Eyewitness

Trade Me - buyers sending money to people they've never met for goods they've never seen? It'll never catch on! Produced by Justin Gregory.

"It was the  Wild West."

Trade Me: buyers sending money to people they've never met for goods they've never seen.

It'll never catch on.

It kinda did, though. But not without a few obstacles in the way.

"Go back 20 years and the advice was don't trust people online and don't get into cars with strangers."

This is Jon Macdonald, who today runs Trade Me, reflecting on how much things have changed since the company launched in 1999.

Back then, you flicked off your unwanted stuff in newspaper classifieds or in Trade and Exchange magazine.

Homes that actually had internet connections felt lucky to run at 56KB per second. Nowadays, most urban dwellings cruise at 5-6 megabytes.

So; dialup internet at slow speeds and very low levels of trust around online transactions. Sounds like a great time to launch an online auction site.

The legend of Trade Me is that founder Sam Morgan was struggling to find a second hand heater to buy in his local classifieds and thought: bugger this.

Jon Macdonald worked alongside Morgan back then and remembers he also had a vision of how things could be done better online.

"You could post an ad and people would see it immediately as opposed to waiting for the paper to come out on Saturday. You could post photos and a long description (of the goods); make it a far, far richer experience."

There was a more prosaic reason, too.

"(Sam) wanted to learn how to code."

Trade Me went live in March 1999 with a homepage that Jon describes as "distinctly hobbyist. "

"But it worked and it was fast and that was enough back then."

Growth was slow initially but by 2001, 100,000 people had signed up and the site was profitable. Jon joined Trade Me in 2003. The company was four years old by then and Jon says they often acted like it.

"To some degree we ran around a bit like a kid's hockey match."

"We were all young and total management experience across the company was reasonably light, as well. But having said that, we did get stuff done."

The next few years were hard graft but growth began to be exponential. Trade Me started listing cars, then property, then jobs and, by 2004, they were the fastest growing company in the country.

At one point, visits to the site accounted for nearly 3/4 of all internet usage in New Zealand and by 2005, 50% of all Kiwis had visited or used the site. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Auckland, 1998. After a long, hot summer, the lights suddenly go out in the city.

Auckland, 1998. After a long, hot summer, the lights suddenly go out in the city.

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"There was a lot of anger."

At first glance, the summer of 1998 looks a lot like the one we've just had.

The nation has a woman in charge and Winston Peters as her deputy while the New Zealand cricket team promises much - but delivers less. And just like 2018, the weather's driving everyone crazy.

It would turn out to be the wettest year anyone could remember. And it wasn't just wet; it was hot, too, with February hotter than any month on record to date.

Appliance stores couldn't keep up with the demand for fans and air conditioners. As it turns out, the power supply to downtown Auckland couldn't, either.

Mathew Bolland remembers that summer well. In 1998 he was the communications manager at Mercury Energy, the company responsible for supplying the CBD.

"Rather than for heating in winter, (the power supply) to the CBD became about cooling in summer."

Mathew has been in the job for only six months and is enjoying himself. But that's about to end.

At the time, downtown Auckland is supplied by four major power cables and one smaller one from a substation in Penrose. Two of them, the older, gas-filled models, were nearing the end of their operational life. The other two are more modern, oil-filled versions.

In late January, one of the older cables blows. The CBD is down to only three cables, but no one's seriously inconvenienced. But then, on 9 February, its mate blows as well.

"At that point" says Mathew, "it was an issue rather than a crisis."

Then the unthinkable happens. Unbelievably, 10 days later, one of the two, more modern, oil-filled cables also goes. With just one cable left, power supply to the city is now critically impaired. No one at Mercury can believe it, but while they're aghast, they're not panicking. Their engineers are confident they can safely increase the load on the remaining cable while they repair the other three. The situation surely can't get any worse.

"It was almost beyond imagination that you could lose all four."

Friday, 20 February, 5.30pm. The last remaining major cable blows up in Mercury's faces. The 1998 Auckland power crisis has begun. And that evening, from Mercury Energy: an extraordinary statement. "The company no longer believes it can supply the CBD with electricity."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

In early 90s Christchurch, a remarkable group of Pasifika performers take their first steps towards success.

