After losing her dear dad, the former politician has done some soul-searching. Photos / Robert Trathen. Styling, Hair & Make-up / Jules Armishaw. Clothes / Sweepstake Winners, Zara.
Naturally bubbly and upbeat, Paula Bennett sits in the makeup chair and prefaces our Weekly interview with an apology. “I’m sorry if I end up sounding negative, but look, it’s been one of those years. The first half has been, well, quite s**t, really.”
She’s been to more funerals in five months than she’s been to in five years – including her beloved father’s and friend and former colleague Chester Borrows – and don’t get her started on menopause and the ensuing weight gain. (Too late, we already do… but more on that later.)
The 54-year-old former deputy prime minister is quick, however, to counteract getting through those hard times with the “blessings” that can be taken from them too. She’s merely trying to figure out how grief and joy can hold hands.
Only three days into the New Year, Bennett was holidaying up north when she got the call that her dad, Bob, was in palliative care in hospital. He died four days later, aged 87, with Bennett and her mum Lee by his side.
Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2019, Bob had been doing okay for the first 18 months before rapidly deteriorating.
At the time of the diagnosis, Bennett and her husband Alan Philps had seen signs of his cognitive decline and were considering selling their West Auckland home to find somewhere suitable to share with her parents.
“They ended up moving to their own place in a retirement village, which turned out to be the best thing,” she tells. “I spent lots of time with him and Mum in those last few months. I felt like it was my job to look after her while she cared for him.
“Everyone with Alzheimer’s is different, but Dad got more withdrawn and quiet. So that was quite hard seeing him losing his spark. He was usually so loud and outgoing.”
Does Bennett take after him?
“Totally! Everything was about him,” she laughs, mentioning she’s probably grieved more than she expected to. “That’s because he had been unwell and I knew he didn’t want to live as he was. So I’m not sure if I grieved for him as much as I grieved for me losing a parent. Does that make sense?”
Now, Bennett is focused on making sure her mum is coping with all the “death admin” and the sad loss of her best friend. Bob and Lee had been married for 61 years.
“It’s a huge transition for Mum,” sighs Bennett. “And being of that generation, everything was under Dad’s name. So, it’s been an hour on the phone each time to change things over to Mum’s name, like insurances, power, phone, banking… There’s such a big list. Mum often says to me, ‘I don’t know how I’d do this without you’.
“But she’s making an effort to get out and see people. I just feel really grateful to be able to spend so much time with her. We had a coffee together on Sunday and I nearly asked her how Dad was. It was the first time I almost forgot he had died.”
As we talk, Bennett’s eyes well up. She describes her father as her “resilience builder” because he was a hard man when she was younger, but softened as he aged.
“Being his little girl, he definitely treated me differently to my older brothers, Stephen and Marc,” recalls Bennett, who was just 5 when the family moved to the lakeside village of Kinloch, near Taupō.
“Dad was incredibly proud of me and backed me 100 per cent once I started university and began turning my life around. He was a carpet layer with a really strong work ethic, which is what I got from him.
“He believed that if you can work, you should. He always had an opinion. Oh, we had some raving arguments! I was stroppy and he was strong, and Mum was the peacemaker.”
Famously a former teen single mum on a benefit, Bennett is most proud of her 15-year career in politics, climbing the ranks to become one of this country’s most powerful women. She admits having that ability to make change was “pretty intoxicating” and an absolute privilege.
“I will never have that again and that’s okay,” she reflects. “When people say to me, ‘I bet you’re glad to not be in Parliament now’, I go, ‘Heck yes!’ But I’m so grateful for that time. It feels like the world has changed so much in the three years since I’ve left.
“For 18 months after I left, I didn’t want to talk about politics. But I feel that passion again, and I’ve become far more engaged in the country and the direction it’s going. But I will never go back.”
Now working as national director of customer engagement and advisory for Bayleys real estate, this new midlife chapter has brought with it a lot of change.
Bennett’s daughter Ana, now 37, and her three children, Tia, 16, Nate, 9, and Hunter, 8, moved to Darwin in 2021, where Ana works for Mission Australia, a Christian charity that provides a range of community services.
“It’s a great job,” says Bennett proudly. “She’s second in charge in the Northern Territory and helps run rehabilitation for addicts as well as women’s refuges. I definitely miss my daughter and grandkids a lot, though. But they have to live their own life.
“The two boys play league, so I’m excited to go over next month to see them in action.”
While Bennett’s family has dealt with her high-profile status in their own way (husband Philps is notoriously absent from her public life), they were 100 per cent supportive when she decided to have weight-loss surgery at the end of 2017.
For decades, she knew the physical and emotional toll being overweight can have. The surgery meant she lost 50kg. But five years on, she reveals it’s been harder lately to keep the weight off.
“I feel the pressure to keep it off,” she shares. “And obviously being in the public eye, I’d feel like a failure if I turned around and gained 20kg. I also love clothes, so I want to be able to fit them. So I’ve got a goal in my head to lose five kilos. Everyone says to me, ‘You look fine’, and I don’t feel like I look bad, but it’s not like you gain 10kg overnight.
“You gain two kilos, then you gain another two and you get used to that. Next thing you know, it’s 10 kilos. So I just feel pressure from myself to take back some control.
“I’m trying to eat more of the better food – yoghurt and cereal in the morning, a bit of sushi and miso at lunchtime, and a healthy dinner with more protein – and be more organised with it and trying not to snack in between.
“In the early days after surgery, my body wouldn’t allow me to eat too much of the wrong food. Yet now my tolerance is much higher, so I have to discipline myself more than I had to before.”
In the past, Bennett has been quite vocal about describing menopause as a “gift” in terms of setting her on a health journey, when she thought she was experiencing burnout or a breakdown.
When asked if she still sees it in the same way, she admits, “I don’t know”.
She continues, “I’m finding it hard. I thought I’d be out the other side by now, but it just seems to drag on. I don’t sleep – one of those effects that seem to linger – and it’s very common for me to be awake from one until four in the morning. So I listen to a lot of podcasts.” (She’s currently loving This American Life podcast – true stories that unfold like little movies but for radio.)
“Right now, I’m mentally fine, and I mostly feel great, apart from my eyebrows dropping on to my chin! What I love is that there’s a lot more fun in my life now and I’m just trying to age disgracefully!” she laughs, showing our team her progress on growing a grey mohawk.
Bennett has a fun presence. Her social media is filled with flamboyant dress-ups, and it appears that she and Philps, 63, have a penchant for wearing matching outfits.
“He doesn’t have a penchant for matching outfits – I do,” she corrects. “Alan’s a fairly reserved personality. But when we go away with our closest friends, we wear loud matching shirts. And I make up a back story. We were on the plane in our matching shirts and someone commented, so I said, ‘Yeah, three of us were in a break-dancing competition in 1984 in Timaru and we have a reunion every year.’”
They’ve even got fake holiday names too.
“I’m Beverly from Beverly Tours and Alan is Neville. Bev and Nev. And Bev talks about herself in the third person. Obviously, I didn’t do this when I was deputy prime minister, so Bev took a break there for a while,” she grins.
“It’s so ridiculous that it becomes believable. But you’ve got to create your own joy.”
If you need a break from the slopes or don’t fancy a ski, there’s still a lot to do this.