KEY POINTS:
Sean Plunket is sitting outside a top Wellington restaurant, chain smoking and arguing that he's not rash, nor is he being petulant, for thinking of quitting his $140,000 job as a broadcaster with Radio New Zealand National over a principle.
We've arranged to have lunch at Matterhorn Restaurant, voted as New Zealand's best by Cuisine Magazine this year, but bizarrely we can't order off the lunch menu because we're outside in the smokers' section. So Plunket orders fries, made from agria potatoes of course, a bottle of pinot gris and settles in to talk.
And talk he does. He's a big man - by his own admission he's piled on nearly 20kg since joining Radio New Zealand's Morning Report - with a big mouth, literally.
He's a little nervous that, for once, he will be on the receiving end of the questions.
"So you ask the questions and I answer right?" he asks, as though not quite believing he won't have control of this interview.
At 44, interviewing is something he's done for more than 25 years, the past 11 on Morning Report with co-host Geoff Robinson. But now he is thinking of quitting on a matter of principle, something he's done before.
As Plunket tells it the spat was over a "difference of interpretation" as to how much control Radio New Zealand should have over him outside his work contract.
When Radio New Zealand boss Peter Cavanagh banned him from hosting a pre-election debate about the internet on TVNZ 7 Freeview last week, Plunket saw red.
He argues that when he appears as a public service broadcaster and journalist on other platforms or in other forms of media it only serves to promote Morning Report and Radio New Zealand National. Radio New Zealand thought otherwise.
"I can't speculate on Radio New Zealand's thinking... except it was prepared to go to quite extreme means to ensure that I didn't, in particular, appear on TVNZ 7. I still can't understand why.
"I was on Sky TV with Bill Ralston the other night. I must say I have asked for a reasonable explanation but none has been forthcoming."
So Plunket decided to leave but not, he insists, because he was being petulant. "In my career I have made decisions that might have, to outsiders, seemed rash or petulant, but they have always been based essentially on a principle that you have to be able to lie straight in your bed at night and get up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror."
It's not the first time he's left a job on a matter of principle. In 1995 he quit the Holmes show over stories he was doing on New Zealand First allegedly using parliamentary staffing money to run the party.
"I had a great source for the story. The first part I made the allegations with some documentation where Paul Holmes did an interview on it. Paul did the interview, but not by the script. So the next morning in the production meeting they said that story didn't go anywhere, but I said 'hey mate, I have part two'."
Part two never saw screen time and Plunket claims he knows how that came about. He says managing editor Paul Cutler told him "We don't do campaigning journalism on the Holmes show".
"I thought at that stage it was not good enough."
It was, however, an era during which Plunket produced, in his view, one of the best stories he's ever done for TV.
"It was about Thomas the Tank Engine. It was total satire..."
From Holmes he went to work on TV3's 20/20, then decided he preferred hard news and went to the Press Gallery. He'd only been there six months when he heard Mike Hosking was leaving Morning Report.
"The only two jobs I ever dreamed of doing were Fair Go and Morning Report. That opportunity didn't come along very often, so I put my hat in the ring."
That was 11 years ago.
"It's a long time... I think I've nailed it now after 11 years. So it is time to do something else."
Not so for co-host Geoff Robinson, who apparently laughs off suggestions that he, too, might be moving on. He's a man Plunket holds in great regard and with some affection.
"There is no one else I would want to work with for three hours every morning in a studio for 11 years. I cannot imagine a single person or any other individual I know I wouldn't have killed at any stage."
The two rarely socialise outside work but work closely together in the studio.
"It's a wonderful way for a relationship to work. It is so intense when we are there. I have enormous respect for him and I look back now to when I started - like a bull at a gate - and I think Geoff just displayed such good tolerance."
The Plunket/Robinson combination of aggressive - Plunket insists he is simply "assertive" - and a more gentle style means the pair have earned a "good cop, bad cop" reputation.
But Plunket insists it was unintentional, that they've never been pushed in that direction, nor has anyone other than themselves assigned interviews. They work it out between them, taking into account the programme's flow, he says. Sure, they have the "odd" argument and his partner-on-air "puts me right when I say something wrong", but they've got along remarkably well.
