October 19, 2025 • 23 mins
Chris has lived and worked in West Auckland for most of his life, serving the Te Atatū community for 15 years as its Member of Parliament and as a government minister. Well known for his commitment to representing all constituents regardless of their political views. His priorities remain focused on being responsive to community concerns and ensuring residents receive fair and effective Council services.
He is committed to revitalising the suburb of Henderson, Auckland and looks to address the challenges created by housing intensification, including traffic congestion and street parking issues.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News talk s EDB.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowan
on News talk z EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Today. Welcome to real Life. I'm John Cowen and one
of the things I do is call out the names
at citizenship ceremonies around Auckland, which is really great fun
and as well as meeting hundreds of new New Zealanders,
I also get to see our local politicians who officiate,
and some turn up very infrequently, but if you go
to the ones out west, my guest Tonight is there
(00:52):
every time and does a great job. Welcome the honorable
Chris Carter.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Thank you very much. John. I have to say you
do a fantastic job calling those nanes out, some of
which are really difficult to say.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I particularly enjoy the delight in their eyes as they
hear their names pronounced in ways have never ever heard me.
You have a gift. Now. Most people will remember you
from your eighteen years eighteen years, wasn't it in Parliament
and including a stint as a cabinet minister, but you've
involved in local body politics more recently. Congratulations on re election. Winning.
(01:29):
Winning elections is the thing you do quite well.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, you know, it's a fickle business. I haven't won everyone.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Up to know, but how many have you won there?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I've won ten out West so five for parliament, three
for the local board, one for the DHB, in fact
that the only person ever to be elected to the
White Matter of DHB under the labor logo, and once
for the for the Licensing Trust right.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So you've you've tasted both parliamentary politics and local body politics.
Do you have a preference? I mean there's local Is
there enough in local bolli body politics to keep your
pulse racing?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I think that local body politics. The greatest attraction for
me has been being reconnected to my local community because
I loved the time that I was MP for that
two and I really I was privileged to serve as
an MP under Helen Clark, a minister in her government.
That was incredibly rewarding because we've got so much stuff done,
(02:28):
good stuff. But then I went off to the UN
for almost eight years, so I was living outside New Zealand,
four years in Afghanistan and almost four years in my Amma,
and I was out of the country for quite a
long time. When I came back, my successor is MP
for thierta two Phil twipe and said, oh, Chris, everyone
(02:48):
still talks about you. I'm always been mistaken for you.
I was very skeptical.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
About him tonight.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
So I was very skeptical about that. But anyway, he said, look,
you should stand for the DHB and for the local board,
really all the councilor. I said, well, I don't want
to go on the council. It gave Phil Goff a
heart attack and Lenn Brown had a heart attack.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
As the mayor.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
The last thing I wanted to run as a mayor
is the mayor or a counselor. But anyway, I put
my name in for the DHB. No labor person's ever
won a spot on the one I met of DHB
because most of the votes on the North Shore and
it's not exactly good labor territory. But anyway, I was
elected to both and it was very nice coming back
and being on the DHB during the COVID crisis was
(03:34):
very interesting and rewarding, and being on the local board
has been great. And there's not a one part of
the Henderson Massy Local Board, which is the second biggest
local board in Auckland. It has eighty six thousand voters.
That's an electorate and a half from a parliamentary electorate
and a half and.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
There isn't a bit of it.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I haven't been the MP four at some stage. With
changing boundaries.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Now I'm a west I grew up in Henderson. But
now if I'm going out there, and I do go
out there myself and to cycle around and things, I
get lost. I'm riding around of this road map in
my head that's fifty years out of date and it's
just growing. It's booming. There's medium density stuff going in
all over the place and that must give you guys
some headaches.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Well there's all sorts of those practical problems with that,
with parking, street parking. So many people in the medium
density units of either got no parking or just one
parking spot, so where do they park their cars on
the road. The traffic density in the roads out west terrible. Luckily,
we've had some big improvements in public transport. This fantastic
(04:39):
new bus service WX one which goes down the motorway
every ten minutes and peak hours. Then the rail services
much improved from when I was MP. So those are positives.
But yes, we're in a city of almost two million
people now and the place is feeling very crowded.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Now you're not from the West originally now.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I grew up in Pamua, although my partner did say
to me the transition from Pamua to Henderson was not
a difficult one.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It feels similar.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
It's a very working class, multicultural place both places. Yes,
So I grew up in.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Pamia, Okay, and you studied at Auckland University, and you
went off and tried school teaching for a bit.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I did, and the very first job I got as
a teacher was at Kelston Boys High School, and so
that brought me out west and I worked at Kelston
Boys for a couple of years, and then, like many
young New Zealanders at that time, in the nineteen seventies,
my partner and I went off to London and we
lived in London for almost three years, and we dreamed
(05:41):
of owning a farm, a small farm, you know, the
lifestyle block was the thing. And I've always loved animals
all my life, even though I was born a city boy,
And so we came back and we bought twenty seven
acres at Bethel Speech fantasticy and I continued teaching for
the next twelve years and then I got elected MP
for Theater two.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Now I believe you did some was it poultry farming?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yes, Look from the time, I just think.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
The transition from secondary school to poultry farming.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
No, I did both at the same time. So I
was a part time farmer and a full time teacher.
