Eyewitness

Sri Lanka, 1992 - New Zealand's Black Caps cricket team dodge a suicide bomber but get caught up in a web of civil war, contract disputes and fights between players and management.

In a new episode of Eyewitness, the Black Caps cricket team avoid a suicide bomb blast but get caught up in a web of civil war, contract disputes and fights between players and management.

The Black Caps were caught up in Sri Lanka's civil war violence not once, but twice - with a bomb exploding outside their hotel in 1987 and again in 1992.

"I know I made enemies out of it" - Peter McDermott

The bomb

8am, November 15, 1992: The New Zealand men's cricket team - the Black Caps - are waking up in Colombo, Sri Lanka. They've been in the country less than a day and are looking forward to some practice and working out the kinks after a long flight.

Ahead of them is a month of test matches and one-day internationals against their hosts. They're tired, a bit stiff, but cheerful and ready for a good competition.

In his hotel room, batsman Ken Rutherford's breakfast has just arrived.

"And I just plonked it on top of my bed and then - boom! The tray ended up on the floor and gee whiz, what's this?"

It's a bomb, exploding directly outside the team's hotel. The entire building shakes for several seconds afterwards.

Shocked players stumble into the corridor to check on each other and find out what's happened. No one's hurt but they want to know what's going on.

Details trickle in. A Tamil Tiger suicide bomber on a motorbike has rammed a car containing Sri Lankan navy commander Clancy Fernando. Four people, including the bomber, are dead. Later that morning, Rutherford goes down to the site of the explosion to get the lie of the land. What he sees shocks him.

"Big hole in the ground, horrible, human parts around the fence and gate area. A real sobering scene for us Kiwis."

Captain Martin Crowe asks Rutherford how it looks outside. "Not too good," he says.

He knows what he's talking about. This isn't the first time a bomb has exploded near the Black Caps or even the first time it's happened to Rutherford.

History never repeats?

Five years prior, Sri Lanka was four years into a vicious civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (commonly known as the Tamil Tigers) when the New Zealand team toured there back in 1987.

Immediately after the first test ended, the Tamil Tigers exploded a huge bomb just 400m from the team hotel, destroying a bus station and killing nearly 200 people. The station was on the team's bus route home. They had missed the bomb by just a few minutes…

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

The 1980s will be remembered for big hair, shoulder pads and the biggest destruction of wealth investors had ever seen. It's 30 years since the 1987 share market crash but the legacy of Black Monday still lingers.

Welcome to 1987, where businessmen are Rock Stars, investing is the new black - and a crash in the share market is about to change everything.

"People weren't thinking rationally" - Brian Gaynor.

A conversation at a dinner party nowadays is likely to turn, at some point, to house prices. Who's made lots of money, what's happening to prices and who can't afford one.

In the 1980s, you can substitute out 'property' and replace it with 'the share market'. That's not a topic that has ever been dinner party fodder for my generation; it's generally left to finance professionals and the already-wealthy. But 30 years ago, it was a different story.

The newspaper headlines were dominated by stories of share market wins instead of phenomenal house price gains. Share clubs, where everyday people got together to pool their money and invest in the stock market, were a dime a dozen. Mercedes Benz were flying off the lot and Moet champagne was in hot demand. The share market one year went up 99 percent, another year it was up 116 percent. Market mania took hold.

John Douglas was in his late 30s back then; a school teacher, father of 5, and a small-time investor with his share club. He remembers lots of talk about how much money people were making on the market.

There was quite a lot of hype around it. - John Douglas.

"I remember some people going off for lavish weekends because their share club was doing particularly well, so they'd spend the weekend doing some sort of exotic thing, or so it seemed to us anyway".

Veteran business analyst Brian Gaynor was a stockbroker in the '80s and says everyone wanted a piece of the action, from taxi drivers, to customs officers, pilots, even schoolboys.

"There were one or two schoolboys who used to ring up from the schoolyard in Wellington College wanting to know what had happened in the share market, wanting to know if they should be selling shares or what they should be buying"

These days, companies' annual meetings are typically populated by retirees, there for the tea and biscuits and a bit of a question and answer session after the presentation. Brian Gaynor says that couldn't be further from a typical meeting in the 1980s, when businessmen were almost on par with rock stars.

