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Georgie Dansey with Grant Robertson and friends on the Pride March. (Photo: supplied)
Georgie Dansey with Grant Robertson and friends on the Pride March. (Photo: supplied)

OPINIONPoliticsJuly 5, 2020

Last on the list: Giving the Labour Party a lift from 84th place

Georgie Dansey with Grant Robertson and friends on the Pride March. (Photo: supplied)
Georgie Dansey with Grant Robertson and friends on the Pride March. (Photo: supplied)

Call it last, call it the foundation: Georgie Dansey is 84th on the Labour Party list for the 2020 election. Here she explains how she got there.

Read more in the Last on the List series, from candidates for National, the Greens and Act, here.

What does it take to come last on the Labour list? It’s a bit of a story, so if you’re feeling tl;dr then just know that I’m queer, a mother, a unionist, and if five and a half million people vote for Labour, then I’ll be an MP.

Growing up in a conservative household, politics wasn’t something that was really discussed, and supporting National seemed like a default position. Rumour has it my Dad even delivered leaflets for the Conservative Party in central London. I can’t confirm or deny whom I voted for when I turned 18.

I was a baby teacher fresh out of uni when I was invited along to a Labour women’s event at a hairdresser. I wandered along with a friend, and suddenly was in this room filled with woke women super passionate about changing the system. I immediately signed up to help the young woman candidate with her campaign and it wasn’t long before I was driving around Hamilton looking for “good” fences. For anyone who hasn’t been intimately involved with election signs, “good” fences are a rare commodity, and even rarer is a “good” fence owner willing to have a candidate’s mugshot in prime view.

After six years campaigning with Labour, I, like many other millennials, got caught up in the bright light of Chlöe Swarbrick and ended up running an election campaign across two electorates for the Green Party. However, as a friend and mentor (and ex-Labour MP, because that’s how we roll) said to me once I rejoined the Labour Party, “I always knew you were a watermelon, Georgie!”

It’s sort of in my DNA though. Over the last few years as I’ve learned more about my whakapapa, both Māori and Pākehā, I’ve found more and more of my ancestors have been pretty heavily involved in politics. On my dad’s side I’ve got the Danseys (more about them later) and on my mum’s side my ancestor William Charles Heaton-Armstrong, who was an MP in England in the early 1900s. He was originally a conservative candidate then switched sides to the liberals. We’re watermelons from way back.

This last year has been crazy. I’ve been buzzing around going to meetings and joining committees left right and centre. Well, mainly left of centre. I found out how hard it is to be involved in politics if you’re a parent. (Shout out to Kiri Allen and Willow Jean-Prime. Oh, and Jacinda.) My own first lady (Ruby) is slightly less into fishing than Clarke but does do a lot of childcare and makes a lot of packed lunches. It turns out that once you’re on three committees and four trust boards which all meet monthly, you have a lot fewer evenings at home …

So what else have I learned along the way? I’ve learned that politics can get really messy, and even at a grassroots level people forget what we are doing it for. But hey, he tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata; the most important thing is looking after our communities, and our communities start with each other. It starts with the volunteers who turn up every weekend to door knock and phone call, and if we don’t treat them with the mana and manaakitanga they deserve, we sure as hell can’t do it for anyone else.

Georgie (right), Ruby and family (Photo: Supplied)

And lastly, how did I feel when, after all this, I saw my name on the list? To be honest, up until that moment I didn’t realise how committed I was to politics. Before, I mentioned my dad’s family, the Danseys. My great-great-grandfather led the Māori Battalion and campaigned for Māori rights after the second world war, and my great-uncle Harry Dansey was a (slightly controversial) race relations commissioner and author back in the 80s. I come from a long line of Māori activists and that fight definitely lives on in me. Growing up Pākehā, I didn’t really have much experience in te ao Māori and sometimes I still feel whakamā about identifying as Māori – walking the line between being white-skinned and being Māori is tricky.

