The Bay of Plenty MP is the baby of the National Party, a newly-wed and a local boy ‘trying to do my best’.

While it seems almost the whole of parliament is here to celebrate Pint of Order’s reopening, it’s not the typical place you’d find Bay of Plenty MP Tom Rutherford. The first-term backbench MP isn’t a drinker, so that bar coupon that speaker Gerry Brownlee just slipped him is only being used to buy a Coke. But it’s not like Rutherford is some teetotalling freakazoid — it’s the experience of knowing first-hand the dangers of alcohol abuse that inspired him to come to parliament in the first place.

Let’s go back to the days of the mid-2010s. Rutherford was 18, it was his first day in Wellington as a new student at Victoria University and he was in the middle of trying to protect an elderly gentleman when he was knocked out by a “coward punch” – an unprovoked attack with no warning. Now 29 years old, Rutherford says he brings his experience in the restorative justice process to his role as a member of the justice committee.

Rutherford says he “didn’t need the closure”, but was able to talk to his attacker (who had brought along his pregnant partner) about their lives, that night and how it left them feeling. “At the end they said, ‘Tom, what do you think his punishment should be?’ And I said I think he’s been punished enough, he’s got his future ahead of him,” Rutherford says. “I’m so grateful for that process, I feel like it’s guided my thoughts here.”

Rutherford is one of parliament’s few MPs representing generation Z – he’s older than Te Pāti Māori’s Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke but younger than the Greens’ Tamatha Paul. As the baby of his caucus, Rutherford has assumed the position of tech expert. “Last night I got a call at 6.30, saying something was happening and can I come fix it, like I’ve got some sort of IT degree,” he laughs. “I’m now 29 and my opinions and my voice carries the exact same weight as one of my colleagues, no matter their experience versus mine. I love that we’re first amongst equals.”

Rutherford has enough things keeping him busy at the moment without being the caucus’s go-to IT guy. His Bay of Plenty electorate includes part of Mount Maunganui and Welcome Bay, where extreme weather saw fatal slips in January, killing eight. Restorations have just begun on Mauao, but when we spoke in late April, Rutherford saw his priority as local MP as trying to get the area back on its feet. The Bay of Plenty electorate will cease to exist at the 2026 election, with Rutherford running for the new Mount Maunganui seat instead.

“The community’s been going through this really challenging period of grieving, and now we’re on the other side and trying to understand what the future looks like,” Rutherford says. Mauao’s indefinite closure has seen local businesses “really struggling”, and locals have been wanting a time frame on the area’s recovery. “I’ve been asking those hard questions, respectfully, and trying to provide a bit of hope,” Rutherford says. “It’s been a real big challenge, but I’ve been trying to do my best as the local boy.”

In between it all, Rutherford married his sweetheart, Hannah. “We walked up Mount Maunganui on our first date, and I took her back there two and a half years later and asked her to marry me,” Rutherford says. They wed two days after the slip at Mount Maunganui, a “full circle moment” which felt like a mix of “joy and grief” at the same time.

Theirs isn’t a conventional marriage. While many newly-weds can’t wait to spend every waking second with another, the Rutherfords’ marriage grows long-distance. “I always feel guilty because Hannah works her own job, and when she returns home she goes to an empty house, and that makes me upset because that’s never the life I ever dreamed for her,” he says. But when they reunite, they have something special to bond over: a shared love of trashy reality dating shows.

THE SPINOFF PUB Q+A

How much should a pint cost?

I don’t drink alcohol – I have in the past, but just don’t do it any more, so I’m a little out of touch.  I find it so much easier now for me to say, ‘no, I don’t drink’. I never really enjoyed it anyway, and there’s only a few drinks I miss: espresso martinis, Baileys and gin and tonic. So I’m a little bit out of touch, but I’d say about $10.

Do you have a karaoke go-to?

Easy one for me: ‘All Rise’ by Blue. You’ll know it: “it’s one for the money and the free rides, and two for the lie that you denied, all rise”. I think if you asked all of my university friends what song they’d associate with Tom, they’d probably pick that. I’ve got no shame, I’ll give anything a go.

Favourite place to get a drink in Aotearoa?

Two places: either Pap House in Papamoa, or the Mount Ocean Sports Club. [The latter is] like a fishing/yacht club, I love going there, it’s such a cool vibe. It’s near Mount Maunganui, right on the water – it’s a beautiful spot.

Which three MPs would be on your pub quiz team?

The first one I would pick would be [National and Napier MP] Katie Nimon; smart, down to earth, but she’s so into her pop culture, you know. She loves Taylor Swift. She’d be all over Hollywood, but also she’s got a great background of working in buses and at the regional council, so she’s really varied. James Meager; legal background, law expert, he’d probably know a lot about our history and all of that sort of stuff.

I pride myself on sport, so I’d bring that to the table. The third person I’d probably take is Nicola Willis, she’s got that arts and culture background, she’s across the detail on so many things. I reckon you’d get an abstract question, and she’d say, “oh, I read this in a cabinet paper three years ago”. She’d pull something out of nowhere, so I think she’d balance the team really well.

Which MP from across the aisle would you most like to share a drink with?

Tangi Utikere from the Labour Party. We spent some time together on the transport and infrastructure select committee. I think he’s got, from what I’ve seen, really good values. I like his way as a political operator. I remember sending him an email last year, because he filled in as speaker for a day, to say, hey, I thought you did a really good job today. I think that’s what politics can be like. So, yeah, I’d love to go for a beer with Tangi.

Is there an alcohol-related law you would like to change?

Yeah, I had a constituent bring me a petition last year on foetal alcohol syndrome. Obviously, we have more awareness about it today than we probably did in the past, but he wanted to raise even more awareness. That would be something I would love to see us change, around expanding on what the harms of consuming alcohol while pregnant are, the impacts they can have both on the mother and on the children, and sort of just growing that awareness.

So I was really grateful to him for his passion in that, and then choosing me to be the one to accept it and deliver it to parliament. That would be something I would love to see us go further on.

What’s a policy area we’ve been nursing without finishing the glass?

The referendum on the parliamentary term, and extending it to four years – I’m a big supporter of that. We’re not doing it at this year’s election, but we’ve got the option of doing it at the next election in 2029. I think most people I meet who talk about it – I don’t proactively bring it up – but most people say, I can’t believe how short the parliamentary term is in New Zealand. Obviously I would love for it to be as long as possible when I’m in government and as short as possible for the opposition, but that’s not allowed. So a four-year parliamentary term might well be fair to everyone.

What qualities make a good drinking partner?

I would say a good sense of humour, a good listener, probably someone that’s not too tight. If you’re gonna go out with friends, then it’s your turn to buy the round, my turn to buy the round – you know, swings and roundabouts.

Have you ever had a Schnapps election moment where you regretted your political instinct?

Oh, all the time. I can remember Nicola Willis’s interview, about asking Grant Robertson how big his hole was, and I haven’t quite had that. I’m sure it’ll happen.

Up next on One MP, One Pint: Act MP Parmjeet Parmar. Read more OMPOP interviews here.