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How would I sum up my experience as an intern for Isentia? Interesting, rewarding, challenging, and engaging.

Hi, my name is Allan. I am currently an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering and Business Management student studying at the University of Technology, Sydney – and have recently completed an internship with Isentia’s HR department.

First of all, you might be wondering what an Engineer is doing as a HR Intern – they don’t exactly fit together, do they? It was for this reason that I was initially hesitant in applying for the role as I didn’t know whether it would align with what I wanted out of my future, or whether I would be a good fit.

However, I soon learnt that being an intern with Isentia was a rewarding and interesting role, not to mention the fact that I was also surrounded by a group of incredibly supportive and knowledgeable people.

Having put myself forward as a mentee for the Australian Human Resources Institute’s mentoring program, I was inspired to learn more – an interest that ultimately led me to this exciting role.

Being an HR intern at Isentia wasn’t just any job – I took on this role because of the challenges it would provide to explore a different area of expertise. And yes, there were definitely new and interesting projects waiting to test my capabilities!

I do have to admit, I always seemed to find myself applying a bit of my engineering experience to the way I undertook each task, but I think this was an approach that helped bring a new and alternative perspective to the team. Who knows, maybe I taught them something new too?!

Along with the day-to-day operations of a HR department, I also gained skills across areas such as policy development, the intricacies of an intranet, and how a strategic HR function operates within a large business.

I would highly recommend Isentia for all future interns wishing to challenge themselves with something new and exciting – I certainly loved my time there and will carry that experience with me throughout my career!

Allan Soo 
Student from the University of Technology, Sydney NSW
Combined Degree in Business Management (Hons) and Mechanical Engineering (Hons)

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The common stereotype an internship is one from the movies of a young student rushing to work with a tray of coffees in one hand and the boss’s dry cleaning in the other. While there are certainly negative internships out there, my personal experience interning at Isentia has been a valuable opportunity to learn and develop.

During my internship at Isentia I have been exposed to client interactions, assisted in the production of external-facing work, and developed my research capabilities. However, I believe that the most valuable lesson for an intern is to develop their confidence and sense of value as a young professional. 

Professional discourse often describes the working journey as a ladder, indicating a strict hierarchy with a singular direction. I’ve found that unlike the ladder model, the culture at Isentia is one that allows for a valuable overlap of experience and open communication, with senior and junior members providing insights and ideas in collaborative discussions. This is an ideal environment for an intern in being able to ask for guidance and develop the confidence to provide input.

I believe the greatest challenge for an intern is to find the balance of following instruction and delivering what is expected, while also taking a critical and independent approach to add value and improve the outcome. It may take years for me to develop this confidence, however, during my short time at Isentia I’ve strived to be solutions-oriented when undertaking tasks and provide valuable support to the team.

It should be said that internships are an opportunity that many cannot afford, creating a gap of experience between those who have the privilege and time to undertake an internship, and those who do not. If you decide to hire an intern you should keep it in mind that many are interning on top of work and their studies with the aim of learning, advancing their experience and gaining exposure to the industry. When an intern is supported and given challenging work they can grow and harvest profits for your team and organisation.

The Isentia team members are diverse in background, and bring different skills and unique perspectives to the table to form an interesting and collaborative culture. I’ve found the team, as well as the wider office, hugely welcoming and supportive of my learning journey, taking the time to answer my questions and explain tasks. Thanks to them, my experience at Isentia has largely been a positive one.

Beattie Tow
Intern from University of Technology Sydney

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A weekly tracker tracing the stories, figures and policies driving media and social coverage in the 2026 New Zealand General Election across Online News, TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine, X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Forums. This edition covers conversations and coverage from 8th - 15th October, highlighting what’s shaping the election conversation.

1. Election Conversation

Media = news coverage. Social = all public posts across X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Forums - everyone posting, not just media outlets.

2. Media Issue of the Week

Green and Te Pāti Māori MPs Draw Criticism Over Meeting With Mongrel Mob Members

Candidates and sitting MPs from the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori attended a meeting with Mongrel Mob members at a gang address. When photographs from the meeting were shared on social media, the response from commentators and rival parties was swift and largely critical.

This was not the week's highest-volume story, accounting for only 112 of 4,479 media items (2.5%, after filtering out unrelated international content) and 116 of 13,938 unique social posts (0.8%, after collapsing retweet/repost duplicates down to one count per message), well below the volume generated by ongoing leaders' debate coverage, which totalled 1,125 media items. Two independent methods nonetheless support treating it as a genuine, separable story: an exact keyword count aligns closely with an unsupervised clustering analysis of the entire media population, which identified it as a distinct 47-item cluster - smaller than general campaign coverage and several specific policy announcements, but clearly distinguishable from them. What sets the story apart is the intensity of the reaction rather than its scale: 72% of social commentary on the topic was negative, the most one-sided sentiment recorded for any subject this week, and the average post attracted roughly 5.7 times the typical level of engagement. Taken together, these figures point to a genuine public reaction concentrated on social platforms, and the episode provides National and ACT with a law-and-order narrative that may continue into coming weeks. It has not been linked to a tracked party policy below, as it reflects a matter of conduct rather than a policy position.

3. What's happening across media and social?

4,479 media items · 13,938 social items · share of each channel's own conversation, so the two bars are directly comparable

"Social" is all public posts across X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Forums - not just media organisations' own accounts.

The most active commentary this week came from Sean Plunket, the Chris Chang and Tova O'Brien pairing, and John MacDonald.

By follower reach, the most prominent social accounts posting about the election this week were major outlets' own accounts - the New Zealand Herald, 1News, RNZ, Stuff and Radio Tarana - alongside the official Labour Party account. Individual leaders' personal accounts posted actively but with smaller followings than these outlet and party accounts.

