Jono Naylor says the best thing he has achieved in his long political life is ensuring that his wife and children still like him.
Jono Naylor says the best thing he has achieved in his long political life is ensuring that his wife and children still like him.
Jono Naylor doesn’t get invited to many 100th-birthday parties these days.
“People invite you to all sorts of really cool stuff when you are the mayor. But they are inviting the mayor, they are not inviting Jono Naylor.”
If your identity was tied up in being the mayor, you could feel rejected when the invites stopped, he says.
“I know people have because they have allowed that to creep in.”
In his roles as a city councillor, Palmerston North mayor, a National List MP, and his current role as a Horizons regional councillor and deputy chairman, Naylor is conscious what he does is not who he is.
He measures success by the quality of his relationships because roles come and go.
He remembers then-Prime Minister and National Party leader John Key saying to the National caucus one day that he “wanted to be Prime Minister most of my life, but I know it will only be for a certain period of time, and at the end of it I will still be Bronagh’s husband and Max and Stephie’s dad. And I’ve got to make sure that while I’m doing this, I am still laying the foundation for that to continue for the rest of my life.”
Naylor says this is sound advice. MPs have told him the job cost them their marriage or relationship with their kids.
The 56-year-old admires the way Māori introduce themselves by listing their mountain, river, land and people before saying “by the way, my name is...”.
“Their identity is then anchored in something that is lasting, because our jobs aren’t lasting.”
The father-of-three and grandfather-of-three encourages people to find something permanent regarding where their identity sits so they can weather work-related storms or criticism.
Jono Naylor performing with touring band Y1 in 1988.
Naylor was surprised during his three years in Parliament, 2014-2017, at how much energy went into pointing out the faults of the other guys.
However, there is a lot of legislation MPs aren’t fighting about as they are focused on making it the best it can be.
The subject of the legislation might make the news, but “no one writes a story about how these people collaborated to do something good because it’s not so interesting”.
When people say to him, “Bloody politicians, they are like a bunch of kids”, he says, “What you see on the news every night is probably the worst 30 to 60 seconds of the worst hour, which is Question Time, of what is a 14 to 15-hour working day in Parliament”.
“People would see us in a different light if all they ever saw was our worst 30 seconds of every day, right? And that’s what generally people are seeing of politicians.”
Naylor says he is yet to meet a politician who is out to wreck the country.
“People might be misguided about how they think we should go about it. They might even have some variation in what outcomes they are looking for, but not as many actual variations and outcomes as what we like to think. Mostly it’s methodology, and yet we accuse our politicians of trying to wreck our lives.”
Naylor, who wore the chains for seven years, says as mayor, you spend 50 per cent of your time chairing the board and the rest is like being a B-grade celebrity breakfast radio show host.
To be a good mayor you have to do both roles well, and he believes he did.
“Do you consider that you were a hard-working mayor?” this reporter asked. It was the only time there was a noticeable pause in the 90-minute interview.
“Was I the hardest-working mayor Palmerston North City has ever had? Probably not, but my goal at the end of my political life - people have often said to me, ‘What’s the greatest thing you have ever achieved in 20 years of political stuff?’ and I say, ‘To the best of my knowledge, my wife and children still like me’. And not everyone gets to leave those roles able to say that, ‘cause they allow the job to take more than it should.”
Yes, he prioritised. No, he didn’t accept all invitations. He still worked 50 to 55-hour weeks.
Getting to shape the community where you and your family live was an incredibly satisfying role.
