His cannabis-patterned suit haunts parliament’s public gallery, stairways and occasionally the odd news segment. The Spinoff asked Gary Chiles, why?
He’s been a fixture of parliament’s public gallery for nearly a decade. Security staff and MPs know him by name, and after eight years of coming to this place on a near weekly basis, his cannabis leaf-patterned attire seems as everyday as the navy and pinstripe suits sat in the debating chamber below him. Gary Chiles is undoubtedly parliament’s quirkiest character, but he’s also a reminder that, while governments come and go, change can take a long time.
In a building that often feels like an all-boys private school, Chiles is one of the easiest people to spot. The 62-year-old travels here from Paraparaumu by train or bicycle for the 80-90 days a year that question time takes place, when most (if not all) of our 123 MPs are herded together and engaged in vigorous debate for the sake of our democracy and such. Though if there’s a special event on the calendar, like a significant bill reading or anniversary, Chiles makes sure not to miss those, either.
We’ve plans to meet up after question time wraps on Tuesday, and I wait outside parliament’s new pub on the ground floor of the building to catch Chiles and his cannabis suit descending the stairs. A passing reporter asks if I’ve started drinking early but, nah, I’m just looking for Gary.
“Who?”
“The weed guy.”
“Oooohhh, that guy!”
Everyone knows Gary.
Gary Chiles: ‘My attitude now is that if you get to my age and you don’t have people half your age that you look up to, then you’re the problem.’
This particular session left Chiles unimpressed, but most things the government does these days make him feel that way. Chiles is a longtime drug law reform advocate, having been a member, spokesperson and activist of the year for the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), and first started these parliamentary pilgrimages in 2017, after the sixth Labour government formed under Jacinda Ardern, as a reminder of the coalition’s commitment to drug law reform.
You probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Chiles is a loyal Green Party voter, but he also shares a lot of values with Te Pāti Māori – underneath his suit is typically a Toitū Te Tiriti t-shirt. As for the coalition, Chiles “venomously despise[s]” the Act Party, sees Winston Peters as a “major barrier” to drug law reform, and doesn’t think much of National, either.
Which is why when Chiles sits in the public gallery, he’s always above the government benches, facing the opposition so that whenever the likes of Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick or Te Pāti Māori’s Tākuta Ferris throw their heads in the air in the exasperation, at least they can have someone to lock eyes with while they’re looking up. When the Nat-Act First government came into power, Chiles began to wonder if there was any point in trying to be the silent reminder of drug law reform. So, these days, he sees himself in more of a supporting role for the left-bloc.
“It’s a hostile environment now, and we’ve seen what that does to people,” Chiles says. “I get upset that we have an institution that rewards nasty punches down on people that are actually trying to do something good … [If I were an MP], I’d be one of the first people to be chewed up and in tears. That’s why I feel it’s so important to be here when they’re constantly under attack.”
In the eyes of Swarbrick, Chiles is the “guardian angel” of the public gallery. She met Chiles out on the parliament lawns in her first term as a “baby MP”, where the two quickly connected over their shared dedication to drug law reform – and the fact that they’ve stuck it out together, herself by election and Chiles by choice, shows his stamina for the kaupapa, she says.
There’s Gary, again. (Source: ThreeNews)
“I think our democracy is all the more colourful for people who really care and turn up and are actively participating and engaging with it,” Swarbrick says. “Gary sees the interconnection between all of these different issues, from drug law reform through to inequality in our economy, through to corporate greed and the fast-tracking of the destruction of our environment, through to human rights and the freedoms of Palestinians.”
That admiration is shared. “The best thing about coming to parliament is that now I have many people who are at least half my age that I look up to,” Chiles says. “My attitude now is that if you get to my age and you don’t have people half your age that you look up to, then you’re the problem.”
“That’s the cool thing about inspiration,” replies Swarbrick. “It’s not a reason to put someone on a pedestal, but to realise that you see something in someone else that you admire about yourself, and that’s an invitation to participate and be a part of something that no one of us could create by ourselves.”
Though Chiles is here every other week, he sticks to the debating chamber. The only way to see the scope of the floors and halls of parliament is to join a guided tour or be someone’s guest – so today, Chiles is mine. We walk to the parliament library together while a wary-looking Gerry Brownlee watches us, and Chiles tells me this will be the first time he’s set foot in the library since 1974. Back then, the most junior member of the House at the time gave Chiles’ father, young Chiles and his two brothers a parliamentary tour. That MP was Mike Moore and outside, the Beehive was barely half-built.
That’s where Chiles’ interest in politics came from. His father, Colin Chiles, ran as a Labour Party candidate in the North Shore electorate in the 1972 election, but lost to incumbent George Gair, who held the seat until 1990. Chiles senior didn’t make it into parliament, but his close friendship with Moore and the political chatter in the household had a lasting effect on Gary.
A year after that tour with Moore, the Misuse of Drugs Act was passed under the third Labour government, and nearly 50 years on from the Act’s passing, Chiles says he sees the negative effects of prohibition reflected in the disproportionate number of Māori in prison, the trade and use of impure substances and Aotearoa’s methamphetamine crisis. Regulating all substances and ensuring quality control could undo a lot of the harm we see caused by drugs, Chiles says – he’d like to see the Misuse of Drugs Act overhauled before he hits his 70s, but it doesn’t feel likely.
“[The government] thinks the problem with prohibition is we’re not doing enough of it harder,” Chiles says. “We have to accept that people want to alter their consciousness, and it’s our responsibility to make sure that we provide the resources for everyone to do that safely with the least amount of harm possible.”
Then his phone goes off around 4pm – it’s an alarm reminding him that in 20 minutes, he needs to hit up his mate Dakta Green (of The Daktory fame) so they can have a “session” over video call. It’s a habit the two started over lockdown, when social distancing stopped them from having these “sessions” side by side, as they usually do. And as for the timing, “420 is just an easy number to remember”.
Gary Chiles lurks in the background of the finance and expenditure committee, behind academic Jane Kelsey.
Not wanting to eat into precious session time, Chiles runs me through the greatest hits of his eight years of coming here, like that time after Paula Bennett’s adjournment speech in 2018, when she offered to dry clean his suit – then didn’t because, “she only did it to try and infer that I was a dirty druggie”. But perhaps most memorable of all was being present for the first reading of the Treaty principles bill, standing up and performing the haka alongside Ngāti Toa.
“For the first time, I actually felt like I was participating in something from the public gallery. The first haka I’ve done as an adult was upstairs in the gallery,” Chiles says. “It was indescribable … the most pure situation you can be in.”
The next time I see Chiles is two days later, sitting in front of the parliament buildings in the winter sunshine. Under the shadow of the Beehive, Chiles tells me there can’t be much time left for an institution like this – too rigid and too colonial, he reckons Te Pāti Māori’s vision of a tikanga-informed parliament might be the only way we can move forward as a country. And if the end ever comes for this parliament, you can bet Chiles will be there in his green suit.