"For example, Brierley Investments had over 200,000 shareholders and at the annual meeting there'd be 1500 people there. The meeting started at 3pm..…

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In 1961, the 'Pill' went on sale in New Zealand and women's lives were changed forever. The first truly reliable contraceptive, the Pill meant being able to control your fertility was now a matter of choice. But not everyone here in Godzone was judged worthy of making that choice. In this episode of Eyewitness, in 1966, Carol, as she wants to be known, was young, single, sexually active and in a hurry to be an adult.

In 1961, the 'Pill' became available in New Zealand and women's lives were changed forever. Being able to control your fertility was now a matter of choice. But not everyone was judged worthy of making that choice.

"We had the right to take care of our bodies. It shouldn't have been a moral issue."

Carol's Story

In 1966  "Carol" was young, single, sexually active and in a hurry to be an adult. She decided to leave home, move cities and live with her boyfriend.

I thought '16, woo-hoo! I've left school, I've got a job  I'll go and live in Wellington!' See ya later Mum and Dad, I'm gone! Maybe in hindsight, not such a clever idea.

By now, the Pill had been available for five years. But if you think the swinging sixties had fully arrived, you'd be wrong. Abortion was illegal, condoms and diaphragms weren't reliable and many couples took their chances with the withdrawal method. Two different doctors refused to give Carol a prescription for the Pill.

For a woman, there was no chance in the world that you were going to get the Pill if you were single.

"You would go the doctors and you were greeted with horror and disapproval."

Her doctor turned her down flat. Carol wanted independence, fun and love, but instead found herself being judged.

People looked down on you if you were sexually active. You were just, for want of a better word, a slut.They simply didn't see you as an adult. You were a single woman; you had no right to do that.

"You didn't have the right to take care of your own body."

Carol and her partner were let down by the contraceptive method they were using.

"I was 17. My fiancé bailed on me; he didn't want to be a parent."

I was feeling very much alone and scared.  I was absolutely on my own. Abortions were not an option, unless there was a medical reason for it.

According to the State, it also wasn't an option for an unmarried teenager to raise her child…

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

Only one Catholic Pope has ever made the trip all the way from Rome to New Zealand. In 1986 His Holiness Pope John Paul II spent three days here and the local church prepared for his visit in a uniquely Kiwi way. Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory remembers the Pope's flying visit and tracks down a special item he left behind.

Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory remembers the Pope's flying visit and tracks down a special item he left behind...

"I did most of  down on my knees, appropriately."

Just 50m from Christchurch's ruined Catholic Cathedral, six shipping containers sit in a row. Behind high fences and securely locked, they store treasures rescued from the cathedral, including the prize we've come to find - a unique piece of papal paraphernalia.

But the containers are not easy to get into.

"Am I allowed to swear?" asks Father Chris Friel, the administrator of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on Barbadoes Street.

While Father Friel and property and facilities manager Mary Curtis struggle to open one of the containers, he tells me the Cathedral came through the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes reasonably well.

But six months later, cracks in the walls were discovered and engineers warned its dome had to be removed. When this happened, as with Jericho, the walls would come tumbling down.

"The workers were given one hour to get inside and were asked to strip everything from the cathedral that could be taken. These are now all  these containers here." - Fr Chris Friel

After a big effort - but no swearing - the container swings opens to reveal its contents, stacked haphazardly on top of each other.

"There we go. There's an organ I can see here, there are vestments, there's a crucifix, a piano...

"...and looking directly at us, is the papal chair used by Pope John Paul II for Mass at Lancaster Park on the 24th of November 1986."

Only one Catholic Pope has ever made the trip all the way from Rome to New Zealand. In 1986 His Holiness Pope John Paul II spent three days in Aotearoa, and the local Church prepared for his visit in a uniquely Kiwi way.

Pope John Paul II flew in to New Zealand on Saturday 22 November 1986. He kissed the ground at Auckland Airport and after a state welcome climbed into our version of the Popemobile - a converted ute - for the drive to Auckland Domain for Mass.

