 Are you on the RCR mailing list? Never miss a beat of the news and hard-hitting stories you've come to know and love. Stay in the loop. Visit realitycheck.radio.com forward slash e-mail. Fletcher Tabato is a former teacher and lecturer who turned his mind to politics with New Zealand First, serving two terms before exiting Parliament in 2020. He's now turned to the dark side and works as a lobbyist. Let's see if we can get an understanding about the dark arts of lobbying. He joins me now. Fletcher Tabato, welcome to The Crunch. Thanks, man. Good to be here. Now, you were a teacher and economics lecturer, a former MP. And now you've turned to the dark side. You're a lobbyist. I have been all those things. And yes, I am that. A lot of the listeners get their views on lobbyists from the mainstream media, who almost entirely malign the very work that you guys do. Yeah, someone like me, who's involved in politics, you know, deeply and has been for decades, understands how lobbying works and what can be achieved with lobbying that things like, you know, petitions and signature gathering and public speeches and that can't deliver. So I'd like to explore a little bit about what a lobbyist does and and and to pop that balloon of this perception that lobbyists are these dark, evil, money hungry sort of people, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, that's yeah, it's a nice topic to cover. So yeah, thanks for thanks for going there. Happy to help. Yeah, so so tell us what a lobbyist does. Well, I suppose if you start with because they've asked the Ministry of Justice to help, you know, set some standards in New Zealand's lobby industry over the last maybe as long as a year it's been. I haven't been a lot of only been a lobbyist for about three weeks. So I don't know the history there. But the Ministry of Justice says it's the practice of engaging in advocacy activities to influence policies and decisions. It takes many forms from phone calls to text to a beer or a coffee and maybe even an online media campaign or probably more likely a formal office meeting and that pretty much blandly sums it up. The reality is what I have been seeing and when you consider the new composition of government, we've got a lot of new Ministers there. We've got some amazing experience, but actually we've got new Ministers who don't know their portfolios with any level of detail. I'm not maligning them. It's just the way allocations of ministries go to these new Cabinet Ministers and probably more significantly, you've got a whole lot of new staff. I know all the parties in the House are struggling to find good people to staff their offices with senior advisers, researchers, media and comms people. So I see it quite frankly as acting on behalf of a client to basically educate the government or the minister or his staff and actually say, look, these are the decisions you're thinking about. Did you know that if you do this, this or this, then these things are going to happen and it's literally an education campaign and making them aware of the implications in the real world of the decisions they're making. And so it's critically important, no matter who you are in terms of engaging with government, you've got to make sure they actually know what the hell's going on. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing that I've explained to people about lobbying and there's a perception that ministers know everything about the departments that they're the ministers of. But as I point out to many people, ministers are often ministers in multiple departments and of disparate types of areas as well. So if you look at like Judith Collins, for example, the new attorney general, we know what that role entails. It's looking at all the laws that the government is looking at enacting, making sure it's consistent with the Bill of Rights Act, all of that sort of thing. But on top of that, she's also got the Ministry of Defense. She's also the minister responsible for GCSB and the SIS. And those are completely different to the disciplines required for being an attorney general. And so you've got the you've got people who are in positions where they may not know things. And, you know, a good example of this is the pandemic, right? People said, oh, if only we had had national in charge. And I said, what makes you think that they'd have done anything different? And I said, well, you know, they believe this and they believe that. I said, yeah, the problem is, is that with the pandemic, it's outside the area of expertise, except maybe for Shane Reedy. But they would have asked the same advisors and the same advisors would have been there and given the same advice. Yeah. And that is the problem that there is with ministers and and advisers is that ministers who aren't that sharp rely on their advisers. And if their advisers are wonky, then the advice is wonky. It's not even about being sharp, Cam. It's about you intimated before it's about time management. So if you've got people coming into your office and purporting to be the experts on behalf of an industry or, you know, whatever policy matters involved and you sit down, take it in, then that's your exposure to whatever the policy issue might be. And so that's that's what you're listening to. You know, when you speak about Judith Collins, think of her spaceport folio now. She must be quite excited to have their portfolio. I don't I don't have any clients in the space sector, but you can imagine now's the time to say to, you know, if you were in that sector, God, we should get in front of Judith Collins and just tell