Free To Speak

Who Gets To Speak When The Media Becomes A Monoculture - Yvonne van Dongen

• Free Speech Union • Season 2 • Episode 6

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We trace a working life in New Zealand journalism with Yvonne Van Dongen, exploring how subs, travel desks, and lively disagreements shaped stronger reporting, and why today’s monoculture and omissions threaten trust. We compare shoe-leather craft with hot takes and argue for free speech as the backbone of credible media.

• Amsterdam detour to newsroom doors and a bruising AUT interview culture
• Canterbury training, shorthand, and the saving grace of sub-editors
• Weekly-paper freedom, travel budgets, and difficult colleagues with bite
• Building a biography when the subject resists access
• Free speech then as default norm, now as a contested stance
• Monoculture in media, stories not told, and quiet censorship by omission
• Desk takes versus door-knocking: why leaving your seat still matters
• Talking with Tamaki supporters and other unfashionable audiences
• Fire and Fury, awards culture, and credibility gaps
• New platforms, changing minds, and ethics over gotchas

If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, you can contact us at podcast@fsu.nz

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Setting The Stage: Craft And Careers

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to Free to Speak, the New Zealand Free Speech Union podcast. If you enjoy the show, subscribe for uncensored conversations and free speech news from New Zealand and beyond.

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to Free to Speak. Today I have a uh veteran journalist. I don't like using the word veteran, but uh what can we say? I'm I guess I'm a veteran too, documentary maker, so it doesn't really matter, does it? We're all veterans now. Yvonne Van Dongen. And uh we we're gonna talk today. I mean, I've wanted to have a really good chat to you for a long time, actually, just about um about the craft. I I'm not a journalist. Uh I have made a lot of documentary. I think there is definitely overlap. I was, you know, nominated for a Voyager last year, I got to say. So that was uh quite eye-opening. We could even talk about that night because uh uh I I thought there was I don't want to be a party pooper, but uh I did feel like I was the outsider and it was quite revealing. This, you know, yeah, I can imagine what what people got excited about, and yeah, you know what they didn't get excited about, you know what I mean? But we we can get to that. But it would be good to just hear about uh you know your career and journalism, where it was, uh some of the high points, yeah, and and where you think it is today, yeah, and where it could be going.

SPEAKER_04

You know, yeah, not that I know it, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01

No, you don't know. We well, we can speculate, but speculation is a lot of fun. Yeah, we can do that, yeah, and have a lot of fun with that, you know. Like I've got my own ideas, so we can we can just have a back and forth on that. Yeah. So um great. Well, you know, great to great to have you here.

SPEAKER_04

Great to be here. Thanks for inviting me, Dane. It's lovely.

Amsterdam Beginnings And AUT Pushback

SPEAKER_01

Nice. Okay. Well, so let's start at the beginning. So so what brought you to journalism? You know, what was how did you start? Um just just take us through the whole thing.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, so I did what lots of people do. I did a degree in English and religious studies, of all things. And then I traveled to Amsterdam because I had a Dutch passport and I could work there. And I so I went through the um overland thing, took about a year to get to Amsterdam, and I got a job strangely. I went and knocked on all these doors, and I could speak Dutch and I could ask for a job on a cafe. And I got a job, I spoke to one woman, and um she said, Oh, we don't speak, we don't speak Dutch here. We only speak English. I said, Oh, oh, really? She said, Yes, I'm Nairi from Gisbon. And I said, Oh, okay. And she said, Penny from Fakatani's downstairs. And then so I said, Oh, I'm from Christchurch. She said, You've got a job. So I I worked in this cafe, which was a very unusual cafe, and she would be quite a good person to interview because the woman who ran it, Nairi Saunders, she had also traveled through, she'd been a dental nurse and traveled through Asia baking cakes. And in those days, when you went through Asia, those cake shops were really a big thing, but probably not now, but they were a big thing. You know, and then she got to Amsterdam and she started a cafe and we used the Edmonds cookbook, and it was ostensibly vegetarian, and we also had a we had a bicycle thief and we had a dealer, we had our own house dealer. So you get someone to buy dope, someone to steal your bike. So it was a really colourful, unusual place to work. And I was the only one who was allowed to be there because they were all illegal. I had a Dutch passport. I was the only one who could speak Dutch. So I worked there for about 18 months. It was great. And when I was there, I thought, oh, I didn't really want to be doing this forever. And I applied for journalism school. I just sent one of those blue aerograms off to Brian Presley and um and I to a couple of others anyway. And I came back and to New Zealand, um, worked for I worked for the early childhood workers union, and then I had an interview up at AUT to do their journalism course. So I took the bus up because I didn't have much money, took the bus up and did the interview. And I thought the interview was so appalling. I laid a complaint because I was asked questions like, what's your star sign? Um, how do you think that affects your journalism? Uh, I see you've done a lot of feminist things that shows a lot of bias, blah, blah. Anyway, I thought it was terrible. And I worked with was working with Ros Noonan, and she taught me that to write everything down, write everything that was said to me down, and then send off a letter of complaint, which I did. And the guy, he I think he's dead now, Jeff Black, he was apparently after this, there was an investigation and he was never allowed to interview on his own again because the questions were so peculiar, so peculiar.

SPEAKER_01

Star, oh, but but well, you know, some of the the woke stuff today, you know, asking star signs wouldn't be out of place today.

SPEAKER_04

I suppose so. Yeah, it just seemed odd. And um, yeah, did I mind propping up bars? He asked, because a lot of journalism involved propping up bars and going to bars and you've got your stories there. I thought it was just a really blokey, odd interview, really odd question.

SPEAKER_01

But did that speak to the culture back then?

Canterbury Course And Culture Shock

SPEAKER_04

Probably did of journalism, of a particular old grizzled type of male, which I'm sure does not exist now. And I was so shocked. So I wrote this letter of complaint. I got a letter back that I'd never be allowed to interview again. I didn't get in, but a whole lot. And then I applied to Brian Priestley's one. I was living in Wellington at the time. Brian Priestley's course was the post-grad course at Canterbury.

SPEAKER_01

And I So who sorry, who who was Brian? Like, was he quite another?

SPEAKER_04

Brian Priestley was a very well-known chap, and he ran the postgraduate course at Canterbury University. He had worked at the an English paper, was it the Manchester Evening News? Something. I can't remember. Okay. But he was quite a highly regarded chap.