But look from the time I was a little boy.
You know, I grew up in the fifties and when
I was below the age of twelve, I was born
nine fifty two, and so in those days, lots of
New Zealanders kept chickens. Yes, fresh eggs were expensive, and
(06:34):
most bit of chucks in their backyard. So my mum
always says that the only thing that shut me up
is a baby was shed wheeled. The pushed you down
to the chook run and I stare mesmerized at them.
And so when I got went off to the convent
school at five and Perma San Patrick's and the nuns
had chickens. It wasn't long before I was the nuns
(06:54):
chicken boy, feeding the chickens and fetching the eggs, and
I've had it.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I think that should be on your CV as well.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I've had a live long second boy. I've had a
lifelong obsession with them. So when we had the farm
at Batals, I was the main supplier in New Zealand
of old fashioned breeds of chickens. We had fourteen different
breeds and I'd send fertile eggs for hatching all over
New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, right, But all of
that had to go by the wayside when I became
(07:22):
an MP, right, because you can't have twenty seven acres,
nine cows, thirty four sheep and two hundred chickens and
being Wellington four days a week. So we reluctantly sold
the farm at Bethel's and bought a big Deli house
in west Auckland, right.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And I know exactly what do you mean when you
say big Deli house. They were the big brick ones that.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yes Selling Park used to say, oh, Chris has got
this big Deli house intitude. And we still live in
the Big Dali House in Tandoo board it off the
bookstage family. So it literally was a big DEALI house.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I haven't heard anyone use that term for a long time,
but I knew executive.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
But it was also designed by the famous Chinese architect
Ron Sang. So these Delis don't do anything by half.
You know, when they get money, they spent it.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Growing up in Anderson there were a lot of people
from Croatia and Dalmatia, and my neighbors were in Tanovich's
and hostages and rackets and.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
A very familiaronaire.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yes, and now in Parliament. Fairly soon after entering Parliament
you came out as New Zealand's first out gay MP.
Correct and congratulations for that distinction, and it.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Was a big deal at the time it was. But
why did I do it? Well, I'd been a teacher
for fourteen years before I was elected MP, and I'd
seen that the children who were bullied the most at
secondary school were those whose sexuality was questioned rightly or wrongly.
Sometimes they were not gay, but if they were branded
(08:48):
gay or lesbian, they had their life was pretty miserable.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
A lot of.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Bullying, and statistics for suicide for children with diverse sexuality
was very high Swedish. When I became Ministry of Education,
I got the Ministry to do research on this very issue,
which was part of a big anti bullying campaign that
I initiated. And a Swedish study show that of one
(09:16):
third of teenagers who committed suicide, it was sexuality issues
that they could identify. But the suspicion among the researchers
was that was actually higher than thirty three percent, but
they could only definitely define discover that sexuality was an
issue one third. That's an incredible the disturbing fact.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Having an MP, a person of high profile, it goes
on to become a cabinet minister and being openly gay,
that must have had influence on some young people. Did
you ever get filled?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Let me tell you a story, And this was the
story that I talked about in my valedictory speech. That's
my farewell speech at Parliament, so anyone can google it
and look at it in line. It's there in.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Black and white.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I was in a bar in Melbourne when I was
Minister of Housing. I went over with a staff member
to look at some really innovative ideas that they were
doing in Victoria.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
On public housing.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
And I was in a bar with two.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Victorian state politicians and my security went over to buy
the beers. We were just talking about housing issues, and
standing next to him was a young woman who was
clearly Mari and hed the Greenstone and she was young.
And he asked her where in New Zealand and she
came from and she said, I've come from Henderson and
(10:34):
my secretary Michael said, the MP for Henderson is just
over there, Chris Carter. And she said, Chris Carter, he's
saved my life and i'd come and meet. So Michael says,
come and meet him. So he brings this young woman
over and she says to me, you saved my life.
