Rise and rise of Kelly Chal

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Four months ago Kelly Chal was not a member of United Future. Today she attends her first caucus meeting in Parliament as one of the party's eight new MPs.

It is only a few months since the Indian-born career counsellor began to toy with the idea of politics. After studying the parties' policies she picked United Future.

She quickly became active, put her name forward for the party list and was ranked at number five.

"I don't know how that happened," she said of her high placing.

Kelly Chal, 42, and Labour list MP Ashraf Choudhary are the first Indian-born members of the New Zealand Parliament.

Professor Choudhary is also the first Muslim MP.

Kelly Chal has a Sikh father and a Hindu mother but she is a Christian - one of many to follow the Catholic Peter Dunne into Parliament.

Kelly Chal practises her faith at Destiny Church in Pakuranga, run by the evangelist Pastor Brian Tamaki.

Pastor Tamaki caused controversy two years ago with comments about the fatherless generation.

In an interview with the Christian Challenge Weekly, he said: "This is the Devil's strategy because you can't have sons and daughters without a father."

The fatherless generation "is even reflected in the fact that we have a female Prime Minister and a female Leader of the Opposition", he said.

Kelly Chal, who has a keen sense of humour, said she had a passion for people. Hence her work in the past few years as a careers counsellor with Career Services in Manukau. Before that she was a case manager for the Accident Compensation Corporation.

"I'm concerned about families. I'm concerned about children, that children don't get abused. I'm concerned about poverty."

She wants to see the establishment of a family commission where all new policies can go through a filtering system to measure their impact on the people and families of New Zealand.

Kelly Chal said the main definition of the family was the "average mum, dad and the kids".

"I don't have a position on abortion. I basically think that people at the end of the day have a responsibility and they have to live with their actions," she said.

"I have seen people who had abortions five years ago and now they regret it. That's where we need to have safeguards."

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