SPEAKER_00

Real credentials.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, and it was harder to get into that course because you had to have a degree and it was done on marks and blah blah blah. But anyway, I went to the interview and but straight away, as soon as I went in to see him, I could tell I'd got in because he knew that I'd laid the complaint against Jeff Black. And he said, Oh, he said, um, actually, we've had quite a number of women, women who've gone to his interviews and they come out crying. I said, crying. And he said, and I was the only one who hadn't come out crying and laid a complaint. I thought, my God, these people are feeble.

SPEAKER_01

You fall back.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just crying, that just blew me away. Anyway, so I got in on the basis of that because he thought, oh, he's a disagreeable person, and he's quite right in away. And so I would be a suitable journalist, which I admire him for because it means you get a whole bunch of really difficult people around you. But um, and actually, one of the people I did the course with is on T VNZ a lot, Simon Mersep. He's yeah, he's you'll see him on TVNZ doing news. So I was actually older than most of the people on the course because I had been living overseas, so only about three or four years and not much, but anyway. So I did that course and we did shorthand. I mean, it was good. We learned about the law. Shorthand is probably the best thing I ever learned, and they don't teach you that anymore, I don't think. And so I did the course and then set about applying for jobs. I went to an interview at the Ashburden Guardian, which I did not get, thank God. They said at that interview, they said, Do you mind going to church? I said, Why? And they said, Well, if you're gonna be part of the community, the church is an important part of the community, so it would help if you were a churchgoer. I thought, oh, it's weird. Okay. I mean, maybe there's some validity in that.

SPEAKER_00

Well, they really just wanted to embed you uh where where all the gospel's gonna be.

SPEAKER_04

Possibly, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just didn't know that that such things were expected. I'm either propping up a bar or I'm going to church or you know. So that's what Join the rugby club? Yeah, it's it is it was like that. So anyway, I didn't get that.

SPEAKER_01

Especially those smaller uh communities, I guess.

First Newsroom Wins And The Power Of Subs

SPEAKER_04

I think there's some merit in it. Now, if you'd put it in couch in a different way, I might not have been quite so I mean I didn't fight clap back or anything, but I just was quite shocked, really. But anyway, that was all right. Yeah, yeah. People were much more open about what they required. I don't think they would do that now. I really don't.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. So then I got a job at the New Zealand Times. It was a new newspaper, a weekly newspaper, and I flew to Wellington and got a job there, which was fantastic. It was really a wonderful place to work. So you could spend time on stories, travel around the country. There was a luxury of um having adequate money because ads were still coming in, you know, I don't know that it was housing ads, a whole lot. The advertising was for newspapers was still strong. So it was a really luxurious, it was a wonderful job. It was a wonderful job, and I worked with wonderful people. Um, probably nobody knows any of them. Al Morrison, he was once uh he was at RNZ uh as this was he, a senior editor, he'd done many things anyway, and Kate Coglin and she started Life and Leisure, uh really good people. And I learned a lot, and you were given a lot of freedom. You could really write about issues that you cared about. Uh yeah. And there were um a bench full of grizzled old subs that we all hated. But actually, when I look back, I think actually it's good that they were there to kind of pull back our excesses and just I think it's quite good to have something to push up against in a way. Yeah, really, a little bit. And they were of a gen different generation, different minds, different views, a bit sexist, they were pretty sexist, but you know, that that was real, keeping it real. And it is, I do miss having not having subs now. I do miss it. And I don't know that you'll describe a sub.

SPEAKER_01

What's a sub?

SPEAKER_04

A sub, so you they take your story and they make it fit into the space, but they also check all the facts. Have you really explained everything? They've got an enormous general knowledge, these people, enormous, so they can pick up all sorts of things. They're really, really smart. So there was no online checking anything. Just they were the online, they were the computer brains who remembered what had gone before, that was correct or not correct. So they saved you from yourself. They did save you from yourself, for which I'm really grateful for.

SPEAKER_01

Are they a bit like you know the movie All the President's Men? Those wonderful scenes with Martin Bolsom and all those older actors.

SPEAKER_04

I can't really remember.

SPEAKER_01

Talking about I I don't think there's a story. I don't think Robert Redford and that they have a story yet. It's like there's no story here, yeah. Like that. Yeah. Would it be that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_04

That sort of thing, but and also Was that more editorial? Yeah, that's more editorial, probably more the chief reporter. Al Morrison was the chief reporter, he was great. Rob Fox was the editor, he was a very unlikely editor for what was ostensibly sort of more highbrow weekly newspaper, because David Longey had said of him, I think at some valedictory thing, that Wal Fox was better suited to the new, what was it, to the TAB Weekly or something. He was that kind, but he was a he was a likable guy, and I think he had a lot on his plate because I was quite a disagreeable person, and I worked with a Finnish guy, Pekka Pavampera. He was, he makes me seem incredibly agreeable. He was really disagreeable. So Bob had this idea that all northern Europeans were very difficult. Yes. And Pika really was famously, famously, outrageously difficult, really.

SPEAKER_01

Well, we're kind of like, well, one time I hate to tell this story.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, Pika was just he was something else. He decided that um he was going to see how long he could get away with not doing any stories. And we'd come in and I'd say, Well, how are you going? Week two, week three, week four. I think it took about six weeks for somebody. I think they were a little bit scared of him because he was quite a big kind of Russian burly guy. He was just a nightmare. He was a nightmare. Yeah. I do remember also one time he got a given a notice. I think it was like a threat or something that you do this again, you're not going to be employed, something like that. And he just stood in front of the editor and he said, Do you know what I think of this? And he just shredded it in front of everybody. I mean, we had a lot more power than we deserved at that time, I've got to say. We did. We did.

SPEAKER_01

Oh well, well, okay, well, where did where did that power come from?

Stroppy Reporters And Newsroom Power Dynamics

SPEAKER_04

I don't know. May I don't know. I think maybe I think journalists did then. I think that we did. There was there was just more money, less pressure. And I think Bob was probably a little bit out of his depths because the journalists were smarter. Not smart, yeah. Maybe they were smarter and stroppier than he was, you know. And yeah, maybe we didn't have to, we were probably a bit spoiled, really.

SPEAKER_01

Is it is it that headstrong idea? I mean, did you did you sort of expect a type to be a journalist? It's like, well, if the person wasn't because I mean, you know, when I've done documentary, it's like if I don't get the shot that moment, or if I don't ask the question, I I don't really get a second chance. Yeah. So sometimes you really have to elbow your way in.

