Former Labour Party MP Chris Carter.
Warning: This article discusses suicide ideation.
Former Labour politician Chris Carter says “all the shitty emails and horrible phone calls” were worth it to come out as New Zealand’s first openly gay MP, after a constituent told him it saved her life.
Carter, a senior member of Helen Clark’s Cabinet during an 18-year tenure in Parliament that concluded in 2011, came out publicly during his maiden speech in 1994. He would later reflect that much of the commentary about it at the time was unsupportive.
In an interview with Newstalk ZB’s Real Life with John Cowan on Sunday night, Carter said he came out because he had seen how gay children were being treated in school and wanted to provide them with a role model.
“I’d been a teacher for 14 years before I was elected MP, and I’d seen that the children who were bullied the most at secondary school were those whose sexuality was questioned, rightly or wrongly,” he said.
“Sometimes they were not gay, but if they were branded gay or lesbian, their life was pretty miserable – a lot of bullying.
“The statistics for suicide for children with diverse sexuality is very high … Swedish studies show that of one-third of teenagers who committed suicide, it was sexuality issues that they could identify.”
Carter told Real Life the significance of being an openly gay man with a public profile came to the fore while visiting a bar in Melbourne during a work trip in the mid-2000s.
Carter’s secretary had gone up to the bar to buy beers, and had got chatting with a woman he discovered was one of Carter’s constituents.
“And she said, ‘Chris Carter? He saved my life’ … [My secretary] brings this young woman over. I said, ‘I’ve never met you before’, and she said, ‘I was at Waitākere College and you came to my school for prizegiving. All the kids were sitting around me going, ‘Chris Carter, that’s our MP, he’s gay’'.”
The woman explained that she had been wrestling with her sexuality, and had thought about suicide because the feelings of shame and pressure that came with that identity had become so overpowering.
“She said, ‘I watched you and you were the big man. You’re giving out the prizes, you’re a Government minister, you’re our MP and you’re gay’. And she said, ‘You saved my life’.
“That brought tears to my eyes. All the shitty emails, all the horrible phone calls that came to our house … it was all worth it if she was even the only one that I had such a positive impact on – and I suspect she was one of many.”
Carter told Cowan it underscores the importance of using a position of power to do something meaningful.
“You’re not there for the status or the trips – which are always work trips anyway – you’re there to try [to] make New Zealand a better place. And that’s what I felt I could do and had a duty to do, and I’m so proud,” he said.
“And now it’s no big deal. Under the last Government, we had 11 out gay and lesbian MPs … Georgina Beyer, the world’s first transsexual MP, came to our Parliament. New Zealand’s an amazing place.”
Carter married his long-term partner Peter Kaiser in a civil union in 2007. The couple have been together for more than 50 years, having met in 1973, when they were 21 and 17 respectively.
He said by that time, attitudes had changed sufficiently in New Zealand in the 13 years since his maiden speech that the ceremony was covered favourably.
“The media broke in so it was all over New Zealand TV … it was very positive messaging,” Carter told Real Life.
“I was at the Avondale Mosque about a week after the civil union and the imam came up to me and said, ‘Minister, congratulations on your wedding’. I was gobsmacked.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Carter recalled his falling out with former Labour Party leader Phil Goff, his life after politics in Afghanistan, and why he’s still optimistic about the state of the world despite huge global challenges.
Real Life is a weekly interview show where John Cowan speaks with prominent guests about their life, upbringing, and the way they see the world. Tune in Sundays from 7:30pm on Newstalk ZB or listen to the latest full interview here.