Neighbours at War - Series One, Episode Four

Every story in this popular TV2 reality show saw warring neighbours each give their side of a border dispute, before a well-known local tried to mediate. In this first season episode the affray is over Parakai willow trees, accused of blocking sun and busting sewer pipes (narrator Bill Kerton calls them the "herbaceous equivalent of herpes"). The mediator is Helensville MP John Key. Struggling to sit on the fence, and amid accusations of racism, the future Prime Minister is unable to forge a driveway détente: "sometimes people just don’t want to see eye to eye".

This is the path to power in New Zealand. It runs through a backyard in West Auckland. Key was just a minor figure at this point, just the local MP. Not yet a three term Prime Minister, the idol of Hosking, a saint to some, a pariah to others. Just a man on a stony driveway; wishing he was anywhere else, dreaming of bigger things.

– Duncan Grieve, The Spinoff, 24 September 2015

Key Cast & Crew

Mark Everton

Producer

John Key

Subject

Bill Kerton

Director, Writer, Narrator

Torin Mathias

Editor

Franki Ashiruka-Bruckner

Editor

Paul Richards

Camera Operator