Henare thought he was dying

Tau Henare. Photo / Supplied

Outspoken MP Tau Henare feared he was about to die after a heart attack at home last week.

The National Party list MP said he woke at 2am last Sunday unable to breathe and knew immediately he was having a heart attack.

He said: "I was in pain and I thought, 'this is it'.

"I just felt dizzy and suddenly all this water just poured off me.

"I just sweated - it felt like someone had turned a tap on my head. I was cold and shivering."

Henare asked his wife to phone an ambulance while he went to be sick in the bathroom.

"So while I was sitting on the bog, the ambulance guys turned up so they hooked me up and gave me some oxygen."

Henare received a get-well card from his National Party colleagues, who tried to make light of the scare.

He said Social Welfare Minister Paula Bennett told him: "I don't even want to think about what you are doing at 2am to give you a heart attack."

Henare, who turns 50 in September, said he had been smokefree since the heart attack and the experience had made him determined to quit.

"I'm not into 'don't do this, don't do that'. Everybody knows smoking is bad for you, everybody knows eating too much is bad for you.

"If you nag people too many times they are just going to get bolshie and they are not going to do anything."

Henare went public in April about his diabetes.

He has since embarked on a fitness regimen and lost 7kg.