Tamati Coffey hosts Moving Out with Tamati on TVNZ1.
Tamati Coffey hosts Moving Out with Tamati on TVNZ1.
My first job was... packing bags at The Warehouse Lower Hutt during the Christmas rush for $5 an hour.
It taught me... how to talk to people, how to work hard and basic work ethic like being on time and listening to instructions!
My big break came... when I didan audition to become a kids TV presenter. It was 100 per cent NOT on my radar as I was finishing my honours degree at university and about to start my thesis, but I did the audition as a favour for a friend - and I got it.
The last job I quit was... as the weatherman on Breakfast. "Quit" makes it sound like something out of a reality TV show, but it was more a conversation with the boss which went: "I've had a good time, but I'm off overseas to do other stuff. Thanks for the good times, I'm out."
The most famous person I've ever met is... Gok Wan, the fashion guy, who is pretty international and I'll never forget the moment that he proposed to me on live TV. I said thanks but no. I also interviewed Dolly Parton for Seven Sharp, when I was filling in, and I asked her to sing Happy Birthday to me. It wasn't actually my birthday, but I just wanted to hear Dolly sing a song just for me. Harmless fun.
They were... Great to interact with - the both of them.
The best time I've had on screen was... winning Dancing with the Stars, back in 2009. At the start, my dance partner and I were committed to not being voted out in the first week. Anything up from there was a bonus, so to take out the trophy really blew my mind!
But the worst was... during one of the big final live moments of New Zealand's Got Talent when I said it had been a "wowser" of a show, a word that producers later informed me, according to the Urban Dictionary, is a derogatory word denoting a person who "saps all the fun out of any given situation". So not the best choice of word. But after 10 years of doing live TV, that one moment was pretty tame.
My dream project would be... helping to get house building in New Zealand kicked into fifth gear so that we have houses for our most vulnerable and for those first home buyers and young families that want somewhere to grow their families. Also for Maori landowners to be able to get capital to enable large-scale house building projects on multiply-owned Maori land in line with the desires of their trusts and owners. Serious I know, but housing is the biggest issue in New Zealand at the moment.
• Moving Out with Tamati, Saturday, 7pm on TVNZ 1 and streaming on TVNZ OnDemand.