SPEAKER_04

You do, and it yeah, you do have to, because I remember when we first started, we had to be the kind of people who are willing to pick up like on Saturdays, it'd be car accident day, and you'd be on, and you would have to ring up the family and ask for a comment. I mean, that you know, and you had to be willing to do things like that. And I think I was, I know that there was a a a young woman, I've forgotten her name, she started journalism, did the course. She got the highest mark, actually. She says she got in the course first, but it was too brutal for her, and she left, I think, before the course finished, because it did require uh you had to be a bit thick skinned, you had to, and a bit brazen. And I think maybe because I've got the Dutch background, I'd traveled overseas, you know. Anyway, I didn't find that difficult, really.

SPEAKER_01

There that there were no cases you can remember recall that would that that you were quite troubled.

SPEAKER_04

I I think I would have been intimidated going into parliament and having to deal with someone like Muldoon, who was quite a scary person, but he was gone before I came along. I think, yes, probably. But I didn't I wasn't in Parliament. So no, not dear. I mean, no, I I'm quite good at cold calling, it doesn't bother me at all. And I like people, so I'm interested in talking to them. Um yeah, but probably probably politicians, it's a different field altogether. I never worked as a parliamentary reporter, so that would be different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So so what was your beat?

SPEAKER_04

So I was doing features, just general features, and I had amazing freedom, amazing, just find stories, or sometimes you might be assigned something, but really you were just you just followed your nose, or you heard something, or you know, yeah, it was brilliant, it was brilliant. And I could write really long stories. I was allowed to like write really long stories, and yeah, occasionally I would be assigned stories. I had to do a profile on Lloyd Gehring, who's still alive. That was my first.

SPEAKER_01

I did a story on him, and I wanted He must be 113.

SPEAKER_04

I think he's 103 or something. Yeah, he he seemed old then, and I'd done a degree in religious studies. I think he'd come to visit us, but um, and I interviewed him and I won a prize straight away. So that I remember that, and he's still going. He's still going. Amazing person.

SPEAKER_01

You might need to do a follow-up.

Tough Calls, Thick Skin, And Features Work

SPEAKER_04

I know, he's an amazing person, just incredible. So you do get the privilege of meeting all sorts of people. It was and it was fabulous being able to get a car and drive for miles and go anywhere, and there was never a problem of this is too expensive or we can't afford that, or yeah. It seemed now we're looking back, it was that the very end of that kind of heyday, I think. I really do. Coming to the end, yeah. So after that, I only had a boyfriend up in Auckland, so I left and I who did I work for? I can't I'm terrible memory, actually. Well, I worked for I went up north. I lived and wanted to go to Auckland because I had a boyfriend there, and I worked for National Business Review, and even though I knew nothing about business, and but that was the that was also that kind of that pre-the crash, you know, business was really 80, 80, yeah, ladies, everybody in a share club. I never was everything 87 something.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, so it was pre-that, and so everything was hot, and there was that magazine called Property Investor and all sorts of things, you know. So they just took me on, they took all the yuppie bubble. It was a total yuppie bubble, and they took me on to do profiles, which was fun. That was because I knew nothing about business, nothing, nothing, nothing. But lots of people would take it on and knew nothing. Um, yeah, and so so I worked there, that was good, and that's when I got to write a profile of Ron Brierly, because I was asked to do that, and then after that, I got three letters from publishers saying, Would I want to write a book? And I thought, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, all right, I'd like to do something different. I was actually getting a bit sick of things when I just wanted to change. So I left because I got paid, I don't can't remember, some sort of amount, um, and I took time off and I told Brileys and I and I went down to Wellington on and off and wrote the biography of Sir Rom Briley. And funnily enough, that you asked me today, I saw in the paper today that he's got a book that he's written himself about his career, even though he's been in jail for um unseemly things. But he's doing a his own book. Anyway, so I did the I went back and forth and sometimes I It's a Hotspur, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01

It's um Hutz, but a D Rom book after I know he's sort of gone.

SPEAKER_04

I know, I know, I know. I think he just wanted the truth recorder because I'm sure I didn't get to the truth. I mean, I did probably didn't know enough business, but I did get to speak to a lot of people. I flew on his jet with him over to Sydney, and I went and met Bruce Judge and met all the key people. It was an interesting insight into that world. Um, and yeah, there were some good people there, you know, and I kind of kept in touch. I went, there was a reunion probably 10 years ago now that I went to. Um, and yeah, certainly some very interesting people and an interesting time.

SPEAKER_01

So I wrote good sorry, sorry, just we'll just put put pin in that. Uh, I just want to sort of talk about your process, like writing something like that. Because I'm very interested in process. Okay. I think for for the for the listeners, I mean, this is a free speech podcast, but how a reporter uh approaches the work. It was you know, like what what are what are your parameters? Where are your no-go zones? Like, I've got a few stories about my myself about doing documentary, I wouldn't mind sharing. Like, or maybe I'll go into one of mine now, yeah. Where I I had access to Frank Bine Morama in VG. And I had some pretty good access. He took uh these guys took me over there and and I had a meeting with him and everything, and and it was it didn't go well, it was he was pretty stern until I gave him a uh a rugby jersey that my because my nephew played club rugby in France.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01

Once I gave he's an ex-all black. You're wonderful. So once I gave, yeah, well, once I gave him that, he just completely changed, slapping my back, taking photos, love me to bits, you know, smiley at ear and everything. So I had the access. Yeah. I went back, a guy offered me like a hundred thousand dollars cash just to go and make this, but I had to I had to jump him. I had to I had to ambush him, you know. I he he wanted it to, he didn't like him, and he wanted it to be about that. But I I had promised him that it would be in his words.

SPEAKER_04

So this guy wanted you to do a hit job.

Profiling Ron Brierley And Writing A Book

SPEAKER_01

He wanted me to do a hit job. He was gonna give me a hundred grand, but I had uh I saw a documentary uh probably when I was about 18 on on Eddy Amin. Okay, yeah, Ugandan dictator by by Babette Schroeder, who was a French um uh quite an avant-garde director, but he did a little bit of documentary, and this film was an interview done at the at the height of Amin's reign. Yeah, and he literally just because he was such a rack on tour and so insane, yeah, that all you had to do was put a camera on the guy and he just performed.

SPEAKER_06

Why?

SPEAKER_01

And it became a midnight movie in Europe. It was like a it played like a comedy, even though it was dark as hell.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and and it that really inspired me. I thought, well, just get good talent and just let them talk. Yeah, you know, that's all you really need to do. And that's what I wanted to do with Bany Muramer. I didn't want to sort of set him up or or push him one way or the other. I just wanted to see what he'd say if the camera just kept going.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, so I I turned it down that money, um, which may sound a bit heroic in principle, but the other thing is some people had got me access and I was a bit concerned about what might have happened to them as well.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, I can understand that. Yeah, there's risks. You know what I mean? There's risks.

