Courts minister Nicole McKee is the aunty of the Act Party.

Here at old school sports bar The Realm, her local watering hole in Wellington, associate justice minister Nicole McKee and I sit under the glow of rugby league re-runs on the telly. A local of the capital’s Hataitai suburb for 26 years, McKee has a memory for just about every corner of this bar: that’s the spot she squeezed into to watch the last Rugby World Cup at 3am; that outdoor area is where her son’s high school brass band used to play to punters; those snooker tables have seen a wild argument or two. She looks at home pouring her 745ml bottle of Speights into a glass, and when she gets to talking about her mahi, she flashes a wicked grin: “Guns, booze, dirty money: that’s what I’ve been working on.”

You’re probably most familiar with McKee as that firearms lady, the lobbyist who went from opposing the sixth Labour government’s gun laws to being the minister responsible for them. These days, the self-described “very mischief” second-term Act MP’s got a few more tricks up her sleeve, in charge of major reforms to alcohol, gun and anti money laundering laws. For McKee, there’s a throughline between all of these kaupapa: finding “a good balance between relief for the everyday man, but also keeping the public safe”.

“If I can get relief and actually fix what matters to people –  they’ll look at somebody who has actually achieved something in their time in government,” McKee says. “The outcome will far outweigh any abuse that I get –  I’m used to it.”

This week has seen McKee keeping busy in her alcohol portfolio in particular, filling a drink behind a bar for the first time (let the record show that that was a perfect pour, by the way) and hyping up amendments to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, which will see a raft of changes including allowing licensed premises to serve alcohol outside licensed hours for events like the Rugby World Cup, and legally requiring licensed premises to offer zero-alcohol drinks as a low alcohol option. With these reforms, alongside amendments she’s overseen in the Arms Act, set to be passed into law by the end of this year, McKee isn’t itching to find a new passion project. A post-graduate course in public policy she undertook while in opposition at Victoria University taught McKee that passing a bill is only half the job of creating good laws, “you’ve actually got to implement it well, or it’ll fall over”. So in looking towards this year’s general election, McKee’s hopes are simple: get enough party votes to come back next term and finish the job.

You’d think the guns, booze and dirty money rounds would make for a pretty hardened woman, but McKee’s strong whaea vibes are disarming. She’s got a hearty laugh and sees herself as the aunty of the Act Party caucus, the one who checks up on her colleagues and makes sure they’re staying sane in the bizzarro and “lonely world” that is politics. There was some key advice her party leader David Seymour gave her once: parliament is “a marriage wrecker, so if you’re gonna do it, make sure you have got your family’s support.” McKee seems to have this in bucketloads: her husband, Duncan, is always waiting at the front door with a smile and a hug whenever she gets home from work.

It’s also easy to ignore the noise when you’re tuned out of it all. One random thing you should know about McKee is that she hasn’t owned a television since her last one went bust on Christmas Day, 2001. Back then she was a mum to three under three (her four children are now well in their 20s) who were “absolutely devastated” by the event, but it was summer, and the kids managed to keep themselves busy with the wonders of the great outdoors. The family never ended up replacing the TV after that. Her children enjoyed a TV-less childhood and now McKee has an effortless approach to leaving work at work and not have it follow her home. Her TV-less life is also what brings her here, to The Realm, to catch the league (she only winces slightly when I refer to it as rugby) and catch up with the characters around Hataitai village.

THE SPINOFF PUB Q+A

How much should a pint cost?

It’s got to be well under $8 to make it affordable. One of the areas that I’ve been looking into with the alcohol changes is the amount that’s charged on excise tax. I reckon eventually, once we get into a good space financially as a country, we can reduce the excise tax and get the pints of beer back down to an affordable price.

Do you have a karaoke go-to?

I was thinking back to my days of karaoke and Bob Marley’s ‘Jamming’ came into my head. That’s a song that anyone, at a party or a pub, will sing along to.

Favourite place to get a drink in Aotearoa?

[Gestures around] I see my local pub as a community hub. When you came in, we were looking at the photos on the wall of the locals from around here who have passed on or moved on, and I was going up there to see if there was anyone that I knew. And that’s what I mean by a local hub, as opposed to a pub that people just get drunk in.

Which three MPs would be on your pub quiz team?

David Seymour, most definitely. I think he is the most intelligent person that I’ve ever met. Shane Jones; Harvard-educated but also extremely funny, and I think having him and David would be hilarious. They’re my [Ngāpuhi] cousins. And then the third one I was thinking of is [Act MP] Cameron Luxton, because Cameron has a sphere of knowledge of all sorts of random stuff.

Which MP from across the aisle would you most like to share a drink with?

I wouldn’t mind having a drink with [Greens MP] Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, because I find him a respectful politician. He asks lots of questions in the committee on the whole, but he’s not doing it to be a pain. He might be trying to do it to prolong process, but the questions are always really good questions, and it makes me think, “this is a guy who actually studies up and thinks about all these different bills”. You know, he’s got a great smile, he looks like he’s got a good personality, and I wouldn’t mind getting to know him a bit more.

Is there an alcohol-related law you would like to change?

I’ve had a pretty good go, and I’m pretty chuffed with what I’ve got coming. I guess I’ll come back to that excise tax again; if we get the country in a position where we can relax those excise rules, I would really like to give that a go.

What’s a policy area we’ve been nursing without finishing the glass?

I always think in the legislation that I’m changing that you could always do more. For example, in firearms, I would love to have a sporting exemption for people to be able to continue with their sport under strict conditions, which is not what they’ve had in the past.  With alcohol, I’d like the excise tax. Looking at the things that I’m doing in courts, [it’s] remote participation, and trying to get the courts operating faster. In all the laws that I’m looking to change, I’d love to have gone a little bit further.

I’ve got adoption stuff coming up pretty soon, and that wasn’t something that was on my radar. That was put on my radar, but it was put on the radar of many ministers before me, and no one did anything about it. And I kind of feel quite proud that I’m, as a mother, protecting some of these kids that are being trafficked through New Zealand. That’s one area that I want to make sure gets through.

What qualities make a good drinking partner?

Sustainability. They’ve got to last longer than me.

Have you ever had a Schnapps election moment where you regretted your political instinct?

Really, the answer is no, but I was trying to think: what is something that I said that I maybe shouldn’t have said? There was one thing I said recently, talking about the really bad state of the Rotorua courthouse –  I’ve been trying to push since I’ve been the minister for courts to get some putea to be able to pay for doing something there –  and when they complained that there were cockroaches running around the walls, I had a vision. I grew up in Rotorua, right, and there were cockroaches all over the place, and I said that, and it was reported as “the minister just said Rotorua is full of cockroaches”. I guess it was something that wasn’t necessary. It doesn’t help the people in Rotorua.

Up next on One MP, One Pint: Labour MP Reuben Davidson. Read more OMPOP interviews here.