In early 90s Christchurch, a remarkable group of Pasifika performers take their first steps towards success.

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"And I said, why don't we start our own theatre company?"

In the unlikely setting of Christchurch in 1993, something remarkable is underway. In a small theatre at the Arts Centre, a young Samoan man steps out onto a stage and addresses the audience.

"For too long now, my people, we have been oppressed. We were once welcomed into this country with open arms because the government at the time needed cheap labour. Now it seems we are no longer welcome."

The character's name is Samoa, played by then-novice actor Oscar Kightley. The play, called Fresh Off the Boat, is the debut show by a new theatre company called Pacific Underground, a group that will change both theatre in New Zealand and the way pacific stories are told.

For all his bold words, Samoa - real name, Englebert - isn't the hero he believes himself to be. The would-be revolutionary leader still lives with his mum and is terrified of leaving home to look after himself.

In that sense, Englebert and Oscar had a fair bit in common back in 1993. Oscar may have felt like a newbie acting on stage in just his second professional performance - and the first play he's written - but the home truth was something different. He had been performing all his life, mostly in shows at his church.

"And they're very traumatic experiences, to be honest."

"No director is as scary as your own rellies in the front row of church at White Sunday, looking at you and daring you to get it right and not muck up."

Oscar Kightley, one of the Pacific Underground founders, was born in Samoa in 1969 and moved to Auckland as a child. He trained as a journalist at the now-defunct Auckland Star but his move towards theatre began in 1991 when he moved to Christchurch for TV work. To his surprise, Oscar discovered a community of Pasifika and palagi actors, writers, dancers and musicians in the southern city.  They were all young, talented and ready. And their timing is just right.

"Our pacific community was starting to grow. In fact it grew by 40% in the 1990s."

"We were all born around the same time, all young and hungry and beginning to explore the performing arts as a career."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

In the icy waters of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, a protest boat is rammed by Japanese whalers and sinks soon afterwards. But who was really to blame?

January 2010. In the freezing Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, Sea Shepherd boat the Ady Gill is rammed by a Japanese whaling ship. The Ady Gill sinks soon after. But who was really to blame?

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https://youtu.be/ynecStOsoto

"I thought we'd be bringing people back in body bags."

Pete Bethune isn't a man to mince his words. Especially not when it comes to whaling in the southern ocean around Antarctica.

"It's the Wild West down there," he says bluntly.

He would know. Eight years ago, as the skipper of a high speed boat with a crew of environmental activists, he tested the limits of the law by getting up close and very personal with the Japanese whaling fleet.

On that occasion, his boat came off second best. But possibly the real damage done was to Pete Bethune's sense of the world, his respect for his fellow activists and maybe, to himself.

In 2008 Bethune set a new speed record for circumnavigating the globe in a bio-diesel fuelled trimaran named Earthrace, a vessel he called "the coolest boat in the world". Just after finishing his record-breaking journey, a journalist asked him what he wanted to do next.

"Just off the cuff I said I might take (Earthrace) to Antarctica to disrupt the Japanese whaling. (Afterwards) I got a call from Sea Shepherd."

"Six months later, there I was driving the boat down to Antarctica."

Founded by Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society uses a mix of direct action tactics and sophisticated publicity campaigns to, in their words, 'conserve and protect ecosystems and species'. The Society is famous (or infamous) for opposing Japanese whaling programs in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary surrounding Antarctica.

Since the sanctuary was established, it is estimated that more than 10,000 whales have been taken for what the Japanese call scientific research. The IWC rejects this description and so do Sea Shepherd. So does Pete Bethune.

From 2005 to 2017, the Sea Shepherd fleet, unofficially known as Neptune's Navy, disrupted the Japanese hunt by doing what Bethune calls 'naughty stuff.' This involved ramming their ships, attacking the crew with butyric acid and rancid butter and deploying prop-fouling cables.

"What we did down there was illegal. We're breaking the law. But we would also argue that they (the Japanese whalers) are breaking the law with what they do…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Christmas 2005; a hundred drunk men dressed as Santa allegedly riot in downtown Auckland. But was it true? Yes. Yes it was. Mostly.

