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Speaker 1: The saddest of days, of course, as we got the

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Speaker 1: news former MP Nicky k passed away at just forty

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Speaker 1: four long battle with cancer. One of her best friends,

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Speaker 1: David Ferrer, is well, it's David, very good morning.

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Speaker 2: To you morning, Mike.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not sure where I saw it, but your

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Speaker 1: piece you wrote yesterday about her that was delightful and

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Speaker 1: I hope that that helped a lot of people understand

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Speaker 1: more about her and your experience with her. How did

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Speaker 1: you become best friends? As you put it, well, I.

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Speaker 2: Kneta when she was eighteen, she was a young national

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Speaker 2: and I worked in partment and then she joined us

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Speaker 2: in parliament two three years later, so we came colleagues.

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Speaker 2: And she then died, as all Kiwis do or most

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Speaker 2: of them, went to London for five years, and I

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Speaker 2: went to London a lot and end up staying with us.

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Speaker 2: I think it was during that period there that we

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Speaker 2: became really closed. We started doing some holidays together at

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Speaker 2: the c and there's also the period when despite being

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Speaker 2: in her twenties, she she started talking about I might

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Speaker 2: come back to New Zealand and stand for parliament.

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Speaker 1: Did she always ignore your advice?

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Speaker 2: Yes, it was the one constant of our relationship. She

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Speaker 2: always wanted advice, but she generally already had a fairly

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Speaker 2: good idea in her mind what she wanted to do.

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Speaker 2: And deny for Parliament I think was probably the great example,

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Speaker 2: because we just all said, Auckland Central has been held

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Speaker 2: by Labor or their alliants for ninety years, it's never

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Speaker 2: been won by national and there's already a Nationalist MP there,

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Speaker 2: so we said, you won't win the nomination, you won't

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Speaker 2: win the seat, Why aren't go and look at a

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Speaker 2: nice seat like Rota Roa. And he had this belief

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Speaker 2: in herself and she was like, I think I can

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Speaker 2: win it, and she did. She door knocked on I

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Speaker 2: think every door in the electorate, and she also kept

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Speaker 2: her as we know, for the next four elections too.

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Speaker 2: This by it never been what you call a blue seat.

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Speaker 2: I mean Auckland Central isn't Epson. It's a very left

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Speaker 2: leaning electorate that so many people there would give Labor

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Speaker 2: or Greens the party vote, that AUSO vote for Nicky.

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Speaker 1: It gives you an insight. She's what I would call

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Speaker 1: a very cross party sort. Everyone liked her, everyone respected her,

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Speaker 1: and you could you know even if you were in

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Speaker 1: the so called wrong party, you still got on with

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Speaker 1: her and worked with her. And that's who she was, Wasn't.

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Speaker 2: It very much? And she did so much cross party work.

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Speaker 2: She worked with Louisa Role on same sex marriage, her

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Speaker 2: and Kivin Hagskin, I think two years writing a bill

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Speaker 2: to reform the nineteen seventy adoption laws we had, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: Nicky was very much a national MP, but never thought

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Speaker 2: that all goodness comes from one party and she was

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Speaker 2: always working across the course spectrum to try and achieve things.

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Speaker 1: Where did she get a stoic nature from? Because I

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Speaker 1: thought she handled what happened to her extremely well, extraordinarily well.

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Speaker 2: She had a bit of a tough childhood, was that

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Speaker 2: split the families, etc. And I think she grew up

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Speaker 2: really tough. In the defining thing with Nicky, we talked

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Speaker 2: before about her ignoring advice, was people underestimating her? When

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Speaker 2: I actually said, look, I don't know if he and

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Speaker 2: were not consent, shed gived us underestimating me like everyone

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Speaker 2: else in my life. And she told me about a

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Speaker 2: long list of people, including her pe teacher who said

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Speaker 2: she'd never be able to run. Now, if you don't

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Speaker 2: know it, Nicky did. I think Keen Marathons is five

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Speaker 2: coast to coasts. So Nicky was always just one of

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Speaker 2: those incredibly determined people in thinct. I just saw a

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Speaker 2: foe who this morning, someone sets through of her meeting

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Speaker 2: Margaret Fetcher, and it just revided me. There book probably

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Speaker 2: two women who both went good to say no to.

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Speaker 1: Lovely thoughts, David. I appreciate it very much, David Farrer.

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Speaker 1: And if you didn't see his piece, I can't remember

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Speaker 1: where it was, but look it up. It's a lovely

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Speaker 1: backstory of the things they did together, the places they went,

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Speaker 1: and some beautiful stories David Farah.

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Speaker 2: For more from The Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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