This story is from Sunday magazine

New Zealand’s deputy prime minister says she hasn’t “even had time to think about the new role” since her appointment in late January. Kirsty Johnston sits down at home with Carmel Sepuloni, known to her family as Nana C. 

Carmel Sepuloni is running late. Given the demands of her new job and the weather sweeping the North Island, this is hardly surprising. It’s the week of Cyclone Gabrielle, and entire parts of the country remain completely out of reach. The other parts - those not devastated by mud and silt - are in a kind of numb shock. Meanwhile, in Sepuloni’s electorate of Kelston, in West Auckland, families are still coping with the aftermath of the previous month’s floods, including dozens made homeless now living in emergency shelters.

But Sepuloni, a former literacy teacher who raised two babies as a solo mum, is not the kind of woman to let anyone down. She arrives home to meet us between a visit to a drug rehabilitation centre for parents in nearby Te Atatū in the morning, and before visiting a food bank in Māngere that afternoon. On the way, she picks up her washing from the local laundromat - the load now missing several sweatshirts, which she donated to evacuees at the local Civil Defence Centre on the night of the Auckland storm.

“When I first got there, there were no resources, there was no food, there were no blankets,” she says. So Sepuloni gave a sodden woman her own hoodie, then sent her press secretary home to get more. “This wasn’t on purpose, but there are three people walking around with ‘Carmel Sepuloni for Kelston’ red Labour hoodies now.” She laughs at this.

Sepuloni, 45, was made deputy prime minister on January 25, while the country was still reeling from the resignation of Jacinda Ardern. She was approached about the job by Chris Hipkins, who made it clear that if he became prime minister, he would want her, the current minister for social development and employment, as his deputy. The ascent was rapid: by the 22nd, it was announced the pair would be the country’s new leaders. Three days later, they were both sworn in, in a moving ceremony attended by both sides of Sepuloni’s family. But just two days later, the Auckland floods hit.

“I haven’t even had time to think about the new role because of everything since I was sworn in, specifically the weather events,” Sepuloni says. “Was that a month ago? I don’t even know what day it is.”

Sepuloni’s house is in Titirangi, a two-storey bungalow overlooking a swathe of West Auckland lush bush. Cicadas buzz in the trees as Sepuloni sets up for our interview, dragging the outdoor cushions piled inside back to their chairs, now that it’s finally stopped raining. On the lawn below, her husband, poet and musician Daren Kamali, is clearing branches in preparation for an umu the couple are hosting that weekend. The pair married in 2018, in Kamali’s native Fiji. There is a poem hanging on the wall about their relationship titled The Poly Poet and the Polytician.

When Ardern resigned, it wasn’t entirely a shock to her, Sepuloni says. “I had a little inkling.” She refuses to say how. Still, when the decision was formally announced, Sepuloni felt a real mix of emotions. “Sadness, you know, that she didn’t have the fuel in the tank that she needed to keep going. I felt in some ways a relief for her because she has had to lead us through some ridiculous challenges. And I also felt quite a strong sense of gratitude for everything that she had done for the country, and for us as her team, as the leader at the helm.”

Before committing to the deputy role, Sepuloni discussed the idea with her family. She has two sons, one 9, one 25, and two stepsons aged 12 and 16. The younger boys, she said, were extremely excited. But her older son was more cautious, because he had a better understanding of what it meant to be a high profile politician in 2023.

Kamali, who she married in 2018, was really emotional. “Both of us knew that it meant not just a lot for me and for our family, but also, it would mean a lot for our community,” she says. “He was very proud. He’s still very proud. Whenever he's talking to me, he's like, yes, my deputy prime minister wifey. I'm sure he'll get a bit tired of that after a while.”

Sepuloni herself felt humbled, she says, because it was a privilege to be considered. But she was nervous too.

“It's exciting, but at the same time, a little bit scary, because it is another step. And expectations are even greater. And the profile is even higher.”

In accepting the role, Sepuloni became New Zealand’s first Pasifika deputy prime minister.

From Waitara to the Beehive

Sepuloni grew up in Waitara, a factory town north of New Plymouth where the first battles of the Māori land wars were fought. She is the middle of three sisters. Her mum was the daughter of Pākehā sheep farmers, and worked at the Swanndri factory and as a kiwifruit picker and packer. Her father, Fa’atalii Kamisi Sepuloni, whose own father was from Tonga, had immigrated from Samoa in 1964, working first on the railway and then at the local freezing works. When he arrived, he only spoke Samoan, but refused to teach it to his daughters, thinking that English would be the only language they needed in Aotearoa.

In her maiden speech to Parliament, Sepuloni recalled how her Pākehā grandparents were staunch National supporters, while her father was an avid unionist and Labour supporter who couldn’t stand National party politicians. When then-Prime Minister Robert Muldoon and later, Jim Bolger, would appear on TV he would employ the colourful language he’d learned at the freezing works to rail against them. “He still does,” she says.

In her teens, Sepuloni’s parents separated, and her father moved to Australia to look for work after the freezing works closed. Sepuloni stopped regularly attending school, and started acting out. It was a disruptive time, she says, which put her at risk of failing in her goal to get university entrance, and become the first in her family to get a tertiary education. In year 13, her principal at New Plymouth Girls’ High School, Jain Gaudin, stepped in. “She said ‘I know what’s going on. You’ve got so much potential, why don’t you come and live with me?’ And so I did.’’

