One MP, One Pint: Vanessa Weenink on leaving Labour to become a blue blood

When you’ve watched your dad get arrested and been an army medic in Afghanistan, switching political allegiances is just one chapter in a jam-packed life story.

First-term National MP Vanessa Weenink didn’t particularly enjoy the new Star Wars film. The Mandalorian and Grogu movie is the first thing the self-professed “geek” and I get to talking about in Pint of Order, over a Moscow mule for me and a water for Weenink, who’s getting over a cold. And a bad movie. Even as a politician, there’s nothing you want more after a long week on the job than to a find an escape in a galaxy far, far away.

Back to Earth, Weenink is red-voter-turned-blue-voter who also turned a long-time red seat blue. She’s the first National MP for Canterbury’s Banks Peninsula electorate since David Carter won the newly created seat in 1996 (though its name and boundaries have changed a couple of times during that period), and she certainly isn’t your usual kind of Nat. Her father was a “pioneer” of cannabis cultivation, and a prison sentence (Weenink watched his arrest as a five-year-old) had made him “anti-authoritarian”. Weenink was a “left kind of voter” as a medical school student, and was a Labour Party member when she worked with current (but leaving) Labour MP Duncan Webb on his 2017 campaign.

Her Labour Party ties were cut when she joined the New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA), after two decades as a general practitioner and army medic. Following some soul searching (and the disestablishment of the NZMA), it was the National Party that finally convinced Weenink to do what Webb could never successfully talk her into – running for parliament.

“I’d always felt a bit uncomfortable in Labour Party because I was a business owner and employer, and I really believe strongly in things like personal responsibility and reward for achievement,” Weenink says. National’s history in treaty settlements and “getting stuff done” were key values to Weenink, who had “felt really frustrated with Labour talking and talking and talking and not doing anything”. She wished health reforms made by the Labour government at the start of the decade had done more to address health funding.

“We’ve got a broad church in National,” she adds. “I’m definitely more progressive when it comes to social stuff.”

Her mind is currently on keeping Banks Peninsula blue. Her seat was considered a safe Labour one when she won it in the blue wave of the 2023 election, and Weenink believes her electorate isn’t “one that can be taken for granted by either side – potentially 20% of the voters I speak to haven’t made their mind up yet, and I see that as an opportunity to say, hey, this is who I am”. She’s already been door knocking around her electorate, which covers parts of southern Christchurch, as well as Lyttelton and the entire Banks Peninsula. Weenink says the locals in her corner of the country, especially in the rural areas, mostly worry about weather challenges, as well as the “pressure” of housing growth and intensification.

The lifestyle of a MP can be draining, but Weenink is used to the type of work that keeps her on the go. As a first-time mum in her 20s, she was deployed to Afghanistan only six months after the birth of her only child. For a period, her life was lived in milestones and stints – a brief return home and a deployment to East Timor two days after her wedding, then 12 months studying general practice before being deployed back to Afghanistan two days after her exams. Her marriage didn’t last, but Weenink is of the mindset that service and sacrifice are one in the same. “The impact on you personally is one thing, but there’s everybody else and their families, too,” she says. And it’s not like you can tell the army to bugger off.

Which, naturally, brings us back to Star Wars and the biggest question of them all: which character would you be? Weenink thinks for a moment. Obi-Wan, she reckons. Or Yoda. She looks like she’s doubting going for the typical picks when I suggest she could be Jyn Erso from Rogue One – a woman with a rebellious background who ultimately sacrifices her own safety for the greater good.

“I think you’re absolutely right,” Weenink smiles.

THE SPINOFF PUB Q+A

How much should a pint cost?

Well, it depends if you think you should pay heaps so that alcohol should be priced out of the market so that nobody drinks, but I don’t believe that. I think it probably should be, I don’t know, somewhere about $10.

Do you have a karaoke go-to?

One we used to sing in the army a lot was ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ by The Beatles. It is such a banger. My friend was really good at singing it, it was a must-do favourite. I’m definitely the backup singer.

Favourite place to get a drink in Aotearoa?

At the moment, I go to pubs more now than I have ever done. [It’s] pretty much exclusively pubs in my electorate, and one of my favourites is one just around the corner from me called Brickworks. It’s been there for about 100-odd years and it has a well in the middle of it.

Which three MPs would be on your pub quiz team?

[Green MP] Lawrence Xu-Nan, because he knows everything. He’s the brain of this place, I think. And probably someone like [National MP] Tom Rutherford, because he’s younger and knows a lot about sport and stuff like that. I would have picked Judith but, obviously, she’s left. I would probably pick another person from another team …. [Labour’s] Damien O’Connor. He’s been here the longest, he’s seen a lot of things and history has happened the whole time he’s been here.

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

I’d probably have a drink with [Labour’s] Camilla Belich. I get on with her, I think she’s really sensible and I like her.

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

It’s not necessarily an easy thing to do, but I’m interested in the effects of things like minimum unit pricing. But it wouldn’t be something the National Party would probably do. I’d also like to tighten up advertising, especially online. I just think it should be totally gone, we shouldn’t have any alcohol advertising.

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

Health funding; that’s where we need to have a conversation as a country around how we’re actually going to sustainably fund health going forward into the future. The way we’ve got the separation between ACC and general stuff doesn’t make a lot of sense; if you lose your leg because you’ve got diabetes versus losing your leg because you had a a motorbike accident, there’s completely different rehabilitations and options for your prosthetics. It’s not fair, and the ACC has drifted so far from its original intentions.

I think we should look at different ways of funding, but one way would be to expand ACC so as to have it backed up by general taxation, and the user pays for some things. But we really [need to] have that conversation about what is reasonable for the public purse to pay for, versus what you should have to pay for yourself. It drives a lot of government spending, but also, if we were to invest in it properly and have a payment structure, you can change a lot of the behaviours of people based on where we put funding and where it’s directed. It could actually underpin the real change we want to see in the health system and drive the reduction in access differentials.

What qualities make a good drinking partner?

Somebody who’s relaxed and comfortable enough in themselves in their own skin that they are happy to ask questions and have a proper back and forth. I think it’s uncomfortable to be around people who are uncomfortable in themselves; people who are really uptight and are really worried about how you might see them, and get really uncomfortable in themselves.

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

Well, I think it’d be hard not to point out that I probably wish I’d never joined the Labour Party. That’s a decision that will forever haunt me in the National Party, because people always remind me, and always give me stick about that.

Up next on One MP, One Pint: justice minister Paul Goldsmith. Read more OMPOP interviews here.