Christmas, 2005 and a hundred drunk men dressed in Santa suits allegedly start a riot in downtown Auckland. News around the world have great fun with stories of bad behaviour by crazy Kiwis. But was it true? Yes. Yes it was. Mostly.

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"It was just a bit of ballyhoo."

Christmas; peace on earth and good will to all men.

Except for anyone unlucky enough to make the news during what we rightly call the Silly Season. If that happens, then good luck to you, 'cos you're on your own.

And that need for news is why in 2005 media outlets around the world gleefully reported the antics of a 100 drunken Santas, out on the lash and supposedly rioting up and down Auckland's Queen Street. Breathlessly, we (yes, RNZ too) broadcast details of drunkenness, theft, public urination, assaults, arrests and red-faced reindeer.

The story went around the world faster than a fat man on a sleigh.

This apparent collapse of civilisation as we know it was called Santarchy (a play on Santa and anarchy), a worldwide movement protesting the commercialisation of Christmas - and a good excuse to get slaughtered while wearing a Santa suit.

Alex Dyer and his mates set up the local chapter of Santarchy in 1999, but he doesn't buy into the idea of it as a protest.

"I love Christmas. I'm the only person who's ever been happy when his parents split up because it meant I got two sets of presents."

Alex calls the first Auckland Santarchy a "weak effort"; just two or three blokes in Santa suits drinking cider in a park. But the following year was bigger and Santarchy continued to grow and get more visible.

There were about 75 Santas at the 2004 event and some had overdone the sherry. As they hit town, it all got a bit gross. There were two arrests for fighting and disorderly behaviour and one Santa lost his (liquid) lunch right in front of a small child. Merry Christmas to you.

But Alex Dyer argues that Santarchy 2004 went off "basically without a hitch."

"And I thought if you can get that big, you can go as big as you want and have no dramas.

"But the following year proved me wrong..."

Santarchy 2005 began at Victoria Park in downtown Auckland, just one week before Christmas and there were early signs that this one was going to be different.

"People just kept turning up. There were a minimum of a hundred Santas and one bloke dressed as a reindeer..."

"We just welcomed them all in."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Five months without work, scant food and the whole nation against you... Katy Gosset hears a first-hand account of the 1951 Waterfront Dispute.

Five months without work, scant food and the whole nation against you... Katy Gosset hears a first-hand account of the long battle that was the 1951 Waterfront Dispute.

It was 151 days, a long 151 days and some men who lived through it will never forget it...

Baden Norris is one of them.

"It was my blackest period of my life because I had no money, or very little. I had a daughter  was in hospital with melanoma. You couldn't get another job. You'd be pretty unpopular if you did."

So how did it all begin?

Baden describes himself as "Lyttelton material",  born and bred in the little port town like his father, his grandfather and great-grandfather before him.

"It was the centre of the universe when I was a child. I never wanted to be anywhere else."

He worked in a factory at 13, went to sea at 15 and then, in his 20s, being "Lyttelton material" led him to work on the wharves.

Being a watersider wasn't an aspiration, as such, but, by then Baden was married, with a child, and money had become more important.

And on the waterfront, a man could make good money, not because the job was so well paid, but because there was plenty of overtime.

It was also a place where Baden found camaraderie among like-minded types who shared his love of the sea.

"Companionship.. there was an awful variety of men on the waterfront  interesting backgrounds, particularly of maritime worlds. You almost joined a club."

But trouble was brewing on the wharves.

Strike or Lockout?

The union movement had become divided. By 1951 the waterfront workers supported the Trade Union Congress, a group that had splintered away from the main union, the Federation of Labour.

New Zealand was emerging from the Second World War and the Government offered a wage increase to workers.

Except it wasn't across the board.

Baden Norris said wharfies had to apply to a separate tribunal for the pay hike and it was turned down, on the basis that the workers were already well paid.

But he said this was only because they worked so many overtime hours.

"So  said "We will refuse overtime until we get some satisfaction" and, of course, that's how it all started."

But their employers responded that, if the men would not work overtime, they couldn't work at all.