I said, I've never met you before. She said, I
was at Waitakri College and you came to my school
(10:55):
for the price giving and all the kids sitting around.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Me going, Chris Cutter's gay.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
That's our MP.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
He's gay.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
She said. I was struggling with my sexuality. My parents
were really religious, and I'd been seriously thinking about suicide,
about killing my health because of the shame and the
pressure from my parents and the church. She said, And
I watched you and you were the man.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
The big man.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
She said, you're giving up the prizes, you're a government minister,
you're our MP, and you're gay. She said, and you
saved my life. And you know, John, that brought tears
to my eyes. And I thought, all the shitty emails,
all the horrible phone calls that came to our house
because my phone number at my home was listed in
the phone book always when I was an MP, was
(11:36):
all worth it of that if she was even the
only one that I had such a positive impact on her,
and I suspect she.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Was one of many.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
And I thought, you know, if you're an MP, you've
got to do something that's meaningful.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Why you're not there.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
For the status or or the or the trips, which
are work trips anyway, You're there to try and make
New Zealand a better place. And that's what I felt
I could do and I had a duty to do it,
and I'm so proud. And now now it's no big deal.
You know, under the last government we had eleven outgame
lesbian Peace when I was an MP. Later on Georgina Bayer,
(12:16):
the world's first transsexual MP, came to our parliament. New
Zealand's an amazing place.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
My guest tonight is the honorable Chris Carter, and I'll
be talking after the break about his work with the
un being only paces away from a bomb going off,
and other adventures like that. This is real life on
news Talks EDB. I'm John Cown, be back with you
in just a minute.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on News
Talk's EDB mag You.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I never promised, yous Garden, Welcome back.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
To real life on John Cown talking with the Honorable
Chris Carter, and he chose an interesting song from back
in the seventies, Rosegarden.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
I did Len Anderson's song. I chose it because it
was very contemporary. When my partner and I met at
the end of nineteen seventy three, he was seventy and
I was twenty one. We were both young, and we're
still together. We've been together over fifty years. And he
often mentions that soilum and says that I should have
(13:18):
listened to those words because our life has been a
bit of a roller coaster of it fifty years, not
with each other, but just in things we've done.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Now we're talking before about the citizenship ceremonies, and we
used to do them, and the council chambers, and that
place probably was special for you because you had just
your civil union ceremony there we did.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
We had our civil union there. I wasn't the first
person in New Zealand to have a civil union, but
I was definitely the first politician. And we didn't want
any media there. And I was a government minister at
that time, a Minister of Conservation, Housing and Ethnic Affairs,
and the Prime Minister was coming and them silver can't
(14:03):
write the Governor General, and we didn't want any media.
But of course the media broke out and so it
was all over New Zealand on TV. And you know
we mentioned earlier in the segment John that about messaging.
Actually it was very positive messaging in fact, so remarkably
so that as Ministry of Ethnic Affairs, I was always
(14:23):
visiting mosques and Hindu temples and seek goodwaras and so on.
And I was at the Avondale Mosque about a week
after the civil union and them at the mosque came
up to messaid minister, congratulations on your wedding. I was
gobsmack of the Avendale mosque. I'm sure he didn't support
(14:43):
the idea of civil unions, but he he had been
presented it in as the government minister was the big
boss in a way. And again. So sending those messages
out is really important, positive messages about diversity.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Eighteen years of parliamentary experience, a ton of stories there.
But I'm afraid we've got to move on after that. Afghanistan, Yes, well,
I had him ended that Wellington so scarring that you
had to go to Afghanistan as.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
I had a run in with Phil Goff with mates
again now, but when he was leader, you know, I
didn't adjust well from Helen Clark, who I just thought
was the best Prime minister we've ever had. And why
wouldn't I think that, of course, because she is so
great and Phil was a different kettle of fish. We're
in opposition and we've been in government for nine years.
It was a very torrid time and so we had
(15:39):
a fight and I thought, it's tired. I've got to
get out of here. So I applied for two UN jobs,
one in Norway running a UN think tank on governance,
all very academic, and the other one running a failing
project in governance in Afghanistan, and lo and.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Behold, I got both of them.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I had that agonizing choice, which one should I do?
For me? It was no choice.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I wanted to go.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
To Afghanistan really my partner rather my family. Everyone I
know says, thought you're crazy, Chris. But off to Cuble
I went, and that first day lived up to full expectations.
Arrive on Sunday night from Dubai, after I've got my visa.
Monday morning, I'm at the UN headquarters and Cuble, getting
(16:25):
my laptop, my phone, my security briefing. The Taliban launches
five simultaneous attacks in Cuble, the main one onto the
American embassy, which is about less than a kilometer away
from the headquarters. And these explosions are occurring all around.
(16:46):
We're told we must get straight to the bunker. Now
you can imagine most of our listeners will be thinking
a bunker is a sort of nice room under the ground.
