NZ First Bloke takes global role in his stride

Clarke Gayford says Barack Obama has a ‘‘lovely soft nose’’, Malcolm Turnbull is ‘‘really quite personable’’ – and he has not yet decided if he will hang out with Melania Trump when he is in New York next week.

Speaking at an on-stage Q&A in Auckland on Thursday night, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s partner also said that since his family had become the focus of intense media scrutiny, he had deleted all the news apps from his smartphone ‘‘because you get so frustrated by some of the stuff that comes out’’.

Gayford was in conversation with former TV presenter Mary Lambie, in front of about 100 attendees at an event organised by the Public Relations Institute.

Despite a rumour that Gayford was paid $20,000 for the appearance, he said he had in fact received nothing more than a jar of chutney for his troubles: Lambie and Gayford were formerly neighbours in Point Chevalier, Auckland.

This was a cosy chat rather than a hard-ball interrogation, and included Gayford’s narration of slideshow snaps of some of the famous folk he has met since Ardern became PM last October – the Queen, musicians Ed Sheeran Clarke Gayford was the guest speaker at a Public Relations Institute of NZ function in Auckland. and Paul McCartney, and Obama to name a few.

But alongside the smooth anecdotes about being a stay-athome dad to 3-month-old daughter Neve, and self-deprecating jokes about competing with Cabinet papers for Ardern’s attention, Gayford also offered a stern critique of the current media environment.

He said that though journalists do their best, the analytics behind modern digital media mean outrageous opinions earn more clicks than facts and correcting errors by journalists can be ‘‘a game of whacka-mole’’.

Gayford said he was glad to have already been a TV presenter and radio host, as otherwise the sudden attention ‘‘would have been bloody overwhelming’’.

Mostly, though, he seemed rather chuffed to have stumbled into a strange and exciting new world via Ardern’s extraordinarily swift elevation from Opposition MP to party leader to prime minister.

Such as getting to meet former US president Barack Obama.

‘‘He was really lovely. He was asking questions about Ma¯ ori culture and about New Zealand.

‘‘We had to hongi him, and I was one of the first ones up and I was pretty nervous – and he’d only done one before [too]. Lovely soft nose!’’

Gayford said though he had met high-profile people through his work in music television, interviewees often have their guard up.

But when meeting world leaders and the like in private, that filter disappears a lot, ‘‘and you get a much better judge of character’’.

He sounds almost a little surprised by his impression of former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and wife Lucy, whom they met soon after Ardern became PM.

‘‘He was actually really quite personable in a one-on-one setting, and Lucy was great as well. We got on really well with them […] It was interesting the way he talked, versus how some of the policy and politics line up.’’

(Gayford was being vague but the issues on which the current governments of Australia and New Zealand really don’t see eye-to-eye include the rights of Kiwi expats in Australia, and the status of refugees on Nauru and Manus Island.)

Today, Ardern, Gayford and Neve fly to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. There, Ardern has 40-odd scheduled events in seven days, plus three major media appearances: the Late Show

with Stephen Colbert, the Today Show, and a longer interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

Gayford said he reckons Kiwis still don’t quite realise the phenomenal scale of the international interest in Ardern. When they travelled to Britain for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting there were about 70 media requests for Ardern. For the New York trip, Gayford said, Ardern’s staff had lost count of the number but it would be in the hundreds.

In New York, Gayford will mostly focus on looking after Neve but he told Lambie that only that morning he had received a very special invitation all of his own.

‘‘I was in the office and one of the guys said: Oh Clarke – we’ve got a couple of invites for you.’’

He reached for his phone. ‘‘I’ll read it. It’s pretty funny.

‘‘It has the United States crest on the top and it says: Mrs Melania Trump requests the pleasure of your company for a reception on the occasion of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly. She must be doing it for all the the spouses.’’

‘‘Tea and scones with Melania,’’ said Lambie.

‘‘Yeah,’’ said Gayford. ‘‘Tea and scones with Melania.

‘‘I don’t know quite where it is. ‘‘I’ll see if we have time.’’ How will you get there, asked Lambie. Jump in an Uber?

‘‘We’ve actually got our own Secret Service detail assigned to us,’’ said Gayford, in a tone that suggested he found this both ludicrous and kind-of cool. ‘‘So I’ll just ask them. Take me to Melania’s!’’