her what we do and how exciting it is to be able to launch one of the 11 countries in the world to be able to launch rockets into space, you know, from New Zealand and all the amazing secondary business that creates, never mind the core business itself. You know, it's an amazing story to tell. And really, and truly, that's what you want your minister to know about and their staff so that they ideally are as passionate as you are about what you're doing. I mean, that's if you look at Judith Collins, and you can also look at Winston Peters, for example, Malcolm Gladwell, the author, popularized the idea that someone needs to spend 10,000 hours at something to become an expert. They've certainly got 10,000 hours at governance in terms of ministers. They're incredibly competent in in what they're going to do. But you're right. And you highlighted there's a whole lot of new ministers who haven't had any of the sort of governance exposure, not even close to 10,000 hours. And and they're responsible for very serious decision making processes and therefore they have to rely on those staff and and advisers that they've done their 10,000 hours and there's a good chance they haven't either. So I was talking to an association yesterday and basically all I was saying is because their experience in this specific area is that the officials always push back. They might even concede points and and acknowledge what you're saying. But then they push back and nothing seems to happen. And that's that's the policy wants within the ministries. So so the conversation was very much about, well, get good data, get good information, package it up. So it's simple, but impactful so that we can potentially get in front of a minister so that they actually understand what it is their staff and advisers are coming to tell them. And hopefully be able to push back, have a little bit of wisdom and a little bit of understanding of those deeper issues to go. No, no, no, hold on, hold on. That's not my understanding. Now, if you're a new minister with even one portfolio, but more than one, your inclination is going to be all about time management, because I don't think people out there understand just how crazy a politician's day is. You know, I started at eight every morning and I wouldn't finish. Well, I do people know that the bells don't ring till 10 o'clock. And that's actually when you're allowed to leave the premises. So you pretty much trapped in Parliament from eight when you start till 10 o'clock at night. And, you know, 10 o'clock wasn't necessarily the home time. And I was an undersecretary, not a not a full minister. And my workload was continuous and huge. So it's going to be a lot about time management. So you have to be very, very conscious of that as well. You can't overload these people when you have to be supportive and try and work with their team just as much as themselves. You know, what you're saying about the policy wonks within departments, that's certainly a case in any areas that I'm, you know, passionate about. I collect firearms and I'm a shooter and a hunter and all of those sorts of things. And so watching the government make laws around firearms without actually knowing raw data and then watching them rely upon the police to give them information that that that is demonstrably false. The basic premise, for example, of behind the gun register is that there's a whole bunch of people out there that are doing what the police call straw buying the legitimate firearms owners, they're going and buying guns and then they're on selling them to criminals. A whole lot of people. Geez, I'd be surprised if there was more than a handful. Well, that's the thing, right? So so the police tell the politicians this is dreadful. This is how gangs are getting guns. This is what we need to do to stop it. And the solution is a gun register. Of course, it won't stop it, stop criminals getting guns. But the basic premise of it is the police can only provide two examples of this happening. And there were such egregious examples that they got caught without having a gun register, kind of destroying the whole premise of the argument of the police that we need to have a gun register to catch these guys because, well, we caught these guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the reality is it's very hard to do that. But the police as experts, you know, that advise the minister and advise cabinet mislead the politicians who are making the decisions. But it's the politicians who have to wear the anathema from the shooting community when they pass silly laws that are never going to do what they've intended to do because they were given wrong information to start. Yeah, that that's exactly where it is. And and and sometimes it's with the best will in the world. But just as equally the amount of stories I've heard recently of policy people who just have a personal beat and and they control information flow into the minister's office and then they control the flow back from minister's instruction from that office into the ministry. You know, there's a million different ways you can interpret different instructions. And so it can be a dangerous situation. I don't think anyone anyone's been particularly malicious. But if it doesn't suit a particular personality, I know of cases where it's been interpreted to suit their, you know, their own actual agenda rather than the government, which will probably see quite a lot of over the next year or so as well. We're already seeing it, aren't we? Because lobbyists aren't people just people like you who do it for a job. They could