ACT leader Richard Prebble featured on the inaugural Whittaker’s Good Honest Campaign Report, carried on Channel Z last Sunday night and drew a huge response from youth audiences who sent hundreds of faxes and emails into the station.

The show will run weekly from around 9.30pm on a Sunday night and will feature the leaders of all the major parties – all except Winston Peters who declined to be involved.

Whittaker’s ‘Good honest political reporter,’ Bomber, who interviewed Prebble and put listeners’ questions to him was stunned at the response from young people to the political show.

“This proves that if our political leaders are prepared to front up and answer some of the ‘fairly raw’ questions from youth, then those young people will show an interest. There’s a huge amount of cynicism towards politicians and it’s up to politicians to dispel that attitude by speaking to youth on their own terms – not via some sanitised studio environment,” Bomber said.

“I applaud Richard Prebble for agreeing to do the show, we gave him a fairly hard time and he handled it extremely well. I can only hope other party leaders show similar courage. My job is to put the questions of youth to them and try to keep their answers honest. I’m not going to pull any punches and be nice to these people – no-one likes them anyway.”

Channel Z’s fax machine was overloaded with more than 125 faxes and ‘tons’ of emails. The questions were fairly blunt, but some were also serious questions about policies affecting youth (a selection of emails is attached).

Richard Prebble agreed to a 15 minute interview and was on for 35 minutes – until his cell phone ran out.

Both Helen Clark and Jim Anderton have agreed to appear on the Good Honest Election Campaign Report in coming weeks. Negotiations with the Prime Minister are continuing.

The Whittaker’s ‘Good Honest Election Campaign Report’ was developed to try and address the apathy of young people towards enrolling and voting in the upcoming general election. Thousands of ‘Peanut Slab’ postcards have been distributed throughout Auckland and Wellington to encourage young people to send in their questions for leaders to answer.

Young people can send their questions via the postcards, email them to honest@peanutslab.nzl.com or bomber@talk.co.nz or fax them to 04 473 0467

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