Sepuloni passed, and chose to go to teachers’ college in Auckland. In her second year, she became pregnant, giving birth to her older son in February 1998. When the academic year started in March, Sepuloni took the baby with her. Her friends helped her, she said. “We’d take shifts. I had really good friends, a lot of trainee teachers who were all good to push the pram around while I went into class.”

After university, Sepuloni worked as a literacy teacher for teenagers who had been kicked out of school in Auckland. Later, she worked at a Pacific mental health and disability support organisation.

Joining politics was almost inevitable. In 2006, she joined the Labour Party. In 2008, she entered Parliament as a list MP in the Clark government - the first MP of Tongan descent. In 2011, however, she was voted out, losing the Waitākere seat to Paula Bennett in the 2011 election.

During this enforced break from politics, Sepuloni had her second baby. This time, her father stepped in to help. He moved in with Sepuloni, and when she was elected as the MP for Kelston in 2014, when the baby was 18 months old, and looked after both boys while Sepuloni was at Parliament each week. Her father still lives with her.

“Someone said to me recently, it’s great that you’re looking after your dad but I said, actually it’s the other way around.”

Back then, she says, Parliament was not as family-friendly as it is now. Taking her son to Wellington wasn’t really an option. But as he’s got older, he’s attended plenty of political events, often waiting in the wings while his mum gives a speech or running around outside. Fellow West Auckland MP Phil Twyford said Sepuloni never called attention to the fact she was parenting and working at the same time. “She just got on with it,” he says. “And that sends a message: lots of mums are working too.”

In 2021, however, her son made sure the world knew his mum was multitasking. A video of Sepuloni went viral after he burst in during a live interview, waving around a carrot that looked like a penis. Sepuloni tried to wrestle it off him, but he managed to hold it up to the camera, twice.

Sepuloni tried to keep her son’s newfound fame a secret. “We didn't want him to think that the behaviour was acceptable,” she says. But people kept recognising him around the neighbourhood, so he learned pretty quickly. Following her promotion, she plans to keep her family more private. “So no more cameos for him.”

‘You have to push the system as hard as you can’

As backstories go, Sepuloni’s is pretty close to a political dream. After she was sworn in, media proclaimed her “the girl from Waitara”, alongside Hipkins as “the boy from the Hutt”. But she’s not the first minister for social development with experience living on a benefit as a solo mum: it was the same story told again and again about another West Auckland politician - Paula Bennett. At this comparison, Sepuloni wrinkles her nose. “There’s some similarities, but the choices we’ve made as ministers for social development couldn’t be more different, I think,” she says. “There’s a clear difference in the way in which we view the world and the way in which we think change is made.”

Fundamentally, what Sepuloni believes is this: the welfare state is absolutely necessary. This requires a focus both on income support, and giving people opportunities to upskill and train so they can get into work - which she says is how intergenerational change is made. “It's not just about getting a job,” she says. “If they can get into work that is sustainable, because they've got the qualifications, the skills and experience, then they’re less likely to have to return to the welfare system.”

As minister for social development and employment, Sepuloni has brought in a raft of changes including lifting benefits, setting up a ministry for disabled people, putting birth injuries under ACC cover, setting up the wage subsidy scheme, and changing child support rules.

Her critics say the work isn’t enough - they want beneficiaries to be able to earn more money before their payments are docked, for example, and for disabled people to have the right to support even if their partner earns a decent wage.

Sepuloni doesn’t mind the criticism. “There’s always more to do,” she says. “So those that are passionate about ensuring people get a fair deal in the welfare system will always push for more. And so they should.”

However, she says the reality is that things will never go as fast as people want. From the outside, she says she was guilty of thinking she could “click her fingers” and make change. On the inside, it’s not so easy. “It's probably one of the most frustrating things. But you just have to work with it. You have to push the system as hard as you can to get the change that you want.”

What Sepuloni does mind are those who stigmatise people on welfare. “I've been that person. And what I see when I look at people in the welfare system, are people that are in a very challenging, difficult space, but also people who have the potential to contribute meaningfully like anyone else.”

Sepuloni’s willingness to say what she thinks has earned her respect from across the political spectrum. Fellow West Aucklander Tau Henare, a former National MP, says he enjoys her “frankness.”

“She’s straight up,” Henare says. “She has a lot to offer the country, she’s not a flake.”

Following the Auckland floods, Sepuloni announced an $11.5 million Community Support Package to help those affected. The Civil Defence payments weren’t means tested, so anyone who evacuated could access them. But she was also on the ground, checking on Civil Defence Centres, calling the staff at the Ministry of Social Development to see how they were coping, particularly workers who were also facing the loss of their homes.

“She came down here to see us in, just to check if we needed anything and to find out what we were seeing on the ground,” says community leader Dave Letele, who runs a food bank in Māngere. He was her next appointment the day we visited. “That’s important. As a politician you have to be connected to the community and she’s good at that.”

Letele, who publicly criticised the response to the Auckland floods, says Sepuloni was efficient and had a way of calming tense situations. 

“Carmel is a rare politician that actually does what she says and if she can’t do it, she will say that too.”

Back in Titirangi, as well as the umu she has planned for the weekend, Sepuloni also has a Labour Party function to host – boxes of drinks sit ready to go in her living room. If she has spare time, she will see her 1-year-old grandchild – her older son’s baby. The family now call her “Nana C” while Darren is “Papa D”. “We’re like a rap duo,” Sepuloni says.

Before, she used to write poetry on her days off. But that hasn’t happened for a while, she says. But Sepuloni isn’t too worried about her busy life – she just passed a health check with flying colours. And anyway, she has plans. There is a lot more Carmel Sepuloni wants to achieve.