Brooke's act of service 'A CONCERT CHANGED MY LIFE'

The MP's date with destiny started with a song and ended in a proposal!

- Catherine Milford

Brooke van Velden doesn’t immediately strike you as a politician. She’s young – she turned 30 this year, and she’s very calm and softly spoken.

“I was actually a very shy child,” smiles Brooke, who is wearing her signature vibrant pink at her Act electorate offices in Tāmaki – an old single-storey building that was once the St Heliers police headquarters.

“I used to go bright red if someone spoke to me. Mum tells me I’d cling to her skirt and not say anything. I much preferred books. I had friends, but I certainly wasn’t the life of the party!”

Despite her shyness, the building blocks of what Brooke was to become were being placed. The daughter of a nurse and a mechanic, and youngest sister of three boisterous brothers, Brooke was brought up reading the daily newspaper.

“My parents weren’t political, but they believed wholeheartedly in giving us a good education,” she recalls. “We were told we should never be afraid of having an opinion and we were expected to bring it to the dinner table. In our family, there were never devices at the table – there was discussion. Mum made sure I understood that being female, and the youngest of four, didn’t mean my opinion didn’t matter.”