SPEAKER_01

If someone gives you access like that, it's like, what if their family had gotten a bit of trouble? Or someone had ended up in in prison for like five years. Yeah. I wasn't going to wear that on my conscience.

SPEAKER_08

So I said no.

SPEAKER_01

And it didn't end up happening really. I sort of screwed up generally on it. I should I I needed to go over with nothing and just shoot it myself. But it didn't, it didn't happen. But like for you, when you're approaching a subject like that, are you similar? You know, like where are your parameters? How does how do you, the journalist, how do you go go about it? It was difficult to do. Did you go about it back then?

SPEAKER_04

So Ron is not, he's not a great, he's not a big storyteller and someone who talks about himself. And he didn't want to get involved, and he didn't want me doing it, and he didn't think I was suitable. And so he was quite D Did he tell you why? Uh no, no, he's not a man of many words. And I think now, if you look back, he's probably on the spectrum. I don't think I really understood him then, but we've learned a lot more. I think he's quite an unusual person.

SPEAKER_01

We never talked like that back then.

SPEAKER_04

No, we didn't. We didn't know anything about it. I'd spoke, I'd interviewed his mother, and I'm glad I did before she died because she was quite insightful. So, but however, I thought, well, I'm I may not get any interviews with him. There's no guarantee. So I have to do all the people around him. And fortunately, because he's quite very introverted, he does tend to be drawn to people who are quite extroverted, the kind of the opposite. And so I had good access to really good, chatty, very likable people like Bruce Hancock's. Um, and so that that rec that helped a lot. He could tell some very funny stories. I didn't warm to all of them, of course, but there were and Don Don McDonald, he's died now, but he was great. So he did have some very warm, likable people around him. And they, and then I think as time went on, he saw that I wasn't I wasn't dissuaded. He occasionally would allow me to come on the plane, as long as I didn't interrupt him or and give occasionally I'd give an interview. He didn't give you much, he's the master of deflection and you know, just kind of fobbing you off, really. He's not someone who needs to unburden himself, who needs to tell the truth. He's not that sort of person at all.

SPEAKER_01

Did that process get weaved into the the writing? Like, were you do you because sometimes by necessity I find that you can become a character, especially if you are hitting walls, because that's part of the story, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I don't think you're writing differently there. I would have written it differently now, perhaps, but then we've learned so much more about so many things, haven't we? But no, I just let the people around him speak for him, and they were um revealing enough because I also got the information about him going to Thailand and um paying for young girls, and that was in the book. And so I yeah, that was in the book.

SPEAKER_01

And you found that out and you put that in the book.

Method Over Access: Building A Biography

SPEAKER_04

And I put it in the book and I got it checked, had to be checked legally, of course. And actually, at the time, that was actually not seen as quite as scandalous as it would be now. People thought, well, we thought he was gay because he was never really seen with women. And so it I think it was regarded as the better of the two you know options. He's not gay, but he goes to Thailand and pays for young girls. And the person I spoke to about that said, oh yes, he said, I don't I don't know what Ron does. He said, Um, they'd probably just have a cup of tea, you know. And I don't, yeah, it just likes to be with young girls. But later on, in fact, in recent years, I was contacted by a woman who said she had been a prostitute um in Wellington at that time. She was dying now, and she's since passed away. And she just wanted to talk to me, um, off the record, but or sort of on off the record, about having clients. It was quite an upmarket brothel in Wellington, and Ron was one of her clients. And she said he never really wanted anything. I just used to have to bath him and he'd just moan about his mother in the bath. And I thought, okay. Yeah. I think I wrote that for a story later. It wasn't in the book, of course, because it was well after the book. But he was a very, he's a very singular, unusual person. Very unusual. He's a man of his time, I think. The fact that he was obsessive about value, obsessive about certain things. And so he could he could look through accounts and unlock value and see things that were there that other people couldn't see. AI could probably do it now, but he could see it then. And he put out a newsletter, tip sheet. He saw that all these kind of moribund companies had a whole lot of land, buildings, and plant that they weren't using properly. It was a moment in time post-war, and they were fat and complacent. So he thought, well, just why not buy it and sell off every little part and make money? Makes sense, doesn't it? Makes sense. So he was like, he was like someone coming in like a maggot cleaning up a corpse or something, really, just going through. I mean, people were shocked. He'd buy the company, somebody was selling, doing things, you know, and that was not, it wasn't the gentleman's way. And he wasn't a gentleman. He was sort of he's not, he was a maverick, although he, I mean, it makes him sound more swashbuck swashbuckling than he really is in real life. But he enjoyed being a thorn in their side. He enjoyed knowing more than they did and having that information and having one up on them. He he did. He enjoyed the whole process, he loved doing the research, he was obsessive about it. So it's all he did. All he did was this obsessive research. And then it got bigger, so he had to employ people. But fortunately, as I say, he was drawn to extroverts who formed the company around him. He's not really someone who can manage people or wants to manage people.

SPEAKER_01

So there was an aspect of enigma, but you were able to get stuff from other people. Other people, yeah. Other people, yeah. Yeah. Um so okay, so we'll move forward on your career, but like while we're still in in your earlier days, um, so free speech in the late 70s, early 80s, you would have been started. You would have started. Yeah. So what was the attitude there among journalists? Like today, we get a lot of we're gonna get more articles and stuff and papers like that that are gonna be sort of pro censorship, really, or or um skeptical about you know the whole free speech thing. But uh journalists, the caricature, even, is that they're speech free speech warriors and and and would be very pro that. So so what was your you know, we didn't something, or did we do or did you take it for granted anymore?

SPEAKER_04

We took it for granted. It wasn't even discussed, it wasn't the notion of cancelling or not writing about something. It just wasn't in the air.

SPEAKER_01

It was just, yeah, free speech was just because the assumption is you were going to push at things as in and the editors would have been encouraging you, they would never get to the case.

SPEAKER_04

And so if I had found that wrong, like the most outrageous thing would have been if I'd found that he had been gay, right? That was really you didn't that was beyond the pale and unseemly and yucky, and I still would have done it. I still would have done it.

SPEAKER_01

So and your edit what what the editor was or edit?

SPEAKER_04

It was actually uh the person who was the editor, funnily enough, is still a friend of mine, Graham Adams. He edited my book and he writes a really good um, it's not a sub thing, he writes for all sorts of publications now, doesn't he? Graham does. So we're both two disagreeable bigots who write about things. Yeah. So I've kept in touch with him. So he was the editor. I found him really picky, but he's very good. He's an excellent editor. I really, it was irritating, but really good. Because published by Penguin. He's a great editor, fantastic. And in fact, if I need anything checked now, send it to him and he'll say, Oh no, I wouldn't do that. That's you know, that can be um anyway, he'll he'll just save me from myself sometimes, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Graham who writes for the platform?

