Video: Family’s political history and desire to service community led Catherine Wedd to stand for election – Full Interview
Catherine Wedd, the National Party’s candidate for Tukituki has always been interested in politics and has wanted to serve her community.
Wedd, who will square up against Anna Lorck, the incumbent Tukituki MP (Labour) in October 2023, sat down with Hawke’s Bay App last Friday for a full interview.
“Growing up on a farm, I was always passionate from a young age. I went on to become a youth MP for the New Zealand Youth Parliament.”
“And I've got a family history. My grandfather was a National Party MP for Whanganui, and my grandmother also ran for selection, so it's in the blood. And then I went on to university and I studied politics, and then I studied law as well. And I went over to the law negotiation championships in Australasia and debated politics.”
After stints as a TV journalist in Wellington and at the BBC in London, Wedd moved to Hawke’s Bay where she worked in PR and marketing and then the horticulture sector.
“And I suppose politics for me is about promoting us as a country and promoting New Zealand and all that we have to offer. And I feel for me now as a mother of four children living and breathing all of the issues that we're facing at the moment and with my commercial experience that it's time, it's time to enter politics and become the local MP for Tukituki.”
“And the next couple of months, I just want to get out and meet as many people as I can across the Tukituki electorate, and then be their local MP and represent them in Parliament.
During her days in PR and marketing, Wedd worked as a fellow director with her opponent Lorck. Asked how she felt now that they were opponents, Wedd said: “I think New Zealand and Hawke's Bay is a small place and you cross paths with many people in your careers. And it's no different from me crossing paths with many people in my media career as a TV reporter. And it's the same here in marketing in Hawke's Bay, you do cross over quite a lot, so it's only natural that you would've worked with different people over time.”
“But what I'd say is that we have very different political values and visions, and I'll just be focusing very importantly on the people of Tukituki and the issues that matter to them.”
Asked how she and her family would adjust to her life in Parliament if she was elected, Wedd said: “I’m already working in a full-time role, which involves a lot of international travel and domestic travel, heading the marketing of one of our largest exporters and growers here. So, we're a modern family. It's very natural that both mother and father work these days and the children just get on with it.”
“And we are just really busy, and we all thrive off the challenge of lots happening in our lives, and it will be no different entering politics.”
She says that she believes that as “a mother of four children living in Hawke's Bay, in Tukituki, that I am the right person to be representing this region. And with my commercial experience, having worked in media and marketing and for one of our largest growers in our region, that I'm the right person to be representing Tukituki right now.”
Asked what she will do if she is not elected, Wedd says she has not thought about that.
“I'm here to win the Tukituki seat for National, and we are going to be going hard, two ticks blue. I've already kicked off in terms of my campaign. I've door knocked over two and a half thousand doors now in our electorate over the past 10 weeks. And I'm hearing so many frustrations and people are just so unhappy with the current environment and the direction that our country's heading in, and they want change. And so, we are going to provide that change.”
