Deputy leaders go head-to-head in The AM Show's Te Reo quiz

  • 15/09/2017

National's Paula Bennett and Labour's Kelvin Davis have faced off against each other in the first head-to-head Te Reo quiz on The AM Show.

Davis, who is Māori and a fluent Te Reo speaker, clearly had the upper hand - but not all his answers would be found in a Māori-English dictionary.

His words and phrases were considerably harder than the words given to other politicians on the show earlier this week - including 'capital gains tax', 'back down' and 'we won' - but he was able to find the Te Reo equivalent with ease.

But when host Duncan Garner asked him how to say 'Deputy Prime Minister', he went off script - answering with just his name.

Paula Bennett had considerably less success than her rival - and while she was able to give the Māori words for house (whare), blue (kikorangi) and love (aroha), she struggled with others.

She didn't know the Te Reo version of river (awa), and answered walk (hīkoi) with simply: "not often".

Ms Bennett could also only get to five when asked to count to 10 in Māori.

Earlier, Labour's finance spokesperson Grant Robertson excelled in his own Māori quiz - and was only unable to come up with the Te Reo word for prayer (karakia) because he isn't "a religious person".

Newshub.