‘She would have been, like, are you insane?’ Qiulae Wong on her new job

And has she heard from Christopher Luxon yet?

On Saturday night at Eden Park, Qiulae Wong was celebrating something unprecedented: leading a new party, one that didn’t stem out of a pre-existing group, into parliament. 

It’s a far cry from her election night the last time around. “I would have just been at home watching the results with my husband,” she said of three years ago. “I would have been pregnant with my second daughter, so probably just feet up on the couch or something.”

How would that earlier version of herself, watching from the couch, respond to hearing from her future self that three years later she’d be in Wellington, meeting with her Opportunity Party caucus? “She would have been, like, are you insane? Because you'll have a three-year-old, and don't you know how tired you're going to be?" 

But, she added, speaking to The Spinoff on a new episode of At Large with Toby Manhire, “I think she would have been incredibly stoked. I remember coming back to New Zealand from the UK [in 2022] and feeling like we were giving up a lot. You know, we had great lives and jobs in London, but the prospect of contributing something meaningful to New Zealand was really exciting to me. So whether I was going to do that in business or in politics or whatever, that's kind of the mission I came back to New Zealand with. So I'm stoked to be here.”

And has she heard from Christopher Luxon yet? As of late afternoon: “I have not.” She had spoken with Chris Hipkins and Chloe Swarbrick, but not a peep from the National leader. 

What did she make of the grand farce, by the way, in which he insisted countless times across the campaign that he would absolutely not under any circumstances talk to the Opportunity Party, all while seasoned observers sighed that of course he means the opposite of what he says, only to be proved right when he breezily reversed that commitment within hours?

“I think it is a bit sad that our expectations of our leaders are so low that we all agree we don't believe what they're saying,” she said. “That is a bit of a sad state of politics, I think.”

Wong has faced growing scrutiny over recent weeks over the role of the board in Opportunity Party decision-making, with its constitution providing the right of veto over any governing arrangement, for example, or to remove the leader.

She told The Spinoff that “as we grow as a party and actually become one inside parliament, we'll have to rethink the way that our processes work [in relation to the board's role] to the various options of veto it has.” 

Had they begun that process? “We haven't dived into that yet,” she said. “We're day-one and just learning the ropes here. But that's something that for us as a whole party to consider, and I think in the coming months that's something that we'll work towards getting our members’ input on. It's not just the board's role, but I think even things like how we develop policy and how the different chapters around the country work as a much bigger party, those are all things that we need to consider.”