Newbie Labour MP Marja Lubeck poses with the Jacinda Ardern puppet in Backbencher. Photo / Jason Walls
Newbie Labour MP Marja Lubeck poses with the Jacinda Ardern puppet in Backbencher. Photo / Jason Walls
Marja Lubeck will be the first to tell you she is not a conventional MP.
The Dutch-born, former flight attendant turned union rep turned MP – whose hidden talent is balancing a spoon on her nose – likes to "say it the way it is".
"I'm from a Dutch backgroundso we tend to just put it all out there – beating around the bush, we don't know about that."
It's a Tuesday afternoon and we're heading to the Backbencher opposite Parliament.
The dining area is festooned with large caricature puppets of politicians along its walls and she decides to sit close to the likeness of Jacinda Ardern.
The lunch menu is full of options such as salads, steaks and sandwiches named after Ministers but Lubeck instead opts to look at the deserts list, named after Opposition MPs.
She orders the Paul Goldsmith crème brûlée and is delighted.
When it is pointed out that crème brûlée is not traditionally a lunchtime food, she says: "I'm not a traditional person".
In terms of how she found her way into politics, she was correct.
After finishing school in Holland, she was a "burnout" for a few years and worked as a secretary.
At 25, she was looking for a change and moved to New Zealand in 1989 with her then partner of seven years.
"We wanted to do something different before we settled down. I looked at the map and I thought 'New Zealand is as far as you can go'."
But it was not to be for the young couple. They split soon after they arrived. Her partner thought New Zealand was "too laid back" so he went back home.
Lubeck wanted to be single a while. She lasted six months before she met her now husband.
After a few years of odd jobs, she started work as a flight attendant for Air New Zealand – a job she kept for 21 years until becoming an MP in 2017.
Fluent in Dutch, English, and German, she worked international flights.
Eventually, she got involved in the union and became president of the aviation arm of the E tū union.
But she still had bigger plans.
In the late 2000s, the union had a major clash with Air NZ over a planned restructuring.
"I was paying $500 an hour to legal advisers, so I thought 'I should just do this myself'."
So she started studying law and graduated in 2014, doing the degree while working full time.
A few years later, the Beehive beckoned.
Although as a member of an affiliated union she was already part of Labour, having first joined the party in 2016.
When she was first approached to be an MP, she said her initial thought was "oh hell no, looks boring – it does not look like the kind of thing I want to do".
This was at the end of 2016 when Andrew Little was the leader of Labour and the party was polling in the mid-20s.
She was told that, at 32 on the list, she might scrape in in 2020 but to become an MP after the 2017 election was very unlikely.
That all changed in August 2017 when Jacinda Ardern took over as leader and the polls started to shift dramatically.
After she realised there was a better than even chance she would become an MP, everything moved quickly.
"Who gets this opportunity? Especially as an immigrant – how would you ever think that you're coming into a country, even if it was 30 years ago, and you can end up in Parliament?"
In Holland, that would never happen, she said.
She was sworn in later that year, along with 17 other new Labour MPs.
"I'm not a career politician – I just ended up here."
Lubeck does not enjoy the crème brûlée as much as she had hoped – but has lot of fun with the names of the dishes on the menu.
"I don't know how I'm going to eat this thing," she says as she stabs her knife into the hard biscuit on the top.
"This is not the Judith Collins crème brûlée is it?" she says, alluding to the current leadership tension between Judith Collins and National leader Simon Bridges.
It can't be – "I'm stabbing it from the front," she says, before adding "I'm kidding."
As it turns out, it's not just a knife she's proficient with.
Asked for an interesting fact about herself, she smiles.
"Well, there is one thing," she says as she eyes up the spoon she is using to eat her crème brûlée.
She began telling the story of her performance at the Parliamentary talent show a few months ago.
"Some people did cooking, some people played [musical instruments] I have this trick ..." she says as she begins to clean her spoon and put it on her nose … or, at least, tries to. She makes two or three attempts before getting it right.
"Now I feel doubly embarrassed – not only is this my talent, but now I can't even do it."
She says that apart from herself and her son – she has never met anyone else who can do it.
Lubeck did not win the talent competition – but she got "massive applause".
"I'm not scared to embarrass myself like that."
To prove her talent, she later sends through a photo of herself at the talent show (see below).
Newbie Labour MP Marja Lubeck shows off her party trick at a parliamentary talent show (she did not win). Photo / Supplied
The Backbencher has a policy that if an MP orders the dish on the menu that has their name, it's free.
She is not aware of this policy – but has a cunning plan.
"I have to do something scandalous to get on the menu.
"I'm from a Dutch background so we tend to just put it all out there – beating around the bush, we don't know about that."
Time for some quick-fire questions:
What are you watching on Netflix? She has never watched Netflix – "I'm a workaholic; I never watch TV … only if the PM is on."
What about a book? Nope – have too much work reading to do. Cinema? Not in years.
Who is NZ's best ever PM? "Present company excluded?" she asks, glancing up at the Jacinda Ardern puppet. Helen Clark, but Ardern is also "pretty awesome".
Will you ever be PM? No.
What would you change about NZ? Inequality.
If you could name a dish to be put on the menu after you, what would it be? Butter chicken
Marja Lubeck
Age: 54
Born: Holland
Elected to Parliament: 2017
Electorate: Rodney
Fun fact: Can balance a spoon on her nose
Backbencher meal order: Paul Goldsmith crème brûlée
