"The people I met doing the leaflet drop seemed surprised to learn that Te Puke was now in the Rotorua electorate," he said.
"Outsiders see Te Puke as a wealthy place," he said "but talking to community social services people, I realise that kiwifruit isn't generating wealth for everyone. There is a big gap between the wealthy and those who are extremely poor.
"I want to talk to iwi groups and young people to make sure those of voting age are enrolled. Voters numbers are not great around here, we [Labour] need to get those previous non-voters behind us.
"We have a real fight on our hands but it [winning the seat for Labour in the general election in September] is do-able ."
His mother's family comes from Rotorua and that was where Mr Coffey spent family holidays as a child, growing up in Lower Hutt.
"Rotorua was the top end of the country as far as I knew in those days," he said.
Another thing he knew, as a child, was that regularly passing The Beehive, in Wellington, made him keen to get a job inside there.
"I want to be Prime Minister. While all the other kids at school wanted to be All Blacks, I always kept an eye on politics.
"I was the first person in our family to go to university and I decided to go to the University of Auckland. With no idea about what course to take or how to structure my studying, I happened upon political science and finished an honours degree in four years."
About that time, a chance to audition for What Now, a children's television programme popped up and seemed like fun.
He got the job so put his master's degree in politics on hold.
After 10 years in television, Mr Coffey was looking for something more meaningful to do with his life, he said.
His profile meant he was often working at weekends for charity or as a guest MC so the 24/7 nature of political life doesn't bother him, he said.
