Steve Braunias' Secret Diary of the Prime Minister's music playlist

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at her office in the Beehive at Parliament in Wellington. Photo / Marty Melville

Jacinda Ardern
The 15 songs I've chosen to mark New Zealand Music Month are all about memories.
I remember meeting Lorde at the music awards in November last year. I said, "You're amazing." She said, "No, you are."

Dave Dobbyn was there, too. I said, "You're amazing." He said, "No, you are."

And then there was the time I met Don McGlashan. That was really different. I said to him, "You're amazing." And he said, "Thanks." I was just a student at the time.

Clarke Gayford
Rumours are running wild about my role in Jacinda's playlist. I heard them being whispered behind my back all day long, and when I turned around, the room would go silent.

I arranged a meeting with Police Commissioner Mike Bush to lay the matter to rest.
My lawyer Linda Clark came with me.

She said, "The allegations are untrue and defamatory."
He said, "What allegations?"
She said, "The ones which are untrue and defamatory."
He said, "The old ones, you mean, or are there new ones?"
She said, "All the ones."

It went back and forth like that for a while, with nobody prepared to lay their cards on the table.

Linda said, "Clarke, give me a moment with Mike."

I stepped into the corridor. A couple of officers had been sharing a joke, but they stopped laughing when they saw me. They moved off.

I stood there for a while but the silence was killing me. I was about go back into Mike's office, until I heard both of them laughing at something.
Yeah. At something. Or someone.

Denise L'Estrange-Corbet
Were the songs on Jacinda Ardern's playlist actually made in New Zealand? Funny how no one questions that – but instead everyone is happy to make wild accusations about the swing-tags on garments sold at WORLD.

If the songs the Prime Minister chose were recorded in Bangladesh, but the price-tag sticker on the CD case was manufactured at an adhesive factory in, say, Penrose, what does that make it?

It makes the tag made right here in New Zealand.

So for the millionth time: the WORLD swing-tag is not misleading. It's a tag that the prices are put on to. The tag is made right here in New Zealand.

Industry experts have long praised the swing-tags at WORLD as among the world's finest swing-tags. We had a world-famous celebrity in our store this week – I won't say who, but I think you can guess – and staff reported that she swooned at the sight of our swing-tags.

"I'll have 300 of these swing-tags," she said.
I'm not going to go into price but obviously an order like that doesn't come cheap. And who benefits? All of New Zealand – including the swing-tag community.

Hillary Clinton
I met Prime Minister of New Zealand Jasmine Ardern this week.
She was quite fat.
I was shown into her office.
It was quite small.
There was some awful music playing on her computer.
"Turn that off," I said.