Hayley Holt goes green

Update 5/12/16: Hayley Holt has announced that she will be standing for the Green Party in next year’s general election.

It’s been confirmed today that the broadcaster and environmental activist has formally signed up as a candidate and will be added to the Green Party’s list.

While Hayley has not yet been selected for an electorate seat, the New Zealand Herald reports that Hayley is considering a bid for the Helensville seat – which is currently held by Prime Minister John Key.

The Crowd Goes Wild and Back Benches star, who revealed her keen interest in politics in Woman’s Day earlier this year, has been volunteering in the Green Party’s West Auckland Kelston office.

“We are pleased to have her in the pool, she’s got talent,” Green Party Chief of Staff Deborah Morris-Travers told TVNZ.

“Along with Chloe Swarbrick [who stood for the Auckland mayoralty this year] and others we will have a strong campaign.”

Find out all about Hayley’s journey to politics in our original story below

Hayley Holt has more strings to her bow than most Kiwi TV stars. She’s a former snowboarding champ, a professional dancer and now one of our best-known broadcasters. But the popular presenter is ignoring warnings from many of those around her by stepping out in a surprising new direction – working for the Green Party.

“A lot of people told me, ‘You’ll damage your media career. People will look down on you and people won’t want to work with you,’” Hayley, 36, tells me as we meet to hear about her brave move into politics. But the determined blonde, who stars on Prime’s The Crowd Goes Wild and politics show Back Benches, isn’t deterred. In fact, nothing could stop her now she has been appointed the Greens’ membership secretary – a voluntary role – for the Kelston electorate in Auckland.

“I’ve never really been afraid of risk,” she says. “In a way, I’m always a bit emboldened by that kind of talk.”

Joining the Green Party is a dream come true for the passionate political wannabe, who has nearly finished a degree in political science at the University of Auckland.

“I’ve always been empathetic and obsessed with justice,” says Hayley, “but now I have to do something about it, in whatever way. I want to really get my teeth into it.”

She’s not only an ardent environmentalist but also determined to encourage more young voters to the polling stations. She would love to see the voting age lowered so that the first time people vote is when they’re at school. “They would learn about the issues, about how it all works, then they’d enrol and vote. They’d get into that habit,” she says.

Hayley first found fame in New Zealand in 2006, when she was paired with swim champ Danyon Loader on the second series of Dancing with the Stars. Fresh from travelling the world for both her pro snowboarding and ballroom- dancing careers, Hayley – who went on to land coveted TV and radio gigs – became a firm figure on Auckland’s social scene.

But her partying landed her in strife in 2013 when she was taken off her More FM breakfast radio show after she was intoxicated on air. It was a huge turning point for the star, who hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol for almost two years. She reveals she still attends anonymous recovery meetings, which have completely changed her outlook on life.

“All of a sudden, I am at meetings where everybody’s got a voice and everyone is worth the same,” she tells. “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’ve come from. It has taught me so much. There are also surprises when you look at someone and think, ‘Oh, God, here’s another one.’ They might be coming in from the streets, they might smell and then they say the most profound thing out of anybody there. I feel very lucky to hear this wisdom.”

Single Hayley is adamant that being sober led her to politics. “Sobriety brought with it responsibility and I couldn’t hide from obligation any more,” she asserts. “I also shifted into a flat with amazing women who talked politics and then Back Benches came along. The planets aligned.”

But her new move hasn’t come without sacrifices and joining the Green Party has meant she’s had to turn down another season hosting Back Benches alongside Wallace Chapman. It’s brave, but hard challenges are not out of character.

In one US snowboarding competition, Hayley had to be held back from rejoining the event after flying head-first into a large block of ice. It took a while to persuade her to get a sizable gash in her eyebrow and forehead sewn up immediately rather than carry on.

Kiwis are possibly more aware of Hayley’s dancing career, which started when she was seven. “Mum said that my friend Judith was going to ballroom dancing and asked if I would go along with her,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘Aww, Mum,’ and my brother laughed at me. But I loved it and then I became good at it.”

There are too many national triumphs to list, but Hayley reveals that being a successful dancer brought some hostility back then. She recalls, “I’d be in Latin class and I’d have a fake tan, fake nails, my hair was bleached blonde and people would be like, ‘Who are you? What has the cat dragged in here?’”

