standing in parliament grounds, on the right side of history

When I was 19, I voted for the first time – Wellington Central, 1996, the first MMP election. Deborah Morris, now Green Party chief of staff, was my friend Rebekah’s flat mate, and I was there the night she came home from working for New Zealand First to announce that she was standing on the party list. An enormous billboard of Deborah and Winston appeared at the flat and we were all slightly hysterical at the idea of someone we knew (we were kids!) running for parliament.

That election, granddaughter of Peter Fraser’s wartime speech-writer, Enfys Hughes (later McKenzie), I voted for Alick Shaw and the Labour Party, remembering then, in the midst of the Bolger-era National government, my parents and their friends celebrating in 1984 when Lange and his crew got rid of Muldoon. I voted at university, as did most of my friends, and we largely voted against the government that had made tertiary education user pays. Our loans grew bigger, we lived in cold flats in the Aro Valley, and wearing beanies to bed was common, for warmth. But we were middle class kids, with options, and futures.

Over the next twenty (oh count them) years, I’ve voted in Hamilton West (twice), Auckland Central, Maungakiekie, and Tāmaki (three times). Each time feels like a sacred act – the solitary stillness in the polling booth as my mind skips back to all who passed before me so that I can stand there, orange felt tip in hand, and vote for whomever I damn well please.

But I’ve never felt quite how I did today – the day Auntie Cinda’s Lady Party happened, and Jacinda Ardern was sworn in as prime minister. I feel filled with hope. I stood there, alone amid the crowds, as my government gathered in front of Parliament’s steps, while ¾ of Fat Freddy’s Drop played, while Clark Gayford beamed and beamed, proud as HELL of his smart partner. There were kids, and mums and dads and partners of new MPs, smiling and proud, a bit like graduation – flowers, and smart clothes, and a sense of an ending and a beginning all at the same time.

Winston was there too, Deborah Morris-Travers’ old boss from back in ’96 when I was just a kid. But the line-up! The promise of MMP has been diversity – and standing at Parliament grounds this afternoon there was that, with 13 Māori and Pacific ministers of the crown sworn in today, and a parliament that looks and sounds more and more like my New Zealand.

There’s hope too, in the new ministerial posts and names. Words matter. Kelvin Davis is Minister for Crown-Māori relations, and in that new name, the principle that post-settlement iwi and hapū will continue a significant relationship with the Crown is acknowledged. Megan Woods is Minister of research, science, and innovation, and in the inclusion of that word ‘research’ there’s hope that our collective refutation of the worth of the humanities and social sciences is over, gone. Our three Green ministers – James Shaw, Eugenie Sage, Julie Anne Genter – a feminist as Minister for Women! A Climate campaigner as Minister for Climate Change! A conservationist as Minister for Conservation! Jan Logie, who will hold a special portfolio within Justice looking at violence against women and sexual violence. Those portfolios speak to a country that is determined to forge a new way, a different world for ourselves and our children.

Andrew Little is Minister for Pike River re-entry, not Pike River. Nanaia Mahuta is the first wahine to be minister of Māori Affairs. Jenny Salesa is our first Tongan-born minister. The world has changed, and our government is trying to reflect that.

Our new prime minister is Minister for Child Poverty Reduction. While I might personally prefer a title that relies less on deficit modeling, it is a huge acknowledgement of the issues of health, housing, jobs, discrimination, and education that impact on our most vulnerable.

But there’s something else I’m feeling, there’s a sense of promise that is accompanied by a sense of responsibility. This new government, they’re my people, my generation (the PM is 3 years younger than me!) and now we, the middle-career public servants and academics and teachers and nurses and professionals and tradespeople and workers and not-currently working and working all the time but not getting paid a wage people – we, the people, we have to roll up our sleeves, and help do this. We’re the ones with the power to effect change, not our parents, not our children. We, the Gen Xers and Millennials: now is the time to step up, participate, contribute, hold power to account, make things new.

Rebecca Solnit, in her utterly essential book, Hope in the Dark, describes hope as emerging from history –

‘Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope.’

Like kindness, hope is a verb – it calls to action. Let’s do this.