Of all the would-bes stuck in minor party hell, the New Conservatives may be the horse that bolts on the back of opportunistic campaigning and culture wars. Alex Braae heads to the Bay of Plenty to watch their leader, Leighton Baker, in action.

Leighton Baker strode purposely up to the front of the room when his name was called, to polite applause. He had been introduced by the softly-spoken branch convenor for the New Conservative party in the Bay of Plenty. Taking the microphone, Baker surveyed the neat rows of plastic chairs in front of him, most of them full. 

“Can you all hear me?” he called out. He didn’t bother to speak into the mic, projecting a first impression of practical blokiness.

The party’s leader proceeded to speak without notes or amplification for more than an hour. He held the crowd with projection and presence, keeping them leaning forward slightly throughout. On a Wednesday afternoon in the Tauranga bible-belt suburb of Bethlehem, his speech had been punctuated by congregational murmurs. Later that night in the rural settlement of Oropi, he kept his audience warmed up with call and response tactics, and fun sized chocolate bars thrown to people who spoke up. About 100 were at the first meeting, and almost as many at the second. 

Baker’s style was more like an MC’s patter at a sports club awards night than the thunder of a demagogue. He promised that controversial subjects would be covered, and duly delivered. Guns, free speech, youth justice farms and prisons, sex education, 1080, Israel Folau. 

Above all, he stressed that people should be able to speak their minds. “If you disagree with them, it’s hate speech, and you’re not allowed to say it,” he exclaimed in disbelief about transgender people. He presented as the concerned, ‘common sense’ patriarch, wondering if everything was changing too fast. He described a “religion of sexuality sweeping through the nation” and worried that “it’s being forced on young people who have no idea what is going on”. 

The nods to some of the country’s recent culture wars were subtle but unmistakable. Baker doesn’t present himself as a culture warrior, rather an honest broker of the war itself. At both events, during a section on free speech, he paused slightly as if struggling to recall, before asking if anyone remembered “Stefan Molyneux and Lauren – what’s her name?” before it came back to him as Southern. One time he appeared to call her “Sutherland.” But it took him no time to remember the point he was making: people had a right to pay to see them speak.

In the 2017 election Leighton Baker was an utterly marginal figure, and almost nobody wanted to see him speak, paid or otherwise. There was no media interest in the Canterbury builder, business owner and former trades tutor who had risen to leader the same year. The Conservatives got basically no votes; their party had been shredded in the previous years by the various sagas around Colin Craig. Many in the party still seem quite bitter about what their former leader did to their hard work. But they’re getting a revenge of sorts, in that they’re growing again, and perhaps even finding a more stable footing.

That is clear in their level of relative competency so far, as a small organisation with no employees. There have been very few moments of the sort of ineptitude that often characterises minor parties. One exception was the recent decision to U-turn on a hardline policy against pornography, which followed an outcry from supporters on Facebook howling nanny state. The New Conservatives at least were smart enough to recast the backdown as listening to the people.

The abandonment of the Conservative Party moniker Colin Craig launched the party under wasn’t immediately successful either. When it was announced midway through last year the New Conservatives’ only real presence was around Canterbury and in Auckland, where leader Leighton Baker and deputy leader Elliot Ikilei are based respectively. 

The rebranded New Conservative Party arguably still hasn’t been successful in any way that indicates electoral success is likely. But they do now have 35 electorates covered by committees, with convenors and teams out volunteering. The party doesn’t release membership numbers, but based on rough figures given by party secretary Kevin Stitt, it could be estimated at around 1000-1500 members, more than enough to clear the Electoral Commission’s hurdle of 500 members for registration. They have an increasingly sophisticated organisation, and a growing programme of active campaigning that is starting to result in stirrings in the polls. They have pamphlets to hand out and drink bottles with logos on them. It’s a functioning party again.

An insight into their growth in membership can be found in the story behind the party’s biggest recent single-day spike in member registrations this year. Elliot Ikilei, a prolific user of Twitter, was temporarily locked of his account for tweeting “‘Trans women’ are men with dysphoria/disorder, to be treated with compassion and tolerance.” It could be seen as trolling or bullying, in that it attacked the very foundation of identity for a group of people while also appearing to be supportive. The party didn’t see it like that, with Kevin Stitt insisting it was purely “a free speech issue”.  