The ship owners, and later the Government, called the dispute a strike but, to the workers, it was a lockout.

A State of Emergency…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

At the age of 20, Huia Welton got married. But not to the person she loved.

At the age of 20, Huia Welton got married. Nothing too unusual in that, you might think. But there were a few things about this wedding that made it a little different. For a start, she hardly knew her groom.

"You could marry someone that you didn't even know but I couldn't marry someone that I loved."

It was 2000 and Huia was a second-year student at Massey University in Palmerston North. She was active in student politics and keen to have her say about the things that mattered to her. One of those things was student fees and parental means-testing on eligibility for student allowances. But a loophole that became a cause celebre and the focus of many student protests meant that if you got married, you got money.

Huia felt the best way to make her protest heard was by getting hitched in what were widely known as 'mock weddings' - but not to the person she loved. Because for her, there was a second injustice at play.

"I came out (as a lesbian) when I was 16. The issue of not being able to marry the person that I loved was a really big deal for me."

A little backstory; since the late 1980's, big changes had been taking place in tertiary education.  Under the 1989 Education Act, the Labour Government introduced a standard tertiary fee of 10% of course costs (around $1200) and swapped out the old grants scheme for the flasher sounding student allowances. Allowances were a universal entitlement; if you studied fulltime at tertiary level, you qualified.

When National replaced Labour as the government in late 1990, funding for universities was reduced and the standard fee abolished. Universities were allowed to set their own fees and made up the funding shortfall by charging students more.

National's then education minister Dr Lockwood Smith also introduced means testing on allowances for students under 25. If your folks had a combined income of $27,872 or above, your allowance was progressively reduced. If they made more than $50,000, you got nothing.

If students didn't have enough work to live off, they could borrow their living costs through the 1992 Student Loan Scheme, which you could also use to pay your now increased university fees. At the time, these loans were interest bearing for all students

So if you were under 25, your parents made more than $50,000 per annum but couldn't afford to pay you an allowance, your only real option was to take out a loan.

Or get married.

"If you were deemed to be financially independent of your parents then you were entitled to an allowance" explains Huia.

"And one of the criteria (for independence) was that you were married."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

An emergency signal sparks a desperate search for a missing air force helicopter.

An emergency signal sparks a desperate search for a missing air force helicopter.

"It didn't look survivable."

There are the decisions you make and then there are the decisions that make you.

As a young boy in Queens, New York, Dave Greenberg was obsessed with ambulances and fire engines. Visiting his local firehouse as an eight year-old, he decided right then that this was the life for him.

"I wanted to be a fireman when I grew up."

It didn't quite turn out that way. Teenaged Dave joined the Ambulance Corps and a youth programme for fire fighters and saved his first life aged just 13.

"It was scary but it was the best adventure of my life."

His parents pushed him into computer programming and it wasn't until he decided to move to Wellington in 1990 that he found his way back to emergency service work. He jumped at an opportunity to become a crewman on Life Flight - the Westpac Rescue Helicopter and his first flight confirmed that this was where Dave was meant to be.

"It was a night flight over Wellington. Just lifting up into the blackness then coming back in over Wellington city.

"They say your first time is your most memorable and that certainly was for me."

The decision was made and Dave Greenberg spent the next 25 years with Life Flight, operating the winch used to insert and extract people and often on the line himself, a job the crew calls being the 'dope on a rope".

"I loved being the dope on the rope, more than anything else I ever did on the helicopter!"

"I managed to make a life that looking back at, I'm jealous of."

But it's the people he saved that Dave remembers and one rescue in particular stands out. It happened on 25 April 2010 - ANZAC Day.

Dave Greenberg wasn't supposed to be working that day but when asked to cover an overtime shift he agreed straightaway.

His day began with a 5.45am phone call; a Blenheim patient needed transferring to Wellington. The weather wasn't great, with low cloud and poor visibility, so Dave and pilot Harry Stevenson waited for daylight before leaving. But seconds into the flight they're radioed about a search and rescue beacon activated near Pukerua Bay northwest of Wellington. An Air Force Iroquois helicopter was missing. Dave and Harry needed to decide what to do and fast.

This was one of those decisions that make you.

