Local Focus: From labour to Labour

Labour's Rangitīkei candidate, Heather Warren, now has the cutest policy of any politician in New Zealand, and it's guaranteed to keep her very busy for the foreseeable future.

It's a brand new baby girl.

Heather got the Labour Party nomination for Rangitīkei seven months ago, and a few days later she found out she was pregnant. Her doctor said she was due to give birth on the 29th of September, 6 days after the election. "I thought this is manageable," says Heather. "And then I had a relatively terrible pregnancy. So I was very sick and then I had some whooping cough which is not a great thing to have when you're pregnant."

But it was when she was in the middle of a press conference announcing Labour's policy for the Manawatu Gorge, that she literally went into labour.

"I was feeling just a little bit uncomfortable then, and on Sunday, I had a baby. Thankfully the weekend before she came, she had given us a scare and they had flown me to Wellington and given me some steroids to make sure her lungs had matured, in case she decided to come early and she did," Warren said.

After 29 days in Whanganui Hospital, Heather and her daughter Eva Margarette are back home.

"It feels really good to be a mother," Heather admits. "I never really thought I would be a mother and so I'm very happy with it.

"And I'm really happy that I have the ability to go out and show people I can campaign and I can have a baby and still do the things that are required of you".

While her boss, Jacinda Ardern, was challenged over her baby plans, Heather is proof that babies don't hold aspiring politicians back.

"The great thing about candidate forums is you get to talk about policy before the mix and mingle afterwards. And the mix and mingle is really fantastic because people genuinely want to know about my baby, they genuinely want to pass on their well-wishes and they take an interest.

"And sometimes I can steer it back towards policy. She is very helpful on the campaign but I don't want people to think I'm milking her for points."

And while it's a cliche politicians use to appeal to voters, there's not many who can get their photo taken with their own baby who they've recently given birth to.

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