be vested interests in, you know, any different sectors. Say in a classic example of what we're seeing of some lobbying going on now directly using the media as a conduit is all of this opposition to the new government's policy to wind back the silly low nicotine tobacco and all of the restrictions that they were going to do to remove stores selling illegal product. But the pushback that's coming from that are people like Boyd Swinburne, who I've interacted with before. They've got this thing called the Health Alliance. They issue press releases that get, you know, basically word for word verbatim turned into news articles. And they create this perception that the public is outraged at these law changes when the reality is as most people don't care. No, I get the impression myself that most people don't care. Most people realize it's just that rolling time table and everything else is pretty much staying the same. So yeah, it's just crazy, really. Now, your your firm that you're you work for has got some an interesting cast of characters. Yes, some awesome people in here. Yeah, I mean, there's people that I've had gone head to head with and and dust ups. That's part of the game of politics. But it takes all types. But the person that interests me the most in your firm is Mike Monroe, because he used to be an advisor to Helen Clark. Yeah, yeah. And when he left, and this is my observation, I don't know if it's right or not. Maybe you can go and have a chat with them and say, this is Cam's impression. When he left working for Helen Clark, the wheels fell off her direction. And it was the beginning of the end of her because my impression and what I've heard from about Mike Monroe is that he was quite willing to push back against Helen Clark if she had a silly idea or something wasn't practical. And that that struck me as a person with integrity that was prepared to not just say, yes, minister, you know, like the TV program. In your experience, is that is that a rare commodity that there'll be somebody who does push back inside the office with the minister? And and do you then now that you're on the outside, do you try and find who those people are because they can be good advocates for what you're you're trying to achieve? That's a really good question. So my personal experience was that I created a high level of trust in my office. And so the team knew that if they thought I was being a dick or I was personally heading down the wrong path, they could absolutely push back. But you can imagine some ministers with massive egos being quite fragile about that and quite not wanting to have that kind of pushback in their own space. So I bet you it's a personal thing. And yeah, I think you're being on like I've only been doing this like three weeks and and actually all parties are struggling to find stuff, as I said. So I think it's going to be a long term kind of get to know the people in Parliament, get to know the officers and and the ministers and, you know, understand who's actually willing to listen because what most people seem to think is a lobbyist can go on and just tell a minister what to do. It just doesn't work. It doesn't. It doesn't work like that. So you've got to build relationships and you've got to get to know people and understand where they're coming from. And and sometimes you just have to simply tell a client that's just not going to happen. You know, you're pushing the proverbial up. Yeah, I mean, I have been known to do some lobbying in the past most often it's a it's a love job that I don't charge for it. But sometimes people come to me and say, look, can can can you get this in front of a minister or can you get this in front of an MP? And can you make this happen? And you're right, you have to sometimes sit back and say, well, I'd love to take your money and tell you that I'm going to do all of this. Yeah. Yeah. But this is reality and that's not going to fly. And sometimes they just like can't believe that this is the case. Hang on. You know, you know these people, I said, yeah, I know them. Yeah. But I don't think that's an idea that's going to fly. In fact, I might be friends with them, but it probably gives me more certainty in telling you that they're going to look at me, go cross-eyed and tell me to get out of the office. The one thing that and this is I was giving some advice to somebody over breakfast yesterday, they came to me and they said, look, I've got this problem, I'm going to write this letter and this is what I'm going to do. Can you have a look at it for me? So I had a look at the letter was very lengthy. I looked at who he was intending to send it to. And I said, well, this is all nice, this letter, but it doesn't give any solutions. And they said, what do you mean? I said, well, these guys are ministers. If you don't give them a solution or a range of solutions, an option A and option B and option C with all of the things like you just said earlier, this is what could happen if you do this and this is what will happen if you do that. And those if you don't present those as options and make it easy for them to choose one of those options, which you'll be happy with any of those, then they're going to take that letter. They'll probably file it. Maybe they'll ask a couple of people in the office who are advisors to say, what do you think we should do on this? And if those advisors are exercised in that area, they may think up something to do or not to do. But invariably, the status quo prevails, which is do nothing. Yeah, at least at least if you're going to produce solution. My advice to people always when you're going and talking to a minister, present them with a problem and then present them with a range of solutions so that they can choose one. And if you don't do that, then you're just going to have lots of meetings that go nowhere. Yes, so you're being on the money. And the only thing I would add to that is if you've got a variety of solutions at the very least in my own experience, I would send the team away. So go down to our ministry advisors and tell them to give me some responses to these three or four scenarios that have been provided here so that I can understand and actually start making some informed decisions. And maybe then you pick one and start following that path. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. You're absolutely right. I remember filing a multitude of just letters complaining. Mind you, they weren't normally to me as a minister. They were normally to me as the deputy leader. And so they weren't in my particular purview to be able to do anything about except have a discussion with some of the team and then they get get filed away. So yeah, provide provided scenarios, provide answers. Yeah. Yeah. One of your roles, according to Wikipedia, I mean, I'm not sure it's true because it's on Wikipedia. One of your roles in the last year has been training candidates for New Zealand First to get them ready for A, being an MP and B, the possibility of ministers. Are you pretty pleased with the result that New Zealand First achieved at the election? Yeah, I'm personally stoked. I still have a passion for New Zealand First and its people. And we've got some new people on the team there. And we've got some cabinet ministers. We've got ministers outside of cabinet and we've got some undersecretaries. So there's there's a raft of responsibilities being handed out there, which is, you know, it's it's incredible, really. So yes, I was part of the team that was training not only our candidates, but when they got into Wellington, I came down and ran some sessions with the new MPs as well. So yeah, that was that was a lot of fun. Of the the new MPs, you know, obviously, we've got Winston and Shane sitting in there with vast experience of governance and how Parliament operates. There's a whole bunch of new people, obviously, Jenny Markroff's back again. He's got a little bit of experience. Mark Patterson's back again. Mark Patterson's back. Casey Costello would have to be the standout, though, wouldn't she? I think so. I think there's been a lot of a lot of the wrong. The wrong word is hype, but there's been a lot of talk around Casey. Now, obviously, I've worked with her now and seen her operate. I think people can tell that she's she's a deep thinker. She's quite considerate. And then when she does speak, she's actually very articulate and considered in what she says. So yeah, I personally and so that she's being allocated some ministerial and associate ministerial roles. So I think we'll see some great outcomes there, particularly in seniors, for example. Yeah, I mean, I've interviewed her twice on the crunch. Both times she impressed me immensely with the depth of knowledge and just the core common sense that exists within her. And, you know, you see that coming out in comments from Shane Jones, for example, on Tuesday, when, you know, Casey's making those same things. There's a lot of comment around at the moment from Maori or purporting to speak for all Maori, representing all Maori, even though they're going to got 3 percent of the half of what New Zealand first got in less than half of what Act got. There's accusations that the new government is racist. Yeah. And yet 35 percent of of the cabinet Maori, it's the highest ever level of Maori as cabinet ministers in the cabinet. And it's almost not mentioned at all. Because there seems to be a perception that these are the wrong sort of Maori. No, I think I think you hit the nail on the head. So I get I get I'm a proud Maori from Te Arawa. You know, anyway, I love my whanau and I'm proud of my whakapapa on that side of the family as much as I am of that tabuto name, the French ancestry there. But when when people stand up either in public or, you know, at meetings or stuff and start saying they're speaking on behalf of all Maori, it literally just makes me angry in my gut. It's going to know you don't. It's in and fundamentally, I think we're being let down by the politicians and the media in particular. I think it's great to see Shane Jones, Casey and Winston able and comfortable to push back. But it's kind of you. The Maori Party have got away for too long as saying they represent Maori. They don't. They seem to be creating a victim hood and then getting a few people along for the ride. And it's just so upsetting and distressing to watch. I mean, it's frustrating to see it and to see the media hurl these labels out there. You know, the Maori Party presented the protest on Tuesday with a couple of crossed guns in some images. Now, if that had been New Zealand first doing that, there would have been an outrage. If it had been acted, done that with crossed guns. Yeah, if there would have been an outrage if they had had the minister who's now responsible for all the firearms, things who was out there, you know, parading around with the firearm, there would be all sorts of outrage. But the Maori Party seems to be able to get away with overt intimidation and threats either through their language or through their imagery. Yeah, so to be honest, I kind of picked it during near the start of the election campaign that this was going to be a different mouldy than Pitta Sharples and Tariah Haria. Yeah. Yeah. And even Jimmy Flavel, you know, Te Ururoa Flavel. You know, there was a. Yeah, there was a class and a. A manna, a manna about them. And, yeah, unfortunately, it seems Shane used a beautiful word yesterday about theatrics and. Yeah. And that's that's where the Maori Party see see their chance, which is really upsetting because. You know, I'm not a politician anymore and I'm starting to speak politically, but you know, Maori want, you know, good housing, good education, the same thing as everybody else wants, right? Exactly. Yeah. And that's the message that Shane Jones says almost every time he's interviewed. Maori want the same thing as everybody else. You know, why? Yeah, we'll just get along. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We're in this together. People need to realize that there's more and we're holding us in common than there is tearing us apart. And those who choose to tear us apart kind of missing the point, man. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is I was reading an article on stuff. You know, forgive me for my sins, but I was reading an article on stuff. I got to the end of the article and it's it's stated that the journalist was of this Nati Porou dissent and this sort of dissent and that sort of I'm suddenly thinking, what on earth is this? Yeah, where is the little right? And I can imagine if I was writing for stuff, what would I put that? You know, I'm of Scottish dissent, but born in Fiji and put they wouldn't even consider putting that there. But because the author is or the journalist is a Maori, they put all of their whakapapa in there and and I'm thinking, what is the point of this? We just want the news. We just want we don't want to know about you. You're just a conduit for that. But here we've got all this stuff. And there's a time and a time and a place I love it. I'm getting old now. I'm nearly 50. And so when I meet people from around the country, I do kind of start to share whakapapa and start telling stories about different families in it. And it can be amazing because it can create a real connection. But you're right, there's a time and a place it's kind of. No, no, you're a reporter doing a job. It's kind of what's that got to do with your your ancestry and your your grandmother and your grandfather kind of thing. And I think I think I'd also make the point is, you know, if you actually circulate in the Maori world, which I do and you talk to Hapu leaders and Iwi leaders even from within Te Arawa, they don't agree with one another. And they don't agree with one another on fundamentals on how to best help the people, economic strategies, investment strategies, you know, what type of bloody house to build for whānau. So to describe Māori as some amorphous, unified race, to do a disservice to Māori and to do a disservice to all the individuals who are passionate about, you know, making a difference themselves. I mean, that's the thing. There's a headline on stuff on Wednesday morning that says, you know, divisions in national over Māori policies. And they're making out that national is all over the place when it comes to Māori policies, that they're not speaking with one voice, that there's anxiety within national. And I'm sitting there thinking, what have we become that we aren't allowed to have discussions about things anymore? We're not allowed to have debates, whether they're robust or otherwise. Yeah, because there seems to be, and this is where the Māori Party seems to be very doctrinaire in their claims. I mean, Debbie Nariwa-Packer was saying that, you know, we can discount what New Zealand First says in access, because they only got six and eight percent, completely forgetting. Of course, she represents a party that only got three percent. But yeah, I was listening to her math and argument when she was sitting with Shane on TV. And yeah, I think I have to agree with you on that one. I mean, they're sitting there saying we can't have a debate on about the treaty. This is our truth. And this is our slant on what we believe the treaty says. And that there shall be no debate at all. And anybody who wants to debate that is racist. And it is destroying our society is creating the division in forcing unity. Yeah, the only thing I'd say about that is all I've seen over the last 30, 40 years is the interpretation of the treaty itself has changed and evolved. And and that's that's been driven by different individuals. And as people like it or not, it's they've come on board or opposed it. And so it evolves and individuals have been at the core of the evolution. And so, yeah, you know, to say this is it. Yeah, it's just not right. I mean, I guess the Maori Party is doing their own formal lobbying, they're lobbying the general public, saying that we are right and everyone else is wrong. And if you don't like it, well, we're going to disrupt your traffic and we're going to keep doing this until we get what we want. Well, they've seen great results from being angry, right? And so I think I think we're going to see them get angry. Well, yeah, I mean, that's the sad part of it. And I guess that's where, you know, I think a lot of the voters of New Zealand First and ACT are expecting both of those parties and their MPs to stand up and say, no, that's actually, you know, that's your view. You're entitled to your view. This is our view and we're going to have a discussion about this. Yeah, well, let's put it this way. I've really enjoyed watching Shane, you know, he did a lot of media yesterday and make the nail on the head every time. Well, the