Backch@t - First Episode

I think a large city, to a certain degree, takes advantage of the fact that we're there all the time and they can come and see us anytime they want to; whereas the small towns are very appreciative of what we're doing...

– Dancer Shannon Dawson, on touring ballet to small-town New Zealand

I tell you there's a big myth about Aucklanders, as far as the rest of New Zealand is concerned, and that is that the rest of New Zealand don't like Aucklanders. Frankly, I can't think of an Aucklander that I don't like...

– Timaru mayor Wynne Raymond

We'd like to think of backchat as a — I don't know — like a good, intelligent, entertaining magazine. Intelligent? In television? Now that's an oxymoron, surely.

– Bill Ralston introduces the show

We don't have the infrastructure to sustain a growth of 25,000 people per year, so we know that there's $2 billion that is our money — we've paid for — that paternalistic Wellington won't let us get our hands on. And in the meantime, we only have one runway at our airport, we've had a power failure, we lurch from crisis to crisis...

– Epsom MP Christine Fletcher on Auckland's issues

Did you have any idea you were going to detonate a small art nuclear bomb here in New Zealand though?

– Bill Ralston asks British Council director Paul Smith about British art exhibition Pictura Britannica

Now Tania Kovats' work has caused an almost unbelievable, intense and sadly violent debate. A Te Papa worker was assaulted and the Virgin in a Condom was, allegedly, smashed to the ground. Tania Kovats was to appear on this programme, but the intensity of the whole debate has led her to change her mind.

– Bill Ralston on Te Papa's controversial 1998 art exhibition Pictura Britannica

Misunderstood, it's over here and overhyped — and we're not coping very well.

– Reporter Mark Crysell introduces controversial Te Papa exhibition Pictura Britannica