Pat, a 68-year-old retired painter and decorator, remembers the day Key and a clot of media touched down. Key was there to sort-of apologise for having underclass-shamed a street that had allegedly been left to rot under Helen Clark's uncaring Labour government, and which was a hotbed of crime. Key doubled down on the stunt by taking a local Maori girl, Aroha Ireland, up to the Waitangi Day celebrations a few days later.
"It was just a sensational visit," says Pat. "He made a great show of taking a little girl up north, and we never saw him again. It was just a load of publicity bullshit."