KEY POINTS:
I was flipping through the Property Press while having my latte at Takapuna when a Korean woman sitting at the next table said, "No good time to buy, wait for next year".
Keen to find out if she was a property expert or if she had some kind of a crystal ball that could predict property prices, I asked her why she thought next year would be better.
Her reply, "I chat on Korean website, and people say John Key will build many cheap houses if National becomes government next year".
I couldn't help but smile when I pictured the man who aspires to be the next prime minister in a Bob the Builder outfit building houses if his party wins the next election.
At the National Party annual conference last week, Key talked about home ownership and tackling the housing affordability problem if the party came to power.
How easily that is lost in translation when it goes into chatline discussions in another language.
But as a Nielsen Media survey found last year, for the many Asians living in New Zealand, the internet is the main source of news and information.
Although more tech-savvy than their Kiwi counterparts, they are oblivious or disinterested in reading news, especially politics-related, but they are more likely to participate in web forums and discussions.
With a year to go before the elections, we can expect political parties to slowly start unveiling their manifestos and policies, but how much of these will correctly reach the non-English speaking ethnic voters?
So, as politicians and mainstream New Zealanders debate these issues publicly, ethnic voters like that Korean woman are often left on the sidelines to discuss them on their own web forums.
Many do not even get the basic facts right to begin with.
Politicians arguing their cause in the traditional way - by holding public meetings and forums - will not work for Asian voters, even if they are conducted in that community's language.
I have attended several such meetings over the past few elections, and have realised that most in the Korean and Chinese communities are reluctant to ask questions.
I don't know why. Perhaps it is the fear of losing face for being seen to ask a silly question, or the fear of getting into a debate they don't want.
But this same group of people will take the discussions on to a different platform when they slug it out in chatrooms, forums and blogs.
I have had a taste of how different some Chinese people can be when you meet them.
I was invited to dinner at a friend's restaurant a few months ago and was introduced to a Chinese journalist who told me how great it was for the community to have someone like me writing a regular column in the Herald.
He told me he thought it was good our people had a voice to mainstream New Zealanders and said he admired what I was doing.
I found out later this person had been a signatory to the petition signed by a few Chinese journalists asking that I be removed as a columnist.
In that same way, politicians who walk away from ethnic political forums thinking they have their policies signed and sealed simply by the applause and nods of approval don't always get it right.
Many are probably just doing the Asian thing of being polite and respecting authority.
In past elections, political parties took token advertisements in ethnic newspapers in the month leading up to the elections, hoping that on election day these voters would put a tick to a candidate or a party logo they found familiar.
But more often than not, the advertisements were too little, too late.
Census figures indicate Asians will play a far bigger role in the coming elections than ever before.
In Auckland, the city which won Labour the elections the last time, Asians outnumber Pacific people, and in Auckland City, a quarter of its population is Asian.
It may still be a long way before Asian New Zealanders hold the key to the outcome of New Zealand's election, but they are still a significant minority.
I believe it is imperative for political parties wanting to be in the next government to engage these voters rather than ignore them.
Local politicians should start connecting with the Asian communities in their native language, through podcasts and blogs and hiring political assistants who can participate in ethnic web discussions by putting their views across on their behalf.
In South Korea, politicians have used the internet to successfully swing voter decisions. The same could easily happen with Asian voters here.
