Adding dignity to welfare system a big goal

Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni may be a political firebrand with the insight Labour needs to heal the schisms which have appeared across the country.

Her maternal side, farmers from Taranaki, and paternal Pasifika family watched her being sworn in to one of the most powerful positions in the country this week in Wellington.

‘‘Yesterday I got sworn in and I have my Pacific family here and I had my palagi family who are from a farming background. They are very proud of me. They are very supportive of me [but] they haven’t committed to voting for Labour,’’ she said with a laugh.

An experienced politician of Samoan, Tongan and European heritage, Sepuloni had a ‘‘provincial working-class upbringing’’ as the daughter of a fruit picker and a migrant abattoir worker. Parts of her childhood were spent in gumboots on her grandparents’ sheep farm in Taranaki.

This, along with her work in education with at-risk youth in Auckland, has given her both experience and insight on key issues such as the rising cost of living and youth crime.

Her diverse life experiences, including time as a sole parent, make her able to relate to modern New Zealand.

Sepuloni’s family even defies divisions which have appeared more starkly across rural and urban, ethnic and ideological lines.

Sepuloni’s political identity was shaped by the impact of hundreds – including her father – losing work in her Waitara hometown when the freezing works began making redundancies before closing down in the 1990s.

‘‘We saw the impact of that political and economic climate growing up. We felt what was happening,’’ she said.

Her father moved to Australia in search of work, a separation which was ‘‘very disruptive’’ for a

teenaged Sepuloni, who was also marked by the political rhetoric of the time: ‘‘Politicians referring to ‘dole bludgers’ and stating they needed to get out there and work’’.

Sepuloni stopped regularly attending school and headed on a path to trouble. But her school principal at New Plymouth Girls’ High School, Jain Gaudin, recognised her talent and began to mentor her.

Sepuloni moved in with her and attained university entrance.

She bristles at the suggestion she ‘‘fell in with the wrong crowd’’, saying many of those she was with are valuable members of their communities.

The idiom has an extra sting while the negative stereotyping of young, brown people has a refreshed political currency as a result of ramraids and smash-and grab style offending.

In December, National Party leader Christopher Luxon said he ‘‘was not meaning to disrespect South Auckland’’ when he suggested gang life looked attractive

‘‘I feel like I have had a long journey in politics.’’ Carmel Sepuloni Deputy prime minister

to youth who ‘‘sit around in garages in South Auckland’’ after being asked how to prevent youth crime.

Speaking broadly, Sepuloni said society should not ‘‘write off’’ youth offenders and ‘‘condemn them to a life inside the jail system’’.

Her promotion holds huge weight for the Pasifika community.

She was listening to Niu FM on Sunday when the radio announcer was asking for feedback on what it meant for listeners to have a Pasifika deputy prime minister.

‘‘The response was just overwhelming . . . that it will mean so much for the next generation of Pacific people, it gives them the confidence they are valued, [and that] leadership positions are possible.’’

Sepuloni had a challenging road to Parliament. She became pregnant in her second year of university but continued her studies – finishing her four-year degree in 51⁄ years.

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Her first job was as a literacy educator for young people who had been kicked out of school in Auckland.

‘‘Growing up with a lot of peers who had fallen away, left school early, not got the qualifications, and I wanted to work with young people like that, I could have been that young person myself,’’ she said.

In 2006, at a young Pacific leadership conference held at Parliament, she became friends with someone working for the Labour Party.

She had always been political and was passionate about youth issues. She was convinced to get involved with politics.

She had an unsuccessful run for City Vision, a centre-left coalition of Labour, Green and community independents who contest local government elections in Auckland, alongside Michael Wood, who is now the transport minister.

But in 2008, aged 31, she entered Parliament on the Labour list and as the first MP of Tongan decent.

In 2011, she won the nowabolished seat of Waitākere but then lost it to National’s Paula Bennett after a recount.

She used those three years out of politics to take stock of what she wanted and where she was headed, while also heading a Pacific mental health and disability support organisation. She also had her second son.

‘‘I was really grateful for the three years when I didn’t win Waitākere,’’ she said.

‘‘There was time for me to reflect on the three years I had in Parliament and consider if I really wanted to go back, how I wanted to operate in that space and what I wanted to achieve.’’ She re-entered Parliament as the MP for Kelston and since 2017 has been the minister for social development, where her main objective has been to bring dignity back to the welfare system.

More needed to be done but she was proud of the changes she had made, she said.

‘‘I feel like I have had a long journey in politics. I have learnt a lot. I came in as a 31-year-old backbencher who knew nothing of Parliament.’’

Big ticket items include bumper benefit increases, setting up a ministry for disabled people, putting birth injuries under ACC cover, setting up the wage subsidy scheme, and changing the ‘‘incredibly unfair’’ child support pass on which had meant the Government was intercepting child support payments if the child’s main caregiver was on a sole parent benefit.

‘‘It was discriminatory and noone had got around to addressing it,’’ she said.

Sepuloni is motivated by her personal convictions, and the notion of achieving fairness has underpinned and guided her life’s work.

Those who work with her, including her Labour Pasifika caucus colleague, MP Aupito William Sio, said she was also pragmatic and realistic about how to achieve her aims, took advice and had worked to build relationships.

She had also worked hard ‘‘her entire life’’, Sio said, and her multiple identities gave her rich insight into improving the lives of New Zealanders.

’’In Parliament we are having to make decisions which are challenging and complex . . . having those experiences gives her a great insight of the challenges,’’ he said.

‘‘She won’t back down in a fight.’’