The Act Party MP is the only Indian politician in government, but shes doesn’t want her ethnicity to define her. 

Despite her efforts to remain personally opaque, Act’s Parmjeet Parmar is one of those MP who doubles as a magnet for online hostility. On the surface, there’s probably not a lot that we share in common. Parmar sees her ethnicity as a part of herself, and I see mine as my whole. She has a PhD, and I never finished university. She’s a libertarian, and as a good and honest journalist, I’m entirely neutral. But that’s the magic of a beer (or in this case, orange juice) shared at Pint of Order – even the least likely pairings can find some common ground.

Parmar is close to wrapping up her first term in parliament with Act, but this isn’t her first rodeo. She served two terms as a National MP from 2014 and 2020, and sees her failure to get into parliament on the party list or in the Mount Roskill electorate at the 2020 election as a “blessing in disguise”. Those later years with the National Party felt unstable and tumultuous, and when she was left out in the political wilderness, a man named David Seymour gave her a call.

Rather than just settling for the next best thing, switching to Act was something of a political spiritual awakening for Parmar. “In my maiden speech I said that I’m not an ethnic MP, I’m an MP with ethnicity,” Parmar explains. “If I think about what I said in my maiden speech, I see that it really aligns with what Act stands for: equal treatment for all, irrespective of people’s ethnicity.”

That level of detachment from her ethnic identity serves her well in not taking too much to heart. Despite Indians making up the third-largest ethnic group in Aotearoa, Parmar is the only MP of Indian descent in a government in which one coalition partner has consistently made “irresponsible” anti-Indian rhetoric. That rhetoric appears to have seeped into wider society, with Parmar recently targeted in a racist and widely condemned haka. She’s also been busy writing to the police minister about anti-Indian graffiti outside an Auckland school.

In Parmar’s eyes, these things are cyclical. “The important thing here to note is that at the end of the day, we are a multicultural country,” she says. “Some people for their own political gain will try to create that anti-migrant sentiment. I want people to be aware that it happens every election. But on the other hand, I must say, it does concern the community … [And] It is my job to take action where action is needed.”

Parmar says her experience of life “is not a straight line”. She grew up on Indian air force bases, and was a child when a family friend died of a terminal illness, leading Parmar to the sciences in the interest of finding cures. Parmar emigrated to Aotearoa in 1995 for an arranged marriage, completed her PhD in biological science, worked in media for a stint at Radio Tahana, and found her interest in policymaking and then her way into politics after she was made the families commissioner in 2013.

“In 2014 when I got elected, I became the first Indian-born woman to be a member of parliament in New Zealand,” Parmar tells me. Despite feeling that her success is separate from identity, does she feel that being the first female Indian MP and still there today is something to be proud of?

“My main message is that I’m only sitting here because there are so many people who were willing to see beyond my ethnicity,” Parmar says. “So I want to convey this message to the younger generation: believe in yourself and believe in people around you. Yes, there will be people who judge you. People want to judge me. I don’t say, ‘look at me because I’m an Indian’. I’m an Indian, and I’m Kiwi too. And as I said before, I don’t need anyone’s permission.”

THE SPINOFF PUB Q+A

How much should a pint cost?

I don’t drink, so I don’t mind if it’s really expensive. I would say roughly $10 to $11.

Do you have a karaoke go-to?

I’m not the kind of person who sticks to the same kind of songs. I kind of go for upbeat music, I don’t focus on remembering lyrics because I’m not a singer. There is one song that reminds me of when I was younger, and that is Cliff Richards’ ‘Summer Holiday’. In India, school holidays happen in summers, so you’re working hard all through the year and really looking forward to those summer holidays. When I was in a hostel, I used to look through my room’s window and see a family gathering in the evenings having a good time, and I used to think, I’m going home and I’m going to enjoy my summer with my family. I used to miss my family a lot.

Favourite place to get a drink in Aotearoa?

I love McDonald’s coffee. I used to go to one on Pakuranga Road, but that was burnt down. When I’m driving around doing any visits or public meetings, and I see any McDonald’s, I will always go to the drive-through and get a coffee.

Which three MPs would be on your pub quiz team?

David Seymour, because he’s really good and so knowledgable as well when he talks about issues. Very quick on his feet. And I’ll pick Laura McClure from our team – she’s great. And I would pick [Labour’s] Damien O’Connor, because I travelled with him to India for the FTA signing ceremony, and that was my opportunity to learn a bit more about him and the number of years of service he has given to New Zealand.

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

[Labour MP] Ayesha Verrall. I only had a little bit to do with her on some panels before the last election. It would be good to get to know her and catch up with her.

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

I had a member’s bill aimed to make some changes and I’m really glad the government has adopted some of those. One thing I’m really keen on [seeing change] is, if there is a business that is already established, and a sensitive site like a school or church opens up close to it, it can have an impact on the renewal of this established business’s licence. And I think that’s really unfair because it’s a legal business, and there should be responsibility for the site opening up later, knowing that there is a liquor store in the vicinity. So I’m really keen to look into how we fix that.

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

There is a bit of work that is happening in tertiary education. There was a directive given by government the year before last that our public service should be needs and values based. But that directive didn’t extend to universities, so I really want to see that. There are a lot of academics who are concerned that things are ethnicity-based and obviously, for their own jobs, they don’t want to speak about it publicly. But they have been in contact with me and shared their concerns, that just because of their ethnicity, [other academics] get more points to travel to conferences, there are separate Māori spaces, and Treaty courses and those sorts of things. So this is something I’m very keen to see.

What qualities make a good drinking partner?

I would say somebody who is openly willing to challenge some of the views that, you know, we see around and have that kind of discussion where we can kind of explore things around us. And I don’t mind if somebody challenges my views. Actually, I really like that because that way we kind of understand how other people think about the issues that we are trying to tackle.

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

I was in the National team before, and in 2017 to 2020, in that term, there were so many moments of instability and so many leaders. Those were the moments where I used to think, why am I here? What I said in my maiden speech showed that this is who I was aligned with. As I said, life is not a straight line.

Up next on One MP, One Pint: Labour MP Camilla Belich. Read more OMPOP interviews here.