Second term MP Nicola Grigg and partner Phil welcomed baby boy Geordie, their first child, nearly a year ago and have been perfecting the balance since then.
“I’m learning to manage the juggle as much as I humanly can,” Grigg said.
Along with her local duties, Grigg is the Minister of State for Trade, Minister for Women, and Associate Minister of Agriculture.
After Geordie was born, Grigg took 10 weeks off from her constituent work, staying at home in Prebbleton. But after Prime Minster Christopher Luxon intervened, she took her whole parental leave allocation.
“The Prime Minster wanted me to take the full 26 weeks. I was only going to take a couple of months off, but he rang and said ‘no, this is a really important time and I want you to take the full leave allocation’.”
Since returning to full-time duties in June, Grigg said she has relied on her support network to balance work and life as a mum.
“We are really well supported. We have a fantastic person who takes care of Geordie. Sometimes she travels with us to Wellington, sometimes his dad comes up to Wellington and other times I leave him at home with his dad.”
She said the hardest times are when she is travelling without her son.
“They’re the hardest because you don’t get to tuck him into bed at night, but you just manage it and babies are adaptable.”
Grigg, who was pregnant while campaigning last year, said she was nervous about making the announcement.
“If I’m really honest, I was probably a bit nervous about making it public because it was my first baby, and you never quite know how it’s going to land with the public.
“I was pleasantly surprised with the enormous groundswell of support I was given and probably should have given people the benefit of the doubt.”
Grigg said being a mum has added another string to her bow.
“Obviously until I became a mum I didn’t understand the maternal health sector as well as I do now. I didn’t understand early childhood care, I didn’t understand Plunket. All those things I now have an intimate knowledge of.
Geordie is starting to making his voice heard.
“He’s certainly far more popular than I am when we walk into a room.
“He’s just about one year old now and he’s developing a very loud voice and very strong opinions,” Grigg joked.
With those strong opinions, is there a future in politics for Geordie?
“I don’t know how his father will feel about that. He will be what he wants to be. Like my parents – they had no expectation of me to go into politics.”
Grigg’s family, who farm at Mt Somers in the Ashburton District, have political pedigree.
She is also the great, great, great granddaughter of Sir John Hall, once the premier of New Zealand, and MP for Selwyn.
Grigg entered Parliament in 2020, taking over from Amy Adams in what some say is the safest blue seat in the country. She was re-elected in 2023, receiving 31,504 votes, the most of any MP in last year’s election.
She plans to run again in 2026 but does not consider Selwyn a safe seat.
“It is an enormous privilege to win this seat but you have to earn it. You don’t just win it because people traditionally vote blue. We saw that in 2020 when it actually swung left and Rolleston went 60 per cent Labour. Then I swung it back in 2023.”
When Parliament is in session, a typical week for Grigg involves travelling to Wellington on Tuesday morning and staying until Thursday.
Mondays and Fridays are spent either meeting people at her Rolleston office or heading out and about in the district, and that’s before any travel for her ministerial duties.
Nearly two weeks ago, Grigg lost one of her best friends – former National MP Nikki Kaye, who passed away after her second battle with cancer.
Kaye was 44, the same age as Grigg.
“I knew her very well. We were friends outside of politics before I became a politician. She was a great mate, a great New Zealander.
“I had known her cancer had come back this year, but I was just shocked, like everyone, shocked at how fast it took her and I will miss her a lot.”
Grigg said Kaye had taught her a lot about campaigning.
“She was world famous for her fearsome campaign strategy.
“I recall a lot of conversations about grassroots campaigning and knocking on doors. She knocked on thousands of doors and now I’ve knocked on thousands of doors.”
Now in Government, Grigg believes an important part of her role is to bring as many ministers as she can to Selwyn to show them how fast the district is growing.
“That is the important part of my job – to lobby really hard to my cabinet colleagues and bring them down here to see what is occurring and what is projected. Without seeing it, you can’t believe it.”
Growth in the district may also see Grigg’s geographical electorate shrink as its current population is outside the requirements set by the Electoral Commission.
Selwyn currently falls well outside the 5 per cent variance allowed within the South Island quota (70,037) for allowed population in electorates.
The district is currently 14 per cent outside the quota and by the 2026 election is predicted to have a 21.3 per cent variance with a predicted population of 88,700 by 2026.
Grigg said she expected to see the likes of Yaldurst, Templeton, Tai Tapu and even her town Prebbleton end up in either the Ilam, Wigram, or Banks Peninsula electorates, with the Rangitata electorate crossing the Rakaia River.
But before that happens, she has a special celebration to attend, Geordie’s first birthday, two days after Christmas. And what is planned for the big day?
“I think we’ll have a family barbecue with the grandparents and all the aunties and cousins.”