The Pope flew to Wellington that evening and on the next day, a Sunday, battled high winds while celebrating Mass at Athletic Park. He left for Christchurch shortly afterwards…

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

June 1984 and a drunken decision late one night leads to a snap election. Sir Robert Muldoon's ruling National Government is thrown out of office and David Lange's reforming Labour Party voted in. But before they could take power, an unprecedented constitutional crisis gripped the country and for three days, no one knew who was in charge.

In a new episode of RNZ's Eyewitness podcast, Sir Jim McLay tells Justin Gregory about the day he faced down the most dominant politician in living memory.

"I am not going to devalue so long as I am Minister of Finance!" - Sir Robert Muldoon.

Late on the evening of 14 June 1984, National Party Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon walked unsteadily down a corridor in Parliament towards waiting journalists. He stared glassily into a TV camera and announced that the country would go to the polls early.

The date he chose for the snap election was 14 July, just four weeks away. RNZ journalist Richard Griffin suggested it didn't give Muldoon's party much time to run up to an election. The Prime Minister slurred a famous reply.

For nearly a full parliamentary term, Sir Robert had led a government with just a single seat majority. When National backbencher Marilyn Waring announced she would vote against her party on certain issues, Muldoon decided he couldn't continue on that basis.

Standing just behind Sir Robert that night was Jim McLay. Now Sir James McLay and a senior diplomat, in 1984 he was 39 years-old, the Attorney General of New Zealand as well as Deputy Prime Minister. McLay had been in the job for just a few short months; he and Muldoon had "a very correct relationship. We were not particularly compatible spirits. It wasn't difficult, but it wasn't super-friendly either."

"We certainly weren't drinking buddies".

For some time, McLay had thought a snap election likely and during the short campaign fully supported his leader. But Labour won in a canter. McLay expected Sir Robert to follow established convention and obey any instructions he might be given during the few days it would take Labour to form a new government.

But McLay was wrong. Instead, a defeated Muldoon dug in his toes on one crucial issue.

For many months prior to the election, the Reserve Bank had been warning Sir Robert that an overvalued NZ dollar was vulnerable to speculation. They recommended a 15% devaluation. Muldoon disagreed…

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

It's been a wild three-decade ride for broadcaster TV3. They launched in 1989 as an energetic alternative to state-owned Television New Zealand and proved they had what it took to survive - but not before going broke, being sold a few times and losing large numbers of long serving staff members. Earlier this year TV3 broke with the past and rebranded as +HR=E. Journalist Bill Ralston was headhunted by the new network and signed up before they began broadcasting. He cheerfully admits to Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory that it was his short attention span that made the offer so appealing.

In a new episode of RNZ's Eyewitness podcast, Bill Ralston* tells Justin Gregory about the wild beginnings of TV3.

"TV3 was going to be fun. They were going to go for it in pirate kind-of way and I quite liked being a swashbuckler." - Bill Ralston

It's been a tumultuous three-decade ride for the broadcaster. TV3 launched in 1989 as an energetic alternative to state-owned Television New Zealand and proved it had what it took to survive - but not before going broke, being sold a few times and losing large numbers of long serving staff members.

Earlier this year TV3 broke with the past and rebranded as +HR=E.

Journalist Ralston was headhunted by the new network and signed up to the news team before they began broadcasting. He cheerfully admits that it was his short attention span that made the offer so appealing.

Bill Ralston on...

Moving from TVNZ

I was working for TV ONE on a current affairs show called Frontline. You could spend months working on a story. I decided I was more of a news guy. I have a very small brain; I just like to be constantly entertained. 

TVNZ in those days was effectively a monopoly. It was very large and it was very fat and it was very lazy.

Why he joined TV3

TV3 was going to be fun to do. There was going to be a really good cut-throat attitude and they were just going to go for it in a pirate sort of way. I quite liked the idea of being a swashbuckler.

The early days

The place was reasonably chaotic simply because it was a new start-up.

There were people in jobs that probably shouldn't have been there and there were people who bloomed and really came into their own.

A lot of the technical people who got TV3 to air did a fantastic job with very little.

Like the Viet Cong, we could live on a handful of rice a day and move stealthily through the forest while TVNZ were still trying to fire up their tanks.

The launch of TV3

It was a spectacular launch . They pulled out all the stops. I think they might have spent all the company funds on the launch.