While it wasn’t reflected in the attendance at either of the meetings held in the Bay of Plenty, Stitt told me a quarter of new people joining are between 18-30, which could reflect the party’s aggressive social media strategy is working. The style relies heavily on memes, but the content is much more fervent and fearful than what other parties tend to produce. Recent examples included dire warnings of more crime because of the gun buyback, and the promise to be on the “front lines” of the “battle for life” coming around abortion. Stitt says the latter issue remains a rallying cry for conservative young people.

Stitt is one of many volunteers who have been around since the party was formed; others have come back now the party has recovered its mojo. They’re battle-hardened old hands like Bay of Plenty convenor Norman Sutton. He left in the Craig fallout, and told me in Oropi it was probably for the best the party fell short of the 5% threshold in 2014. Now he’s back in the fold. Sutton organised the two-day tour of his region for the leader, including six different events. Turns out, a surprising number of people want to hear what Leighton Baker has to say, even if he’s the leader of a party that has been given almost no chance of success.

So who are the New Conservative believers? In standard demographic terms, those who turned out in Bethlehem and Oropi were older and whiter than the general population. Many seemed to be of the view that their ideas were shared by the majority of the people in the country, and that these ideas were simply common sense.

It may have just been because it was Tauranga, where the MP used to be Winston Peters, but many at the meetings seemed to be disgruntled NZ First voters. That was certainly the impression given by my very informal and unscientific polling. Among the audience, the New Conservative policy of binding citizen-initiated referenda went down very well – in fact, the issue was what Baker opened with. Many people there seemed to feel let down by Peters, and the policy was pitched as a way for the people to put a leash on any and every unpopular government decision. 

The New Conservatives are moving in on a lot of policy turf formerly held by NZ First. They were among the groups opposed to the UN Migration Pact, using it as a wedge issue to attract those disappointed with Winston Peters’ defence of it. They’ve also adopted much of the ‘one people’ type positioning around Māori and the Treaty of Waitangi’s place in New Zealand, which used to be a reliably easy issue for Peters to campaign on. Among the more recent recruits to the party’s board is Casey Costello, who was the co-spokesperson for race-relations assimilationist group Hobson’s Pledge alongside Don Brash. Costello was at the Bethlehem meeting, and told me that even though enthusiasm within the party hadn’t yet been widely picked up, “something big is happening”, and that parties in parliament should be nervous. In contrast to Costello, the volatile former rugby executive David Moffett is no longer involved, after briefly serving on the board.

Three conversations stood out as reflections of who was there, and the types of constituencies being targeted. The first was with Paul, a member of the Rotorua Pistol Club who was at both events. He is a sport-shooter, and was furious about the gun control measures put in by the government in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks, because of a lack of exemptions for competitors. Previously a relatively apolitical soft-National voter, he says New Conservative’s stance against the buyback had led him to giving them a go.

The second, in Bethlehem, was with Margaret, a devout Christian who had been to Uganda almost a dozen times for missionary work. With shining eyes, she testified to her views on the harm of abortion and sex education in schools, beseeching the country to turn back towards conservative Christian values. There was no avarice or guile to her calls; she was a true believer.

The third was with a young guy who had driven from Hamilton for the meeting in Oropi. He had lived for a few years in Samoa and Singapore, and was utterly dismissive of the understanding that ‘liberals’ had of other cultures. I suggested to him that a lot of New Conservative policy seemed to boil down to a culture of support for traditional, patriarchal families, and he responded by suggesting it only seemed like that to me because that wasn’t my culture, and that the numbers were with him.

That sense of different segments not being able to understand each other culturally will be crucial to the party’s prospects in 2020. One of the highest profile media moments the party has had this year was when Leighton Baker joined the hosts of The Project to discuss homophobic rugby player Israel Folau. To some conservative viewers, it looked like more like a mugging than an interview: a bunch of TV celebrities ganging up on an honest bloke talking about free speech. To many other viewers, it looked like a defence of the indefensible. TVNZ talk shows regularly feature Elliot Ikilei; hard-right blog Whaleoil described a recent visit as “members of the condescending panel laughing at him and trying to dismiss his views. It was very much three against one.” Any impression of a silent majority being talked down to by a liberal elite suits the New Conservative strategy perfectly. 

Ironically, thanks to the profile boost that comes with more media scrutiny, the New Conservatives could actually gain support, rather than lose it. Take, for example, their position on climate change. At both meetings, Leighton Baker asked the crowd if anyone seriously thought people could control the climate; across both of them only one person called out to say yes. Baker then ridiculed the system of carbon credits, saying the costs of sea level rises could be mitigated simply by building houses on higher piles. It was an utterly anti-scientific position to take, but in relation to New Conservative’s wider strategy, that doesn’t matter. They don’t need the votes of people concerned about climate change, but could certainly do with the votes of climate change deniers and sceptics.

