Marcus Lush and his family are flourishing down south.
Marcus Lush and his family are flourishing down south.
It's cheesy, but true. Marcus Lush has found that the world's his oyster in Bluff.
When the popular Newstalk ZB broadcaster moved to Southland – not for a radio job, but more for solace after simply "getting sick of Auckland" – he had no idea that 20 years down the track, he'd be putting his hat in the ring to be Invercargill's next mayor. Or that contentment would be found clearing gorse with his two young boys.
The 57-year-old will take on Sir Tim Shadbolt, who has been Invercargill's mayor for the past 24 years, along with nine other candidates vying to win the local election next Saturday, October 8.
He won't be hanging up his microphone though. He plans to continue hosting his top-rating nightly talkback show on Newstalk ZB.
As they sit in their kitchen with the Sunday afternoon sun streaming in, Marcus and partner Vanessa Underwood, 34, are relaxed about the mayoral outcome. They've just spent the morning putting up campaign posters with sons Tracker, 8, and Denver, 6.
"Overall, it would be a great thing if it happened," smiles Vanessa, who is a sign language interpreter. "If not, no loss for our family either. We've been flat-out campaigning because the kids are really into it and find it quite fun. They've been asking who gets to vote and who's going to win. And not just our kids – all the kids in Bluff.
"While we've seen a number of entertainers turn to politics over the years, Marcus [who is a current Invercargill city councillor] hadn't considered the top job until he was encouraged by other town mayors."
Says Marcus: "I felt pressure to stand – good pressure though.
"I wasn't expecting the phone calls, which all came one weekend and said the same thing: 'Invercargill needs you to do this.' I didn't realise that mayors got together and had that sort of collegial connection, but they said they'd mentor me if I was successful.
"And if I am, then I think Vanessa will be my secret weapon. She will absolutely love the role and will probably tell me too much what to do. She's got a real passion for helping other people and is pretty focused on community outcomes."
Marcus says Vanessa is his secret weapon. "As soon as I met her, I knew she was special."
In fact, he says his partner of 13 years met people in Invercargill and Bluff a lot more quickly than he did."She's very open and outgoing. Within a short amount of time, everyone falls in love with her," he says with pride.
"Oh, not quite," she quickly jumps in. "But Marcus had been down here a long time before me and didn't know that many people."
While he wouldn't describe himself as a lone wolf before meeting Vanessa, he does admit that because he works in radio, people assume he's quite gregarious.
"No, I'm not overly confident when I'm out in public," he admits. "I'm a bit shy. When I tell people that, they're surprised."
The couple first met at an Auckland restaurant in 2009, when Marcus was dividing his time commuting between Bluff and Auckland's west coast, while doing an early-morning radio gig.
It's not an exciting love story, he'll tell you. "We tend to brush over it," he says. "We met and connected over a love of walking – we both just loved walking for miles and the rest is history.
"I did know as soon as I met her that she was very special. It seemed this was going to be a serious thing, so we hung out for a long time before we became a couple."
They first lived together at the Piha campground, then Vanessa made the move down to Bluff before Tracker was born.
Marcus Lush with partner Vanessa and their two boys Denver and Tracker in Bluff.
"We're quite lucky because we've got quite a few quirks that we can't imagine anybody else would be into," grins Marcus. "So we are in some ways soulmates, two similar people into the same sort of stuff."
Home is now a 1930s stucco bungalow on Bluff's waterfront, where the family enjoy a laid-back, "fairly minimalist" lifestyle. "We're on State Highway 1, which the kids love, because every time we drive up the country, they ask, 'Are we still on our road?' and we say yes," he says.
Becoming a dad in his late 40s has also softened Marcus, who admits he was at the stage where he would have quite happily not had children.
"But Vanessa said, 'Let's have children – nothing will change.' And, of course, nothing was ever the same again. It was the most dishonest thing she's ever said to me!
"And now I would have hundreds of kids because once you have them, you realise you love them so much. I just adore our boys. They're both very humorous and kind. They both roll their Rs and it's gorgeous."
