Hide's flight of fancy

Rodney Hide and Louise Crome. Photos / Mark Mitchell, supplied

Some weekends they train together at their gym in Remuera. During the week, they fly down to Wellington where she is studying for a post-graduate degree, and he helps run the country.

Despite their 21-year age gap, Louise Crome and Rodney Hide are the very model of a modern couple.

The two have completely different, completely separate, but similarly successful, careers.

He has turned from a jovial, roly-poly opposition MP - famed for his campaign to trim public sector extravagance - into a tough, unforgiving political leader and minister.

She has spent much of her time based overseas in Amsterdam, furthering her professional squash career.

So it came as something of a surprise to many that Act leader Rodney Hide, 52, flew his 31-year-old girlfriend around the world with him at a cost of more than $25,000 to the public purse.

No one was more surprised than his wife Jiuan Jiuan, from whom he separated 2 years ago.

"He is out of my life, and I'm pleased for that," she said yesterday.

He may have trimmed the public purse, he may have trimmed down his waistline - but she says he's never tidied up his affairs at home.

"I want to tell Rodney to come back and clean up the mess he has left behind," she said. "His entire life. He just walked out - that's it. Just like that! It's a shocking story."

Crome's aunt Aileen Buscke, the sports co-ordinator at Remuera Rackets Club, sees Hide at the club gym most weekends, and sometimes Crome works out with him. Since Crome suffered a hip injury last December, she has had to pull out of international competition and instead has moved in with Hide in Wellington as she studies towards a second university degree.

The age difference was of little concern, Buscke said. "Louise seems very settled and very happy. I don't think she would have given that a thought really."

But, she said, people's perception of Hide as a perkbuster had been tarnished by their overseas trip together.

"Rodney did say he was expecting this to come out, the criticism," Buscke said.

"He doesn't want her to get any flak for it at all. He is prepared to take the whole lot."

If there's one person a girl can rely on, it's her mum.

Marjorie Crome said her daughter's 10-day trip to London, Toronto, Portland and Los Angeles had been very rushed, and then she had returned to intense public scrutiny.

"It's pretty tough because she is a very private person."

And did the age gap worry her?

"Well, when you look at things on paper, things like that initially do."

But, she laughed, there were no boundaries when it came to love. "You can't pick your kids' partners can you? As long as they are happy, that's the most important thing.

"My parents had a big age difference, but I don't think it runs in the family," she said. "I judge people as individuals."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY