Real Life

Why Green MP Sue Bradford is still driven to make change

She recently celebrated a milestone birthday, but the change-maker has no plans of slowing down.

She turned 65 on July 1, but polarising politician and longtime activist Sue Bradford isn’t retiring any time soon.

“I still feel full of life and a desire to make political change,” the former Green Party MP tells New Zealand Woman’s Weekly.

“Things are getting harder for people, and there’s no real voice for the homeless, or people who are on low or no wages. It’s the same fight I’ve been in all my life. I’ll be chipping away at the man until the very end,” she says, supported by her husband of 37 years, union organiser Bill, at their home on Auckland’s North Shore.

Last week, Sue celebrated the launch of her biography, Constant Radical, by award-winning North & South journalist Jenny Chamberlain, which tells of her days as a “feminist hippie”, her struggles with hard drugs, her countless arrests and the suicide of her son Danny, which inspired her decade-long career in Parliament.

For more with the woman credited with making “a fundamental shift in the moral climate for New Zealand families”, see the latest issue of New Zealand Woman’s Weekly.

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