Jacinda Ardern: Simply red

BY CATHERINE WOULFE

JACINDA Ardern intends to paint this town red, and as she kicks off her sensible black flats, it's clear she's started with her toenails.

The 29-year-old laughs when that's pointed out. She plays down the colour of her couch, too, swearing she didn't type "red" into TradeMe when she was furniture-hunting for her neat Grey Lynn apartment.

The red lilies and hydrangeas on the bench, though, are more significant.

They were given to Ardern last week, when Labour confirmed it had chosen her to compete for the Auckland Central seat in 2012. Ardern will be up against National's incumbent Nikki Kaye, who snatched the electorate from Labour's longstanding MP Judith Tizard last year.

It will be the prettiest battle of the 2011 election. Kaye, who turned 30 last month, was recently voted sexiest female politician, with Ardern close behind in third.

Ardern is sleek and luminous today, despite running late after a morning spent hearing submissions on the Super City.

She says she's flustered but it doesn't show. Her classy tan-and-black dress is by Christchurch designer Carolyn Barker. Her make-up is flawless, her hair frizz-free. The overall impression is one of both energy and calm.

Ardern's single and has been devoted to Labour since before she could vote.

So it's a little strange that she has been compared to former National MP Katherine Rich, who bowed out before the last election to spend more time with her family.

Ardern: "Someone said to me, `are you the new Katherine Rich?' I said, `you know I am in Labour?"' She laughs.

She does have the natural savvy of Rich and the same warmth. But after just 12 months in Parliament as a list MP, Ardern's already talking about sacrifice in the name of politics.

"Helen [Clark] dedicated her entire life to what she did, in lots of ways. As long as I'm able to make a difference, I'd be willing to do that as well, I think."

Does she want children, though?

"I hope to have as normal a life as I can. I don't know if I want an article about me being clucky." Ardern laughs, but she's not joking. "How would I describe it ... I'm, oh, you know, I'd like to have a family. You can't plan out everything in your life ... I think you'd go mad if you tried to."

Ardern is carefully friendly during this interview, perhaps thanks to her experience on Breakfast, where she is pitted against National's golden boy Simon Bridges. But she says she's not deliberately on guard, rather, she has chosen not to separate Jacinda the politician from Jacinda the person.

"I think I'm quite a simple person. I don't know if you're looking for layers ... You know, the job can, it is all – it is everything.

"I think the way to survive in politics is not to be two people. I have always just tried to say what I believe because it's much easier."

In her maiden speech to parliament, Ardern spoke about ridding the country of poverty, of compulsory Te Reo for school children and our shameful attitude to climate change.

The seeds of those beliefs were planted during a childhood in Murupara, the little Waikato town perhaps best known for its poverty and dangerous dogs.

Ardern's father (now a New Zealand police liaison based in Samoa) was the local sergeant there.

When the family moved to Morrinsville Ardern's colours really started to show. She was elected as the student representative on her school's board of trustees, started a human rights group, campaigned for uniform changes and organised school balls and musicals.

There was no overt politicking at home: "I would never describe my parents as being political people," she says. "We discussed issues. We never really discussed politics."

But an aunt was involved with Labour, and before Ardern left school she was roped in to help with a campaign in New Plymouth.

The experience put her on the path to parliament and in 2005 she became an advisor to then-Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Then came an OE in New York, campaigning for workers' rights, and a three-year stint as a policy advisor in the UK. In 2008 she became President of the International Union of Socialist Youth (an umbrella group covering 100 countries, with UN consulting status), which took her to Lebanon, Algeria, the West Bank, refugee camps and the slums of Mumbai. She did feel compelled to help, she says, but decided that rather than a "big dramatic shift" she would try to make a difference in New Zealand.

"I missed things and I missed people and I always felt drawn home."

Now, as Labour's Youth Affairs spokesperson, she believes passionately in early intervention for troubled youth, and the importance of beginnings.

So what of her own?

Good friend and fellow Labour MP Grant Robertson shared an office with Adern through the "extraordinarily stressful" 2005 election year, when they were both advisors to Clark.

He says Adern defies her age.

"I think she's made a great beginning. I'd like to think Jacinda will be a cabinet minister in fairly short order."

- © Fairfax NZ News