Almost seven minutes of last night’s ThreeNews bulletin was dedicated to former prime minister John Key. Much of the segment focused on his deeply relatable passion of owning a helicopter.
In breaking, exclusive news today, it can be revealed that ThreeNews exclusively revealed last night that former prime minister Sir John of Key has a hobby.
In an almost seven-minute-long segment on the Stuff-produced broadcast, the private (New Zealand) citizen exclusively showed off his million-dollar helicopter before exclusively discussing his views on the forthcoming (United States) election.
In a turn of events, Key revealed he had the exact same opinion on former president turned candidate Donald Trump as he did two years ago.
“Sir John Key has explained why Donald Trump will not only win the US election but is the right person for the job,” host Samantha Hayes said upon introducing the exclusive segment.
“But first he introduced me to his new baby.”
No, Max Key doesn’t have a new sibling – but Key did indeed call his newest chopper, emblazoned with his alternative New Zealand flag and a helpful “danger” sticker by the propellor, “my baby”.
“It’s one year old, literally today,” Key added.
Over the course of the interview, we exclusively discovered that during the Covid lockdown when many of us spent time mastering the art of sourdough baking, Key was instead relentlessly focused on the equally relatable hobby of becoming a pilot. He’s since clocked up 280 hours of flying time, which one can assume is quite a lot.
Continuing in his strident effort to be just like us, he confessed to mainly flying “to the golf course” and that he is “terrible with directions” (actually, that second one is quite relatable).
“I have once lost the airfield, but I found it again, it was all good,” said Key, exclusively.
While the big news is clearly Key and his hobby, the former prime minister wasn’t just there to talk helicopters. He managed to fit a couple of minutes of light US political chat into the interview, confirming that – as he has indicated in the past – he still backed Donald Trump to return to the White House.
Admittedly, last time he was asked, Key didn’t have much of an argument beyond “I’m a rightwing voter and I’m never voting left”. This time, he was armed with a case: Trump would be “better for the economy”. Though Key was prepared to admit that the former president’s proposed tariffs wouldn’t work, at least he wasn’t the radical leftist Kamala Harris. “She is well left of Joe Biden,” he suggested.
But enough of that, back to the helicopters – because Sam Hayes has agreed to go for a flight.
“Am I taking my life into my hands?” the broadcaster asked herself. “I was nervous – and it felt like an eternity on the tarmac.”
But then, relief. “And there we were, flying above Auckland’s North Shore,” said Hayes. “It was surreal.”
It really was.