One MP, One Pint: Willow-Jean Prime on juggling basketballs, babies and big issues

The Labour MP remembers her most embarrassing ministerial moment.

For third-term Labour MP Willow-Jean Prime, “the juggle is real”. A call from her child – who’s hoping Mum isn’t about to answer in her politician voice – means Prime needs to quickly dip out of Pint of Order before our interview starts. There’s nothing like two weeks of school holidays to remind you that “it’s more relaxing to come back to parliament than it is looking after our kids”.

But of course, it would be impossible for Prime to press pause on thinking about kids at all. She’s had the “honour and privilege” of holding the children’s portfolio since Labour formed the opposition at the 2023 election, which means she’s spent most of this term staring down the government over the repeal of section 7AA of Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 and military-style bootcamps. Prime is a formidable foe to children’s minister Karen Chhour, and though the mahi can feel “relentless”, she tries to channel the frustration into something meaningful.

“I think it’s always important to remember that the kaupapa is bigger than yourself, and who it is that we’re here to serve,” Prime says. “I often reflect back to my maiden speech, I talk about the importance of caring for our children and whānau, because how our children grow will shape Aotearoa.”

That’s not a watered down beer, it’s just sparkling water with honey.

As for her own children, one’s a “byelection baby”, and the other her “parliament baby”. Her first child was only six days old when Prime ran in the 2015 Northland byelection (and lost), and her youngest was seven weeks old when Prime was first elected to parliament as a Labour list MP in 2017. Before you ask, the answer is no; Prime hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since she first became an MP a near decade ago.

The former MP for Northland (which she won in the red wave of 2020 but lost in 2023) is this year standing in the Māori electorate of Te Tai Tokerau, which is not short on talented candidates. Prime is going up against Te Tai Tokerau Party candidate and current MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, Green MP Hūhana Lyndon and Te Pāti Māori candidate Aperahama Edwards, in the most mana-maxed race to date. Up in the beautiful north, Prime says the biggest issues locals face are the cost of living and the future awaiting their mokopuna.

“Places like Te Tai Tokerau [have] huge unemployment [and] not a lot of job opportunities,” Prime says. “Whānau are forced to leave to be able to build a future, and nobody wants that. Everybody wants to live the dream, which is to raise your family in the winterless north… [but right now] the future looks bleak.”

Often, Prime wonders how life brought her to parliament. With a dad who worked for New Zealand Rail, Prime learned to drive a train before she ever learned to drive a car, but dreams of doing it professionally were dashed when a careers counsellor told her that it wasn’t women’s work. And when Prime was 15, she was offered a scholarship to play basketball in the United States, but turned it down due to fears of homesickness. Prime had also only just picked up te reo Māori classes at school, and being behind her classmates at fifth-form level, she had also started night classes with her dad. Her dream wasn’t becoming the next Michael Jordan, but becoming a damn good te reo Māori teacher. Later, she went on to study and practise law (“my whānau said, ‘well, you’ve always liked arguing, you’ll be great at it'”).

Prime breastfeeding in the House and with baby Heeni at parliament in 2017 (Photos: Parliament TV, Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

A law degree is useful in parliament, but a background in basketball means Prime is more than qualified to dunk on ministers. But she doesn’t take the bait when I feebly attempt to coax her fantasy parliament basketball team out of her. Not because Prime knows she’d waste all of them, but because she believes in staying in your lane. “You know, people should retire from sports,” she laughs. “I’m a busy mum. I can’t afford to be injured like that.”

THE SPINOFF PUB Q+A

How much should a pint cost?

I don’t know – I don’t drink beer.

Do you have a karaoke go-to?

So, despite leading waiata for my colleagues, I don’t really sing. I’m more of a backup dancer. If there’s peer pressure around me, I’ll never give in. You’ll never get me to sing.

Favourite place to get a drink in Aotearoa?

I love going to the Kawakawa RSA. We had a lot of strategy meetings there in my early days.

Which three MPs would be on your pub quiz team?

So, we had a conversation about this in the whānau – my husband is very good at quizzes, every Wednesday he gets a pass from my mum to drop the kids off and go to a pub quiz. Wednesdays with Nanny, it’s called. If we’re out of town, he’ll find the local pub quiz.

He said I’d need somebody with sports knowledge, so he picked Kieran McAnulty for that, being a former bookie. He also picked Deborah Russell – she’s very brainy – and Greg O’Connor, for his age. My husband also loves Lawrence [Xu-Nan], but I told him, ‘I’m sure everyone picks Lawrence’.

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

Does Gerry [Brownlee] count? I’d pick his brain on the time he’s spent in parliament and what he’s seen.

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

When it comes to votes for alcohol-related laws, it’s always a conscience vote. I vote against those pieces of legislation, because one of the things that frustrates me is the tinkering and piecemeal change and tweaks to certain bits of laws. I actually think we should do a comprehensive review of our alcohol laws, and come at it from a harm perspective. I see that harm in my communities, and one of the things that frustrated me, having been on the Far North District Council, is trying to put forward a local alcohol policy and that being stymied by parliament’s processes.

Willow-Jean Prime (Photo: Getty Images)

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

In my portfolio area of children, I think back to the work that was done in the late 80s on the Pūao-Te-Ata-Tū [report] and the transformation that they wanted of the children’s system, the care system and the devolution into communities. That’s backed up by about 20 other reports, and the continuing calls for that transformational change to the way that we care for our children.

What qualities make a good drinking partner?

If there isn’t good conversation, it’s not gonna last very long.

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

On the alcohol-related theme of this interview: when I was associate minister of health, we held a big function in the grand hall and I was announcing the establishment of a working group. I read my speech notes, and thought, “make sure you don’t say this word wrong, because if you do, it’s so wrong”. I should not have even put that thought in my mind, because when I went to deliver the speech on foetal alcohol syndrome, I said “faecal”. And then I said, “oh shit”.

Up next on One MP, One Pint: Napier MP Katie Nimon. Read more OMPOP interviews here.

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