This week on the Raw Politics podcast: The leaders front up - Chris Hipkins to his party's annual congress for the first time, and Christopher Luxon to a nationwide 'back on track' roadshow; Plus the risks of AI in political advertising.

The Raw Politics team marks a couple of election year milestones: the governing party's annual meeting and the start of the National Party leader's national speaking tour. We examine what both want to achieve - Hipkins to reveal more about himself, his vision and his capacity to win, and Luxon to reveal if he's got what it takes when voters let him have it face to face. In both cases, it's raw politics. Both leaders have some convincing to do.

And, we discuss the threat of generative Artificial Intelligence - technology capable of making the fake look real, the real look fake and possibly fools of politicians and voters alike. National's using limited AI to illustrate some of its early messaging. At the other end of the spectrum is Mr Fake News, Donald Trump and his latest impersonation of a CNN anchor.

A listener wants to know the panel's view on whether National should do a cup-of-tea deal with Shane Jones and New Zealand First in the Northland seat to try to guarantee another mate in Parliament.

And the panel is recommends a UK comedian's brilliant video showing the stages of every political scandal, a Newsroom story on the painstaking work by police to trace the untraceable people during Cyclone Gabrielle, and a Stuff column lamenting NZ's leadership in the world slipping from Jacinda Ardern and stateswomanship to Hipkins and sausage rolls.

Every Friday, Jo Moir, Sam Sachdeva and Tim Murphy talk through the big issues and scrutinise politicians’ performances in a lively 25-minute show aiming to take viewers and listeners inside the actions and motivations of our elected leaders.

Moir is Newsroom’s political editor, having been in the gallery for eight years also with Stuff and RNZ, Sachdeva is our national affairs editor, former political editor and was a Stuff political writer and Murphy is Newsroom’s co-editor, a former member of the Parliamentary press gallery and former editor-in-chief of the NZ Herald.

Watch Raw Politics on YouTube, or download or listen to it as a podcast on Spotify, or via Apple Podcasts. And send us your burning political questions to jo.moir@newsroom.co.nz and we’ll endeavour to find the answer and explain the issues.