It's off-the-record events that can be most revealing
Sometimes it is only away from the media glare that we see our politicians as they really are, in the raw.
The absence of cameras, recording devices and notebooks allows political minds an out, a chance to rely on plausible deniability, iftheir guards come down and their real views or character spill out.
Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson "joked" at non-media functions about New Zealanders' attitudes to foreign purchasers of land and about Muslims and adultery.
Whether you agree with him or not, it is better to know what humour circulates within that ministerial mind than for it to be forever suppressed.
In the suburban mayoral debate for the Super City this week at which candidates John Banks and Andrew Williams puffed out their chests and invaded each other's personal space, cameras were not running.
Thankfully, the ease of citizen journalism now makes no encounter entirely off the record. Members of the public and other candidates tweeted, texted and emailed.
Minor as the aggressive posturing may have been, it tells its own story of the pressures candidates may be under and how they react when out of the spotlight.
Would Mr Williams have accused Mr Banks of lying or Mr Banks have accused Mr Williams of drinking if the cameras had been there. Probably not. We are better off for the audience's reports.
