Sue Bradford

Myths and truths of a radical

‘‘With the brokenness and some of the difficulties of my life, I think it’s really important that people like me are the ones that work in those groups.’’

Myth: Sue Bradford is thick. Fact: Bradford was at university by the age of 16 and has degrees in history and political studies, a masters in Chinese and a PhD in public policy.

Myth: Sue Bradford is lazy.

Fact: She hustled to get three private member’s bills over the line during her time in Parliament; most MPs are lucky if they succeed with one.

Myth: Sue Bradford is an uncouth roughie from the wrong side of the tracks.

Fact: She was the product of a modest, middleclass family, her father a molecular biologist and mother a teacher.

To encounter Sue Bradford, the veteran activist, former Green Party MP and author of the polarising anti-smacking law, is to wrestle with a conundrum of contradictions.

Behind the established public image of a face uglied in anger and arms thrust violently in constant protest is a woman who has noisily taken on injustices against others while quietly dealing with those against her.

Sexually assaulted several times when she was younger, still carrying the pain of a son lost to suicide and an indifferent mental health system, it’s tempting to see those as touchstones for a life raging against the machine.

But in truth it’s always been there. In the DNA.

It was in the newspapers she read as a child – ‘‘I was in a family that read the news and talked about the news, so I was really interested in politics and history; I was reading the paper for as long as I could read.’’

There were the fears of nuclear war she felt while living in America with her mum; the tumultuous streets along which she marched in the US and back home to protest the Vietnam War.

Those journeys and many others set her on a path that would mark the young Bradford as an outsider.

A loud, rebellious agitator in a family of quieter radicals.

‘‘They weren’t radical the way I was,’’ she says, laughing. ‘‘I was way more radical. My father was a very staunch Helen Clark Labour Party supporter . . . so the politics was slightly different.’’

As an awkward kid, a prototype of the modern Greta Thunberg, she cared more about ‘‘life and death, religion and politics’’ than pretty dresses and playdough. ‘‘I was just in another space.’’

Others might have made more effort to gravitate towards the mainstream. But this lady wasn’t for turning. Ever.

And neither was Auckland Girls Grammar, which took umbrage at Bradford selling Mao’s

Little Red Book to schoolmates.

‘‘Being at school was like a prison, so I left as soon as I could,’’ she says, ‘‘although the school was keen to get rid of me as well.’’

Ultimately she would become an outsider among outsiders, the Greens considering the activist for leadership in 2009 before deciding to opt for the more palatable, less divisive Metiria Turei.

Once more, Bradford found a group of people in ‘‘another political space’’.

‘‘The Green Party was wanting to be in this space where it would appeal to both centre and some blue-green voters . . . it wasn’t about me so much as seeing that people wanted a safer candidate than me.

‘‘People in the party were saying I was too radical on Section 59 of the Crimes Act, the removal of the defence of reasonable force for parents hitting their kids, and I thought, jeez, if they think that’s too radical . . . in the end they were really trying to shut me down and shut me up, and I don’t take that lightly.’’

You’d be tempted to lean on that public image of Bradford, of a woman driven by anger. You’d be wrong. There’s a softness behind the voice on the phone, even plenty of laughter, but also a hint of steel when she’s quizzed on the anger that drove her, even now, at 67, to seek a seat around the table of the Far North District Council.

‘‘It’s not so much anger but coming at a young age to quite a deep understanding of the complexities of our political system,’’ says Bradford, who is driven more by a ‘‘constant need to analyse and update what’s going on, and think what is the best response now to what is happening.

‘‘Anger is important but I don’t feel like an angry person, it’s more a matter of us understanding the system; I don’t like being one of those people who’s angry all of the time. I believe we’ve only got one life and have to make the most of it.’’

Few would deny her rage as a reasonable reaction. ‘‘I was arrested when I was 16, 17, spent time in police cells, endured some pretty horrible stuff from the cops, and the courts, and that also helped consolidate a feeling that I made a choice: whose side am I on?

‘‘And that’s how my political life has been shaped ever since.’’

In part too by the death of her son, Daniel, in 1995. Diagnosed schizophrenic, he escaped psychiatric care in Whanga¯ rei and committed suicide.

He lay in a morgue for two weeks because of a lack of communication and care from police and mental health services.

No doubt there was anger, but more importantly there was action, as the Greens’ spokesperson on mental health during a 10-year career in national politics.

‘‘You never come out of it, but . . . to be able to turn the sadness of that, and the anger at the hospitals, the DHB and what happened there, to try and turn that into something useful politically helped.’’

Awoman raped several times as a youngster would have every right to rage against the deepest of injustices. Or maybe just remove herself entirely.

Instead there was private reflection before she worked within politics and sometimes against it on legislation to support and rebuild the lives of other victims.

‘‘When I was dealing with legislation around rape, it’s using that personal experience, trying to turn that into something that’s good for people without becoming a victim,’’ she says. ‘‘I guess I’ve never wanted to be seen as a victim.

‘‘With the brokenness and some of the difficulties of my life, I think it’s really important that people like me are the ones that work in those groups, not just people whose lives have always been easy or rich or well-off.

‘‘You are working with people to try to improve their situation, but with them, not as some kind of do-gooder, not as a charity; you are not just handing stuff out to them.’’

As Paul Holmes pointed out in a 2007 interview with Bradford, ‘‘most people never saw the hard work’’.

The woman dismissed by many as lazy would wake at 4.45am every day to drive from Wellsford to Auckland for an unpaid role as coordinator of the Unemployed Workers’ Rights Centre.

With husband Bill she helped set up the Peoples Centre in Auckland. Few of the public know much about it, or the hard work that went in to opening the doors in 1990, but if you’re unemployed or down on your luck, you’ll no doubt value the access to cheap medical, dental and other services.

Bradford sees that as important as anything she achieved in Parliament, including helping breastfeeding mums keep their babies longer while in prison, and ensuring young people are paid at the minimum wage, rather than a youth rate.

And, of course, that anti-smacking law. For that, and other perceived wrongs, she remains the outsider, the angry, radical Leftie. Even in the Far North, where voters said thanks, but no thanks.

She was disappointed but unbowed. There’s still a planet to save, the disadvantaged and vulnerable to champion, and housing to build. Especially in the Far North.

She may be misunderstood, but she doesn’t care. ‘‘If people want to abuse me, go for it. That’s stupidity on their part, if they don’t know me; if they meet me in person they will often change their minds, even really conservative people.

‘‘All through this time I haven’t sold out, I’ve stuck with kaupapa and beliefs; they change, you learn, politics changes as the context changes, but I’ve stuck with my core beliefs and values.

‘‘I live trying to respect other humans and the planet, and you live the best you can.’’