The bunker at the UN compound were big concrete irrigation
pipes with still reinforcing that were about four feet off
the ground. Yet to climb inside. I was in that
pipe for five hours as American helico the gunships for
(17:09):
firing at the insurgents who had occupied a construction site
just next to the American embassy. And we're firing rocket
propel grenades down into the compound and the casing from
the bullets of the of the of the gunships. The
helicopter gunships were falling on my pipe that I was hiding,
(17:29):
and like hail falling on a tin roof, and I think, wow,
I'm in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It was thinking, wow, I could be a Norway.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
No, no, no, it was all It was just such
an incredible adventure. Is probably not the right way. It's
an incredible experience and you.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Had a bomb go off quite close to you.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
About three years later, I'm about to do a rather
naughty thing sneak out of the UN compound because we're
in very strict security protocols to go to the Uzbek
market and carbor where you buy the carpets. I'm the
only foreigner that ever went there actually, So my driver
(18:10):
and I are going, and I'm taking with me a
young Australian UN worker who's kept us waiting. Now, where
our compound in Cubble was, there was two American bases
about two kilometers apart, and quite often these big Humby
military vehicles would go in convoy five vehicles apart from
(18:30):
one camp to the other, and they'd have to go
past our gate.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
That particular day.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
And it's all online of anyone just read New Zealand
MP almost killed in Caubble and the suicide truck, not
a car, truck, came loaded with explosives to get behind
these humpies just as our gate was being open and
I was in the un vehicle finding my friend Jason
(18:57):
had just arrived. Luckily he was five minutes late, had
we because we would have been immediately behind the Humbies
otherwise than the truck would have been behind us. And
it exploded as the gate was being opened. So my
ear drums burst and our window screen on our vehicle,
which was reinforced vehicle un vehicle, cracked. But two of
(19:19):
the Humbies were destroyed, three and another one was damaged.
I think seven Americans were killed. Of course, naturally the
suicide bomber as well. That was the closest I was
to a major bombing, And I was more concerned about
the welfare of my driver because lots of Americans that
(19:40):
get very excited when an explosion goes off. Any Afghan
is a risk of being I got killed with friendly fire.
So I grabbed my driver and dragged him, against all protocols,
back into the compound because we've locked down immediately with
the attack. So that was a pretty horrendous adventure. But
my Afghan staff, whom I really loved that I loved
(20:02):
working there. I became very close friends with my staff
were like family to me because Coubble was really interesting.
I was there between twenty and eleven and twenty fifteen.
There are one hundred and twenty thousand US troops when
I arrived, because Obama had done the surge to try
and get control of the insurgency.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
He failed.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
There were about another one hundred thousand contractors, security engineers,
other NATO troops and everyone was on their own. It
was a non family station, so you had this incredible
social life people there, no families at all. It was
an amazing place to be.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Chris, I'm just terrified to look at how fast the
clock's going. Oh because left, let's get quickly to Miamma.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
He had about another four years there and a place
where there was a genocide going up.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Indeed, well, my job in Afghanistan was I was in
charge of the governance program, so one of the few
U in staff they ever traveled around the country. Afghanistan
has thirty four provinces. I visited twenty seven of them regularly.
So after four years I bumped into hell and Clark
and my own at Dubai airport and she said to me,
how long have you been in Afghanistan? I said four years.
(21:13):
She said, I think the Stockholm syndrome set in. We've
got a job for you in Myomma. We really need
you there. And so I was dispatched off. A month later,
the boss still in charge of me and said, and
my job in Mimma was a different job. It was
a diplomatic job. I was the resident coordinator in a
kind state. We arrived just before Angsong Shushi was elected leader.
(21:38):
We thought democracies here, it's great, a success story at last.
And a year later I was dealing with a genocide
against the Ruhinja Muslim minority in the area I was
responsible for. I was in charge of all the UN
agency said U, n hcr, UNS, f UNDP and so on,
And for a year and a half I was writing reports.
(21:58):
I was the main focal point for the military and
for Thema government, so I had to keep I had
to front up very regularly to genocidal generals who had
been killing, whose chologism and killing and raping and burning villages,
Muslim villages and rakine and try and confront this, get
food into the camps. It was a very challenging time,
(22:19):
but a very fascinating time.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Chris.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I know that you're also going to be testifying to
the International Court of Justice with all that you see
going on in the around the world and the things
you've seen personally, political winds blowing strange ways. Are you optimistic?
Are you optimistic where humans are going?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
John, You have to be optimistic in life. I think
we live in a dangerous time. I think this post
COVID global situation, economically, conflict in Ukraine, very the conflict
in Gaza. These are these are these are these are
from America, these are these are difficult times. But but
(23:03):
you know, our grandparents went through the Great Depression, our
parents went through the Second World or people have faced
difficult times before.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And Chris, it's been fantastic talking with you. I'll look
forward to seeing you again at more citizenship ceremonies and
seeing what you're doing for the West. And we'll go
out on a song that's a favorite of your partners.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yes, my partner loves French French songs and particularly Johnny Halliday.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Well, let's listen to some of that as we've conclude.
