Volume 2, Chapter 5

It is Monday morning. I get into the office at 9.30 am and find Jason waiting for me.

“Oh, Good morning, Jason. Have you been waiting long? You should have texted me.”

“Only about 10 minutes, I just couldn’t wait.”

“Very well. Come in and take a seat!”

I settle myself into my office chair behind my desk and wait for him to speak. When he doesn’t, I ask, slightly lamely, “Are you feeling unhappy?”

“Yeah, nah. More angry, really.”

“With whom?

“McDuff …. Matilda …. and myself.”

In spite of wanting to see me as soon as possible, now he is with me he can’t seem to speak. He is clearly in the grip of emotion, though, and his identification of the third object of his anger suggests some level of self-awareness. I am going to have to take the lead even though I don’t really want to be part of this conversation.

“Look, you can share your thoughts and feelings. You don’t have to justify yourself to me. I don’t want to judge anyone.”

I pause. “Well, from what I know, both McDuff and Matilda acted badly, and what you did was unfortunate in its effects too. You may not have thought through what the likely consequences would be.”

Jason hesitated. “I didn’t think they would sack him. I thought they wouldn’t take my complaint seriously.”

“I understand he resigned.”

“Oh! It was all very quick.”

“It certainly was,” I agreed.

“Matilda only went with McDuff to get at me, you know. She made a point of telling me about it.”

“That may well be so and presumably she was unhappy with your relationship. But you don’t have to tell me about that,” I add cautiously.

But he isn’t able to unburden himself. Probably he doesn’t really understand either Matilda’s feelings or his own. The conversation dribbles on for a bit with me urging him to take a deep breath and try to achieve some balance. Eventually, I bring the conversation to a close by suggesting he come and see me again next week. I am relieved when he walks out the door even though I will pay for that with a further meeting.

I find it hard to get into my research or at least into the writing. But I do see an email confirmation of a meeting for Tuesday with Nikki Kaye, a young woman who had been Minister of Education in the previous National Government. Up until now I had mainly spoken to women MPs in the Labour Party and the Green Party. I gather some more information about Nikki. I had already learned that she is politically moderate in a party that is centre-right, for she supports environmental causes and was instrumental in reinstating a gay pride event. I see she took leave from Parliament last year on account of breast cancer.

It is Tuesday morning. I run into my office neighbour, Carolyn and tell her I am going to meet Nikki Kaye later in the day. I ask her what she thinks of Nikki.

“Oh Nikki,” she says. “Yeah, she’s alright I s’pose. When she was up against Jacinda Ardern in Auckland Central, the press called it ‘the battle of the babes’.”

“Thanks, I didn’t know that. Well, that tells us something about how the public look at women politicians, right there. Who won the battle?”

“Nikki did. Though Jacinda won the war,” she added with a laugh.

I shall make sure that rivalry is covered in the interview.

I find my way to Nikki Kaye’s electorate office in Ponsonby, in good time for our appointment, so I have a look around the area which is more upmarket than Papatoetoe. The area is still low rise, retaining something of a suburban feel, even though close to the city centre. There is certainly no shortage of cafés and restaurants.

I have some questions carefully prepared but I like to move flexibly in interviews, to make space for what my interviewee might want to share with me. Above all, I don’t want to seem to interrogate or adopt a hostile tone. I could mention Carolyn’s piece of information in a light way, to prompt comments about Jacinda Ardern. I have yet to secure an interview with Jacinda, though I understand from her office that one will be scheduled. I love the accessibility of New Zealand politicians, similar to Finnish ones.

Nikki is welcoming. As she is no longer a Minister she has a little more time but I don’t want to use up too much of it.

“You know this morning I learned a new thing about you. When you and Jacinda Ardern were contesting the Auckland Central Electorate the press described it as ‘the battle of the babes’.” I say this with a slight laugh.

“It would be nice to be taken a bit more seriously but that’s certainly not the worst way I have been talked about,” she says with a smile that turns to a grimace. “Women in politics and their challenges will be very familiar to you coming from Finland.”

My name is clearly a good clue to my origins and I like the comparison with Finland. I won’t dwell too much on that, though, as I want to be the one asking the questions.

“Yes, there have been a number of prominent women MPs in Finland, last century and this. But New Zealand now has its third female Prime Minister while Finland has had only two.”

The interview proceeds in a lively and useful way. I ask her if she thinks that things are harder for women MPs in her party, the National Party, than in other parties, Labour or Green. She emphasises that the first female Prime Minister in New Zealand was from the National Party. But she is frank about some of the challenges. She brings up her breast cancer. It seems to have given her a particular perspective on her life and politics.

We move lightly on to Jacinda Ardern. Nikki is gracious and complimentary about Jacinda though emphasises, what I really already knew, that the circumstances under which she became Prime Minister, at age 37, were quite extraordinary. Nikki acknowledges Andrew Little, Jacinda’s predecessor as leader of the Labour Party, for standing down when he and the Party were low in the polls and supporting his deputy, Jacinda, for the leadership, so she could turn things around. Nikki emphasises that Jacinda still required a coalition with WInston Peters’ New Zealand First Party to form a government, as I already knew.

I work steadily through my more generic ‘women in politics’ questions and I wrap up the interview before too long, so as not to squander either her time or mine. I find a café where I can sit over a coffee and add to my notes while the meeting is fresh before summoning an Uber to take me back to South Auckland.