Michele Hewitson Interview: Paula Bennett

The last time I met Paula Bennett was at Melbourne Airport, where she bounced up to say hello and would I like to go to her shoe party? She didn't wait for an answer. She would send an invitation.

I'd met her once before, at some Nats function, where she bounced up to say hello. Still, I do remember thinking that this promise of a party invitation was odd behaviour for an MP. This is exactly the sort of thing she'd do. When I remind her my invitation never arrived she says, ``um, we haven't had it. We decided that last year was all about the campaign'.

And having a shoe party, and inviting journalists to it, would have looked frivolous? ``Well, it's a great fundraiser.'

I had thought she was being friendly and she was being a politician. ``Ha, ha, ha.

Well, I live and breathe politics and being a politician but, then again, if I can share my shoe fascination with anyone I'll take the opportunity.'
I gave her one: the chance to explain this shoe fascination. (She is, for anyone who does share it, wearing highish strappy black and cream patent leather sandals.) ``I do love shoes and I'm fortunate enough to have good feet that wear shoes well.'

What's good about her feet? ``I'm not that sure. I haven't thought about my feet that much.' But she said she had good feet so we talk about them for a bit longer. Then she says, ``I'm sure that at some level there's a weight issue with it. That when you can't find anything else to wear and nothing else fits me, shoes do. Although I meet a lot of slim people who have a shoe thing as well, but I used to think it was just a big girl thing _ that big girls have a thing for shoes.'
She is not a bit worried about being a big girl. ``No, no, not at all. I love it. I love who I am and, quite frankly, if I didn't love who I am then I would change myself. I was once asked if I'd go on one of those lose-weight programmes. I could think of nothing that I would be less likely to do. Well, that would mean that I'm not happy the way I am. That I want to change myself physically and I don't. So why would I put myself out there at some level that says I'm not happy.'

She says she wasn't offended that ``they thought I was fat. No! Whatever! I'm sure at some level I am and at others I'm not. But at the level they thought I don't like the way I was... that was a little offensive.'
I would never have asked her about her size, but as she raised it: ``Was she always big?'

``I put my weight on when I was pregnant and went from there.' So was she skinny? ``Slimmish. Yeah. I would have been a size 10 to 12.' What size is she now? ``I'm not telling you that.'

Even she will only go so far with the girly talk. She is a politician. She was an opposition MP for a term then, when John Key announced his Cabinet, she was given Social Development (which is, I say, Welfare. ``Yes,' she says.) This was generally regarded as the big surprise and something of a risk. ``Are you going to be trouble at some point?' ``Bound to be!'
She is young (40 in April), untested but has the bio that lends itself to headlines. Cabinet's New Poster Girl: solo mum at 17; a series of bum jobs; went to uni as an adult student; hauled herself up by her stiletto straps to become a manager in a recruiting agency. She believes in hard work and goal-setting and aspiration.

I spent some fairly fruitless time trying to figure out just how meaningful that single-mum-at-17-now welfare-minister line is. She has said she grew up in a ``middle New Zealand family'.

We went around in circles for a bit until I finally said: ``To put it bluntly, you didn't come from the back streets of Otara and your parents, I assume, weren't in the pub every night.'

``No, but I shall equally say to you, Michele, I wasn't a nice girl who got caught.' She always says she's a feisty Westie chick and I'm pretty sure she doesn't get offended easily. Let's see. ``So you were a slag then!' ``Ha, ha, ha. Um. You know!' She won't tell me how bad she was. She ignores the drinking/drugs question. She does admit to smoking, occasionally, with the usual regrets. She had a fag with me, and she didn't say not to tell.
She is cagier about other parts of her life. She says, ``look, what the media portray and what I choose to tell them on my family stuff is pretty much what I choose to tell them. And there's other stuff that is really personal and affects other people and deserves to stay in that box, frankly'.

The reason for going to see her is obvious. Last week she waded into a scrap between teenagers at a mall. She was in ``feisty, Westie mode', and ``the old finger was in their face'. She emerged unscathed to have a very good time telling the story. I phoned and called her Basher Bennett; she said that was the least of what she'd been called. She said her colleagues had had a lot of fun.

``Are you free for dinner tonight or are you vigilante-ing?' The PM's public response was to say ``probably not' when asked if a Cabinet minister should be playing copper. In private, she says, ``he laughed and said, `I'm not surprised'.'
And possibly not horrified because it's not a bad look for a new welfare minister to be perceived as tough, or is it?

I say I thought she was brought in to be the softer face of welfare after ``that hardliner Judith Collins'. ``Um, I never thought I was brought in as the softer face. And I really like Judith so I don't sort of judge it on how tough I think she is or isn't.'

She is now officially tough whether she likes it or not. I suspect she doesn't mind.

The MP as vigilante. That does make her sound tough. ``Um. Some of those people that witnessed it sort of made it sound like I was.' And is she? ``Um. I think I'm like most people. I've got my tough parts and then I'm a wimp when it comes to some things.' What things? ``Um, not so much at the moment. Well, you don't get to be here and in this job and doing it by sitting round ringing your hands and being a bit of a softy.' So she is tough, then. ``Yeah, I'm fairly tough.'
She thinks (now we've finally agreed that she is the proverbial old boot), that she probably came out of the womb challenging as yet unencountered injustices.

``My mother would say I came out talking and arguing and stamping my foot. She's got lots of little examples that she gives to show how strong I was as a child.'

I ask her for one and she tells it as a yarn (she loves a good yarn and says that's the way she told the mall story to journalists and that she certainly didn't imagine, ``front page Herald!'). So here she is as a 4-year-old ``standing outside and all you can hear is me screaming and stamping my foot ... And I'm screaming because the neighbour's kid's riding my bike and I want my bike and I want it now. So what I've done is call my brothers out to fight this fight for me.'

One brother said, ```Well, look Paula, he hasn't got a bike and you should share your bike'. And I don't care. It's my bike and I want my bike and `you're my brother and so you should be sticking up for me'. And my other brother goes, `yeah, it's her bike' and pushes the kid off and gives it to me. Ha!'
This is a well-told story _ I can see that 4-year-old _ but I'm not sure why she's told it. What would the adult her do: Let the kid ride the bike or ...? ``Yeah, I'd probably let the kid have a ride but I'm not opposed to being a bit unreasonable! Mum would now say it wasn't about the bike, it was about manipulating my brothers into getting into a fight for me. So there you go.'

This is very entertaining _ all the more so for coming from a politician, a species not known for offering unexamined anecdotes. And despite that ``there you go' I'm not sure that either of us knows where to go with this one. So I ask whether she would agree with her mother's assessment. ``Aah, I've always been quite political.' But what's political about that story? ``You see, it wasn't about the bike...'

No, I say, it was about being the centre of attention, which might be one definition of being political. I don't mean this in a mean way _ that would be like trying to crush Tigger _ but she does rather command attention. ``No, I don't mind attention but I'm quite a private person as well. I certainly don't need a crowd but when I've got one I'll probably perform for it.'
One-on-one she did pretty well, too. I'm still making up my mind whether, if I meet her again, I'd rather be in a cat fight at the mall or at her shoe party.