"We have always tossed a coin if we have had a difference."
Nothing close to pen throwing. That came in 2005 when, after "hot words" between Plunket and head of news Don Rood, he threw a Biro at Rood. Plunket won't go into details, but the pen throwing was sparked by his suspension by Radio New Zealand over a confrontational interview he had with Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons about the Exclusive Brethren pamphlet controversy.
The incident happened because he was "frustrated", he says, and because he, like everyone else in the workplace, expected to be treated with respect.
"I am not someone who likes having the finger wagged at them and called 'boy'. I didn't feel good about my behaviour, but in fact he [Rood] had a written apology from me on his desk the next morning. I think newsrooms should be places of intense debate and contestable ideas - particularly leading up to the elections - and so I looked upon that incident and the nature as to what it was at the time."
So is he feisty by nature?
"I think I am an eminently sweet guy," he says. "I have this conversation with people and they say my interviewing style is aggressive and I say 'no, it's assertive', but I also say 'If you don't agree with me I will punch your lights out'." He laughs to make sure I know this is a joke.
So does he have anger issues? Has he ever been advised to go to anger management by his bosses?
"No, but I had girlfriend who told me to once ... no I haven't."
It's not the first time Plunket's been in trouble, and it probably won't be the last. Earlier this year he was caught driving in Wellington with a breath-alcohol reading of almost double the legal limit. He was fined $750 and disqualified from driving for six months. Plunket says it was his first, and hopefully his last, conviction. He also tells me, twice, that 75 per cent of New Zealand males under the age of 50 have been convicted of one or more driving offences.
The experience of going to court was "humbling", he says.
"I made a gross error of judgment ... look, I took the attitude I was a plonker and I drank way too many martinis - the most expensive martinis I have ever had."
A comparison with Tony Veitch is inevitable, particularly with accusations swirling round Wellington that Plunket got off lightly in terms of publicity.
"I was completely up front about it with my bosses before the media got wind of it. I kept them up to speed. They took the completely reasonable view that it was something that happened out of the workplace. Equally, I recognise that had some impact on my credibility on those issues, so I have to stand up and take that on the chin.
"Personally, I really feel for Tony Veitch. I think disproportionately, the sense of distress I felt about that matter when it happened and really when you are in the public eye just how vulnerable you are when you do something wrong."
He has been allowed a restricted licence so he can take his 9-year-old son Joseph to school and after-school activities.
He and his former partner Leigh Pearson share care, and Plunket describes being a father as "the greatest thing on earth".
"I just enjoy hanging out with him [Joseph]. We like wrestling, walking Pax the dog, playing cricket, and chess."
But now it's time for Plunket, the journalist, to take stock and maybe, just maybe, revisit old childhood dreams. As a youngster, he always wanted to perform, to be an actor. He threw himself into school productions as a boarder at Nelson College and was noticed by the local drama school, which offered him free acting lessons.
But neither his house master nor his father, journalist Pat Plunket, would give him leave from the boarding house.
"I have been pissed off about that my whole life."
Instead, he went to Wellington Polytech in the 80s to study journalism after which he found himself out of work and carrying a sandwich board for a Wellington pharmacy, wearing a top hat and tails.
But that sandwich board meant he was in the right place, Lambton Quay, at the right time. A mate from the journalism course walked past one day and told Plunket he had just left his job with Radio Windy.
"So I dumped my sandwich board and, in my top hat and tails, ran up to Radio Windy and got into the office of the news editor, Chris Gollans. I said 'I hear you have a job going as a journalist' and that was it. It was pure chance, really."
Since then Plunket has never been out of work. He rolled through a series of jobs, including for the briefly published Sun newspaper, at TV3 for a spell in the Press Gallery with Bill Ralston doing "whacky stuff"' for Nightline, then to Fair Go after meeting Kevin Milne at a party.
"That was one of those shows I watched as a kid and thought 'Geez that would be a cool show to do'."
Plunket describes the job as "incredibly good fun", but when he started doing repeats on the "dodgy gypsy painter" he knew it was time to move on.
"It was incredibly audience driven and it had a high performance factor I enjoyed with a live audience so that was hilarious."
