That was how a cheery, fedora-clad Shane Jones greeted the press pack in Invercargill as he headed to meetings with local leaders.
A week before the About the South road trip began, Rio Tinto announced it would close the aluminium smelter next year.
It sent shockwaves through Southland. About 1000 people are employed by the smelter directly, and another 1600 jobs are linked to it indirectly.
Given the road trip was all about testing the waters ahead of the election, it was a happy coincidence that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and a bevy of MPs happened to be in Invercargill as day four dawned.
After we waited for several hours with the press gaggle outside Great South’s offices, toes slowly losing all feeling in the morning chill, the Prime Minister and her colleagues arrived in a large transit van.
They rushed inside, and did not emerge until late morning.
By that point, about a dozen locals had joined the media. They wanted to catch a glimpse of Ms Ardern.
One woman said she was braving the cold because Ms Ardern was "for the people".
"She cares."
Her patience paid off: she managed to have a quick conversation with the Prime Minister to tell her she hoped she was re-elected.
Overcome by the experience, she received a big hug from a fellow fan as the politicians drove away.
Others waiting outside also wanted to hear from the Prime Minister, but not out of sheer adoration.
They wanted to know what the Government was going to do about Tiwai.
As expected, it was pretty much the only talking point in Bluff.
At local chippie The Galley Takeaways, staff members Mikayla Pearsey and Al-Laam Arsiwala had been hearing plenty of concerns about the effect of the Tiwai closure from hungry customers.
"People are flipping out quite a bit," Mr Arsiwala said.
He was about to start his own business, and was worried that it, along with others in town, would take a hit.
Ms Pearsey said job losses were a concern.
"It’s kind of 50/50 — everyone’s like ‘yay no more of that toxic smoke’ but what about the jobs that are going to be lost? What’s going to happen to everyone down here?
"So it’s a real on-the-fence situation."
Further up the main road is The Eagle Bar, a hulking brick building with the aforementioned bird emblazoned across the top.
The bar staff were not keen to give their names, but they, too, said Tiwai was the talk of the town.
While many people were happy to see the smelter close, it was going to affect small businesses that relied on it for work, one bartender said.
"Some of them are really going to hurt," she said.
It was time to head inland, so we drove away from sunny Bluff.
However, leaving behind the smelter turned out to be more challenging.
The biggest issue facing the town of Mataura is thoroughly entwined with Tiwai.
It has one that has been well covered in national media, thrusting the 1509-strong freezing works town into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Almost 10,000 tonnes of aluminium dross created by the smelter has been sitting in the town’s disused paper mill since Taha Industries, the company commissioned to remove it, went into liquidation in 2016.
Major flooding in February drew attention to the issue, as, if the dross gets wet, it can create a dangerous cloud of ammonia gas.
Sitting in his office, sock-clad feet propped up on his desk, local accountant David Payne described it as "toxic crap".
"For whatever reason, it’s still sitting there."
The fury in town is palpable. Graffiti on the old mill, shouts "Get this waste out of our place!!" in large angry letters.
Earlier in the week, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones made it rain, money, metaphorically, in Southland, announcing $30million of funding for flood protection in towns including Gore and Mataura.
That was positive, Mr Payne said, as the flooding wreaked havoc on more than just the stopbanks.
"It’s going to be good, because they can see the economic damage that it does. There is an economic consequence to this, you know."
Movement around Mataura tends to ebb and flow depending on shift changeovers at the freezing works.
A couple of blokes were congregating at the RSA, catching up over a pint in the late afternoon.
They were not particularly keen to talk politics — it could cause drama in a small town setting.
"All I’ll say is I’m voting for Winston," one did mention enthusiastically.
Day four ended further up the road in Gore, where Tiwai was no longer the main topic of conversation.
However, with a disgraced MP missing in action, there was plenty on locals’ minds.
