"Good evening, this is RNZ. I have here with me the leader of the Labour Party, Fartoomuchpressure. He's here for his last interview before election day. I understand you're going into hiding for most of tomorrow?"
"Indeed, I am. After a long campaign, I'm looking forward to having a quiet day. Once the polls are closed, I'll be off to our post-election party."
"Are you confident already?"
"Oh, it's not that all. Regardless of the results, we'll be having a thing just to thank everyone who's played an important role in this election campaign."
"What are your thoughts on the election campaign so far?"
"I think it's a been a good campaign. It's been good to see a large number of active parties. We've had quite a competitive election, which is always great to have. I think it forces parties to really think about their message."
"Do you think that's a good thing?"
"Well, that's a good point. I think in the Labour Party it's made us have a look at ourselves and decide what we really want to achieve. I think it's driven the opposition misinformation. I think it's a really bad look for the National Party to be accusing us of having policies we don't have. I think they either have no idea what they're doing or they're deliberately lying to the public because they know it works."
"You're happy to accuse them of lying?"
"Well, to be frank, they're saying stuff that's untrue. They've talked about our supposed water tax and fuel tax. Neither of those are our current policy and they haven't been our policy for years. They're either lying or they haven't a clue what they're doing."
"Do you think this election is worse than previous elections when it comes to attack ads?"
"I think it's probably fair to say that. I think this election has definitely been worse than the last two. And, I mean, Labour isn't blameless, we've had our fair share of attacks on the opposition but I think to a certain extent we have to. I'm happy to call out other parties on policies I think will be detrimental to New Zealanders. What worries me is the level of misinformation we've seen. It's fine to call out other parties on bad policy, but lying and scaremongering are not OK."
"Do you think there's hope for political discourse in this country, or do you think it's going to all go down the drain?"
"I think there's definitely hope. We've had good elections and bad elections in our history. I think we'll see better elections in the future. What I do worry about is the omnipresence of sound bites in the media. No doubt there'll be something I've said this evening that gets pulled out of context. Snippets of interviews usually miss the nuances in a point that someone is making. They can be used to make something sound better or worse than it actually is. In a world where people are being bombarded with information they want quick, easy to digest solutions to problems. For a great many things, there isn't one."
"Are you saying that this leads people to think that everything can be fixed that easily?"
"Well, I don't think people are that stupid, but I think it fuels frustration. I remember as a young person looking at the telly and thinking that politicians were awfully slimy and that whenever they couldn't do something it was because they didn't want to. In reality, it's not that simple. Politicians have to be very careful about what they say and do, because things will be taken out of context."
"I'll stop you there, I'd just like to talk about policy for a moment before we finish. If you had to pick three policies to sum up your campaign, what would you choose?"
"Just as I talk about the oversimplification of policy in the media! Well, I think our most important policies are our policy to increase education funding through offering $200 per student if schools don't ask for donations. This will reduce the burden on parents and give schools more money at the same time. The second policy I'd choose is our policy to increase the rights of renters. Our laws surrounding renting are decades behind other countries with a similar proportion of renters. If renting is to be as common a thing in New Zealand as it's becoming, we need to update our laws. Finally, I'd pick our policies to modernise our transport system. Transport is such an important part of our lives and if we're going to fight climate change, improve the lives of our citizens and keep our way of life, we're going to need to move towards different forms of transport." "OK, thank you for your time."
"It's a pleasure being on."