Photography: Emily Chalk.
Paddy Gower has earned a reputation as one of television’s sharpest and most tenacious journalists, but he still remembers being completely in awe when he first met Samantha Hayes.
The former newspaperman joined TV3 in 2010 and was suddenly working alongside Nightline presenter Samantha.
“I was very, very starstruck,” he insists as the pair catch up with Woman’s Weekly.
Laughing, Samantha admits she doesn’t actually recall that encounter, but these days, the admiration is very much mutual.
“When Paddy walks into our newsroom, the whole energy lifts,” she says.
“There’s just no one else quite like Paddy Gower.”
More than just colleagues
Now the firm friends are preparing to share the desk for Stuff.co.nz and Three’s live election-night coverage. For Paddy, 49, who has covered every general election since 2005, joining the team this year means more than viewers might realise.
After Newshub’s closure in 2024 turned his working life upside down, there were moments when he wondered whether he’d have a role at all.
“It looked to me at different times like there might not be something for me to do this time around, genuinely,” he shares.
“I had to deal with that in my own mind.”
But Samantha, 42, was having none of it.
“I kept saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay, you have to be involved. It’s going to be fine.’”
A winning partnership
Now, heading into his seventh consecutive election and sixth on Three, Paddy will anchor alongside Samantha rather than crunch the numbers.
“Technically, it’s a promotion,” he smiles.
Having Samantha beside him is another reason to celebrate, he enthuses.
“Sam is an outstanding journalist, first and foremost, as well as an outstanding presenter. She’s as good a presenter as you will find on planet Earth.”
A nonplussed Samantha is still learning to take these declarations in her stride.
“I’m not good with compliments, but Paddy talks like this all the time and I have to get used to it!”
Life beyond the newsroom
While former colleagues have scattered to new jobs, these two have stayed in each other’s orbit. This year, Samantha joined Paddy Gower Has Issues to report on the endangered hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin).
“That was really cool because I got to slip back into my old, long-form current affairs mode, which, it transpires, I really miss,” she says.
Away from work, Samantha is adjusting to a milestone of her own, with her daughter Amaya starting school alongside her seven-year-old brother Marlow.
Her “confident and sassy” five-year-old has already been sizing up the playground during morning drop-offs, heading straight for the monkey bars.
“She stares down the big kids,” laughs Samantha.
“She wants her clean run.”
But beneath Amaya’s confident exterior, there have been a few nerves.
“She said to me the other day, ‘Mama, I’m worried that I’ll get something wrong.’ And I said, ‘That’s the whole idea of school – you’re there to learn and you’re going to get heaps of stuff wrong. But that’s okay. It’s how you learn.’”
The years are flying by
Stuff journalist and presenter Samantha, who has an extensive spreadsheet of every policy announcement and political interview from the lead-up to the election, recognises a little of herself in that concern.
“I do feel like there is a bit of perfectionism running in the family!”
She admits Amaya’s fifth birthday has had her looking back through baby photos and wondering where those first precious years have gone.
“I created an album from the first scans, and when Marlow used to hug my belly and talk to her,” she smiles.
“Amaya will often come to me and say, ‘Mum, can I look at my baby photos?’, so I’m planning photo books for both kids this Christmas.”
Marlow is taking more of an interest in his mum’s job now that he’s a bit older. When she gets home, they chat about their days over her dinner before he goes to bed. Watching a political debate together recently, he suggested Samantha should probably be prime minister rather than a reporter.
“I thought it was very sweet that he thought that I could.”
Paddy has a couple of milestones coming up himself. This Christmas marks five years sober, followed by his 50th birthday on April Fool’s Day 2027. But there is only one date getting the full countdown treatment.
“I’ve always got this election countdown. I don’t have one for 50,” he shrugs.
A career comeback
He says quitting drinking and rebuilding his career after redundancy have already given him plenty to think about.
“By the time 50 comes around, hopefully I won’t be grappling with anything that day.”
Alongside making content for Stuff, presenting on RNZ, motivational speaking and charity work, Paddy has kept current affairs show Paddy Gower Has Issues alive on Three with producer Jon Bridges through their company, Believer Media. After the upheaval of redundancy, it remains his proudest professional achievement. Having lost his mum to lung cancer, he also holds cancer causes especially close.
There’s fresh recognition for that work, too. Both Paddy Gower Has Issues and ThreeNews are nominated at the New Zealand Television Awards, while their hosts are competing for best news and current affairs presenter.
Paddy was pretty chuffed about his nomination until Samantha walked into the dressing room with news of her own: she was up for the same award.
“So I guess I’m not winning that one,” he jokes.
On election night, however, they’ll be firmly on the same side. With a smaller backroom team than they’re used to, the pair has helped with everything from graphics to set design. Political editor Jenna Lynch will break down the election number and electorate results, while news editor Lloyd Burr will also have a studio role.
Having each other’s backs
Both say election night coverage is an enormous undertaking, but Paddy and Samantha have also been at the other end of a live cross, trying to deliver a report as politicians, minders and party faithful all swirl around them.
Samantha recalls reporting from outside Dame Jacinda Ardern’s house, then trying to enter National Party headquarters just as Bill English arrived. Security physically picked her up and moved her aside. Paddy knows the feeling.
“Like Sam, I’ve been muscled out while trying to chase John Key.”
Those experiences make them especially keen to support the next generation. Paddy is proud of how Samantha has championed young reporter Ava Whitworth, 22, backing her for an election-night role and helping her prepare for her first live cross.
For Samantha, who started presenting Nightline as a 23-year-old, it brought back memories of journalist Whena Owen supporting her through her own first live cross when she reported on an unexpected Wellington visit by Fiji’s coup leader Frank Bainimarama.
“I was physically shaking, but she got me through it.”
Both hosts also credit their late mentor, Gordon “Flash” McBride, with helping shape the journalists they became.
“There are a lot of things that bind us together beyond being colleagues and friends,” adds Paddy.
That bond will serve them well through the long hours of live coverage, while a studio audience will add to the buzz of a party everyone’s invited to. Samantha relishes election night’s unpredictability, especially knowing who will be sitting beside her.
“With Paddy there by my side, it’s going to be fun. It’s going to be entertaining and it’s going to be bang on in terms of our reporting of what’s unfolding in real time.”
Election Night Live broadcast will be simulcast live across Three, ThreeNow and stuff.co.nz at 7pm on Saturday, November 7.
