Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick shares her inspiring career journey as part of The Female Career podcast.
Chlöe has been a law student, journalist, business owner and a community project leader. When interviewing politicians of all stripes on daily issues she found that too often they had become out of sync with everyday people’s lives. She couldn’t see herself, her friends, or her whānau in politics.
So, in 2016 Chlöe did what any reasonable, disillusioned 22 year old would do. She ran to be the Mayor of Auckland. Almost 30,000 Aucklanders gave her their vote after Chlöe and her team campaigned for just 4 months on a shoestring budget.
As a next career step, Chlöe stood as a candidate for the party whose values matched hers and was elected as a Green Party MP into Parliament in 2017 after a particularly gruelling campaign.
She is the youngest MP in Aotearoa for over 40 years. She entered parliament to show people that politicians can look a little different, sound a little different, do things a little different, and to drive home the message that politicians work for people.
Chlöe is the Green Party spokesperson on issues that she can really get her teeth into: Education (including Tertiary), Internal Affairs, Sensible Drug Law Reform, Local Government, Arts Culture & Heritage, Small Business, Broadcasting and Youth.
"Whatever you do in your career, things are going to be hard at points along the way. And to me that demonstrates a massive sense of empowerment because regardless of whether you choose to work nine to five desk job that perhaps you hate or pursue your passion and start something from the ground up, both of those things are going to be hard in quite different ways. You will go through periods of suffering, of ups and downs and that's what it means to be alive. You know that you have things to contribute and you know that there is more to come."
If you would like to be one of the first to hear other inspiring career stories of a diverse rang of women of Aotearoa New Zealand, please do sign up to our mailing list - you can find the sign up form at the bottom of The Female Career website.
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