I’m interviewing the future Labour Party leader Grant Robertson today at 12 noon as part of University of Otago Vote Chat. What would you like me to ask him? Robertson is the Labour MP for Wellington Central, the campaign spokesman for Labour’s 2011 election campaign, and has already had an impressive career as a student politician (President of OUSA and NZUSA), a senior advisor to Prime Minister Helen Clark, a NZ diplomat in Washington, and a senior manager at the University of Otago. So what’s next on his CV? At the very least, Robertson is destined to be the deputy leader of the Labour Party, but he’s likely to be leader, and therefore potentially a future prime minister. So because he’s now one of the key players in the Labour Party, there’s plenty to ask him about the current state and future directions of Labour. And there’s all the issues around today about homophobia in the Labour Party, which I’m sure he’ll be keen to address. [Read more below]
I’ve known Grant Robertson for about 20 years. And I’ve always known that he was going to make it to the top of politics. He’s part-way there, and so it’d be very interesting to chat with him today about where he’s come from and where he’s going. As well as that, I’ll be asking some of the usual questions that I’ve been asking other MPs – about gay marriage, inequality, issues of ethnicity, drug reform, and alcohol use.
If anyone has additional topics and specific questions that they want put to Grant Robertson, please let me know – or participate on the Twittersphere in realtime (see details below). Of course, I may not be able to use all the questions you suggest, but it’s helpful to get ideas from others and it’s useful to know what topics you find particularly interesting.
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The University of Otago Vote Chat takes place every week until the general election. The interviews occur in front of a public audience at the University of Otago Media Production studios, where the conversation is filmed for livestreaming on the internet and as a podcast for iTunes.
The intention is to make these political meetings rather different from the usual stage-managed and bland affairs that can happen during election campaigns. So there’ll be lots of challenging and quirky questions, and the MP won’t be allowed to revert to simply giving the usual well-rehearsed campaigning speech. The audience can help by heckling, cheering, or merely tweeting their reaction and questions to the Twitter feed – using the hashtag #OUVoteChat2011 – which will be projected up on the lecture theatre screen.
If you’re in Dunedin there is still the ability to come along and participate and/or watch – but seating is limited to about 45 or so – so turn up early. The Media Production Studio is on the 2nd floor of the Owheo Building, 133 Union Street East (Cnr of Union Street East and Forth Streets). You can see a map here:
http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?q=133+union+street+east+dunedin&hl=en&sll=-41.244772,172.617188&sspn=37.305694,86.572266&vpsrc=0&t=m&z=16
If you want to watch the live-stream of the interviews, go to:
http://www.otago.ac.nz/its/mediaproduction/streaming/mpstudio.html
Eventually all the interviews will be available as podcasts to download from iTunes, but in the meantime you can also watch them on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/OUVoteChat
Some weeks there will be more than one politician. Future politicians include Bill English and Tau Henare. To keep up with all the detail, there’s a Facebook “Vote Chat 2011” page here:
http://www.facebook.com/VoteChat2011