SPEAKER_04

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I've sent him one or two things, and and he said, you know what? It falls apart.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Because I I because I'm not a I'm not a writer, I'm not a journalist, you know. Like I write opinion pieces, yeah. I write polemics. Uh I often do them to warm up for my my creative writing. Yeah. It's like a little warm-up for me. I'm like stretching.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does help you understand the topic, doesn't it? It does help you. I often think I write to understand, see what I really think.

SPEAKER_01

But well, well, you're pulling it out of your head and you're putting it somewhere. Speaking it aloud might be the same, you know. But um but but there's been a couple of times where I've sent him things and he's gone, it just is it's just not working.

SPEAKER_04

I would always listen to Graham.

SPEAKER_01

And I park it.

Free Speech Then Versus Now

SPEAKER_04

Yes. I'll always listen to Graham. Always listen to Graham. He's really smart, and you can have a debate with him and he doesn't get offended, but he his instincts are excellent, really excellent. So I was very lucky.

SPEAKER_01

He's he he's he's written some fantastic pieces and bold pieces for the age.

SPEAKER_03

He has.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and you really miss a voice like that, don't you? And some of the mainstream publications, actually.

SPEAKER_04

I think so too. It's a wonder that they don't grab him, because if they really want to get a broader readership, they need different voices, which they haven't got. They haven't got. So yeah, he's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01

It's it it it's it's his integrity as a writer, but it's also the depth, yeah, and the and when and when you're sort of blowing the lid on something, it's just interesting.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I mean, you know, there is an entertainment factor there too.

SPEAKER_04

Well, he's funny, he's very, very, very funny. Yeah, but but but it's worth listening, reading. It's worth reading. He is because yes, often he doesn't uncover anything new. It's not necessarily investigative, but he knows what's gone before. He picks up that this doesn't make sense or that this person's contradicting themselves, or you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01

He's not uncovering hidden things, but he's just reminding us of what's been out in the but pointing out hypocrisy almost plays like an investigation now because we're so bereft of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

He's he's a gem, isn't he? He is a gem.

SPEAKER_01

He he is.

SPEAKER_04

He really, really is. I mean, I worry about it because he keeps very in different health, and I think, God, please, please hang in there, Graham. We really need to, we need a voice like this. There's no one who does anything like it, I don't think. Not at all. No, and it's funny that he's really found his his voice or his place in recent years, really, because most of the time he'd been a copywriter, a sub-editor, a chief sub at North and South, all sorts of things. But this writing, I think, is probably the most most important part of his career. I think most significant. Yeah, I do. He has a really significant voice.

SPEAKER_01

Well, when you get to you get to a certain age, like I was um talking to someone about this the other the other day. Like I um uh am doing quite a few film scripts now um for some like overseas stuff, and and it so I feel really honored. But um for a while, for a long time, I've wanted to blend tone. I've wanted to some of them are thrillers, but I want them to have a a wink, but not too much of a wink. So I'm sort of wanting to blend this tone and that, but it's really hard to blend tone. So some of these experiments of mine would just go you know, and just completely die.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Because I was trying to be too clever and it and it just didn't work. It was just too ambitious and didn't work. But then I did a pilot about three years ago or four years ago for a um ill-fated Water Brothers project that I got fired from. That's another story. Yeah, my own project, they fired us. Um it was actually a a um satire on Brian Tarmaky.

SPEAKER_04

Oh my god, that would be oh, right.

SPEAKER_01

I think I'd be like, and I told I told Brian about yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh and they they just they just got cold feet. Oh made the pasta white and you know, okay, and it was just it just died a death. But but like the I I got the pilot finally to a place where it was like it wasn't laugh out loud stuff, yeah, but it was satire and it was affecting, and I got some really good feedback on him. I thought, great. And so the last couple I've done scripts I've done have been sort of in that vein now. Yeah. I'm going, you know, I feel but I'm 53.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Does that matter?

SPEAKER_01

It's like I've been writing for uh does that matter? Oh but no, but I'm saying I've been writing for like decades, like a couple of decades. Yeah, but yeah, like I finally feel like I have I have a confidence now.

SPEAKER_05

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I and I think to myself, I don't think I was ever confident.

Editors, Integrity, And Lost Pluralism

SPEAKER_04

Well, that's good that you've got it now. I know it is it's true because I think that plagues writers generally, don't you? I do. I think I all the time, you know. I handed my copy to the subs and it was actual hard copy, the pile of it. And I see them sniggering, and I think, oh no, oh no. You just feel I don't know whether it was the way we were brought up, but you were not brought up to have bags of self-esteem or just it's completely I don't know, it's different now, it seems to me. But um, yeah, my daughter's got self-esteem coming out of yeah, everywhere.

SPEAKER_01

I've had I've had a bit of swag, but it it's I I just couldn't yeah, I just think my what I what was in my head I couldn't quite get onto the page.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I can understand that.

SPEAKER_01

You know, the first so yeah, so I do I'd do it like a a a low grade version of it of what was in my head, you know. And then I feel like I've got the technique and I guess honesty too, you know. Like I think you've got to be really honest with yourself as a writer.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, you do.

SPEAKER_01

Even in documentary, yeah, you do.

SPEAKER_04

The first thing I did, so uh Graham and I became friends, and he had done a whole lot of things. He had I think he'd done a film script or something, and I had half an idea for a film, and he said, I'll work on you with work with you on that, because I've done a bit of film, and we sent it off to the Gibson group. I mean, this is mad now, and they liked it straight away and gave us money straight away, and continued to give us money until even they realized that we didn't know what we were doing, which is screenwriting's different. Oh, it's completely different. Was it a was it a I don't know if it was a drama or romantic comedy? Anyway, it was just it's much harder, it's much harder. So, anyway, it was a quite a fun thing to do. Poor old Gibson group funding.

SPEAKER_01

Oh yeah, but you know, these are such expensive things, they can throw 10 grand, 20 grand. Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because well, it uh ultimately if the finished thing's worth 10 million, that you know, that would like they'd rather take take a bath on 20. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, that look he was very nice to deal with the Gibson group. They were really good. But I don't know. Dave Gibson? Yeah, yeah. No complaint.