thing is, is he so deeply involved in it as well, you know, especially up north and dealing with he was explaining to me in an interview about a particular development that they wanted to get off the ground. And there was something like 15 Hapu involved in the area that involved and not one single one of them agreed with the other one. No, exactly. And so you got this inability to progress anything because the government of the day has said that we need to have everyone agree that this is a good idea to do this. And so nothing ever happens because nobody actually sits down and works out what are the things that we're aligned with? Where are these the exceptions? Can we mitigate those? Can we find a pathway through it? It's almost impossible. And, you know, I'm talking to another guy who's involved in the Western Bay of Plenty, Daniel Way. And he said, you know, the three waters legislation was always going to be a disaster because in his area, there's something like 17 Hapu that none of them agree on anything. And I was actually doing some work back immediately after leaving parliament, trying to understand Hapu's interaction with the three waters and their own work. And that was true almost everywhere to find unity of voice across different geographical patches, you know, in the form of Hapu was almost impossible. It's until we can solve this inability to discuss things without resorting to insults and performances, I really fear for our democracy. Do you have the same sort of trepidation? Yeah, well, what I fear is when I would speak up against the wrought that was the interpretation of democracy as far as Māori representation was concerned and speak against that. Suddenly, I was completely anti Māori in all things. And yet, you know, I have the privilege of sitting on my pipe. I am in one of my marae and, you know, love my aunties out there who are abusing me to get in the kitchen. And, you know, I love I'm still passionate about trying to learn the real more and, you know, half my family are in Kapa Haka, being in Te Arawa. And I love it. You know, it's who I am, it's how I was raised. My objection to the interpretation of democracy and representation, unfortunately, means that for some, they have to paint me a picture as being anti Māori. And so that's what's happening more and more. You're you're an old white man. You don't understand even even though my circumstances might be completely different to others or, you know, you just you get lumped into a into a stereotype based on one quite precise position you might have. And then you're categorised. And that's what's dangerous. You can't be nuanced. You can't have a discussion. You can't talk around the grey areas and trying to work through the detail. And when we saw that, we saw that we saw that on Tuesday, didn't we, with Debbie Nariwa Packer insulting Shane Jones as being old and out of touch. Yeah. And he was just replying to her arguments. I mean, she stated that, you know, that this government has insulted 20 percent of the population. Well, that statement can't stand. I mean, for a start, Māori are 17 percent of the population. So she's, you know, inflated that. But she again threw, you know, three percent of the vote. Not even all of Māori voted for the Māori party. Look, I think here's the here's the step for you. I don't think most people realise this. So New Zealand first, I think, are the only political party that won all the Māori seats. Yeah. But I think they did it with more than 50 percent of the Māori vote. Yeah. Back in the day. How's that for statistics? How's that for powerful messaging? But yeah, what we've got today doesn't even come close. Yeah, I mean, they got three percent of the total vote, three percent out of 17 percent. It's it's not a mandate. They might have won six of the seats, but it's not a mandate. No. And yet they they have a voice that's larger than they deserve, actually. You know, it's astonishing. I'm just trying to look up those stats from 1996. Can't find them. I'm going to research that one, Lecce. I really look it up because I think that's an important one, you know, that if you want, if you want, yeah, that's right. New Zealand first one, 17 seats sweeping every single Māori electorate, all of which have been nominated by the Labour Party. You know, that was a huge accomplishment. Yeah. And the centres with which they did it as well. Yeah, I mean, it's huge. Yeah, there was 13 percent of the electorate. 13.35 percent double where they are now. Yeah. You know, it just frustrates me now as a commentator, as a as a radio host to see who relies on communication, talking to all parties and things like that, where there seems to be this polarization that's come about in New Zealand society, at least in the last 10 years, certainly in the last six, where if you're not an approved person, you can't you can't speak with them. You know, and it shuts off avenues of discussion. And if we're not discussing and if we're not debating and we're not challenging ideas, then we don't have a contest of ideas. And then we've lost something. And the slide then is towards a homogene of ideas that are approved by, I don't know, some group. Yeah, well, that's the scary part. Homogene of ideas almost sounds nice, doesn't it? Except you're going to have a head to that who's got to approve what those ideas to are and those ideas are. And that is probably the most frightening thing when we look around world history that you could possibly contemplate. Yeah. I mean, if we look at our history, you know, collectively, when you had this cult of personality in the Roman