Green MP Jan Logie has faced some tough jobs while in Parliament. She's about to leave after 12 years as a list MP.
Green MP Jan Logie has faced some tough jobs while in Parliament. She's about to leave after 12 years as a list MP.
Most members of the New Zealand Parliament are jostling to hold on to their jobs as we approach the end of this political term, but this isn’t the case for everyone.
The National Party’s Jacqui Dean, who has held the Waitaki electorate since 2008, and the Green Party’s Jan Logie, who has been a list MP since 2011, will not be campaigning ahead of this coming election, opting instead to step away from politics.
Both have served in ministerial or under-secretary roles during their times at the Beehive, and both have experienced their time on the Opposition benches.
Jacqui Dean has held the Waitaki electorate since 2008.
While critics often question whether politicians are doing enough to justify their day jobs, the departures of former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, former Labour minister Kris Faafoi and ex-National MP Todd Muller offered glimpses at how gruelling politics can be behind the scenes - and this is certainly reflected in the personal accounts of both Logie and Dean.
“When I first came in, I think I had 12 portfolios - and I really struggled with the sense of responsibility to people,” Logie tellsThe Front Page podcast.
“There are myriad issues that may come up in one portfolio, and I was working until one in the morning on a regular basis, and then I’d be back in Parliament by 7am or 7.30am the next morning. I was easily working a minimum of 80 hours a week and still feeling as if I was letting people down, because [you] actually just can’t do it all.”
In speaking about her reasons for leaving politics, Dean offers an equally-frank admission.
“The reason I’m retiring is so that I can be more involved in our children and grandchildren, and also re-acquaint myself with my husband. I think that will keep me busy enough. Plus, there’s been deferred housework of 18 years.”
Dean tells The Front Page most of the work politicians do happens beyond the spotlight of media cameras and microphones.
“When we’re not either debating or at Question Time, we’ll go back to our office and deal with piles of paperwork and the hundreds of emails that come into our inboxes every single day. They all need to be dealt with. We also have policy work to attend to, many phone calls to make to people who have reached out to us, and we often meet with people from outside Parliament... so yeah, they’re busy lives.”
On top of the busy workloads, the culture has also been exposed in recent years for making Parliament a tough place to work.
The general antagonism in parliament is perhaps best captured in question time, which sometimes descends into schoolyard bickering between competing politicians.
“It’s bad theatre,” says Logie.
“This is my personal view on it. It’s just such bad role-modelling in terms of what we’re demonstrating to the children growing up in this country that this is how you make decisions and represent people. I hate it.”
So, how do they believe things could be improved?
Could Parliament be made more efficient?
Is it time to change the adversarial approach used in Question Time?
Listen to the full episode of The Front Page podcast to hear a broader discussion with Dean and Logie about a life in politics.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. It is presented by Damien Venuto, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in business reporting who joined the Herald in 2017.
