The Act MP, who recently announced she’s calling it quits, explains why she feels disconnected from her peers – and what she’s most looking forward to post-politics.
Act MP Brooke van Velden, the millennial minister for internal affairs and workplace relations, is the second-youngest-ever person to make it into cabinet, the first to say “cunt” in the House and one of few to humbly bow out of politics when it looks like she’s only just hitting the top. Her announcement last week to not seek re-election in November may have taken many by surprise, but for someone who’s “33 and spent most of my life within one building”, moving on from parliament after a near-decade could be her biggest opportunity for growth yet.
There’s still plenty of work to get done between now and then, which is why van Velden is cautiously sipping a lemon, lime and bitters at The Backbencher. Something van Velden wished she knew before she made the transition to being a MP in 2020, after working in parliament for three years as a staffer for Act leader David Seymour, is that work never actually ends; you’re in parliament until 10pm (and later during urgency), your calendar is constantly full and your Saturdays involve a visit from a man with a locked briefcase giving you your “homework” for the weekend.
“The thing that makes it hard is that I have missed out on people’s birthdays and family events,” van Velden says. It means that making time to get a coffee with an old mate is something she now considers a hobby, rather than just a regular part of her routine. Van Velden admits she does “feel a little disconnected to people my own age”, especially when she looks around at her friend group and realises they “have done exceptionally well in their own careers, but none of them have got to the top.
“I sit there thinking, well, I’m 33 and I’ve already gotten to cabinet, what more is there? I could continue doing the same role or maybe pick up a different ministerial role, but ultimately I don’t think I’d be learning anything.”
Admittedly “not an outwardly expressive and emotive” person, van Velden sees her natural introversion as the reason why some may perceive her as “not caring”. She isn’t a personality politician in the way her leader is, saying that it’s been awkward trying to fit into the role of public figure. Rather, she’s someone who’d prefer to quietly take her turn at the chisel.
In others ways, though, she’s just like any other woman in her early 30s. She stays sane by listening to indie-pop singer Clairo and band Cigarettes After Sex on walks around Auckland’s Cornwall Park, enjoys a good cocktail and is very conscious of how other people are viewing her.
Van Velden loves being in her Tāmaki electorate, and was the first MP to take it off National’s hands since 1960 when elected in 2023. She can often hear a “good on ya, girl” while walking down the street and it’s where she gets to work on fixing very personal issues, like helping one of her wheelchair-using constituents, who spent years unable to leave his inaccessible Kāinga Ora home, move into a unit better suited to his needs. “It actually feels really good to have something really practical you can do for somebody,” she says.
She knows it’s a different vibe, though, when she comes down to Wellington. “Down here, you’re dealing with workplace relations a lot of the time, and that means that you are dealing with labour laws, and that’s always going to be a very tricky environment no matter who was the workplace relations minister, right?” van Velden says. “If it wasn’t me, they’d also be getting a lot of flak.”
It’s not the kind of lifestyle every 33-year-old would be able to cope with. So, what’s van Velden most excited to do on that first day out of politics? “Wear something that’s not pink,” she jokes. Sad news for fans of that famous pink coat. But it shouldn’t take van Velden too long before she’s searching Seek; she’s not the type who feels comfortable twiddling her thumbs.
THE SPINOFF PUB Q+A
How much should a pint cost?
I don’t actually drink a lot of beer myself, so I’m going to put a stab in the dark out there – on average, around 10 bucks? If you’re going for a really expensive craft beer, I think you should assume it’s gonna be more. If you’re going for Lion Red, you’d expect it’s cheaper.
When I did used to drink beer, it was mainly when I was at university, and I never bought it in a pint, just by the jug. I used to go to Shads at Auckland Uni, and even back then I think it was $10. I had a group of friends that would meet up there every Wednesday before German class.
Do you have a karaoke go-to?
I think everyone’s karaoke go-to, myself included, is ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. I do enjoy getting into the rhythm because you can’t take yourself seriously at karaoke, right? You’re supposed to be having fun. The other one that I used to go to was Beyonce’s ‘Halo’.
Favourite place to get a drink in Aotearoa?
Crumpet. I do like a good cocktail, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find a place that’s better than Crumpet down in Wellington. [Sadly, Crumpet just closed its doors.]
Which three MPs would be on your pub quiz team?
Cam Luxton and Laura McClure from Act, because they are genuinely fun people. Pub quizzes are just for fun. I tend to find that if you win, that’s an added bonus, but the likelihood that you’re gonna do it is so low. Which is why I would bring in Chris Bishop, because he’s the most likely out of anyone in parliament to have the weird, niche cricket knowledge that seems to come up in every quiz.
Which MP from across the aisle would you most like to share a drink with?
Steve Abel from the Green Party. I don’t know him that well, which is why it would be interesting to get to know him. But I’ve been able to observe him in select committee… Steve genuinely engages with the material and takes his job quite seriously, and I’ve admired seeing that.
Is there an alcohol-related law you would like to change?
Not personally, but I very much thank my colleague Nicole McKee, who is already doing a lot of work in this space. The one law change I’m most interested in her getting over the line is if you’re buying a bottle of wine when you’re out at dinner, you can take it home.
I mean, it’s got to be so frustrating for so many people that you feel pressured to just binge [the bottle] because you bought it, whereas if you just bought the whole bottle for dinner, you could have one or two glasses and put the cap back on, then take it home and have it the next day. I think it’s actually a benefit for everybody that you’re not having people drink too much because they feel like they need to.
What’s a policy area we’ve been nursing without finishing the glass?
For me, that is the Holidays Act. I do think it has to change, because it shouldn’t be this hard to pay people correctly. I think it’s just so much better for any relationship at work that you know what you’re supposed to be paying out, or you know what you’re supposed to be getting. And for whatever reason we have not touched the law as fast as we should have, because there’s been billions of dollars of remediation costs and people do actually deserve to get paid correctly. It’s one of those ones that people aren’t going to go out there publicly celebrating that you’ve had some massive moral victory, because it’s genuinely about payroll systems, which does sound dry. But it’s those sorts of things that actually keep our economy going.
What qualities make a good drinking partner?
Firstly, someone who shows up. Second to that, I think someone who is fun and is able to just roll in conversation – if conversation moves quickly and flows, I think that’s really helpful. I think ultimately everyone has it in them to be a good drinking partner.
Have you ever had a Schnapps election moment where you regretted your political instinct?
Yes and no. The one example that I’ve got in my mind – I still don’t know if I did the right thing or not – was when I was door knocking in Tāmaki. I’d been going around with a volunteer one morning, and we’d had some really good engagements, but we knocked on one particular door and a man opened the door completely naked except for his underwear. And instead of saying, ‘oh sorry, I was expecting my wife’ or something like that, he leaned on the door frame and engaged in conversation with me.
I thought, this is alright, I can roll with this. Then after a really awkward conversation, myself and my volunteer walked away so puzzled at what he had just done. I still don’t know whether it was the right thing to do or not. But if there’s if there’s any chance he voted for me in Tāmaki, then [shrugs].
Up next on One MP, One Pint: Labour MP Reuben Davidson. Read more OMPOP interviews here.
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