And a moment caught on camera when a "dodgy gypsy painter" threw a ladder at him means Plunket still gets cheques from the United States where the clip is shown on reality TV.
After Fair Go, he spent 12 weeks on Under Investigation, posing in a trench coat with a typewriter during the opening titles. That lead to Holmes and the run-in over Winston Peters.
The New Zealand First leader gave Plunket what he rates as his best interview recently.
Peters rang Morning Report in reaction to Sir Robert Jones calling him a liar.
"We had to grab the opportunity, and I think I kept him on air for 19 minutes. But although you couldn't get any sense in him there was something in his voice, in his demeanour that suggested things had changed awfully. He was a different man. I would consider that a defining interview."
Peters was the first MP Plunket ever had a drink with when he worked in the gallery with veteran political journalist Barry Soper.
"He [Peters] is an immensely charismatic and likeable man, and I guess there is some irony in the fact I am deciding to leave and move on at the same time Mr Peters' position in national politics might alter, too. But I think politics won't be as much fun without Mr Peters."
Another cigarette later, Plunket won't be drawn on the outcome of the election other than to say it will be a "fascinating campaign".
He knows Helen Clark won't give up. "I would never criticise a politician for surviving. You can't falt Helen on consistency.
"She has always said she would be Prime Minister for as long as she could because it's about staying in Government and passing laws for as long as you can. So I cannot falt her for that."
He thinks John Key represents a new type of National Party leader "because he is young and urban and he's not a farmer. I guess what the campaign is designed to do is to find out who he is."
Politics is in Plunket's blood, and he's known for his no-nonsense, full-on interviews with politicians on Morning Report. He is loyal and a little defensive about the programme.
He argues against oft-heard criticism that National Radio is a PR machine for the Labour Party, that it's too PC, that it appears to represent white, liberal, middle-class views.
"Well, that may be your perception, but it does set the daily agenda for journalists around the country."
He says his job is to be "fair, impartial and balanced, but sometimes I wonder if that is a culture that permeates through the organisation".
Plunket's favourite fable is The Emperor's New Clothes. The role of the journalist is to point out that the emperor is naked, he says, not to "weave the cloth that makes someone nude. The worse censorship is self-censorship within an organisation".
While it's been slow to evolve, Morning Report has changed, he says.
"The show is markedly different from when I began 11 years ago - there is no vege report, and we have headlines!"
He knows he can come across forcefully on air.
"Look, there is a way of raising your eyebrow with your voice. I guess I haven't been afraid to do that. I mean, sometimes I had to swim against the tide and I've enjoyed that battle."
So what's next for Plunket?
For a start, there's nothing wrong with his self-esteem. "I have never felt better about where I am right now. I feel I am at the top of my game."
He has, "achieved the two greatest goals in my life - I have worked on Fair Go and I have sat beside Geoff Robinson (whom Plunket has listened to since he was 13) on Morning Report."
And he has met his other idols - Brian Edwards, Ralston, Milne, Holmes.
"I still see myself, deep down inside, probably as the young guy who's lucky enough to be walking in the same corridor as these stars."
His instincts tell him to stay in broadcasting journalism, but he says he will never be "the seven o'clock host on mainstream TV".
Not that he wouldn't want the job. It's just he has never been asked.
"I think I was always regarded as a little troublesome ... that's my perception. But I love performance."
Time instead to "reinvent" himself. He won't miss the "amazing roller coasters of sleep patterns". The hours - the alarm goes off at 4am - have been "incredibly gruelling", he says.
Asked if he we would be a contender for Dancing with the Stars, Plunket says that although it would be a great weight-loss programme, he is not a politician or women's magazine fodder.
"I'd rather be remembered for having done a great interview than a tango - anyway I can't dance for shit," he says, lighting another cigarette.
"I think I need to find a programme or a format for a TV programme that is satirical and current and witty and sharp."
So nothing like a game show such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
"Really? Is this on the record? I was really annoyed they didn't contact me for that job. I just love Chris Tarrant [host of the UK version].
"For a game show host he has the greatest empathy, nuance and timing. It's a little drama of discovery and meeting someone in every episode. Honestly, the boy who wanted to be on the stage - it was like 'okay, Mike' [Hosking, the current host], that rotter!"
Lock it in, Sean.
