In her second term, she served as Minister for Women in the Fifth Labour Government, overseeing the introduction of paid parental leave.

Harré then worked as a trade unionist for the next decade, including as secretary of the National Distribution Union.

Harré's father was a social anthropologist, and the family spent a part of her childhood (including some years of primary school)[2] living in Fiji while he studied urbanisation there.

[4] After finishing her degree she spent 10 weeks on the Nicaraguan-Honduran border with the "Harry Holland Coffee Picking Brigade" before spending a year working at the United Nations on disarmament issues and as a representative of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

[4] She then worked for some time as a lawyer specialising in industrial relations and employment law, and developing close links to the trade-union movement.

[4] Throughout her seven-year membership of the party she was a critic of the policies advanced by Roger Douglas, who became Minister of Finance when Labour won the 1984 election.

Douglas, an advocate of free-market economics, introduced a programme of radical reforms (often collectively labelled Rogernomics) which alienated many of Labour's traditional supporters, including Harré.

She became a founding member of the NewLabour Party, an organisation started by dissident Labour MP Jim Anderton.

[7] At the 1992 local-body elections she stood as a candidate for the newly created Auckland Regional Services Trust on the Alliance ticket.

[8] The next year she stood as the Alliance candidate for the Te Atatū electorate in the 1993 election, but was again unsuccessful, coming runner-up to Labour's Chris Carter.

[10] After the 1999 election, the Alliance formed a coalition government with Labour (which had by then backed away from many of the policies introduced by Douglas).

[11] Other causes championed by Harré included legislation protecting the interests of building industry sub-contractors,[12] significant minimum-wage increases and the reduction of age discrimination in the minimum wage.

The decision of Jim Anderton and a majority of Alliance MPs to back New Zealand's involvement in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan brought these tensions to a head, dividing the caucus and separating the parliamentary leadership from the majority in the non-parliamentary party organisation (led by Matt McCarten).