With Vanessa's job, it was a given that their children would also grow up learning sign language. However, she says Marcus took it a bit too seriously when Tracker was still a newborn. "Tracker was about 2 days old and there's Marcus in his little face, pretending to milk a cow and saying, 'Milk! Milk!' Tracker's eyes weren't even open yet!" she laughs, while Marcus gives a re-enactment over Zoom.
"Tracker likes using his sign name to introduce himself and loves communicating with deaf people, which there are a lot of down here," she shares. "It's pretty amazing and sign language has been normalised for him." (During our interview, Tracker signs to his mum to ask, "Can I watch YouTube?")
Marcus Lush and his family are flourishing down south.
So in what ways has fatherhood changed Marcus? "It's brought out his real fun side," enthuses Vanessa. "The things he does with the boys, they are just so lucky to be taken on adventures with him. He does parent help at school and is always so willing to share knowledge with them.
"We're at a stage now where we've just started tramping in Stewart Island and doing overnight stays in DoC huts with them, and that's been really good."
The outdoorsy family have also recently purchased 8ha of land, only five minutes from home, which they've lovingly named The Gorse Farm. Surrounded by sheep and alpacas, they've built a small hut to camp in there and hope to turn it back into native bush.
Marcus' own upbringing was a world away from what his boys are experiencing.
Raised in the Auckland suburb of Remuera, he was the youngest of four boys and remembers his childhood as being chaotic.
"It was only a small house and we had two families of cousins living next door on either side of us, so I think it would be fair to say it always felt pretty full-on," he recalls. "I was possibly a mischief-maker at school. Irrepressible."
Sadly, his mother Kathleen, a speech therapist, recently died aged 91. She was married to Marcus' father Robin, a printer, for 66 years.
"Mum was a West Coaster and quite formidable," he muses. "She had very firm views about things, but also, somewhat contradictorily, she was from that generation where it wasn't the thing to be too outspoken or too public.
"Before her death, she wasn't aware I would be running for mayor and I imagine if she knew, she would have had some fairly strong views about it."
Marcus began his long career in talkback by presenting a show on student station 95bFM. At the age of 24, he went on to take over the graveyard talkback shift on 1ZB. "I worked the shift before Paul Holmes would come on," he tells. "Paul Holmes was always nice and supportive, but I was always a little bit freaked out by him.
"His mother would listen to me and then he'd give me advice via her. I did have a run-in with him once because I mentioned his kids on TV, and he came up to the studio and really ripped into me, but we resolved it. He was a really forceful character."
Now doing the 8pm-midnight shift, Marcus is still amazed by the power of talkback. Recently, he's had Marty the farmer welcome a new calf into the world while calling up to chat ("The head's out!") before talk turned to the demise of Tupperware.
It's the only nationwide show broadcast out of Southland."I decided to move down here in 2002 because I'd never worked anywhere but Auckland and John Banks had just become mayor, funnily enough. I thought 'Goodness gracious'.
"I'd been down to Bluff when I was on the telly and I remember driving to the end of the point on one of those wild, blustery days and thinking, 'What a fantastic place it would be to live.'"
He bought his first house in the tiny port town, with wide views of the harbour, for $27,000. "They always say a place has its hold on you before you even realise it," he says. "After two summers, I realised that I would miss it too much if I left.
"The thing I'm now most proud of is the world Vanessa and I have created for ourselves down here with the kids and the community. I feel very settled and contented, and it hasn't always been that way.
"The hunches I've followed have all panned out to be the right ones. And they've all led me to this place. It's paradise."
Who was your broadcasting mentor? The late Jim Sutton, who hosted Nostalgia on Saturday Nights on Newstalk ZB from 1988 to 2013.
Share a favourite story from your time hosting TV's Newsnight ... It was going on a pub crawl with Bill Tarmey who played Jack Duckworth on Coronation Street. Most of the publicans kept asking him questions about the intricacies of the beer keg setup at the Rovers. They just assumed he was a barman – not an actor!
What's the country's best one-day walk? Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Close second is the Gertrude Saddle Route.
Name the most interesting people in Bluff ... Keith and Raewyn Lovett. He used to be – and probably still is – New Zealand's fastest oyster opener. She is Bluff's greatest cooker of seafood. They've become family.
Any future plans for TV? I'd love to do a 20th-anniversary show of Off the Rails. The hunches I've followed have all panned out. They've led me to this place.
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