Maggie Barry

A lover of gardens from childhood with a diploma in horticulture, Maggie Barry spent four years on the news frontline as co-host of National Radio’s Morning Report from 1986 to 1989. As presenter of TV hit Maggie’s Garden Show she was the face of NZ gardening for 12 years. After time in freelance journalism and radio she was elected MP for North Shore in 2011, and became a cabinet minister in 2014.

You have to give 110% as a presenter. Otherwise you look bad and ruin it for everyone else around. I couldn’t live with that. It would be my greatest fear that I’d let people down by being too tired or slack about something. Maggie Barry, in a 23 April 1994 Listener interview with Mary Crockett