SPEAKER_01

He gave me some mentorship, yeah. Lovely man.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, he was good to me. So that was it. So I did that, and then I what was my next job? Was it it? Where did I work? I worked at North and South for a very short time. I was their first journalist that they'd ever employed. And and your features into doing features, but in fact, we had a falling out, and I think I was probably sacked as well because they they had I had never been used to being directed. Like I'd they'd say people, you know, say an editor would say, do a story on the they're going to open up the airways and they're going to have a new airline, have a look at the whole real airline regulation or industry, blah, blah, blah and I'd just be sent off to go and talk to a bunch of people, and nobody directed you, tried to get you to shape the story, but they had a clear idea of where they wanted the story to go. And if mine didn't go in that direction, then they were cross. And I remember there was something about I was going to do a story on you remember Dr. David Minnet? I don't know if you remember this. It was a I can't remember the exact story about it. He had killed somebody. I thought that a minute. He had killed somebody. Anyway, they wanted the story, they gave me the headline before I started. It was called The Hounding of Dr. David Minnet. And I thought, how do I know he's been hounded before I've started? I just didn't wasn't used to that. And I didn't like it. Anyway, they didn't. So I didn't I always thought of myself as quite an agreeable person, but I can see from my history that I've been quite disagreeable. And so I didn't, I spoke out and and they said, Look, they sacked me, they said, look, you'd be better off somewhere like Broadsheet or New Outlet. Okay. Because we just did not see eye to eye at all. Not at all. Because really at that time Warwick Roger had quite a lot to do with North and South. His his view was, you know, he was really involved. And Robin Langwell was the editor. They probably did me a favor, and I'm sure they were relieved to get rid of me. So then what did I do after that? I think I went back to the New Zealand Times for a while and then compared to remember what I've done my own light, to be honest, and it's terrible.

SPEAKER_01

Well, you're freelancing and doing th I mean it's like me. If I like I I I I do about 18 different jobs a year.

SPEAKER_04

I bet you do, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's it's hard to remember.

Seat-Leavers Versus Hot-Take Journalism

SPEAKER_04

It's hard to remember. Yeah. So the jobs saying, I MBR, I then I did work at I I got a job, I had a child, and then I got offered a job, offer. Someone actually contacted me um to be the travel editor of the Herald, and they'd only had one travel editor then. I don't think they've got one at all now. I'm not sure that they do. Anyway, this was a whole up-and-coming field, which I actually didn't rate. I always thought that being a travel editor was not a serious job, and these are not serious people, and uh, but then frivolous. Yeah, and it was like that's not journalism, but then they said I'm you'd be going to England in a few weeks' time. And then later in the years, India, I thought, oh maybe I could bend my principles a bit. Yeah. And actually, it was really good. It was a whole emerging field, and I could think about what was it supposed to be like. Yeah, and I had to do awful things like layout, which I hate. You had to do the whole thing. Yeah, hate all that. You have to be quite good at that whole spatial thing. Yeah. Write a lot, do layout, organize, copy. It was it was actually quite hard work. And then you'd go away and you'd have to get everything done beforehand because it was all done on paper and cut out. Because the Herald, I was at the Herald, so they were one of the last papers in the Western world to go digital, actually. Really one of the last. Yeah, and then they picked a system.

SPEAKER_01

We're a little slow on tech.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, and they picked a system that was done at the Orange County or something, and it was a disaster. It was a disaster. You know, yeah, because when I started, I was typing on an old Imperial 66, really, an old thing. Yeah, I can I can actually rebuild a typewriter. I'm really good at it. Pulling it all out, putting the cartridge in and yeah, things that you don't need to do now. Um so I did that, and it was a great job because you're always being you were being sent somewhere, and it was always five-star. It was fantastic. It was a whole I it I don't think it exists anymore. You don't need to. They don't need to. People, you've got all the other mediums. You don't need to have newspapers telling you where to go and what to do, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Well, everything's broken. Everything's sort of niche now, isn't it? It's all sort of um I noticed that the the Washington Post has like cancelled a few departments. Okay. And um there was a lot of uh, you know, Jeff Bezos owns it now, and everyone's saying, Oh, he's doing it to make Trump happy, and you know, that that whole thing. And no, I don't know, but like it sounds like he's just reducing it to core. You know, that's what it felt like to me. Because I mean, you can w why have this expansive thing when people sort of break up their news now?

SPEAKER_04

Exactly. Um I agree. I think have changed. I mean, I think I look at the Herald and they don't I don't think they have a dedicated travel editor, a dedicated rock, because I had a trip, it was me as a travel editor, and I had someone sidekick working for me. It's just that seems like such a luxury now. So I've been riding the crest of a sort of a way that is just finally crashed, really. And I so I think I've had the best of it in lots and lots of ways. Um, because now if you were going overseas, you I don't think I think you'd struggle to sell a story. You would because people you don't have to buy it. There's TikTok, there's videos, there's influences, you can get the information anywhere. You don't need anything. Anywhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

So I was lucky.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Oh well no, that's that that's incredible. Um, I I didn't know about your books, actually. I I need to read one.

SPEAKER_04

Oh no, don't. No, I'm not because that the Brian one, now that I if I wrote it again now, I would do it differently, or I'd assess him differently because I'm older and more mature, and we all know a lot more.

SPEAKER_01

We all know a lot more.

SPEAKER_04

We know a lot more. That's the one thing about the internet, it does make so much accessible. It was really hard work going to a library and going through the files and looking to things. It's really hard work, and you'd only get little sort of slices of information, really. It was hard.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the first scripts that I was um writing, like some of the early ones that you know didn't get made, but I was sort of cutting my teeth on it. Yeah. Libraries, yeah. A day in a library, yeah, getting like a ton of books out, reading them, discovering I don't know if that this helps me or not, and all of that. Interviewing people, cold calling people, yeah, just having fun interviews to get stuff.

SPEAKER_04

A good librarian was your best friend. Yeah, it's really so different.