First 6pm news broadcast…

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

How young is too young to compete in international sport? Rebecca Perrott had an outstanding swimming career which began when she was picked at the age of 12 for the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch. Rebecca was the youngest athlete there and she tells Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory that taking up swimming had a lot to do with sibling rivalry.

"I think if you're fast enough to be there, then you're old enough." - swimmer Rebecca Perrott.

Like everyone who saw the '74 Commonwealth Games, Rebecca Perrott  clearly remembers New Zealand runner Dick Taylor winning the 1500m finals on the opening day. She laughs at the memory of weightlifter Graham May falling on his face during one of his lifts and recalls with awe the moment legendary Australian swimmer Michael Wenden announced his retirement by tossing his togs into the crowd.

What she doesn't remember is whether she felt nervous before her races.The Games were more than forty years ago and astonishingly, Rebecca was only twelve at the time; the youngest competitor there.

"I get very nervous now. I can't imagine it was any different back then!'

Born in Wellington in 1961, Rebecca moved to Fiji with her family in the early 70's when her father worked for the University of the South Pacific. Her big sister Jane was shoulder-tapped to join the Suva swimming club and a few months later, Rebecca joined her - much to her sister's annoyance.

"She hated the fact that anything she did, I would eventually end up doing, too."

With good coaching and regular training, Rebecca's times kept on improving and her development was so fast that, despite not having made the qualifying times for the Games, she was picked on potential and given a licence to simply swim as fast as she could. With her sister also in the team and Mum along to take care of them, they flew to Christchurch.

The 10th British Commonwealth Games began on 24 January 1974 at the brand new QEII Park in the suburb of North New Brighton.  Fiji was one of 38 teams at what was billed as the "friendly games". The '74 Games were a mix of the old and the new; this was be the last time the word "British" would be used in the official title and the first time that TV coverage of most events would be in colour, including the swimming. With a catchy theme song and an eye- catching logo, the Commonwealth Games were a bit of a big deal. Not that Rebecca knew that.

"We lived in Fiji; no TV, there was no internet back then."

"I went into (the Games) very innocent and naive."…

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

February 1994 in Auckland, the Big Day Out is bursting noisily into life. But as the giant outdoor music festival gets going, one band on the line-up is calling it quits. Eyewitness goes back to the day Dunedin's Straitjacket Fits split.

February 1994 in Auckland, the Big Day Out is bursting noisily into life. The headline acts are American grunge kings Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins. But as the festival gets going, one band on the line-up is calling it quits.

Eyewitness goes back to the day Dunedin's Straitjacket Fits split.

"We kicked both their arses!"

Shayne Carter laughs. I've just asked him what success in the music business looks like and he's got just the story. It's 1994 and his band The Straightjacket Fits is playing the Big Day Out, blowing headliners Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins off the stage.

Two months later, Carter's in a WINZ office in Dunedin applying for the dole. His Case Officer asked if he was living at the drug rehab facility just up the road.

She wanted to know when I was going to get a real job. I thought, you mean like yours? We'd been on that band trip, y'know, taken away to America and feted by major labels. It's a long way from (there) to the WINZ office, but not really. Two months!

Carter laughs again, but without much humour. He sounds more like someone who has accepted that his definition of success has little to do with how others might measure it, or even how he once might have wanted it.

The Straitjacket Fits formed in Dunedin 1986 when guitarist Carter and drummer John Collie, who had previously played together in a band called the Doublehappys, teamed up with bass player David Wood and guitarist and songwriter Andrew Brough. Right from the start, they seemed to have bigger ambitions than a lot of their contemporaries.

They hired a manager (Debbie Gibbs) and with their unique sonic dramas seemingly in place from the start, they signed to Christchurch label Flying Nun less than year after their first gig. In 1987 they released an EP called Life In One Chord. Track number two would become their best-known song.

'She Speeds', written by Carter with the rest of the band, was a classic from the moment it dropped. It made the Top 10 here and got the band attention overseas. One Australian reviewer called it "arguably the greatest debut single of all time". In 2011 Apra would put the song at number nine in their top 100 New Zealand songs.

