Answering questions on TV is a lot harder than it looks. It’s hard even when the interviewer isn’t trying to catch you out. When the interviewer is determined not to let you off the hook, it can feel a bit like medieval torture method.
If you’re a politician sitting across from Jack Tame, you need to be aware of four things:
He has really good researchers.
He ensures he is across the research before the interview.
He is prepared to keep asking the same question until he gets an answer.
You can’t just fob him off with an easy cliché.
This type of scrutiny is not something that the Opportunity Party has been subjected to for a long time. Gareth Morgan got his share of difficult interviews, which was understandable because of his already high profile and reputation for strongly and bluntly expressed opinions. Under subsequent leadership, TOP has both suffered and benefited from its lower profile, where it has been treated more as an occasional curiosity than a serious contender.
That’s no longer the case and today leader Qiulae Wong found herself under the blowtorch from the aforementioned Jack Tame on Q+A. While Wong kept her composure the whole time, it would be fair to say that she would not look back on the interview as any kind of triumph. The biggest takeaway for most viewers would be that, on several fairly obvious but persistently asked questions by Tame, she simply could not give specific, or even convincingly vague, answers.
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