Empire, for example, you know, where the emperor was a god and they could do no wrong, even when they were demonstrably evil or just stupid, like Nero, for example. There was but you can't go against that. We've seen that with totalitarianism in the 20th century, with the rise of people like Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, even Pol Pot in Cambodia, the rise of communism, where you have that homogeny of ideas where the leader is paramount. Nothing good comes of any of that. No, because in all of those cases that was enforced physically through violence and intimidation, you know, so. So, yeah, yeah, no, it's horrible to contemplate what we should be doing is trying to find our commonalities. I think I think the multi-party leaders might be surprised that the parkia neighbors across the way probably experience much of the same struggles as they are right now. And that actually, you know, there's more that unites us than divides us. And we've got to get back to that place and talk that way. Yeah, I mean, and that's that was actually what the result of the election was. It was a rejection of the division that had been fostered by Ardern and then Hipkins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the media seemed to keep talking about how this government's being divisive and stuff. Well, it didn't start this government. This government is a response to where it began. So, yeah, it's it's very it's going to be let's put it this way. It's going to be interesting for a while. Well, I mean, that brings it, I guess, back to lobbying because the the role of a lobbyist is to have conversations, have an imparting of knowledge where knowledge doesn't exist or hasn't existed before. And that's one of the key roles that I've experienced in watching and interacting with lobbyists over time, looking for solutions to solve particular problems, either for a client or for a group of society or whoever you're representing. And you can only achieve that if you're actually sitting down face to face with the decision makers and being able to argue your point or debate a particular issue. If we cease to be able to do that and, you know, this is where I see these controls coming in, wanting to restrict what lobbyists can say or do or how they act is actually probably going to not destroy the industry but destroy the importance of the discourse that occurs as a result of that. Well, I think some people seem to have in mind that lobbyists only work for big corporate giants, those with lots of money. When I left Parliament, I made contact with Blind Low Vision New Zealand. I'm legally blind and I worked with them when I was in Parliament, thought I hadn't done enough. So I went and said, how can I help? And so I spent the last three years voluntarily helping Blind Low Vision design policy, write draft legislation, try and engage with ministers, both their minister and ministers in the periphery, just to try and tell a story about the inadequacy of the health systems response of people who are struggling with vision. And so, you know, if people understand that Greenpeace is a lobby group or, you know, Blind Low Vision New Zealand is a lobby group, it puts it in perspective that it's not it's not just these big giant corporates. And I'm not saying that that's wrong either. Actually, they they're trying to create business, create jobs, create massive tax revenue for the company, for the country most of the time. So it's a spectrum and it's all about creating understanding in that in that building we call the Beehive. Yeah, all the wasp nest is our listeners like to call it. Well, Fletcher, it's it's been a fascinating little discussion. And I think that the listeners will have a better understanding about the role of lobbyists, that they're not all evil, Machiavellian type people that are seeking to subjugate society. That you actually care deeply about the topics in the clients that you're working for, trying to achieve the same results that people often say they're going to stand for parliament for. There's exactly and it's actually I've noticed that there's a lot of crossovers that as a politician who was an undersecretary and even in the back bench in the day, you're trying to be an advocate and a voice to get in front of ministers and make sure they understand the full picture. So, yeah, man, thanks for the chance to chat. No, no problem. And I'm sure we'll chat again. And the offer goes out to the other members of your team there as well. That if they want to have a chat with the new cam, the nice cam that they probably don't recognize, then I'm all ears. I'm all ears and wanting to have them on the show as well. All right, man, I'll pass the message on. All right, thank you. All right, cheers, Ken. Well, there you have it. A bit of an insight into the dark arts of political lobbying and a little bit extra talking about the overt racism or the allegations of racism of this government. Don't say ever that I've kept you in the dark about how all of these things work. It's a little bit like asking people how sausages are made. If you knew you wouldn't eat them, but now you know how politics works. Tell me your thoughts on what Fletcher had to say by emailing inbox at realitycheck.radio or text to 2057. Thanks for tuning in to RCR, Reality Check Radio. Do you like what you're listening to or dislike what you're listening to? Either way, we want to hear from you. Get in touch with us now. You can text us with your message to 2057. That's 2057 or email us at inbox at realitycheck.radio. We'd love to hear from you, so connect with us today.