Sue Bradford. Photo / Greg Bowker

Sue Bradford. Photo / Greg Bowker

Sue Bradford is packing up. Her office in Parliament contains 17 cardboard boxes, packed with files, soon to be sent down the road for archiving - and public access - at the Turnbull Library.

The office is a sparse, ordered space, with only a few mementos to remind visitors of where their host has come from.

There's a couple of certificates of thanks for her work in going over the top to repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act, and cartoons lambasting the present Government's unwinding of social justice policy.

There's also a Chinese calendar, a reminder of her MA from Auckland University in the subject. One date is circled in both red and black Vivid. (The colours coincidentally match a flag in her office celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Blackball miners' strike.)

That date is October 28 - Wednesday next week when Bradford will give her valedictory speech and leave Parliament, ending a decade-long stint in the House marked by bruising political victories, a painful realignment of the Green Party, and some decidedly unexpected friendships.

Greg Fleming, founder and head of the arch-conservative Maxim Institute, has clashed repeatedly with the Green MP in recent years. On smacking and prostitution reform Bradford describes the organisation as a "deadly enemy", but Fleming says he's sad to see a fellow ideologue go.

"The thing that's been delightful about our friendship - and we've disagreed over almost everything - is that she's actually very clear about why she believes what she believes," says Fleming.

"Contrast her with the pragmatism of John Key. Politics is increasingly being directed by claims to pragmatism. I think it's all nonsense, and it's basically someone trying not to say what they believe."

Of course, the mutual respect is mostly abstract. Bradford says she's been invited several times to Maxim-hosted public debates held at the Parachute music festival, "speaking in front thousands and thousands of fundie Christians".

And while she made it to a Business Roundtable function in her first term, she hasn't cemented ties with the business sector: "Roger Kerr personally introduced me; they were very friendly. That was interesting, but once was enough."

She's leaving the House, but she still knows her enemies. Does business, especially big business, still fit into that category? "Sure, yeah, definitely ideologically."

BRADFORD STARTED early in radical politics and was arrested for the first time in her teens. The scene was an occupation of the United States consulate in 1969 protesting the Vietnam War.