They still see two viable paths to get into parliament. The first is simple – crack 5% in the party vote – and at the moment the party is seeking donations to support a push for an eye-wateringly ambitious 20%. As well as that, Kevin Stitt indicated that Botany is a seat they’re looking at running to win in, with the possibility that Elliot Ikilei could appeal to voters turned off by sitting MP Jami-Lee Ross. The former is obviously a more realistic plan.

An accommodation with National seems distinctly unlikely, as the major party hasn’t shown any public appetite to embrace a wholly independent potential coalition partner, preferring instead to float the idea of list MP Alfred Ngaro setting up his own vehicle. As well as that, Destiny Church’s Hannah Tamaki showed no interest in anything other than absorbing New Conservative, when she was asked about working together at the launch of her Coalition NZ party. They’ll also be contending with the history of conservative parties in New Zealand quickly hitting a low ceiling of voter support, and the 5% threshold itself. 

Regardless, the New Conservatives now look certain to be a serious presence on the campaign trail between now and the next election. The scale of their organisation now means an effective unknown can draw a crowd to political rallies on a wintry weekday night. Leighton Baker made a virtue of not requiring a microphone at these events. But if his party’s voice continues to grow, that will almost certainly need to change.

Kris Faafoi sits down with The Spinoff’s managing editor to discuss all that bedevils a rowdy sector with big problems and high expectations.

After months of trying, the new broadcasting minister Kris Faafoi finally arrived at The Spinoff’s offices for an interview in early March. It was 4pm on Friday, and we drank a beer and had what they call a robust discussion. Then, for a long time, I forgot about the interview. Just shy of a week later came the atrocity in Christchurch, which became the only story for weeks, and which still hangs heavy in the air.

I mention this to explain the span between the conversation and publication, but also to underline that this conversation happened before we knew as much as we do now about what social media can do. Its values, and how it responds to extreme stress. 

It’s important to note, because a significant part of this interview covers social media, and the way government interacts with it. Faafoi’s comments need to be understood in the context of a man who, like all but one of the rest of us, didn’t know what was coming. 

The remainder of the interview largely concerns the government’s relationship with traditional media. Whether that’s through regulation, its advertising spend, the entities it owns or entirely funds, or those it uses as a vehicle to further other public good goals. 

That reality has changed too. When we first spoke, the owners of Stuff were  asking for expressions of interest – this week we found out it had not found a buyer. Sky’s shares lost double digits, before coming back slightly. Three announced a local version of the megabudget megahit Love Island NZ, before postponing it indefinitely due to the advertising market. The Herald put up a paywall.

All of which is to say that the case for government intervention within both social media and media has gotten stronger by the day. But his responses about the macro and micro of the current media market remain very interesting, in terms of what he does and doesn’t say. And, given that he deferred a number of questions until Budget 2019 – which turned out to contain nothing of substance – I followed up with a number of questions in July. This industry’s expectations were raised by his predecessor, and this is the year of delivery. Will media get what it was promised?

The below has been edited for length and clarity.

Duncan Greive: Could you start by telling in a broad sense me what you think the government’s role in media should be.

Kris Fa’afoi: To ensure that there’s exciting, fresh, informative news and content. I think in a world where we are being bombarded with content from all corners, some of it of questionable quality, public media becomes more important. I think we’ve also got a responsibility to make sure that there’s – using Commerce Commission speak – plurality in the market to make sure that flourishing commercial sector as well. 

The stewardship of the likes of Radio New Zealand, TVNZ, Māori TV, Iwi Stations, community access broadcasters, all those things that are funded by the public purse are important in that.

In terms of that list that you reeled off, they’re all government controlled or largely government funded entities. I think the thing that is interesting about it is that none of them are natively digital. TVNZ is probably the most advanced, but it’s still far from its core. So for all of the wholly government funded or owned entities, digital can feel even now like something of an afterthought.

Yeah but I could say that of all traditional media outlets in New Zealand. If you look at NZME or Stuff, they all came out of a newspaper background and I think in some way or another they’re grappling with the challenge of digital. And I think that is an inherent challenge for the public and private entities is: how do you make a buck if you’re commercial and how do you reach a market that is where the consumption is marketing different to what it was even three or four years ago?