My guest tonight has been the honorable Chris Carter and
look forward to being back again with you again next
Sunday Night.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Look forward to.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
For more from News Talks at b Listen live on
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You're listening to a podcast from News talk s EDB.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowan
on News talk z EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Today. Welcome to real Life. I'm John Cowen and one
of the things I do is call out the names
at citizenship ceremonies around Auckland, which is really great fun
and as well as meeting hundreds of new New Zealanders,
I also get to see our local politicians who officiate,
and some turn up very infrequently, but if you go
to the ones out west, my guest Tonight is there
(00:52):
every time and does a great job. Welcome the honorable
Chris Carter.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Thank you very much. John. I have to say you
do a fantastic job calling those nanes out, some of
which are really difficult to say.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I particularly enjoy the delight in their eyes as they
hear their names pronounced in ways have never ever heard me.
You have a gift. Now. Most people will remember you
from your eighteen years eighteen years, wasn't it in Parliament
and including a stint as a cabinet minister, but you've
involved in local body politics more recently. Congratulations on re election. Winning.
(01:29):
Winning elections is the thing you do quite well.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, you know, it's a fickle business. I haven't won everyone.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Up to know, but how many have you won there?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I've won ten out West so five for parliament, three
for the local board, one for the DHB, in fact
that the only person ever to be elected to the
White Matter of DHB under the labor logo, and once
for the for the Licensing Trust right.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So you've you've tasted both parliamentary politics and local body politics.
Do you have a preference? I mean there's local Is
there enough in local bolli body politics to keep your
pulse racing?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I think that local body politics. The greatest attraction for
me has been being reconnected to my local community because
I loved the time that I was MP for that
two and I really I was privileged to serve as
an MP under Helen Clark, a minister in her government.
That was incredibly rewarding because we've got so much stuff done,
(02:28):
good stuff. But then I went off to the UN
for almost eight years, so I was living outside New Zealand,
four years in Afghanistan and almost four years in my Amma,
and I was out of the country for quite a
long time. When I came back, my successor is MP
for thierta two Phil twipe and said, oh, Chris, everyone
(02:48):
still talks about you. I'm always been mistaken for you.
I was very skeptical.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
About him tonight.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
So I was very skeptical about that. But anyway, he said, look,
you should stand for the DHB and for the local board,
really all the councilor. I said, well, I don't want
to go on the council. It gave Phil Goff a
heart attack and Lenn Brown had a heart attack.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
As the mayor.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
The last thing I wanted to run as a mayor
is the mayor or a counselor. But anyway, I put
my name in for the DHB. No labor person's ever
won a spot on the one I met of DHB
because most of the votes on the North Shore and
it's not exactly good labor territory. But anyway, I was
elected to both and it was very nice coming back
and being on the DHB during the COVID crisis was
(03:34):
very interesting and rewarding, and being on the local board
has been great. And there's not a one part of
the Henderson Massy Local Board, which is the second biggest
local board in Auckland. It has eighty six thousand voters.
That's an electorate and a half from a parliamentary electorate
and a half and.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
There isn't a bit of it.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I haven't been the MP four at some stage. With
changing boundaries.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Now I'm a west I grew up in Henderson. But
now if I'm going out there, and I do go
out there myself and to cycle around and things, I
get lost. I'm riding around of this road map in
my head that's fifty years out of date and it's
just growing. It's booming. There's medium density stuff going in
all over the place and that must give you guys
some headaches.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Well there's all sorts of those practical problems with that,
with parking, street parking. So many people in the medium
density units of either got no parking or just one
parking spot, so where do they park their cars on
the road. The traffic density in the roads out west terrible. Luckily,
we've had some big improvements in public transport. This fantastic
(04:39):
new bus service WX one which goes down the motorway
every ten minutes and peak hours. Then the rail services
much improved from when I was MP. So those are positives.
But yes, we're in a city of almost two million
people now and the place is feeling very crowded.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Now you're not from the West originally now.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I grew up in Pamua, although my partner did say
to me the transition from Pamua to Henderson was not
a difficult one.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It feels similar.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
It's a very working class, multicultural place both places. Yes,
So I grew up in.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Pamia, Okay, and you studied at Auckland University, and you
went off and tried school teaching for a bit.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I did, and the very first job I got as
a teacher was at Kelston Boys High School, and so
that brought me out west and I worked at Kelston
Boys for a couple of years, and then, like many
young New Zealanders at that time, in the nineteen seventies,
my partner and I went off to London and we
lived in London for almost three years, and we dreamed
(05:41):
of owning a farm, a small farm, you know, the
lifestyle block was the thing. And I've always loved animals
all my life, even though I was born a city boy,
And so we came back and we bought twenty seven
acres at Bethel Speech fantasticy and I continued teaching for
the next twelve years and then I got elected MP
for Theater two.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Now I believe you did some was it poultry farming?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yes, Look from the time, I just think.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
The transition from secondary school to poultry farming.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
No, I did both at the same time. So I
was a part time farmer and a full time teacher.
