Dame Annette King, a New Zealand woman of strength (and Jacinda Ardern’s mentor)
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Dame Annette King retires this week after more than 50 years of public service, holding the distinction of being New Zealand’s longest serving female politician.
For the past five years she has been based in Canberra as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Australia.
A much-loved diplomatic figure, Dame Annette has been a powerful ally of women in public life — breaking ground to get elected in 1984 when there were just eight women in the New Zealand Parliament of 99 MPs.
She left school and trained as a dental nurse at a time when most young women’s career options felt narrowly confined to teaching or nursing (with the advantage that nurses got to wear the crisp white unform). But attending a women’s conference in the early 80’s where she was encouraged to give politics a go, combined with the support of women who became her mentors including former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke, former Mayor of Wellington Fran Wild and former MP Dame Anne Hercus, saw Dame Annette agree to stand.
“These women challenged us to put our hands up at a time when women were often more happy to take a back-seat role, to do the deliveries or make the tea. They said ‘no, that’s not good enough. We’ve got to challenge this and you need to put your hand up and go for nomination’. So I did.”
“I won on the night by just over 440 votes. Now, I was as surprised as everybody was, and I often used to say one day I was drilling teeth, the next day I was a Member of Parliament.”
Throughout her career, Dame Annette has paid back her debt to the women who supported her entry into politics, by mentoring a succession of up-and-coming females negotiating their own journey through public life.
Perhaps best known is Jacinda Ardern, a young and committed politician for whom Dame Annette stood down as Deputy Leader in 2017, allowing her to assume the position, and then rise to PM, becoming the youngest female head of state at just 37.
Mana Wāhine was an event co-hosted by the New Zealand High Commission and ANU on the 10th of August, 2023. It was a celebration of women in leadership across politics, the arts, sport, and beyond, showcasing women who break barriers and have helped level the playing field for future generations.(image Irene Dowdy/ANU)
The two are firm friends, speaking most weeks and reuniting in Canberra in August for the Mana Wahine (a Māori expression which means women of strength) Conference at the Australian National University, where Ardern hijacked proceedings to pay tribute to Dame Annette.
She said that women moving into roles of leadership, “never ever walk a path that hasn’t had a foundation laid by someone else, and the foundation was laid for me by Dame Annette.
“She taught me while I was in parliament to wear my hat on my sleeve, she taught me how to be staunch, and not to take any rubbish…She taught me how to always listen to my moral compass and she taught me that the most important thing in my life will be my family.”
Ardern said it made sense that after Dame Annette retired from politics, she would undertake “the most important job in terms of New Zealand’s relationship internationally” and that was as High Commissioner to Australia.
Throughout her term Dame Annette lists several noteworthy achievements, the biggest of which was the announcement in April this year of a new direct pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders living in Australia, which, she says “represents the biggest improvement in the rights of New Zealanders living here for a generation and restores most of the rights Kiwis had in Australia before they were revoked in 2001”.
She also acknowledges the close and unique relationship of the two countries which has, on so many occasions, led to a willingness on both sides to deploy to the other to help in times of difficulty “whether that be fires or floods or in the aftermath of the Christchurch terror attack”.
This extends to joint work undertaken in the Pacific through joint deployments.
And with her last official day on Thursday, Dame Annette is hardly taking it easy, simultaneously hosting a visit from the New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon for most of the week while her official residence is packed up. Her replacement has yet to be announced.
Then she will officially move to a home in Kiama, preferring to stay in her now-adopted country of Australia to relax and recharge after a momentous career.
She and her husband Ray have four children (three of whom also live in Australia) and a gaggle of grandchildren to now focus their attention on.
Let it be known that Dame Annette is also a ferocious ACT Brumbies supporter and will need to be in the vicinity for games. And she has friends and favourite haunts in Canberra she intends on frequenting.
You may see her grabbing a table at Double Shot in Deakin, or enjoying “the best fish and chips” at Snapper & Co.
She’s also partial to taking New Zealand visitors for the experience of shopping at Majura Park, noting they are usually blown away by Costco and Ikea (New Zealand won’t get its first Ikea until 2025 apparently…).
When asked to reflect on politics and diplomacy and how she succeeded at both, Dame Annette said it took a bit of an adjustment to come to Canberra after 30 years in the New Zealand Parliament holding portfolios such as Health, Police, Justice, Immigration and Employment.
“Mainly it had been a long time since I was an employee. You’re not really a public servant when you’re an MP. You’ve got your obligations to the party and parliament and to your constituency and so on and you get to make the decisions.
“I had to go back and learn the public service rules, where you are not making the decisions so much as implementing them. I will admit I would sometimes get frustrated at bureaucracy because when you are a Minister you can usually break through it.”
She paid tribute to her teams across Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne and in Wellington, which provided sound advice on how to negotiate through some of the more difficult issues, but with trademark diplomacy she prefers not to rehash any of them, focussing instead on the busy week ahead, and the blessed first weekend of official retirement that awaits her in Kiama.
