P.A. for a Day - Helen Clark (Episode Three)

Television (Full Length) – 2001

She insists on making my tea, holding my bag and generally performing services that no one else has ever offered to perform.
– Prime Minister Helen Clark introduces Ginette McDonald to her Cabinet ministers

It's a job that requires fortitude, strength of character and great self-sacrifice, and that's why it's held by a woman.
– Presenter Ginette McDonald

I found 1990 was quite a watershed for me because I had spent the previous 20-plus years of my life doing nothing but politics . . . in 1990 we had a very bad election — lost — and I did reevaluate. I said "Well, do I want to put all this time in? There's got to be some time for your family, your friends and your own interests...
– Prime Minister Helen Clark

You certainly wouldn't come into this for the money. That's never been an interest for me. But it's the thought that you might make a difference, somewhere along the way.
– Prime Minister Helen Clark

You're now in the room with the best hecklers in the country so be very careful.
– Prime Minister Helen Clark warning Ginette McDonald about her Cabinet ministers

The programme lets McDonald into someone else's world for a day, and while it may not be entirely representative of the ups and downs of an ongoing job, it's fun nevertheless. McDonald's introduction to the fabulous girly wonderland of high-end women's magazines also comes, fortuitously, on the very day that models have to be chosen for a shoot. Just as well, because watching someone answer phones isn't all that interesting and neither, as any subeditor will tell you, is watching someone proofread pages. McDonald uses her newbie status to ask deliberately disingenuous questions - a journalist probably wouldn't be asking editor of all three publications Leonie Dale what the circulations are ... She also plays along in a cute set piece where she asks McDonald to whip out on a coffee run, giving her a list that verges on the scene in LA Story.
– TV Reviewer Fiona Rae on another episode of series P.A For a Day presented by Ginette McDonald, The NZ Herald, 2001