But the private entities that you just listed are a lot more advanced digitally. Put another way, for those who consume traditional media, the government is there, giving them what they want where they want it. That other half of the population tends to be younger, more diverse, certainly not as wealthy, and much more online. Is reaching them something the government’s concerned about?

If you’re looking at TVNZ, I think they put a lot of effort into their OnDemand platform. They will probably admit to that in the news and space that they’re obviously don’t have as many sets of eyes as the likes of Stuff and NZME. Radio New Zealand has traditionally been a radio broadcaster and is branching out and doing more. And I think that’s the challenge for them – to do more.

I’ll repeat the question, because I don’t know if you answered it, do you think the government is doing enough to bridge what does look like a democratic deficit for the most vulnerable audience?

We need to do more. That’s, I think, the broad answer to the question. Some of that is because I think the likes of Radio New Zealand had their funding frozen for nine years, so standing still was their priority and not going backwards. And we were able to put a little bit more funding into New Zealand on Air and Radio New Zealand in the last budget. And the challenge for us is to give them some of the capacity to do more, and hopefully we’ll have some news on that as we get closer to the budget.

I think the challenge that [government owned media] has got is working more collaboratively together. I think if you look at TVNZ, the collaboration with Spark. That’s probably a useful way of doing things in the future too.

Do you think the pace of transition to digital is appropriate? Would you like to think it will accelerate?

I do have an opinion that it’s going to accelerate, because that’s where the eyes are headed. The comments that I’ve made is that if you look at the way that the next generation is consuming their media, it’s not traditional media. It’s predominantly online. And whether it be children’s or factual or news and current affairs or drama, how do you shift that across? And on what platform do you do that? Because if you don’t do it right, then the content’s going to get dispersed across a whole lot of platforms and it may not get watched.

Looking at this from another angle, there are obviously a number of vehicles you could use to try and reach this new audience where it lives. You could fire up RNZ or TVNZ. You could say NZ on Air has historically been our vehicle for solving this type of problem. Do you have an instinct around which should help with that challenge?

I think the NZ on Air funding model doesn’t necessarily have to transition too much from what it has been in the past to go to more digital content. It has funded news and current affairs, drama, comedy in the past for private media companies. And I’m sure we’ll do in the future as well. Concentrating that all into a public broadcaster hasn’t been the way that we’ve done it in the past.

A criticism that Michael Anderson, MediaWorks CEO, has made is that TVNZ effectively delivers artificially low profits in a way that hurts its private sector competitor in Three. And it’s able to act much more strategically than a company that has to deliver a rational return on capital. Do you have sympathy for that perspective?

Michael would say that. But TVNZ face the same commercial challenges, around advertising, that the likes of MediaWorks and other media companies do. So their revenue has only just bounced back in the last couple of years.

I think they have more of a remit around public broadcasting to a degree than MediaWorks does as well. So there’s a cost or a strategy within their operation that Michael wouldn’t have to deal with either. But I’ve also heard his concern around the market becoming even more crowded when consolidation is probably going to be the name of the game over the next two or three years.

On consolidation, the Commerce Commission has had two potential mergers in the past couple of years and it’s turned them both down. Do you think its understanding of media in this area remains up to the challenge?

They’re an independent regulator. I think from a business sense and a plurality sense, they obviously felt that the merger [referring to Stuff-NZME] was going to concentrate too much power in one media entity.

Say Stuff were to disintegrate or disappear – which is not entirely impossible – would government step in? That’s the equivalent in a digital sense of a TVNZ falling over.

But I think asking whether the government is going to step in is the last question. Because we still don’t know. Any talk of government intervention, I think is extremely premature.

Take it as a hypothetical. If credible buyers don’t emerge, or if NZME is actually the only plausible purchaser of a majority of those assets, then would it allow that?

I’m just not going to entertain that hypothetical when the market is still going to do it’s thing. Is plurality important? Yes. But I don’t know which other player in the media market might be interested in buying Stuff. So the talk of government intervention I don’t think would be the right thing to do.

[Author’s note: bids for Stuff were this week judged ‘below fair value’ by its owners, who now say they plan to retain it]

Turning towards the tech sector and its role in the media, there’s a journalist I know who’s got a lot of OIA’s in with government departments to find out how much they’re spending with Facebook and Google.

Yep yep. I know the one.

Your gut says it’s probably a pretty bloody big number. Facebook don’t even pay GST in New Zealand. Google have just breached a suppression order. They create no content of their own. Yes this is an efficient way to reach a difficult to reach audience, but equally these are a big part of the destabilising of New Zealand media. 

