s a great seat, there are a few people in Labour who are looking at it but it’s a decision for the members I think.

PAUL: When I was reading up about you both, you both of you always seemed destined for parliament…

JACINDA: Is that an insult? (laughs)

PAUL: No! Is politics something you kind of got to be born to?

NIKKI: I don’t think so at all. I went overseas and I worked in the private sector and the public sector…but I think I did realise at that point even though I’d worked in those different areas that my heart was here and that’s why I wanted to come back and stand.

JACINDA: I think that I always saw politics as a tool for change really, so I remember from a very young age - even back in the 80s growing up and spending a few years in Murupara that New Zealand wasn’t the place I thought it needed to be and for me politics was the way to change that. So a bit of a means to an end really career choice I think personally.

PAUL: Might you being generation millennials, might you have more in common with each other – both in your 20s and in parliament – than say with some of your senior colleagues? Interesting question….

JACINDA: Yeah it is, I think actually that all politicians have something in common as much as we probably don’t admit it. I think that ultimately we all are there because we want to make New Zealand a better place – we have very different ideas on how to do that and that probably unites Nikki and I , but in a lot of ways I think we’re probably still quite different.

NIKKI: Well I actually think the next generation are a lot less ideological and I think I sit in that basket, I believe we’ve got to do what works and I think that there is a difference there.

JACINDA: I think I’d probably call myself a bit ideological…

PAUL: Yeah but less perhaps than the older members of your parliament.

JACINDA: And yet I still feel like I have a lot in common because we’re probably all still motivated by the same values and the same expectations of what we want to do with New Zealand.

PAUL: Is your generation, people of your own age, more likely to have friends across the political divide than say the, are you likely to be less tribal?

NIKKI: Well I think I’ve built some good relationships on both sides of the house and I think it depends on the politician. I mean, that’s the way that I work. I sort of see it as a bit of a sports match, you go in and you fight for what you believe in but then you’re able to come off and treat each other with dignity and respect.

JACINDA: I would agree with that, I think that that is important. I don’t know if tribal is quite the right word , I do believe what I believe strongly, I’ve got a really strong values set but I am willing to look at new ideas and new ways of doing things and if that involves the other side then it does. But I still think that there are certain things that I won’t compromise on.

PAUL: What are both your views on what Peter Gluckman was saying about how we must use science to examine policy. And he’s talking not just about chemicals and mathematics and adding things up science, he’s talking the social sciences as well. So if you’re outcomes, if you’re ignoring good social science and you’re outcomes for social spending are not good, do you become – do you throw ideology away?

JACINDA: I think ideology always has to have an evidence base to support it. I don’t believe in doing things that don’t work simply for the sake of it being popular, it sounding good or it having an appeal. I’d say if I was being a bit political I’d throw boot camps into that category, personally…

NIKKI: I wouldn’t disagree with what Jacinda is saying, but what worries me is that I do think that you can get political phases if you like, and periods of people who are much more ideological and all they’re thinking about is the politics and not actually about the people and that’s what worries me sometimes.

PAUL: You have had kind of parallel lives though – you were both born in the same year I know this, you seem to have had kind of parallel careers and lives. Born in the same year, both did uni, both started working for your parties very young, very young age Harry Duynhoven you tell me, both in London at the same time working in politics. When did you know you wanted to go into Parliament – Nikki?

NIKKI: I think when i worked there i had an idea that maybe one day, but it wasn’t until I was sitting in London and I think I had really felt I had travelled the world and I’d worked in the private sector and I just realised that my heart was back home and I really wanted to make a difference.

PAUL: Knowing you were going into parliament quite young, as you probably did also, did you have to live blamelessly?

JACINDA: I think that New Zealanders want human beings to be in parliament so I think you live, I certainly when I was young didn’t live my life thinking one day I might be a politician and be scrutinised and I don’t think the public would expect that either. I certainly didn’t plan to be a politician, I never woke up one day and thought right, being an MP is what I want to do. I wanted to be a writer for a while I even wanted to be a clown at one stage – don’t draw the parallels between my current career!!

PAUL: ..Like in the street? A street clown you mean?

JACINDA: Like ones who go to schools – I thought clowns made people happy…this was very young when I was about 12.

NIKKI: For me, and I think I’ve found this from the constituency work, you’ve got to be who you are and you’ve got to be human and look I’ve made mistakes.

PAUL: What are the mistakes? Tell me your one mistake, because you told me a story once about a fellow who came to you with a problem and you did the political spiel and told him what the law was blah blah blah and what did he say to you?

NIKKI: He said to me, and you know I think it’s that whole thing about, there’s a whole of politics stuff that happens in Wellington but when you get back to the community people want to know how decisions affect them….

PAUL:…What did he say to you…

NIKKI: ..and he said to me you seem like a very nice lady but you’ve just told me a whole lot of stuff that just means nothing to me and … but we actually ended up going to the pub for a drink and, but what I realised was actually that people just want to know how the decisions are going to affect them, they’re not that interested in the politics

PAUL: You’ve got to stay real, is that what you’re saying?

NIKKI: That’s exactly right.

PAUL: Can you see how, I imagine parliament can be a very intoxicating place, a very heady kind of a …

JACINDA: do you mean that literally?

PAUL: No, I mean a heady kind of place, a very seductive kind of a place and you that you could get cut off from ordinary people from ordinary ways of speaking…

JACINDA: Not with my family! No. Not at all…

NIKKI: Yeah..

PAUL: You start talking outcomes rather than results.

JACINDA: New Zealand is a really small place and I think that’s the fantastic thing about our political system, politicians are accessible and rightly so and that does mean that you hear exactly what people think every time you leave Wellington. You hear people’s interpretations of what you’re doing. It might be different when you become a Cabinet Minister, you’re very busy, you’re much more isolated I think. But in the roles that we’re doing now I certainly don’t feel like I’m going anywhere but safe firm ground.

PAUL: Quick final comment?

NIKKI: My friends and my family they’ll always ping me back to earth if I ever step out of line!

PAUL: Jacinda Ardern, thank you very much for Labour, and Nikki Kaye of Auckland Central for National.

ENDS

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