SPEAKER_01

It's so different. Yeah. Uh well, which actually take so so I think that's a nice segue to today and some of the issues that may or may not be happening today. And we're we're probably both quite opinionated on this.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, me being sort of media adjacent, if not like right in at ground center zero as a as a documentary maker, but um uh like like uh I read the spin-off, right? Oh, do you no, not often, but if I do, I should have said if I you know am unfortunate enough to have it in front of me and and start reading and can't stop. Yeah, because I'm just appalled and my eyes are just fixed on this nightmare. Um uh I I always feel like this writer never lost, never left their seat.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

Monoculture, Missing Stories, And Gender Debate

SPEAKER_01

You know, the they they clearly never left their seat. Yeah. Um, you know, they maybe they did to get their coffee, but you know, they're settling and they can write, they can write everything they want to say, they can talk about how they don't like the human rights commissioners, and yeah, you know, it's it's very like it just feels like they never left. During COVID, when Michael Mora was um at the border, um and he was clearly interviewing people in the unions and all that kind of stuff to work out what was happening at the border. Remember all that reported that um Michael Mora did? That's a guy that leaves a seat.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01

That's a guy that leaves a seat. That that to me is still a journalist. That's the that's the that's the people I want to call journalists.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

The guys that are hitting the bricks. They're yeah, you know, they're they're out there, they're knocking on some difficult doors. Um you know, in documentary, that happens a lot, actually. Like there's a guy I know from South Auckland who um I think sometimes is taken advantage of a bit uh because he he could open some pretty incredible doors to some pretty dark characters.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And you know, he head knock on doors that a lot of the other producers and that they they just would not have the bottle.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Right. To do that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think that I would either.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, I I've done it a few times. Um and I I think I have a way with with people, and and sort of I I I think I can talk to people from that world. Um, not like my friend can, but um I I I'd back myself, but I'd probably send him if I could. Yeah. Um, but but he had one episode where he was speaking to the the associate of a uh of a murderer, um, and and and a very um controversial, you know, new New Zealand character, this guy. Yeah. And the guy was racially abusing him and just going ballistic. And um, and my friend was like, Look, you know, okay, yeah, get out of your system, mate, but I I still really want to have a talk to you. And he ended up going inside, they put the kettle on, and he left four hours later.

SPEAKER_04

Wow, that's good.

SPEAKER_01

With the story. It's good. Yeah, he he could do that. And and that that that's a whole other world, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04

It is, it's a whole other yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So is that happening today the way it should or could?

SPEAKER_04

Or so what what I worry that the people who are in the media now have got quite a fixed view of how they think the world is. There's goodies and baddies, villains and oppressors, all that, and a fixed view on all sorts of things. So they go in with the already with a lens. You know, it's like when I watched this how I wanted to go and talk to the I went to talk to the um people who are at the Brian Tamay March, you know, that recently. And I thought I just want to meet the people who follow him because nobody talks to him. They're just too it it's there's quite class oriented, I think. I figured the elite managerial class doesn't talk to the working class, really.

SPEAKER_00

No, they don't.

SPEAKER_04

They don't, and so yeah, I just thought that they don't do that. Or if they did, they'd go in with a lens and they'd see them in a certain way. A bit like when John Campbell did that documentary on Brian Tummaky. I thought, this is just a stitch up. This is just this isn't it just didn't feel fair, you know. It just yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I I find John quite quite frustrating because he he likes to think he's telling the stories of the underclass, but he's not penetrating the underclass the way he thinks he is.

SPEAKER_04

No, no, he's very preachy, isn't he?

SPEAKER_01

He's very preachy from the Yeah, and and and it feels like he, you know, the poor and his stories are like these cuddly teddy bears that he's discovered. And yeah, look at this, you know, it's like they're not yeah, yeah, it's a bit of pity. Yeah, there's a bit of that. I I don't I don't think he's quite um yeah, penetrated those communities the way he thinks he has.

SPEAKER_04

No, I think that's true. He's done it according to his dinner party group, and that's why I think that generally I regard the media as a monoculture. They've all share pretty much the same views, and they all bolster each other up, and there's not enough kind of friction. Like at least when I was there, I mean, I might have looked down on the business reporters because they were supporting the capitalist regime. I mean, it's now I just think you know, but there was more old lefties. I know we all got older and more mature and think that I now realize some of the things I thought were just stupid. But anyway, there were people who disagreed with you and had a different view, and that you might have thought they were horrible Tories or horrible whatever, but there was, it seemed to me there was a lot more variety, more diversity in points of view. There doesn't seem to me to be diversity in points of view, and a lot of the times when I'm really dark about the media, I just think they're just stenographers for the regime. That's what it feels like to me. They're just stenographers for the regime. They're just that well, the regime being the Labour Party that they want to get back in. They hate the government, obviously.

SPEAKER_07

Obviously.

Censorship By Omission And Legal Wins

SPEAKER_04

There's certain people you can tell who they like, who they don't like, and they will frame the story or not write about something. And so, yeah, I do find I find it really, really disappointing, really and disturbing for our democracy. Really, really disturbing. And now, since since I've been following the sex and gender issue, I realize how many stories they just haven't written because it doesn't suit their narrative. So, therefore, ordinary people just don't know that the whole trans edifice is crumbling. They don't know, they haven't even heard about that Algerian boxer who now has admitted that he's male. That hasn't even made mainstream media, it makes it onto the fringe things that I look at. They haven't found out about the W path files, how that organization is completely discredited. They haven't found out there's so many things that they haven't looked into.

SPEAKER_01

Well, when when um when Daphne Whitmore won the case that we supported her and uh in um Parmesan North, you know, when when Speak Up for Women were wanting to talk about um uh the birth, deaths, and marriages changes to to you know, which is a government policy. So you should be able to speak about that anywhere as a government policy. Yeah. And even Martin Davidson was like, oh no, it's good that they're being banned. So it's a government policy.

SPEAKER_05

I know.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, you just would she's such a ridiculous person. But um, so she won they won that case.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Now this was a big deal because we'd lost the um the Auckland City Council, Phil Goff of Biasco.

SPEAKER_04

That's right.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

But Lauren Southern and that that one.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Defending, well, we were defending the principles. We were never defending them, we were defending the principle, but but we went through, you know, we went to the high court, so we went through there were the three cases. We got some things in our favor and thought, let's push it, let's go further. Yeah, so we were slowly pushing the door open for the for the for the win in Parmerson North. Yeah, yeah, and um nothing in the media on that. Like we'd come, you know, like when when Molyneux and Southern were here, there was the media were all over it. Yeah, you know, giving Phil Goff, you know, yeah, uh lot lots of time and to talk about how how great I am for you know for breaking human rights law and yeah, you know, yeah, all that stuff. Um, you know, breaching the neutrality of these public spaces and and everything. But um uh but but when we won that, it didn't, and I think we got the result on the Friday. I think the Tuesday there was this like a little article, a little article, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And actually, it must it makes me realize that I my views have changed because when Phil Goff was doing that, and I thought, oh no, that's a good thing. They're not putting out the views of these terrible people, but I've completely changed. I think I thought, yeah, I I just had the views of a reflexive left-wing person. Oh yes, these people are unpeople, their views are not worth hearing, they're you know, they'll poison the well sort of thing. But now I think that this is just ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01

Well, free speech and and it is a very simple principle, but a lot of people still get quite confused about it.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and I think with the um the uh you know neutrality of public venues, yeah, that's one where people got quite confused.

