Guyon Espiner

He sort of never fails to mention, you know, Labour brings Te Pari Māori government as the alternative, just wanting to clearly hammer home into voters' minds that a vote against him is a vote for Te Pari Māori.

So I think that would suggest that their focus groups in polling is telling them that Te Pari Māori is a negative on Labour.

That was meant to put the question of his leadership to bed within his own party.

Now whether or not it does get put to bed is ultimately a question for National MPs and voters.

The reason why that is an issue is that the polling is really bad for National.

So if National continues to poll badly, and Christopher Luxon's preferred Prime Minister is also quite bad, it's lower than the National Party vote, which suggests that he's probably a net drain on National's popularity.

If that continues and there's

It could go either way.

Nationals polling is pretty low at the moment.

It might not go any lower because maybe it's found its floor.

Then again, experience would suggest that when you think things couldn't get any worse, they often find a way to get worse.

Just a heads up listeners, this episode contains some adult language.

How difficult is it to reintegrate to real life after living in the shadows?

Kit Bennett says that in hindsight, the work he did for CIA, including that operation against Vladimir in the Philippines, left a mark on him psychologically.

But it would be another couple of decades before he would start to understand that.

And it came after he'd taken on a new job in law enforcement.

At the age of 51, Kit Bennett's enrolled as a frontline police officer in Australia.

HSOs are health and safety officers and so Kit Bennett was put in touch with a psychiatrist.

From Bird of Paradise and RNZ, this is The Agency.

I'm Guyon Espiner.