Yeah, I don’t necessarily want the government taking the blame for – 

It’s not about taking the blame.

No but I know what the question is. I’d be interested to see what the government spend on advertising as opposed to the private spent on advertising but –

But the private sector doesn’t have to answer to the public to the same extent.

Yes but how much of the percentage of advertising is the private sector? That’s my point. I think the government will play a part in the percentage of advertising revenue, but it’s not everything.

Certainly there is some concern around YouTube, the government department spending on advertising there has been pulled back. 

So there is a precedent. 

And that’s what I’m saying. Because it’s for socially responsible reasons, the funding was pulled. I don’t think we’ve done a massive assessment on the amount of funding or advertising that government departments have spent on the likes of Google and Facebook.

Should you have?

It hasn’t been done.

But should you?

Well we could look into it.

But will you?

Well we might do. But I think the issue here is that if you look at the private spend and the government spend, the government spend probably wouldn’t be the bulk of what has happened. So the market has moved.

Absolutely not, but the market or the private sector has nothing like the same level of obligation to its citizenry than the government does. And irrespective of the collective size of the private sector, the collective size of the government would dwarf any other entity.

I understand the point you’re making.

These are nearly entirely unregulated, or unimagined by a lot of the law.

Yes I think we’ve already started making some moves and trying to make sure that there’s some responsibility on the likes of Google and Facebook to pay some tax in New Zealand and I think you should probably take that as a –

But even setting aside tax. In the mid-’90s, around the world, there were a series of laws which have been collectively known as safe harbour, which essentially allowed things which weren’t imagined at the time, which is the likes of Google and Facebook. You go to the home page of Facebook or the home page of The Spinoff, they’re not a million miles apart, but one of those actors has a huge number of roles and responsibilities imposed on it, and one doesn’t. Do you think that that’s still appropriate given that Facebook made a US$6.9b profit on US$17b revenue last quarter?

And that’s why we’re moving on issues around the copyright act and so on. That review’s still ongoing. So I don’t have an answer for you here right now, but you’re not the first person to obviously raise safe harbour issues with us.

Do you have a personal perspective on that?

No I don’t because the copyright review is underway.

What about sort of defamation, hate speech, cyber bullying, all of the other cool stuff that happens on the internet where Facebook can effectively say well it’s not our problem. Because it’s not just copyright. Copyright in some ways is a very minor part of the problem.

But the suppression orders is another good example with Google. And I think you can lump this into the issues that we’ve got with Viagogo and ticket scalping.

Are we likely to see more in that direction where some of the restraints and costs that are imposed on New Zealand’s private sector media and other entities can at the very least begin to restrain some of these overseas actors?

I’ll phrase it this way. You’ll probably see a lot more concern and action from us than you saw from the previous government.

In terms of your predecessor, Clare Curran had a plan, which was part of the Labour manifesto for a TV channel called RNZ plus. What’s the status of that?

We’ve just recently got some advice from the ministerial advisory group, which I won’t go into too much detail, because we’re still going through some policy discussions to see what is the best place for our public media assets given what’s happening in the wider environment.

Going back to my opening comments, what I’m concerned about and what am I excited about, is making sure content is available that is quintessentially New Zealand. I don’t know that would be too different than what a passionate broadcasting minister would have said 10 or 15 years ago. The difference is how that is delivered.

So RNZ plus. Has it been shelved?

I wouldn’t call it shelved. But what we’ve got is fresh advice from the ministerial advisory group about what are some options that they think that we can look at.

And is RNZ plus one of those options? 

I’m not going to talk about the options. I think because it’s important for us to think all of those through.

When are you likely to finish thinking?

That’s a good question. I don’t want to give you a time frame there, it literally has been delivered in the last couple of weeks. And it’s a lot to think through. So again, there will have to be plenty of conversations.

This year?

I would hope that it could be done this year. Because I think given what else is happening in the media, we need to see a pretty clear direction.

Historically when New Zealand Air was set up, part of the motivation was that without this funding, some things that we consider very important like drama, like comedy wouldn’t otherwise exist. Given that journalism has suffered a significant diminishing of the numbers of people employed, is there a case for funding more of that?

Yes there is. That’s my trade. That’s not the reason why I made the decisions. But I fundamentally think that the fourth estate is important for our democracy. Radio New Zealand and other media entities are looking at how they can protect and grow some local journalism at the moment. 

That’s the public sector, but the private sector is where the loss has been. 

But if they are working with other private media companies to see how they can partner up.

That’s not the same thing as replacing 1,000 private sector journalists. That’s just providing a little bit of supplementary content.

