Kristina Keneally

You were born in Las Vegas, raised in Ohio and arrived in NSW in 1994 age 26. Do you remember your first impressions of Sydney?
My favourite song is Paul Kelly's ‘Sydney from a 727' because it reminds me of my first glimpses of Sydney - I flew in early in the morning, over the ocean, with the sun hitting the red rooves of the suburbs, filled with excitement and anticipation. I'd met a Sydney boy and fallen in love - that first day was the start of very big adventure.

Indeed. You met your husband while speaking before the Pope...
World Youth Day 1991. I'd been invited to the Saturday night vigil to do a reading, which I made gender-neutral - I don't think the Pope picked up on it but others certainly did! I was studying feminist theology at the time - after all, it says in the Book of Genesis that male and female are created in the image of God.

How did a God-fearing girl acclimatise to Sin City?
My first job in Sydney was as a youth coordinator for St Vincent de Paul so very quickly I got to the see the dark side of Sydney - the boarding houses of Ashfield, the homeless in Kings Cross, the youth drop-in centres on the Northern Beaches. Every city in the world has its shiny side and its dark side but the difference in Sydney is that we have a far more generous social safety net than the country I was born in.

Does that generous safety net extend to cyclists?
I've been riding my bike into the city for well over a year - it's valuable time in my own head and I arrive at work clear-headed and ready to go - but I've never experienced or even witnessed any incidents of road rage in all that time. I ride along Anzac Parade, down Oxford Street and up College Street too so I'm in the thick of it!

Rumour has it you were gun soccer player who played to win.
I played for the Notre Dame Eagles at high school and for some regional rep teams as a midfielder. My father was my first coach and he trained me to not play as a girl - don't hang back, chase down opportunity, attack! When the other mothers yelled: "That big blonde is playing dirty!" he'd say: "She's playing the game as it should be played."

You've taken the same gung-ho approach to politics. In fact when you became premier you said: "Since I was a little girl I've made up my own mind."
I've always been forthright. When I was eight I rang up the bishop on a local talkback station and asked why girls couldn't be altar servers in his Catholic church. My parents raised me to believe that I could do whatever I set my mind to if I worked hard enough.

You're in NSW politics' highest office. What was your first job?
In high school I worked in a Chinese restaurant making spring rolls and egg foo yung. Later on I was a waitress - that was valuable in teaching me how to interact with people. The job that had the greatest impact on me was at 19 in a fibreglass factory. It was hot, hard work on a factory floor and it all the more formative because the young woman who'd held my job the year before had been killed in an industrial accident by the piece of machinery I now operated.

What are the dangers in your current job?
The climate in politics today - where everybody has a phone, a camera, a recorder and access to the web - means everything I say is recorded. Forever. So I always have to be aware of my surroundings and what I'm presenting because every statement multiplies exponentially and reappears on YouTube 15 minutes later.

President Obama remembers Sydney as a "wonderfully hospitable" place. What quintessential Sydney hospitality will you show him when he arrives in June?
I'd like to take him to a Souths match. I try to get to most home games and I get very involved. Every year I say they're going to the grand final... one year I'll be right.

We hear your other great passion is the Indigo Girls...
Oh yes, and Billy Bragg, Missy Higgins and Paul Kelly - all jangly guitars and folk rock! If I had an anthem it'd be the Indigo Girls' ‘Perfect World' - "We get to be a ripple on the water/We get to be a rock that is thrown/We get to be the boy on the bridge/Standing over the reservoir" - for me, it means we get one chance in life to make a difference.

Have you ever had a near-death experience?
Not me, but in 1999 my second child, a daughter, Caroline, was stillborn. Only now, 10 years later, can I talk about it. That experience changed me forever. It opened up a new dimension of love within my life. It was an incredibly sad time but it made me think what I wanted to do with my life and I know now our time here is short and every day is a gift. If at the end of the day I can say I did something that made someone else's life better - be it a member of my family or a complete stranger - then that's a gift I've been able to give that day... and I may not get that chance tomorrow. Angus Fontaine

Kristina's thoughts on...

Sydney
Edgy and takes risks. It's big and brash. The Opera House symbolises that, so does the magnificent hotel proposed for Barangaroo. In Sydney, every day is a new beginning.

The republic
I don't support calls to change the flag - it's part of our history and I respect that. But I do support plans to change the constitution to move that Australia become a republic.

Gay marriage
I'm open-minded about it. One writer I admire is Andrew Sullivan, a gay conservative. He argues that giving gay couples access to marriage actually strengthens the institution.

Cahill Expressway
If the Cahill is going to come down we need to start planning now for 30, 40, 50 years into the future. Elevated motorways brought back to earth or taken underground can make an extraordinary difference in opening up the city and improving pedestrian access.

Lou Reed
Metal Machine Music? It's not my style. but Lou is the curator of Vivid so he can do as he pleases. As Lou himself has said, Vivid is about bringing people to Sydney who might not normally come here.
 
Friday night, Saturday morning
This is going to sound pathetic... but my perfect Friday night is to come home, plug in the iPod, turn up the Indigo Girls and cook a cassoulet – a French casserole full of herbs. The perfect Saturday is grocery shopping at Aldi, sport with my sons, guests for dinner.

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