Interview with Hon Grant Robertson

Kia Ora all,

Today I will be writing about my interview with the Hon Grant Robertson, The Minister holds 4 portfolios these being Finance, Infrastructure, Racing, Sport and Recreation as well as being the Deputy Prime Minister. Grant is also the MP for Wellington Central and won by 18,878 against Nationals Nicola Willis, Greens James Shaw and Acts Brooke Van Velden.

The first question I asked him was why he became an MP? Grant talked about how at the end of year 13 everyone in your year had to write what they thought you could be when you grew up. Everyone wrote Prime Minister, as he was really interested in politics and involved in student politics through university. During his time at Uni he went a bit off politics, then a year or so later he had a wake-up call - he saw a whole lot of issues that he wanted to change and If he became an MP he would be able to achieve that. He grew up in a family where if you wanted to make the change you had to act on it, so that's what he did.

Grant joined the Labour Party in the 1990s and helped the Labour party try and get in for the next parliamentary term as they were in opposition. He ended up getting a job in parliament. Then when the candidate for Wellington Central for the Labour party stepped down Grant was asked to run for Wellington Central. Grant has been the MP for Wellington Central since 2008.

Grant is really passionate about getting women involved in sports, that’s his number one goal as Minister for sports to recognise women in sports. We also talked about how he felt about being the Deputy Prime Minister, Grant said that he was so honoured.

When I asked Grant about what MP he would want to be for the day he laughed and said he would love to swap with Chlöe Swarbrick because he thinks she has a really good take on the world!

I hope you enjoyed my blog post and my next blog post will be about Chlöe Swarbrick