But look from the time I was a little boy.
You know, I grew up in the fifties and when
I was below the age of twelve, I was born
nine fifty two, and so in those days, lots of
New Zealanders kept chickens. Yes, fresh eggs were expensive, and
(06:34):
most bit of chucks in their backyard. So my mum
always says that the only thing that shut me up
is a baby was shed wheeled. The pushed you down
to the chook run and I stare mesmerized at them.
And so when I got went off to the convent
school at five and Perma San Patrick's and the nuns
had chickens. It wasn't long before I was the nuns
(06:54):
chicken boy, feeding the chickens and fetching the eggs, and
I've had it.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I think that should be on your CV as well.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I've had a live long second boy. I've had a
lifelong obsession with them. So when we had the farm
at Batals, I was the main supplier in New Zealand
of old fashioned breeds of chickens. We had fourteen different
breeds and I'd send fertile eggs for hatching all over
New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, right, But all of
that had to go by the wayside when I became
(07:22):
an MP, right, because you can't have twenty seven acres,
nine cows, thirty four sheep and two hundred chickens and
being Wellington four days a week. So we reluctantly sold
the farm at Bethel's and bought a big Deli house
in west Auckland, right.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And I know exactly what do you mean when you
say big Deli house. They were the big brick ones that.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yes Selling Park used to say, oh, Chris has got
this big Deli house intitude. And we still live in
the Big Dali House in Tandoo board it off the
bookstage family. So it literally was a big DEALI house.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I haven't heard anyone use that term for a long time,
but I knew executive.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
But it was also designed by the famous Chinese architect
Ron Sang. So these Delis don't do anything by half.
You know, when they get money, they spent it.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Growing up in Anderson there were a lot of people
from Croatia and Dalmatia, and my neighbors were in Tanovich's
and hostages and rackets and.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
A very familiaronaire.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yes, and now in Parliament. Fairly soon after entering Parliament
you came out as New Zealand's first out gay MP.
Correct and congratulations for that distinction, and it.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Was a big deal at the time it was. But
why did I do it? Well, I'd been a teacher
for fourteen years before I was elected MP, and I'd
seen that the children who were bullied the most at
secondary school were those whose sexuality was questioned rightly or wrongly.
Sometimes they were not gay, but if they were branded
(08:48):
gay or lesbian, they had their life was pretty miserable.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
A lot of.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Bullying, and statistics for suicide for children with diverse sexuality
was very high Swedish. When I became Ministry of Education,
I got the Ministry to do research on this very issue,
which was part of a big anti bullying campaign that
I initiated. And a Swedish study show that of one
(09:16):
third of teenagers who committed suicide, it was sexuality issues
that they could identify. But the suspicion among the researchers
was that was actually higher than thirty three percent, but
they could only definitely define discover that sexuality was an
issue one third. That's an incredible the disturbing fact.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Having an MP, a person of high profile, it goes
on to become a cabinet minister and being openly gay,
that must have had influence on some young people. Did
you ever get filled?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Let me tell you a story, And this was the
story that I talked about in my valedictory speech. That's
my farewell speech at Parliament, so anyone can google it
and look at it in line. It's there in.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Black and white.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I was in a bar in Melbourne when I was
Minister of Housing. I went over with a staff member
to look at some really innovative ideas that they were
doing in Victoria.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
On public housing.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
And I was in a bar with two.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Victorian state politicians and my security went over to buy
the beers. We were just talking about housing issues, and
standing next to him was a young woman who was
clearly Mari and hed the Greenstone and she was young.
And he asked her where in New Zealand and she
came from and she said, I've come from Henderson and
(10:34):
my secretary Michael said, the MP for Henderson is just
over there, Chris Carter. And she said, Chris Carter, he's
saved my life and i'd come and meet. So Michael says,
come and meet him. So he brings this young woman
over and she says to me, you saved my life.
I said, I've never met you before. She said, I
was at Waitakri College and you came to my school
(10:55):
for the price giving and all the kids sitting around.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Me going, Chris Cutter's gay.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
That's our MP.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
He's gay.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
She said. I was struggling with my sexuality. My parents
were really religious, and I'd been seriously thinking about suicide,
about killing my health because of the shame and the
pressure from my parents and the church. She said, And
I watched you and you were the man.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
The big man.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
She said, you're giving up the prizes, you're a government minister,
you're our MP, and you're gay. She said, and you
saved my life. And you know, John, that brought tears
to my eyes. And I thought, all the shitty emails,
all the horrible phone calls that came to our house
because my phone number at my home was listed in
the phone book always when I was an MP, was
(11:36):
all worth it of that if she was even the
only one that I had such a positive impact on her,
and I suspect she.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Was one of many.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
And I thought, you know, if you're an MP, you've
got to do something that's meaningful.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Why you're not there.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
For the status or or the or the trips, which
are work trips anyway, You're there to try and make
New Zealand a better place. And that's what I felt
I could do and I had a duty to do it,
and I'm so proud. And now now it's no big deal.
