Four-year-old Tauranga boy Alex Sanita put Prime Minister John Key on the spot when he asked him the monumental question, "How do you stop problems in New Zealand?".
The plucky youngster pitched the question during the Prime Minister's special visit to The Village Childcare centre in Bethlehem yesterday. "Vote National," Mr Key quipped.
Mr Key then told Alex that solving the country's problems required a lot of brainstorming.
"You need to try really hard to think it through and think of ways of fixing it," he said.
During the session Mr Key also shared anecdotes with the children about his upbringing as the son of state house widow and some aspects of his family life.
Head teacher Lorraine Dickie said the children at the centre had been so excited since they learned of Mr Key's visit.
"Especially because they have been learning all about what the Prime Minister does. We even ran a mini election campaign and the children got to name their own political parties, elect leaders, create slogans and come up with ideas about how they would like to see New Zealand run," she said.
The exercise and Mr Key's visit had opened the children's eyes up to how important political leaders were and how their decisions impacted on their own lives, she said.
Mr Key also spoke to more than 400 Year 13 Tauranga Girls' College and Tauranga Boys' College students and members of the six Bay of Plenty Rotary Clubs at Club Mount Maunganui.