Paula Bennett's new Herald podcast Ask Me Anything launches today. Photo / Dean Purcell
Paula Bennett's new Herald podcast Ask Me Anything launches today. Photo / Dean Purcell
Paula Bennett's new podcast with the Herald, which launches today, is called Ask Me Anything, but when Kim Knight sits down with the former politician, she discovers some things are still off-limits - even for a self-confessed oversharer.
A few days before nominations for the Auckland mayoralty closed, Paula Bennett had regrets.
"I said to my husband - we do not talk about Auckland. You do not get to moan about anything. Because I feel guilty and I know I could do a damn good job and I'm dismayed at the direction I think they're heading."
And now, on the day of this interview, the field has narrowed. Leo Molloy has gone and the polls have "undecided" as the frontrunner. Does Bennett wish her name were on the ballot sheet?
"From a personal perspective, absolutely not. From a professional perspective, yes."
Paula Bennett is launching a new podcast with NZME today. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Ask her anything? Former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett is a self-confessed oversharer. Photo/Dean Purcell.
She could have won, she says. And she would have done a good job. But: "I don't mean to be rude, but the thought of sitting for a day in a council meeting with 19 others who are more interested in their own ideology and getting voted in again, than actually doing what's right, just literally makes me want to poke my own eye out with a toothpick."
At Bayleys Real Estate head office, near Auckland's Wynyard Quarter, the women wear black. They file out of a meeting room in black trousers, dresses and jackets; black heeled boots and stilettos - money and power, rendered monochrome. Bennett sails down the stairs in sneakers. She is full noise and full colour. On a scale of one to tomato-red-pants-and-matching-shirt, her confidence is off the charts. Love her, loathe her, but don't ignore this former Deputy Prime Minister.
The reinvention of Paula Bennett is a work in progress. She recently said it took her a year to detox from politics, from the "kick in the guts" delivered by a majority of her own caucus, when she and National party leader Simon Bridges were rolled by the short-lived pairing of Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye ahead of the 2020 general election.
"Look, people do go from being the deputy leader of the party to, you know, pretty much unranked - but I couldn't see that I would ever become the deputy leader again. Maybe I have contributed to the highest and best that I can? And there was definitely the age factor and definitely the fact that I wanted a professional life after politics."
This brings us to a very fancy lounge on the second floor of a national real estate company's headquarters. Bennett's job title is "national director – customer engagement & advisory". What does she actually do here? The chairman of the board has just slipped in to make a coffee. He has some thoughts: "The square root of f*** all!"
Bennett hoots. She loves this family-owned company - what she calls the "Kiwiness" of it. She's never sold a house. Her role is to connect things. People, money, policy.
"We might look at a big, potential land development. Is there a way government housing can work with a local developer, can work with council to make sure the infrastructure is there? I am the glue that tries to put those pieces together."
National Party deputy leader Paula Bennett fronts reporters at a 2019 media conference. Photo/Mark Mitchell
Paula Bennett hosts charades game show Give Us a Clue on TVNZ. Photo/Supplied
She fronts charity events and has a swag of side hustles - a newspaper column (Herald on Sunday), a television game show (Give Us A Clue), and an upcoming real estate reality show (Rich Listers). Perhaps the biggest surprise about Paula Bennett 2.0, is that she didn't find populist telly sooner.
"I'm an oversharer, that's an absolute! I'm a talker. Although one of the things I taught myself is you don't have to fill the silence. I was an automatic 'fill the silence' person. I'm an oversharer, but I've become very good at saying 'no' and not even giving a reason."
Her advice for nailing the "no comment"?
"The fewer words you use, the less likely they are to pursue it."
From today, Bennett adds "podcaster" to her portfolio. She's the host of "Ask Me Anything" a new New Zealand Herald show that "I'm really excited about in the context that, in another life, probably living in another country, I could have been an Oprah . . . that didn't happen for me, so this is a way for me to explore people and conversations that will go from everything from the frivolous to hopefully the very interesting".
The former deputy PM had undergone a reinvention. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Bennett, 53, says with a "mid-life crisis reinvention under my belt" she wants to share some of the things she's learned and ask others for their advice (first up, broadcaster Kerre Woodham on how to be bold with your opinions). The podcast's premise is simple. Bennett can ask her guests absolutely anything - but they don't have to answer everything. Turn the tables, and it might go something like this:
Bennett: "Oh, I'm completely biased in that I had John Key for all of those years. He's who I know the most and worked with, so I'd have to say him."
Who should have been Prime Minister?
Bennett: "Bill English for longer. He would have just brought a level of humanity and intellect and experience into the role. I think the country would have gained a lot from another three years under him."
Has she ever, as once rumoured, worked as a prostitute?
How did she tell her parents that she was pregnant, aged 17?
"Yeah, I think I'll leave that one."
Sometimes in an interview, it's the question you least expect that people are the most reluctant to answer. Once upon a time, Bennett was a teen mum in small town Taupō. She was "that girl". Smart and scandalous. And her parents - a librarian and a shopkeeper - couldn't handle her.
"I'm conscious that part of that is their story as well," says Bennett. "And there was so much stigma, and so much going on. We're talking the end of 1986. I went to have a scan and they wouldn't show me the screen because they didn't want me to get emotionally attached. They wouldn't tell me the gender of my baby. So weird, eh? Just very different times."