There were two girls at intermediate who liked to target Hayley because she had good posture from dancing. “They’d throw things at me – dead birds, that kind of thing. One time, they were trying to get into a gang, so they trashed the schoolroom as part of their initiation. They pooed in my desk. It was all over the walls and in my desk.”

Amazingly, she doesn’t recall the event as traumatic. “I’m kind of resilient around big stuff. I think it’s because my parents gave us a very safe, very loved upbringing. And they respected us. You don’t realise it until you get out in the world, but you get an incredibly strong core from it.”

And anyone who watched Hayley box in two Fight for Life fundraisers will attest to that. “I believe in competition because it does push people to excellence, but I don’t believe in unfair competition,” she says, bringing the conversation back to politics.

“I had a very privileged upbringing. I grew up in Epsom in Auckland, went to Epsom Girls’ Grammar. I was given all the opportunities. But I came to realise that I was one of the lucky ones. That home lives aren’t equal, education isn’t equal and communities aren’t equal.”

Hayley – who has already lent her name to two Green Party initiatives – also talks about her parents’ hard work. Her dad Murray slogged at his building business and her mum Robin was always in paid work. “They knew the effort would amount to something back then,” she tells. “These days, you can work hard and still be at the bottom. If you go to Winz for help, you can end up in debt.”

To find the money for six years of snowboarding in both hemispheres, Hayley worked long days between the two winter seasons, waitressing at night and assisting her dad during the day. “I could put a deck together, put all the hardwood on the deck and cut it to size,” she says. “I’d put up frames. I could hammer a good nail. I can’t build a house, but I could help.”

Hayley and her dad talk a lot about the state of the nation. He gets upset thinking he probably came through in the best of Kiwi times. “There’s a motto in building now of bigger, faster, cheaper and they just slap these places up, and there are problems like leaky buildings,” she explains. “That’s what you get if you do it cheap and pay workers cheaply. I strongly believe, if we put the systems in place where we can be sustainable, then we could have another golden age.”

Hayley clearly remembers the first time she voted. Her parents had presented her with the issues to swot up on and her first vote was for the Greens. She smiles at the memory of her parents saying, “Don’t do that.” But now they support her active involvement.

“Dad thinks it’s great,” she tells. “He comes from a farming background and he leases land to farmers who run cows. I’ve talked to him about how we eat too much meat.”

Hayley could talk for hours on the problems of intensified farming, particularly the harmful gases emitted by cattle. “Yes, we’ve got the farting cows, the nitrates and the sewerage,” she says. “We have got to diversify. I believe that hemp crops should be brought in because it’s a cash crop but also replenishes the soil. Soil dies, you know.”

All this talk of cows, the earth and eco-technology leads me to wonder how it goes down at those society events. “I mostly don’t go,” Hayley tells. “I’m interested in people who want to have passionate conversations about the world, issues and things that affect us. People who are a bit crazy. But because of my public image, I seem to attract drunk men who want to know what Mark Richardson [her Crowd Goes Wild colleague] is like.

“It’s no-one’s fault but my own because that’s what I used to put out there and it’s who I used to be in a way.” Hayley accepts my suggestion that her model good looks combined with her fervent environmentalism might scare men. “I don’t think it’s frightening – it’s disarming possibly,” she nods. “No, these men aren’t frightened of me …but they should be!”

When she’s not studying or getting to know fellow Green Party members, Hayley loves to hang out with her female friends, some of whom have been buddies since the teenage years.

“I love them,” she says. “They are my saviours. They don’t let you lie to them. They know everything that’s gone on in the past, they celebrate all the craziness and they’re there for you. And I still do silly.

“I have a good balance. I watch Real Housewives and the Kardashians. I let the wind blow through. There must always be fun.”

But what if the well-meant warnings of a ruined career and no lucrative sponsorships come true as a result of her move into politics? Hayley doesn’t miss a beat, replying, “If I worry that openly campaigning for the next election is going to lose me career opportunities, then I’m just as selfish as the people destroying the land and ignoring injustice.

“I have had so much opportunity, so I can’t just rest on my laurels and be all about myself. That wouldn’t make me happy.”