Labour MP Arena Williams is one of few people who can dissect the works of Geoffrey Palmer and Sabrina Carpenter in the same breath.

Arena Williams’ whakapapa is Ngāti Labour. Her staunch Labour-loving great-grans were able to spend money on Williams’ father, Sir Haare Williams’ education (he once vied for a Labour nomination in 1992) thanks to Michael Joseph Savage’s extension to the old age pension for Māori. Sir Haare then met his wife Jacqueline while she was organising for Labour. Next was Arena, who led young Labour’s Māori rōpū (“we called it the hōhā branch”), met her husband as a student union representative at a party conference (“we’re joined by the power of Labour”), and is now the Labour MP for Manurewa.

So, yeah, you could say Williams was built for the red team kaupapa. Over beers and chips, Williams tells me she’s been politically engaged since her teenage years, was a student activist in her past life as the president of Auckland University’s student association (where she also met health minister Simeon Brown, in his role as president of the Pro-Life club), and has worked as a probation officer and Chapman Tripp lawyer. Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that among a number of Labour supporters, Williams is a favourite for future leader.

The student politics to real politics pipeline can be brutal, and when Williams looks back at that time, “the way we treated each other, the way we really believed in our convictions and debated them … It’s a way of getting into politics that will bloody your nose up, and when you come in here, you realise you don’t have to be Machiavellian like that.” Now, the friends she used to play guitar with in young Labour are the mates she holidays with, hitting the beach during the day and singing karaoke at night.

In her down time, Williams’ has a number of passions: gardening (veggies), cooking (her go-to recipe is boil up, with watercress over puha any day), books (her favourite Geoffrey Palmer one is ‘Reform’) and she’s usually down to read some Tarot cards (“it’s a gateway to people’s emotions”). But the most exciting revelation is that Williams is a poptimist. She’s currently got Man’s Best Friend on repeat, enjoys the new Taylor Swift record (an incredibly hot take to have a year out from an election) and if you only ask, she can dissect the hidden political messaging of Sabrina Carpenter’s horny pop songs at length.

After all, Carpenter is “perfectly capturing whatever is going on in the zeitgeist around the world … describing what is essentially a political problem of young men and young women not seeing eye to eye on almost anything.” This is something that “political parties actually have to grapple with”, Williams says: this “growing rift” between the sexes that Carpenter is trying to warn us about.

“That’s something we’re seeing play out with young people in New Zealand: they’re not smoking, not doing drugs, not having risky sex. They are finder it harder and harder to get jobs and that gap is being felt differently by different genders. Young women are doing OK, but young men are finding it harder. If we don’t find a solution for this, it will be much worse in 10 years,” Williams reckons. Before anyone asks, I’ve already requested the full thesis. Who knows, Williams might have time to pen 50,000 words on the political messaging of ‘House Tour’ between debates.

THE SPINOFF PUB Q+A

How much should a pint cost?

About 10 bucks.

Do you have a karaoke go-to?

I will always queue ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries – not because it is my song, but because it’s the song I love to sing with my man. I don’t know if it’s really romantic, it’s kind of heavy. Karaoke, for me, is always something I do with my political mates: we go to BYO, then do karaoke after a hard or challenging day. At the moment, I’m loving a bit of Sabrina Carpenter, and my favourite is ‘When Did You Get Hot?’

Favourite place to get a drink in Aotearoa?

Manurewa has Woodside Bar, which is where everyone will meet on a Friday night. But when it comes to Auckland Central, I’ve got a favourite little wine bar which is downstairs from Cahn’s [Wines and Spirits] on O’Connell Street, you’ve got to try it.

Which three MPs would be on your pub quiz team?

I will obviously choose [National’s] Chris Penk, as is honourable, and I make his round “the laws of New Zealand from the 1960s to 2025”. I would choose [Te Pāti Māori’s] Rawiri Waititi on the basis that we have great crossover knowledge of East Coast history, particularly the history of the Ringatū church. We’re going to work that round: my father is a Ringatū minister, Rawiri embraces bringing the Ringatū knowledge, so we’re good. And then I would choose a foreign affairs political round with Peeni Henare.

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

I’m a big fan of [National’s] Nicola Grigg. I think she’s thoughtful, she’s clever, and she’s someone who I don’t always agree with, but she’s clearly motivated by her values. We have travelled together and talked about lots of issues, and I think she’s someone who’s in it for the long haul and thinks about the long term and the future.

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

South Auckland has too many bottle stores – they’re on every street corner, they’re more common than dairies in our suburbs. I would like to make it easier for Auckland Council to make sensible rules about where they can go, and when they can be open. I think most people in South Auckland don’t want them open with signs out at three o’clock when school kids are on their way home, and it’s become normal for parents to park up at the bottle store, pop in, get a few things, and pick up the kids. It’s really in your face, you can’t escape it in South Auckland, and you should be able to, it shouldn’t be something that is a part of every day.

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

Something that I would like to see cross-partisan support for is – so that it sticks, so that everyone can buy into it and so that we’re can take the public with us – is access for people with mental health and addictions to treatment services. Our system works better for the initiatives like the drug and alcohol court, but those initiatives need to be funded well and to work more broadly.

The difference that’s in South Auckland, is that young people who are facing drug offences can have some sort of alternative system of resolution, and when they get the support they need to get out of that cycle, it’s huge. I’ve seen the organisations who do that work, they’re making a big impact on people’s lives – I don’t want that to be a political football. I want to be able to come to the table with other politicians and say: let’s remove this from the realm of everyday politics and put it in the category where it belongs, which is healthcare for everyone.

What qualities make a good drinking partner?

A bit of banter, and someone who would try all manner of snacks. I love a bit of street food and exploring after a couple of drinks, and South Auckland has a great food scene that isn’t just “Indian food”, but also Gujarati food, Punjabi food, the whole range.

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

It was when I was occupying the University of Auckland library because the university fees were going up, and when I realised I was going to be locked in there overnight, I regretted my political choices. We got let out about 3am by security, but by that stage I had finished my book and was ready to go.

Up next on One MP, One Pint: Act MP Laura McClure. Read more OMPOP interviews here.