You know, under the last government we had eleven outgame
lesbian Peace when I was an MP. Later on Georgina Bayer,
(12:16):
the world's first transsexual MP, came to our parliament. New
Zealand's an amazing place.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
My guest tonight is the honorable Chris Carter, and I'll
be talking after the break about his work with the
un being only paces away from a bomb going off,
and other adventures like that. This is real life on
news Talks EDB. I'm John Cown, be back with you
in just a minute.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on News
Talk's EDB mag You.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I never promised, yous Garden, Welcome back.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
To real life on John Cown talking with the Honorable
Chris Carter, and he chose an interesting song from back
in the seventies, Rosegarden.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
I did Len Anderson's song. I chose it because it
was very contemporary. When my partner and I met at
the end of nineteen seventy three, he was seventy and
I was twenty one. We were both young, and we're
still together. We've been together over fifty years. And he
often mentions that soilum and says that I should have
(13:18):
listened to those words because our life has been a
bit of a roller coaster of it fifty years, not
with each other, but just in things we've done.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Now we're talking before about the citizenship ceremonies, and we
used to do them, and the council chambers, and that
place probably was special for you because you had just
your civil union ceremony there we did.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
We had our civil union there. I wasn't the first
person in New Zealand to have a civil union, but
I was definitely the first politician. And we didn't want
any media there. And I was a government minister at
that time, a Minister of Conservation, Housing and Ethnic Affairs,
and the Prime Minister was coming and them silver can't
(14:03):
write the Governor General, and we didn't want any media.
But of course the media broke out and so it
was all over New Zealand on TV. And you know
we mentioned earlier in the segment John that about messaging.
Actually it was very positive messaging in fact, so remarkably
so that as Ministry of Ethnic Affairs, I was always
(14:23):
visiting mosques and Hindu temples and seek goodwaras and so on.
And I was at the Avondale Mosque about a week
after the civil union and them at the mosque came
up to messaid minister, congratulations on your wedding. I was
gobsmack of the Avendale mosque. I'm sure he didn't support
(14:43):
the idea of civil unions, but he he had been
presented it in as the government minister was the big
boss in a way. And again. So sending those messages
out is really important, positive messages about diversity.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Eighteen years of parliamentary experience, a ton of stories there.
But I'm afraid we've got to move on after that. Afghanistan, Yes, well,
I had him ended that Wellington so scarring that you
had to go to Afghanistan as.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
I had a run in with Phil Goff with mates
again now, but when he was leader, you know, I
didn't adjust well from Helen Clark, who I just thought
was the best Prime minister we've ever had. And why
wouldn't I think that, of course, because she is so
great and Phil was a different kettle of fish. We're
in opposition and we've been in government for nine years.
It was a very torrid time and so we had
(15:39):
a fight and I thought, it's tired. I've got to
get out of here. So I applied for two UN jobs,
one in Norway running a UN think tank on governance,
all very academic, and the other one running a failing
project in governance in Afghanistan, and lo and.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Behold, I got both of them.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I had that agonizing choice, which one should I do?
For me? It was no choice.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I wanted to go.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
To Afghanistan really my partner rather my family. Everyone I
know says, thought you're crazy, Chris. But off to Cuble
I went, and that first day lived up to full expectations.
Arrive on Sunday night from Dubai, after I've got my visa.
Monday morning, I'm at the UN headquarters and Cuble, getting
(16:25):
my laptop, my phone, my security briefing. The Taliban launches
five simultaneous attacks in Cuble, the main one onto the
American embassy, which is about less than a kilometer away
from the headquarters. And these explosions are occurring all around.
(16:46):
We're told we must get straight to the bunker. Now
you can imagine most of our listeners will be thinking
a bunker is a sort of nice room under the ground.
