Barry Soper is a staple of New Zealand’s political landscape.

After joining the Parliamentary Press Gallery in 1980, he’s spent nearly five decades as a political reporter, questioning the country’s leaders.

And now he’s diving into the details, revealing some of the untold stories of the twelve Prime Ministers that have spanned his career in ‘One Last Question, Prime Minister’.

While some things have changed throughout Soper’s time, something that hasn’t is politicians’ perception of the Press Gallery.

“Being in the Press Gallery, you’re always labelled ... every time the Press Gallery does a story, they’re labelled as hunting in a pack, and going off on tangents that are inexplicable,” he told Mike Hosking.

“I think the only thing that’s really changed from the time I was in the Press Gallery, started there in 1980, to today is the age of the journalists that are there.”

In Soper’s time, the demographic skewed older and more male – the gallery seen as a ‘creme de la creme’ job that political reports aspired to.

“Now it’s transposed, there are more women than men and they’re young, generally younger.”

But although the journalists reporting the stories change, the stories they report can echo the past.

“There are so many stories around Parliament, as you can imagine, all politicians talk, and the latest is a good example of when you get onto a good story,” Soper explained.

“I’ve been involved in so many stories when it relates to people being rolled in politics,” he told Hosking – Bill English springing to mind.

“I’d done the numbers and knew his time was up,” Soper said, which was something he’d revealed in an interview with one of Hosking's processors, Paul Holmes.

“Holmes said to me at the end of the interview, he said, “Baz, is this man a dead man walking?” and I said, “Holmesy, more like a twitching corpse.””

English of course, was not well pleased with Soper’s analysis, calling him up after the interview to tell him he had the numbers.

“And I said, “No you haven’t Bill, you’ll see. See you by lunchtime.” And of course he was gone.”

Twelve Prime Ministers have come and gone over the course of his career so far, but Soper has his top six, and funnily enough, Bill English doesn’t make the cut.

From Muldoon to Luxon, Soper delves into the details of New Zealand’s Prime Ministers in ‘One Last Question, Prime Minister’, releasing on the 28th of April.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Barry Soper: Newstalk ZB Senior Political Correspondent on his new book 'One Last Question, Prime Minister'

The Mike Hosking Breakfast