Meet My Two Mums! ,James' Party Faithfuls

They gave his dream the green light!

- Sebastian Van Der Zwan

With seven women in the top 10, the Green Party’s new list of candidates is a proclamation of girl power that could see co-leader James Shaw inundated by a fresh intake of female MPs after this year’s election.

Yet the Wellington-born politician and former business consultant, 44, isn’t intimidated by the idea – with two mothers, he’s been surrounded by strong women most of his life.

Abandoned by his British father, who wasn’t ready for parenthood, James was raised in Waikanae by single mother Cynthia Shaw. He recalls, “It was normal to me, but in my primary school class, I was the only person who had just one parent and I remember some boys asking, ‘What’s that like?’ I didn’t know. I asked them, ‘What’s it like having two?’”

James found out first-hand at 12 when his mum, then teaching history at a Wellington high school, fell in love with English teacher Susanne Jungersen. They’ve been together for 31 years now. “We locked eyes over a pile of marking!” quips Susanne, now 64. But the truth is they’d been colleagues for years and James had met his new mother on many occasions before Cynthia, 71, sat him down to have “the conversation”.

He remembers, “She let me know what was going on and I just shrugged my shoulders. I knew Susanne as one of a fun group of teachers who’d always break out a guitar for singalongs, but I had my own regular teen angst to get on with.”