There’s a baby shower nearby, and those ladies are loud, but Nina – as Brisbane’s Lady Mayoress asks to be called – isn’t fazed.

Perhaps it’s because she has four children of her own and noise is a constant, but as we chat it becomes clear she could hold her own, anywhere.

Not that she would admit it.

Nina, 43, is as unpretentious as she is self-deprecating.

She even describes herself as awkward, yet she is a person who is firm in her values and considered in her opinions.

People admire her.

I’ve seen first-hand how women, in particular, are drawn to her, snapping selfies at events, including for the many charities Nina supports as chair of the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Trust.

After the March council elections when husband Adrian Schrinner was resoundingly re-elected as lord mayor, a familiar remark around town was that we got two for the price of one.

Being high-profile was never in her life plan but Nina is one half of a true power couple.

However there is a deeply private side only her family and a trio of besties get to see.

As Nina starts on her Darling Downs grain-fed rump, she offers glimpses into that personal vault.

She talks about “seasons of brokenness”. Declining to publicly share specifics “because my kids will read this”, she says people have “behaved in ways that were baffling and hurtful”.

But as will become a common thread in our conversation, with Nina, there is always an upside.

“We learn more in our dark times than any other,” she says, “and mine have prepared me for this role, like, very much so.”

Nina, who says this is the only personal interview she will give, describes being lady mayoress as a wonderful opportunity to be useful to one’s community.

“That’s what I was brought up to be – are you useful or are you not? Bloom where you are planted.”

Under her stewardship, the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Trust has distributed more than $4.5m to 215 charities in the five years since her husband succeeded Graham Quirk in City Hall.

Her week includes visiting and volunteering at many of those charities.

“I’m talking to people at the lowest times of their life. They are escaping domestic violence, battling homelessness, dealing with loss – that’s why I always wear colour,” she says.

“I have a real problem with the fact there are so many people who cannot get shelter, including women over 55. Don’t you think it’s a terrible indictment of our society that we are not looking after our mother figures?

“Another thing that concerns me is this public lynching of individuals, and you’ll see it on social media, and what you’re teaching our children is they cannot make mistakes, and if they do they cannot come back from them.

“No wonder we have children who are not resilient and have massive anxiety – they know if they put a foot wrong, they will be cancelled, ridiculed.

“If you are screeching at someone from a position of self-righteousness, have you never made a mistake?”

Nina and Adrian are trying to equip their children – Octavia, 11, Wolfgang, 9, Monash, 7, and Petra, 5 – with the tools to face life’s challenges.

Part of this is a morning routine as a family. By 5.15am the children are on their bikes accompanying mum and dad on a 5km walk.

“We do that every day, as an adaptive response,” Nina explains, “if you’re going through a hard time in your life, get sleep, go for a walk, get vitamin D.”

The children attend Citipointe Christian College, where a teenage Nina met her future husband.

Were there sparks early on?

“I never thought of him that way, no, never,” she says.

“He was four years older and we went in different directions before reconnecting in our 20s at a community barbecue.”

That was 2002 and Nina, who had joined the Young Liberals, then volunteered with Adrian’s campaign for the East Brisbane Ward (which he narrowly lost in 2004 to the late Catherine Bermingham).

Nina was finishing her bachelor of laws and international business at QUT but she no longer wanted to fulfil an earlier ambition to join the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

“I’d grown up wanting to specialise in war crimes against women and children, but when I realised what that actually meant, I didn’t have the stomach for it; too confronting,” she says.

Nina would go on to hold a communications role for then mayor Campbell Newman, serve as interim president of the Young LNP in 2009, and work as an adviser to then attorney-general George Brandis until 2018.

But back to Adrian.

When he asked Nina out, several years after that community barbecue, she said no.

“I’d fully friend-zoned him, but he persisted,” she smiles.

Their first date was at the Fish Café in Manly.

“It was awkward,” Nina deadpans.

“I think he described me as different … probably more in an awkward way than, ‘oh, I’m different’,” she says, with affectation.

“I have awkward traits; I am not an overconfident person.”

How so? “I don’t want to offend you so I’m not going to be coming into your space necessarily, but if you’re in pain or there’s something problematic happening, I’m far more confident in that space,” she says.

After the initial awkwardness of their first date, Nina says “something changed”.

Sparks? “Yes! It’s hard to define. It just made sense. Same upbringing, same political views, same value system. Our forefathers even came from the same place in Germany (Dortmund) and we are both the youngest of three children.”

They married in October 2007.

In 2019 when Adrian told Nina he was thinking about running for lord mayor, she was taken aback.

“I said, ‘I will support you’, but as it had never been part of the original plan, I had to process it, and you kind of know your life will never be the same, and it is not the same,” she says.

“Anyone in politics will say that too – anything can be misconstrued and it’s scary.

“I am patron of some amazing organisations and speak on highly incendiary social issues, and I don’t usually use notes so have a tendency to think, what if I misspeak, have an unguarded moment; it would just kill me to cause offence.”

While Nina is mindful of stepping into another person’s space, many people think nothing of stepping into hers.

“You never get used to it, the personal questions,” she says.

Number one is when are you entering politics?

Two is do you have a nanny, three is how much do you get paid and four, wait for it, what does Adrian think about you having four kids? The latter is just odd – “like Adrian didn’t have a choice” – so we address the rest.

“Politics is a brutal game; I’ve had conflict over my life but I try to avoid it,” Nina says.

“I don’t want to connect with you then sit across the chamber and smash you. I don’t want to go home and think, ‘I need to apologise to that person’.

“Adrian, he can be a warrior and he is very, very strong, and it’s not that I’m not strong but I am not strong it that way.

“Recently, a lady patted my hand and said, ‘don’t worry, dear, it will be your turn soon’. And I found it a bit devastating because I thought, ‘does it look like I’m waiting in the wings, for my chance to be Hillary Clinton?’ The reality couldn’t be further from the truth.”

As for a nanny, the Schrinners don’t have one. They have her parents and his, all keenly involved.

And for the record, Nina does not draw a salary, or have a clothing allowance.

“Once when someone asked me how much I got paid, I said, ‘well, they did offer me $150,000 but I said, ‘girlfriend, I’m worth a mill, so I asked them for a million dollars’, and the person said, ‘did you get it?’, and I said, ‘no, I’m joking, I don’t get paid’.

“And then she said, ‘oh, but Adrian gets a wage, I’m sure it’s enough for both of you’.

“Actually, that takes away from the fact I do this for the city, because I love this city and its people, but Adrian does not get paid for my contribution – he gets paid for his contribution.

“It is my choice to serve and this is how I serve and I love it, being useful.”

NINA’S RATING

250g Darling Downs grain-fed rump, $35, Carindale Tavern

9 out of 10.