"There's a saying that you're better off making a pretty good decision with 70% of the information than a really good decision with 100% because if you wait for the 100% it's usually too late."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The mighty Manchester United go head-to-head in a match with an amateur Auckland team. How do you reckon the game turns out?

The mighty Manchester United FC go head-to-head in a match with an amateur Auckland team. How do you reckon the game turns out?

"For the first 10 minutes out there I was so nervous I couldn't breathe."

By John Baker.​

It's been 50 years since Kiwi footballers  Mark Burgess and Billy Hunter played against probably the best Manchester United team of all time.

But when they turn up at RNZ's Auckland studios, both men look fit enough for another 90 minutes and are full of memories.

In 1967, their David and Goliath moment occurred when their amateur Auckland XI took the field against First Division champions Man United - at a rugby league ground.

Hello! Hello! We are the Busby Boys!

The Red Devils, as they're known, were probably the best football team in the world back then. They'd just won the First Division championship (now the Premier league), two of their team were World Cup winners and in the following years, this tough professional team would dominate the European competitions.

By contrast, back then Mark Burgess was a young employee at a trading company and Billy Hunter had just started his own trucking business. Mark had been named New Zealand Footballer of the Year in 1965 and played First Class cricket for Auckland. Billy was a tireless, tough defender, a fearless header of the ball and keen on a bit of "interaction" with opposing players.

The two would fit in training whenever work allowed. Billy recalls parking his truck at Auckland Domain before running to join a training session "then I'd run back to the truck to carry on the day's work."

From the banks of the River Irwell to the shores of Sicily...

Jingle bells/Jingle bells/Jingle all the way/Oh what fun it is to see/United win away! -  stadium chant.

In 1967, Manchester United were becoming the mega-brand we know today. The club was near the end of a 10 year rebuilding period after the Munich Air Disaster which killed several of their players and support staff. A young Bobby Charlton and manager Matt Busby survived the crash and were in the squad that arrived in Auckland in late May.

Premiership Football is a different game now and the idea of any top team coming to New Zealand seems far-fetched. Back then Man U regularly took off-season tours but mostly stuck to Europe. But this time United's 12 match tour took in the United States and Australia with two games penciled in for New Zealand, the first against Auckland…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

In this episode of Eyewitness: a dramatic alpine rescue that kept New Zealand on tenterhooks

In November 1982, for about two weeks, time stood still - not just for two climbers, stranded in an ice cave on Mt Cook's inhospitable middle peak - but for New Zealand too, gripped by the prospect of a dramatic and potentially dangerous rescue in atrocious conditions.

Mark Inglis and Phil Doole, both members of the Mt Cook Alpine Rescue Team, had failed to return from a climb.

For close to a week, as a storm prevented any kind of search, no one could say if the men were safe.

For the nation's media, it was a story that had all the elements; lost climbers, challenging weather conditions and New Zealand's highest peak.

It needed only a rescuer.

Enter Don Bogie: one of the most important figures in the drama but one whose name is less commonly heard.

I guess I saw it as a problem to be solved and a technical challenge.

He was the senior mountaineer and the most experienced at strop rescues (in which an alpine rescuer is lowered on a line to uplift an injured or stranded climber using a harness or stretcher.)

And he was to play a major role in the men's rescue.

When Don Bogie first heard of his colleagues' plight he wasn't too concerned.  The weather was poor but he was confident the experienced climbers could endure a night out on Mt Cook, as he had done himself on a previous climb.

"As long as you've managed to find some shelter, you can survive."

But several days later, he wasn't quite so sure.

"We knew the weather was atrocious. It was gale force north westerlies. You couldn't even really see Mt Cook."

Rescuers were beginning to get worried.

You know they're definitely in trouble now.

As soon the weather allowed, Don Bogie and his helicopter pilot Ron Small began flying reconnaissance flights. Gradually they eliminated huts and other possible locations where they believed the men might shelter.

But there were risks.

"Some things didn't go right. We pushed some of that searching too hard."

There was a serious near-miss when the helicopter nearly crashed into a ridge.

Don Bogie said the rescuers' instinct to help needed to be held in check by the conditions…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details