The band's debut album, Hail, followed a year later and in 1989 the Straitjacket Fits began the first of several international tours…

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

On Valentine's Day 2007 Georgina Beyer brought down the curtain on her 8 year career in government. The first transsexual in the world to be elected to parliament, her short time in national politics had been remarkable for its candour and courage as well as for its achievements. On the tenth anniversary of her resignation, Georgina tells Justin Gregory from RNZ's Eyewitness programme that she left it all behind with no regrets and little ceremony.

On Valentine's Day 2007 Georgina Beyer brought down the curtain on her eight-year career in government. The first openly transsexual person in the world to be elected to parliament, her short time in national politics had been remarkable for its candour and courage, as well as for its achievements.

"I've now found myself to be a Member (of Parliament)."

At times it must have seemed to Georgina Beyer that she had spent most of her career in politics in the passenger seat of a car. During the election campaign of 1999, Georgina - who back then didn't have a licence - was driven over almost all of the enormous, mostly rural, Wairarapa electorate by a volunteer driver.

Once she had won the seat, her duties as an MP saw Georgina back on those same roads most days of the week. Now that she was leaving parliament for the last time, it seemed somehow appropriate that Georgina should do so by simply driving away; but this time, in control of the vehicle.

"I just got in my car and drove home. There was no sadness."

Georgina Beyer (Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Porou) was born in Wellington in 1957 and given the name George Bertrand. After leaving home, she pursued a career in acting while also working in the Wellington gay nightclub scene and spending some time in the sex industry.

In 1984 she underwent sex reassignment surgery and some years later, seeking a new start, she moved to the small Wairarapa town of Carterton. In 1992 Georgina stood for election to the local council and narrowly missed out on a seat but in a by-election a year later, she romped home.

The following year Georgina ran for the top job in the town and won, becoming the world's first transsexual mayor, Carteron's first female mayor and the first Māori mayor Wairarapa had ever seen. Media around the world wanted a piece of the story and, overnight, Georgina became a star. It was inevitable that sooner or later one of the big political parties would come calling and, in 1998, they did.

Georgina Beyer's official portrait as Carterton's mayor…

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

Not that long ago, women held all of the top-ranking positions in NZ. In this episode of the Eyewitness podcast series, we discover that this is far from the case now.

Not that long ago, women held all of the top-ranking positions in NZ. In this episode of the Eyewitness  podcast series, we discover that this is far from the case now.

"I think what's driven me is a deep-seated resentment at injustice. I think I've always felt that people have to be treated fairly." - Professor Margaret Wilson DCNZ

Margaret Wilson is a Law Professor at Waikato University. Her career has spanned a number of high-profile cabinet positions, including Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Back in 1999, Wilson was appointed as Attorney General as a host of women took center stage in New Zealand, holding the fort in high-power positions. Among them were Dame Silvia Cartwright (Governor General), Sian Elias (Chief Justice), Prime Minister Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley (Leader of the Opposition).

Alongside them, actor Lucy Lawless was fighting fierce as the ever-invincible Xena Warrior Princess and savvy businesswoman Theresa Gattung staked her claim as CEO for Telecom, one of New Zealand's largest corporations.

This period signalled major change as women in New Zealand made visible inroads into what had formerly been the domain of white middle-class men.

For Wilson the new appointment saw her continuing on a path of pushing for change in both the political and social spheres. While it was an important and symbolic period for New Zealand women, she says she was purely focused on the task at hand.

"I was so terrified at the prospect of the amount of work I had to do that I wasn't thinking externally. Obviously people commented on it and I thought;

I hope this can help others because it shows that women are quite capable of doing this job.

Women were proving to be robust with an unstoppable energy that exploded an unbreakable glass ceiling. Back then and even today, Wilson maintains that it felt like a long, hard slog to make ground and for women to push past some of the invisible social barriers and negative attitudes.

"I was told quite early on that I wouldn't get advancement in the university because women got married and had children, so why would you invest in them? I didn't feel resentful about that, I just went out and did what I could" she says.

"My mother was a major influence - she insisted that women have an equal education. There weren't a lot of women that were ahead of you that you looked up to  it just seemed to me irrational that you wouldn't accept women for their capabilities and the contributions they could make."…

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