The Greens continue to receive disproportionately greater attention on social media relative to traditional news coverage, accounting for 20.4% of social party conversation compared with 14.1% in media coverage - roughly 1.4 times the media share.

Law and order shows a similarly pronounced gap between channels this week, accounting for 10.6% of social conversation compared with 5.3% in the news. This is consistent with the public reaction to the Mongrel Mob meeting, which appears to have generated considerably sharper engagement on social platforms than mainstream coverage volume alone would suggest.

4. Party Share of Conversation

Shown for the four largest parliamentary parties (National, Labour, Greens, NZ First); ACT, Te Pāti Māori and TOP are tracked elsewhere in this report but not included in this chart, so these shares sum to 100% of the four shown, not of all tracked parties. Share of conversation measures attention and mentions only - it is not polling and should not be read as an indication of electoral success.

5. Top candidates this week

Winston Peters leads the rankings this week, a shift driven primarily by a widely circulated moment in the minor-party leaders' debate in which he described diversity as "a weakness rather than a strength" while delivering a pointed critique of the left-leaning bloc. Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins follow closely behind as the campaign moves into its final weeks, while David Seymour and Chloe Swarbrick complete the top five, each drawing attention largely through their parties' own policy announcements this week.

6. Election Issues

Top 4 themes this week

What's driving conversation about each party?

Each major party's top-ranked issues this week, by real topic volume in their social conversation (after excluding other parties' names, individual people, and procedural or horse-race chatter), with how that conversation leaned

Volume and sentiment above are based on social media data only.

7. Issues to Watch

• The meeting between Green and Te Pāti Māori representatives and Mongrel Mob members represents a reputational risk for both parties heading into the final weeks of the campaign. Whether National and ACT are able to sustain this as a law-and-order narrative through to the 7 November election is worth monitoring closely.
• Labour's fiscal plan issue recorded the most negative social sentiment of any tracked policy this week, at 55.3% negative, followed by Greens' wealth tax at 53.7% and ACT's fiscal plan at 50.0%. All three touch on tax, spending or fiscal policy specifically, suggesting the fiscal debate is where social sentiment is running most negative across the board this week, rather than any one party facing an isolated problem.
• Social media discussion of the Greens continues to centre on polling performance and tactical voting considerations rather than policy substance. Coalition and tactical-voting framing accounts for 12.7% of their social conversation this week, compared with just 2.2% focused specifically on their wealth tax proposal - a pattern that has now held for three consecutive weeks. Whether that balance shifts as the campaign enters its final stretch would be worth tracking.

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If you want to find out more about how Isentia can help you understand the NZ media landscape, please reach out to us here.

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A weekly tracker tracing the stories, figures and policies driving media and social coverage in the 2026 New Zealand General Election across Online News, TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine, X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Forums. This edition covers conversations and coverage from 1st – 8th October, highlighting what’s shaping the election conversation.

1. Election Conversation

2. Media Issue of the Week

National Proposes Drug Testing and Benefit Cuts for Jobseekers

National announced a five-point welfare policy: random drug testing for JobSeeker recipients (with sanctions for repeat failures), reduced payments for long-term beneficiaries, and a doubled stand-down period for repeatedly leaving jobs without good reason. Labour and the Greens called it "punching down" and "cruel"; ACT proposed going even further; Luxon defended it as "fairness" for taxpayers.

The single largest media cluster this week (183 of 600 sampled items) was generic "campaigning intensifies as election day nears" coverage. This welfare policy, while smaller by volume (29 items), is a genuine flashpoint: a specific, controversial announcement that sharply divided every major party and will likely keep generating reaction into next week.

3. What's happening across media and social?

4,360 media items · 17,277 social items · share of each channel's own conversation, so the two bars are directly comparable

The Greens get more than twice the relative attention on social media as in the news. On social, the Greens are 20.8% of party conversation; in the news, they're 10.3%.

Health is a top-four issue on social but not in the news this week - Infrastructure takes its place in media's top four instead. Social conversation is tilting toward the health system while media coverage stays on economy, cost of living and infrastructure announcements.

4. Party Share of Conversation

Share of conversation measures attention and mentions only - it is not polling and should not be read as an indication of electoral success.

5. Top candidates this week

Luxon and Hipkins remain close at the top as the campaign enters its final stretch. Peters follows, still driven by coalition speculation. Seymour moves up to fourth on the back of ACT's economic-reform push (including floating a higher superannuation age), overtaking Swarbrick, whose fifth-place mentions continue to track the Greens' polling strength.

6. Election Issues

Top 4 themes this week

How are policies landing for each party?

Each major party's most prominent specific policy, and how social conversation reacted to it

Volume and sentiment above are based on social media data only.

7. Issues to Watch

• National's welfare drug-testing policy is a fresh, sharply divisive flashpoint - the "punching down" framing from Labour and the Greens, and ACT signalling it wants to go further still, both point to more reaction next week.
• Labour's capital gains tax remains the week's clearest negative outlier (85.5% negative on social). National's own infrastructure pledge is also net-negative this week (42.3% vs 21.2% positive), despite infrastructure announcements usually landing on safer ground than tax policy. ACT's KiwiSaver policy, by contrast, remains clearly positive (91.3%).
• On social, discussion of the Greens is mostly about polling results and tactical voting rather than their own policy: 14% of their social conversation is coalition/tactical-voting framing (which bloc to "party vote" for), versus just 2% specifically about their wealth tax policy - their polling surge is driving attention more than their platform is.

---

If you want to find out more about how Isentia can help you understand the NZ media landscape, please reach out to us here.

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