The bunker at the UN compound were big concrete irrigation
pipes with still reinforcing that were about four feet off
the ground. Yet to climb inside. I was in that
pipe for five hours as American helico the gunships for
(17:09):
firing at the insurgents who had occupied a construction site
just next to the American embassy. And we're firing rocket
propel grenades down into the compound and the casing from
the bullets of the of the of the gunships. The
helicopter gunships were falling on my pipe that I was hiding,
(17:29):
and like hail falling on a tin roof, and I think, wow,
I'm in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It was thinking, wow, I could be a Norway.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
No, no, no, it was all It was just such
an incredible adventure. Is probably not the right way. It's
an incredible experience and you.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Had a bomb go off quite close to you.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
About three years later, I'm about to do a rather
naughty thing sneak out of the UN compound because we're
in very strict security protocols to go to the Uzbek
market and carbor where you buy the carpets. I'm the
only foreigner that ever went there actually, So my driver
(18:10):
and I are going, and I'm taking with me a
young Australian UN worker who's kept us waiting. Now, where
our compound in Cubble was, there was two American bases
about two kilometers apart, and quite often these big Humby
military vehicles would go in convoy five vehicles apart from
(18:30):
one camp to the other, and they'd have to go
past our gate.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
That particular day.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
And it's all online of anyone just read New Zealand
MP almost killed in Caubble and the suicide truck, not
a car, truck, came loaded with explosives to get behind
these humpies just as our gate was being open and
I was in the un vehicle finding my friend Jason
(18:57):
had just arrived. Luckily he was five minutes late, had
we because we would have been immediately behind the Humbies
otherwise than the truck would have been behind us. And
it exploded as the gate was being opened. So my
ear drums burst and our window screen on our vehicle,
which was reinforced vehicle un vehicle, cracked. But two of
(19:19):
the Humbies were destroyed, three and another one was damaged.
I think seven Americans were killed. Of course, naturally the
suicide bomber as well. That was the closest I was
to a major bombing, And I was more concerned about
the welfare of my driver because lots of Americans that
(19:40):
get very excited when an explosion goes off. Any Afghan
is a risk of being I got killed with friendly fire.
So I grabbed my driver and dragged him, against all protocols,
back into the compound because we've locked down immediately with
the attack. So that was a pretty horrendous adventure. But
my Afghan staff, whom I really loved that I loved
(20:02):
working there. I became very close friends with my staff
were like family to me because Coubble was really interesting.
I was there between twenty and eleven and twenty fifteen.
There are one hundred and twenty thousand US troops when
I arrived, because Obama had done the surge to try
and get control of the insurgency.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
He failed.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
There were about another one hundred thousand contractors, security engineers,
other NATO troops and everyone was on their own. It
was a non family station, so you had this incredible
social life people there, no families at all. It was
an amazing place to be.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Chris, I'm just terrified to look at how fast the
clock's going. Oh because left, let's get quickly to Miamma.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
He had about another four years there and a place
where there was a genocide going up.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Indeed, well, my job in Afghanistan was I was in
charge of the governance program, so one of the few
U in staff they ever traveled around the country. Afghanistan
has thirty four provinces. I visited twenty seven of them regularly.
So after four years I bumped into hell and Clark
and my own at Dubai airport and she said to me,
how long have you been in Afghanistan? I said four years.
(21:13):
She said, I think the Stockholm syndrome set in. We've
got a job for you in Myomma. We really need
you there. And so I was dispatched off. A month later,
the boss still in charge of me and said, and
my job in Mimma was a different job. It was
a diplomatic job. I was the resident coordinator in a
kind state. We arrived just before Angsong Shushi was elected leader.
(21:38):
We thought democracies here, it's great, a success story at last.
And a year later I was dealing with a genocide
against the Ruhinja Muslim minority in the area I was
responsible for. I was in charge of all the UN
agency said U, n hcr, UNS, f UNDP and so on,
And for a year and a half I was writing reports.
(21:58):
I was the main focal point for the military and
for Thema government, so I had to keep I had
to front up very regularly to genocidal generals who had
been killing, whose chologism and killing and raping and burning villages,
Muslim villages and rakine and try and confront this, get
food into the camps. It was a very challenging time,
(22:19):
but a very fascinating time.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Chris.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I know that you're also going to be testifying to
the International Court of Justice with all that you see
going on in the around the world and the things
you've seen personally, political winds blowing strange ways. Are you optimistic?
Are you optimistic where humans are going?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
John, You have to be optimistic in life. I think
we live in a dangerous time. I think this post
COVID global situation, economically, conflict in Ukraine, very the conflict
in Gaza. These are these are these are these are
from America, these are these are difficult times. But but
(23:03):
you know, our grandparents went through the Great Depression, our
parents went through the Second World or people have faced
difficult times before.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And Chris, it's been fantastic talking with you. I'll look
forward to seeing you again at more citizenship ceremonies and
seeing what you're doing for the West. And we'll go
out on a song that's a favorite of your partners.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yes, my partner loves French French songs and particularly Johnny Halliday.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Well, let's listen to some of that as we've conclude.
My guest tonight has been the honorable Chris Carter and
look forward to being back again with you again next
Sunday Night.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Look forward to.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
For more from News Talks at b Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio.
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