Well, it’s not a bad first effort.

It’s not a bad first effort, but would you say that there is likely to be more of an effort, and it wouldn’t necessarily be strictly within RNZ?

I said to MediaWatch earlier this year that I am keen to make sure that we fundamentally have a strong media. And I think a lot of pushing that came from MediaWatch was that that should be housed within Radio New Zealand.

Colin would say that. Just as I would say that it should be within The Spinoff.

Publicly funded journalism has been delivered by Radio New Zealand, TVNZ, Māori TV and others, but it’s also been delivered by the likes of MediaWorks with The Nation.

So that’s not new thinking. And I think that should continue in the future. 

When we talk about sets of eyes, I believe New Zealand Air does the best and most interesting research published on the media. It does it every two years. Nielsen publishes every day, but Nielsen is funded by and has its parameters set by the industry which it’s surveying. TV is effectively signing off on its own accounts. 

I’ve not heard it put that way, but yeah.

So when the government is making these decisions about where the eyes are, where the audiences are, what is it basing them on? 

I take a lot of weight over those audience numbers that New Zealand on Air put out. Because they’re not necessarily looking at the audience for commercial reasons, you know what I mean?

I can read the tea leaves on where the sets of eyes going. Our challenge is moving from a setting where almost nothing was done to move with the sets of eyes, to do you just want to meet with them, or do you lead the sets of eyes to the different viewing patterns?

When television first started, it’s 1960, there are fuck all TV sets. The shows were very expensive to make. The government led there. The government said, ‘We believe that this thing is coming. We’re going to put down roots. We’re going to build this thing out.’ They were investing for the future. There has been none of that kind of vision or leadership at any point during the digital era.

Yet. Yet. You’ve got to keep an eye on things that are moving all the time and making sure that the timing is right.

The timing wasn’t right in 1960. They had to build it ahead.

I think comparing that change and transition to this change and transition is different.

How?

Because back then we could control everything that people could see.

But we didn’t have anything like the technological penetration we do now.

So they weren’t fighting, a rather large way, the content coming from elsewhere and the platforms.

We’re not fighting it right now, really. We’re just sort of letting it happen. 

You got kids?

Yeah.

And what are they watching?

They’re not watching any New Zealand content. I mean Hei Hei’s wicked but they watch Netflix and Lightbox, neither of which can be funded by New Zealand on Air.

That’s what I mean. That’s what they’re fighting.

If Netflix were to get a 70 percent market share here, and the audiences for free to air dwindled to the point where it’s so inefficient to continue to fund it there, would you fund behind a paywall?

No, because I still think there is still a gap in the market for us to do something for ourselves that it is quintessentially Kiwi.

But what if the audience continues to radically move?

I don’t think we’re quite at the point. I still think there’s still the ability for us to do something that is quintessentially Kiwi and –

But could you do something quintessentially Kiwi with Netflix?

I don’t think we’re at that point yet. 

Okay. So what’s your favourite New Zealand content? Give me a week in the consumption of Kris Faafoi when you don’t have all of your portfolios on.

I’ve woken up on an automatic setting to listen to Morning Report for probably the last 20 years. And then I’ll switch on the telly and watch breakfast TV.

Which one?

Both.

Yeah?

Predominantly the AM Show. Because I know what I’ll be fighting during the day after that. But then unfortunately not much after that. I’ve got a 20 month old boy. I like going onto YouTube and watching the Mo Show with him.

And what else do you like. You’ve got to give me more.

I’m a bit old fuddy duddy. So I’m a big New Zealand music fan, but probably from about 15, 20 years ago. So I listen to a lot of Neil Finn and Crowded House which was probably cool about 10 or 15 years ago, but not so much anymore.

What else? 

See I’m not a content snob.

Do you watch reality television?

Yes.

Come on then, what?

I’m not telling you.

Do you watch Married at First Sight Australia?

I’ve been known to watch it.

What do you think of the whole Bronson and Ines situation?

Shocking. And she got what she deserved. What else? 7 Days, if I’m kind of watching TV on a Friday night, but there’s not much time for that any Moreover. What I’m really, one of the KPIs for me is going to be children’s content.

And that’s interesting. So Hei Hei is such a cool idea. They had a fuckload of downloads. I don’t know what it’s actual usage rates are. I hope it’s working. If it’s not, if it turns out that the best way to do it is to sort of somehow work with YouTube – are you open to it?

Well that’s what the Mo Show has done. And it’s accessible for parents like me.