The two women could not have been more excited in the early evening of 19 October 2017.
One was on the verge of becoming Prime Minister; the other was stepping down from politics after a career as the longest-serving woman Member of Parliament.
Labour had not exactly recorded a historic result in the 23 September election, and it was still unclear just how strong a position it was in to negotiate to form the next government. But its election-night result of nearly 36 per cent was well beyond the expectations of just a few weeks earlier when it was struggling in the opinion polls around 23 to 25 per cent.
Jacinda Ardern, thrust into the leadership just seven weeks earlier, was standing on the stage at Labour’s election-night rally almost talking down her supporters’ expectations. Annette King, too, was disappointed on election night despite Labour recording a vote much stronger than she could have dreamed of just two months earlier.
But a few weeks later, after the special votes had been counted, Labour’s vote went up to 37 per cent and it picked up another seat, as did the Greens. It meant those two parties, plus New Zealand First, had a combined 63 seats in the 120-seat Parliament. When those numbers came through, Ardern and Annette could again seriously consider the prospect of Labour forming the next government.
Then after days of negotiations with New Zealand First and the Greens, while New Zealand First was negotiating separately with National, Winston Peters finally strode into the Beehive theatrette to announce his party was going into coalition with Labour.
Annette King, former deputy leader, minister, electorate MP, party peacemaker and now mentor of Labour’s new leader, could leave politics with Labour back in power after nine years of drift and uncertainty.
Everywhere on the campaign trail Annette had been immediately behind Jacinda Ardern. When Ardern was made leader, one of the first things she did was decide King should accompany her throughout the election.
For Ardern, Annette was a mentor and a role model, not just in politics but life.
‘Annette had this way of being incredibly committed to what she did, totally focused but also balanced in her life. So you could see that she still enjoyed politics and I wondered if that came from the fact that she had this balanced life where she worked hard but also spent time with her family. Whenever she talked to me about how life was going, it wasn’t just how’s your portfolio, how’s the electorate and how’s the campaigning? It was also, you know, how’s your personal life, what’s your living situation now, who are you seeing?’
Ardern says Annette cares and she knows that surviving in Parliament and politics is more than about the job.
‘Often whenever I speak to women’s groups about the role of mentors I always say personally for me how important it was having a mentor who cared about my life beyond my work life. [It] was really important to me because that [work] was never how I was going to define all my happiness. So that probably made a big difference to the relationship we had.’
Annette might have retired from politics in 2017, but she left a strong legacy for Labour as it reclaimed the Treasury benches it had lost nine years earlier.
Those had been tough years as Labour changed leaders repeatedly and seemed unable to find the unity of purpose which had served it so well from 1996 to 2008. But Annette, who had been through earlier bad times with the party, did not wilt.
She provided a stability to the party it badly needed as it lurched from crisis to crisis. In the end she was to make some of the pivotal decisions — personally and for the wider party — that put Labour miraculously back in the position to form a government after the 2017 election.
New Zealand and Labour’s longest-serving woman MP handed on the baton to a new generation of women leaders. And the woman who considered Annette her mentor became Prime Minister.
For Annette, there could hardly have been a better time to walk away from politics.