For about 10 years, the pub across the road from Parliament has played host to politicians, diehard activists, civil servants and confused tourists who gather for the live filming of Back Benches on Wednesday nights.

That tradition is now officially dead.

New Zealand On Air, the public agency that funds media, did not renew funding for Back Benches following the election.



It was born during the few years that New Zealand had a public service television channel, in the name of TVNZ7, and it was pulled from the grave thanks to a chance flight where host Wallace Chapman got talking politics with a boss from Sky TV.

MONIQUE FORD/STUFF Hayley Holt, who went on to stand for the Green Party at the 2017 election, took over co-hosting duties.

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Chapman said he won't miss the show, but he will miss the full and diverse bar.

"It's been a f... load of fun but I've never had a problem with letting things go," he said on Friday.

JANE WYLES Back Benches launched on TVNZ7 with Wallace Chapman and Damian Christie.

Chapman had presented the show since its advent in 2008. When the news came on Thursday afternoon that the previous night's episode had been the final ever, Chapman said he wasn't surprised. "After all, the show did start in the Clark era, it was a long time ago," he said.

More than that though, Chapman said it was almost poetic for the show to end this week. "It's the closing of a chapter," he said, as on Sunday a new chapter begins for Wallace and his wife Tabitha who were expecting their first baby.

Over its time, Back Benches saw three co-hosts, got on the wrong side of MPs from day one, and kept filming even when its namesake pub and set burnt down in 2012.

MONIQUE FORD/STUFF The show moved to diferent pubs occasionally, and found a temporary new home when the Backbencher burnt in 2012.

Chapman reported that ex-National MP Maurice Williamson was one of the first MPs to accept an invite to the fairly unorthodox show, but he never came back. "He hates the show," Chapman said, because the first question Williamson received was: "Global Warming, real, yes or no?"

"He said that's not a question and he never came on the show again."

When TVNZ7 closed, Back Benches survived on Sky's Prime TV. That show seemed to have a knack of finding a new home when it needed to. And Chapman has said it mightn't be all over just yet. "NZ On Air have left the door open for a 2020 election special, but I'm honestly fine," he said.

CAMERON BURNELL/STUFF Each week the show would bring in some less well known MPs, over time backbench MPs have included Paula Bennet, Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw.

His personal goal over those five years wasn't to get the biggest TV audience, it was to fill that Backbencher pub each Wednesday night.

"At Back Benches you had young ACT arguing with young Greens... there were people on polar opposites having a pint together at the Backbencher," he said.

Of all that time, there was one memory that stuck: When Chapman turned around to see the then chief of Defence Bruce Ferguson talking with a member of the Waihopai Three, a protest group that popped one of the GCSB's spy domes.

CAMERON BURNELL/STUFF The show broadcast for five years on TVNZ, and another four and a half on Prime.

"I look at Twitter and see the lack of conversation and lack of willing to appreciate another side of view, then, what's the point? In a Back Benches environment you had 80 odd people coming in from all different persuasions," Chapman said.

While he wouldn't be hosting a weekly politics show, Chapman did say he hoped to keep some of that vibe alive with his other jobs.

"This is how democracy should look, where you have a live unregulated audience who have come off the street, no security and you had your elected representatives form across the road who were right up against the audience," he said.

Chapman also hosted Sunday Morning on RNZ, where he tried out a morning Back Benches after the election. It was a far different vibe, with less booze and more in-depth musings, he reported, but it still worked.

When Chapman gets back to work – he was taking at least a few weeks off with the new baby due any moment – the Aucklander said he'd scout out some new opportunities for his groundbreaking bar broadcast concept.