Bennett is Reset magazine's second cover girl. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Paula Bennett has said she needed a year to detox from politics. Photo / Dean Purcell
Bennett's transformation from solo mother to high-ranking politician with 15 years in Parliament has been much documented (and scrutinised, particularly when access to benefits was tightened under her regime). She leans into the "woman who turned her life around" narrative and the "Westie" persona that's associated with her West Auckland postcode. She says she doesn't want to be interviewed at her "nothing special" home because she'd worry the reporter would leave covered in dog hair.
And it suited her when, early in her political career, some people decided she wasn't that bright. (One national magazine, for example, reported officials were simplifying written material because she apparently preferred graphics and pictorial representations - a claim she says was ridiculous).
"Big deep breath," says Bennett. "Ignore it and move on . . . Some people close to me would say that I played on it, that I quite liked being underestimated, and I think there is a degree of truth in that . . . in those early years, when they wrote you off as being a bit dumb, you could kind of get on with it."
Consider this anecdote from a return trip to her old high school:
"One of the teachers said to me, 'you know I almost want to apologise to you - we've got a gifted class now and we would have had you in that.' And I went 'oh, what a load of bulls***!'"
But she also acknowledges: "There were definite points where I could use that strength and intelligence for good or evil. They tried to keep channelling it into good. They put me on the local youth council and they would try and give me little leadership roles and then I'd get bored and I'd organise a protest against the school uniform or get the boyfriend to come and pick me up on his motorbike off the school field . . . "
Bennett claims she never wanted to lead the National Party and that we should believe her when she says that "because I honestly believe that if I'd really wanted to, I could have". When? Well, she notes with deadpan delivery, in her final years in Parliament, there were "a few changes".
Eventually, that change came for her. And it was brutal.
"I literally gave it 100 per cent . . . and then you're trying to find your place again in the world and literally every day people want to talk to you about what you've done in the past and it's like 'far out - I'm trying to work my way through this'.
Bennett has a new business career. Photo / Dean Purcell
"I was used to knowing pretty much everything . . . Parliament is a VERY complicated place. It's policy, government departments, people, everything. And I believe I was very good at it. You only get to a certain age that you're comfortable saying that, by the way. But, actually, I believe I was. So I went from being very good and knowing more than most people, to knowing the least."
She suspects she'll never have another job like it - but knows she couldn't have done it forever.
"You sleep less, you work longer hours, there is definite tiredness and a risk of burnout. I had moments of knowing that I was at breaking point and, actually, broke a couple of times . . . "
Recently, at a Bayleys function, a man came up to her. Did she recognise him? "I'm sorry, I don't . . . ?" He was the doctor who treated her when she was hospitalised in 2011. Asthma attacks, pneumonia, and "I had kept pushing to the point of collapse". She began routinely spending days off by herself, solo decompressing at a family bach, watching the birds and the trees, listening to music.
"But that's really hard on your family. They haven't seen you much, you're away more often than you're home …"
And, then, suddenly, she was home. All. The. Time.
"He was very excited to have me home. I was, um, what was I? I was pleased to be there, but I was still trying to work out what I was going to do and where I was and how this fit. But we just sort of got on with it. Worked out we could live together and we quite liked each other. It could have gone either way."
Ten years ago, Bennett married Alan Philps, the former truck driver she first dated when she was a server at a truck stop. Why didn't they stay together back then? "That's one for the podcast," she promises. The pair have just returned from a short holiday in Fiji where she took a walk that turned into a hike that she says she couldn't have completed, pre-gastric bypass surgery and a frequently-headlined 50kg weight loss.
Paula Bennett on the campaign trail in 2005, with then National Party leader, Don Brash. Photo/Paul Estcourt
Sure, she'll talk about that some more: "You're still the same person, your body's a bit smaller, fashion's more fun. It's easier, right? You're not thinking, oh, is that top the right length to cover that."
Equally: "Caroline Marr [owner and creative director of plus-size fashion label The Carpenter's Daughter] once said to me, 'you take up more room, why not dress it up?' I loved that. I used to remember that a lot. Yeah - why not own a room?"
What can a reinvented Paula Bennett do with a room? Most recently, she's fundraised $2.2m for the National party. ("It turns out she's very hard to say no to," said one insider). At Bayleys, "I work a lot with private wealth. That's really interesting, and a lot of fun as well. I love them!" Yes, she agrees, "there are wonderful eccentricities" to be found in the upper echelons of societal wealth - but, she adds, you can meet that in the Pūhoi Tavern too.
"Go in with no judgment, take people at face value and work with them to the best that you can. I think that gets you through in any walk of life, right?"
Paula Bennett for mayor, circa 2025?
"We've got a pretty incredible city here in Auckland. And as I said to my husband - it turns out I still give a damn."
Ask Me Anything with Paula Bennett is a New Zealand Herald podcast launching today, with new episodes every Sunday.
Styling Stylist / Sonia Greenslade Make-up / Claudia Rodrigues Fashion credits: White T-shirt from Kate Sylvester, Armani pleather trousers from Smith & Caughey's. White trainers from Merchant 1948. Green T-shirt from Zara. Pink trousers, Ted Baker from Smith & Caughey's. White trainers from Merchant 1948. Jewellery from Silk & Steel and Marc Jacobs. Purple dress from Pearl. Pink jacket, Ted Baker from Smith & Caughey's. Shoes from Mi Piaci. Jewellery from Marc Jacobs.