So this list thing has sealed the deal. I don’t know what the next three years will bring, but just know that you’ll be seeing my name again for sure. But hopefully by next time a little further up the list.

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MPs Jami-Lee Ross and Clare Curran.
MPs Jami-Lee Ross and Clare Curran.

PoliticsJuly 4, 2020

‘We wanted to break her’ – Jami-Lee Ross weighs in on Clare Curran story

MPs Jami-Lee Ross and Clare Curran.
MPs Jami-Lee Ross and Clare Curran.

The controversial MP says his former party put a target on the minister’s back, but Melissa Lee insists there was no concerted campaign.

The MP who exited the National Party in a tailspin attack on former leader Simon Bridges has publicly apologised to Clare Curran for his role in the treatment she received from the opposition in 2018, asking why parliamentary politics drives people to “enjoy the destruction of others so much”.

In an exclusive interview with Donna Chisholm for The Spinoff published this morning, Curran speaks openly about her resignation, and the attacks she faced. “People could see that mistakes were made but they were mistakes and I paid an incredibly high price. I was set upon by what felt like a pack of dogs to tear me to shreds,” she said.

Curran said she had undergone six to eight months of psychological treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder after a disastrous afternoon in parliamentary question time. “It was the worst nightmare in front of everyone. I remember a sensation of pressure that built up, and quite honestly, during those first few days I felt like I was literally going to die. I felt physically that I was going to die because the stress had got so much and there was nowhere else for it to go,” she said.

Writing on Twitter, Ross – who has himself been accused of toxicity and bullying in his time in parliament – said: “I had such mixed emotions reading this. You would have to be heartless, or so partisan that you’re now devoid of humanity, to not feel empathy for Clare. But at the same time, I recall being on the other side when it was all happening.”

Ross, now an independent MP, continued: “I was in the 8am strategy meetings when we were deciding to throw everything we had at her. I was in the morning procedures meetings as Melissa Lee would share what her latest hit on Clare was going to be. Clare was a weak link. National wanted to break her. And we did. Watching those question time answers, from about 10 metres away, you could pinpoint the very moment her career ended. I can only now imagine what it felt like. But at the time all we felt was excitement and success.

Attempts by Ross to implicate Bridges and the National Party over donations went awry earlier this year, when Ross himself was one of four individuals charged by the Serious Fraud Office in relation to alleged deception over the funds. The case is ongoing.

Of the Curran episode, Ross today concluded: “Parliament turns normal people in to savages. Another human was going through probably the most traumatic experience they’ll ever go through. Clare lost her job, reputation, her mental well-being. What were we doing? Laughing. Backslapping. Praising the destroyers. We were awful. Yeah, accountability is important. But why enjoy the destruction of others so much? Do we really need to revel is someone else’s downfall? Sure, we all signed up for what Parliament is. But why did we also sign up for forgetting decency when we walked in the door? Sorry Clare.”

Speaking to the NZ Herald today about the story, National MP Melissa Lee, formerly Clare Curran’s shadow in the broadcasting portfolio, said there was no targeted campaign against her.

“I know she has talked about some of this before, it can be difficult in parliament, there are issues related to being a woman, and me personally as an ethnic minority. I do feel for her, what she had to go through with mental health issues, and I am glad she got help.

“But she still can’t skirt around the fact this all happened as result of her incompetence, being a senior cabinet minister, responsible for openness and transparency, and she herself could not set an example. There was no campaign against her, I was asking the questions, as is my duty as an opposition MP.”

In the same Herald article, Michael Woodhouse, who Curran revealed had once won a debating trophy in the shape of a toilet seat with an image of her on it, is quoted as saying: “To be honest I cannot really remember it, and I don’t think an eight-year-old photo is a burning issue of the day.”

Former Green MP Holly Walker, who details the punishing environment of parliament in her memoir The Whole Intimate Mess tweeted: “I have so much empathy for what Clare Curran went through. Guarantee there are more former MPs out there with PTSD, anxiety, depression and burnout.”

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