SPEAKER_06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

What they don't really understand is that once once we'd set a precedent and he'd done it once, if he'd done it another time, if there's no free speech free speech union, he's just going, you, you, not you, not you, you can not you, then you know, all you need is a change of government, and then the whole script gets flipped.

SPEAKER_04

I know, I get it now, but yeah, I get it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Well, we're sort of seeing that with Israel and Australia. Like a lot of people who are jumping up and down and crying Jewish conspiracy would have been all for hate speech laws.

SPEAKER_04

Right. You know, right, right, yeah, that's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_01

Now it's a travesty.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah. I really am.

SPEAKER_01

How could this awful, you know, uh Albanese be be banning us? I mean, we're the good guys. You ban other people, you don't ban us.

SPEAKER_05

Yes.

SPEAKER_04

That's right. That's what I think. I had not realized that I'd cast myself as one of the good people, and the good people are allowed to tell the bad people to shut up. I had to come round, you know. I really did believe I was part of the virtuous circle, and now I think that's just sanctimonious drivel, really. Yeah. Yeah. I had to do a complete 180. And actually, it was about the time that the free speech union started, and I wrote a story on it of that, and also this the platform was starting at the same time. And it was with North and South. And the actually the editor was so concerned about some of the things that they were saying that they I think took about six sub-editors to look at it. Like it was just that insecurity that because free speech is right wing if it's done wrong, you know. Yeah, anyway, I just and oh, and they talked about this sub-editors writing notes saying, Oh, this is punching up, not punching down, and da da da. And I thought, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just took me a while to work out that what their the frame of reference of these people, these view, these people who were judging that this was sort of unseemly.

SPEAKER_01

Anyway, I but these are notes you never would have got in 1985.

SPEAKER_04

No, probably not. Probably not.

SPEAKER_01

You wouldn't have got, oh, are you punching? Oh, you're punching down a bit there.

Identity Politics And Moral Certainty

SPEAKER_04

That phrase was a new phrase. It's a new phrase. Isn't it punching up? It's a new phrase. It's a whole new, whole different way of looking at it. It wasn't. So I was in the vanguard of what was feminism, women's rights, and all that kind of stuff, and you know, abortion law reform, blah, blah, blah. And that was all all okay. But this new iteration, this whole identity, you know, this identity parade, that's a different thing altogether. That's really fractured and quite damaging, I think. Really damaging for society.

SPEAKER_01

It's really damaging, and it and it just hasn't been good. I mean, there are uh yeah, I think the the the media does have de facto um uh censorship.

SPEAKER_05

It does.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you know, like even the Jewish question, uh it's like um, oh I don't like saying Jewish question. It's kind of bad overtones, but you know, um Israel, uh anti-Semitism and things like that, they're not well, I mean, anti-Semitism is uh the most uh, you know, we have stats now. There's more anti-Semitism than than um other forms of racism in New Zealand.

SPEAKER_05

Really?

SPEAKER_01

But that's not ref yep, but it's not reflected in the media because they they're just not they just don't really I'd like to know who are the people who are who are the most anti-Semitic, which what group of people are they?

SPEAKER_04

Who are they? I don't I think it would be I think it would probably be more in the elites.

SPEAKER_01

I think it would be probably kind of I well, I th I I think it would be too. Like in South Auckland, where I'm from originally, and and I can go back there, I don't there's not a lot of people aren't really thinking about it. They're not really doing that. There's a lot of even identity politics is not that big a thing out there. Yeah, that's my and the interesting thing about yeah, the interesting thing about identity politics, which I find quite fascinating, is that and the whole idea of cultural relativism, which is a big thing that, you know, is that most of the pe you would think that someone that was a culturally, you know, who who was a cultural relativist, yeah, would would have a broad knowledge of cultures.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

So they've arrived at this place.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But it's the opposite.

SPEAKER_03

It is.

SPEAKER_01

They know nothing about culture, yeah, but want to promote this relativist idea. Like uh the um uh one of the heads, one of the heads of Hamas who's still alive, uh, who's in Qatar, there was this Al Jazeera symposium thing that happened like last week, and he was speaking, and he was and and he was talking about uh Syria and and Jolani, or who who's who's the new head of you know, the former ISIS guy that's running Syria, they've been purging Kurds in the East. Okay, and Erdogan in Turkey has a well, a Kurdish problem in his eyes. So he was he's sort of backing them and and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And um, and the Hamas guy was saying, you know, just openly, was like, oh, you know, Kurdish rights is another Zionist project. Um in the same way the Druzes and even the Alawites, any minority, all the minority, yeah, yeah. Any minority group that's getting support or wants support is is Jewish. Yeah, you know, like that's why is he saying that? Yeah, yeah, because he's not a westerner, yeah, yeah. He's an open supremacist.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah you know what I mean? He's just very open about Sunni Arab dominance. That's yeah, Hamas. Yeah. Yet Khole Swabrik refused to call Hamas terrorists a day or two after um October 7th.

SPEAKER_05

I know.

SPEAKER_01

She would not know anything about this.

SPEAKER_05

No, she wouldn't.

SPEAKER_01

She would not be able, she would think he's a broadly left-wing sort of revolutionary type.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But Che Guevara, maybe we should look at him like that. Yeah. You know, like she just would not have that sense of what he really believes. Yes. And culturally. Not to say all people in the Middle East are like this, because even the Levant was incredibly cosmopolitan for years and years and years, yeah, centuries, yeah, under the two under the Ottomans.

SPEAKER_07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

You know, that's what that's why calling it Palestinian land or Jewish land is a bit tricky because it was super cosmopolitan.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um that's why two states was a really good sort of solution and middle point, you know.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um but but she wouldn't know. She just wouldn't know this stuff.

SPEAKER_04

No, she wouldn't. It is just talking points, isn't it? It's just fashionable bullet points in your circle, I think. And yeah. That's it's just polishing their halos. It really is luxury beliefs, beliefs that mean that don't it just confers status on her, but doesn't mean anything, really. Not really.

SPEAKER_01

And I think the other thing for a politician, too, is that the thing with identity identity politics as well, is that like and I think the Greens may have actually paid a bit of a price for this in the polls. Um, because you know, they they've been as high as 15% with like sort of savvy people like um uh Russell Norman, yeah, and and Matidia Touré, who who were remember when they were around, they were almost the opposition leaders for a bit there, weren't they? Like they were pretty strong. Yes. And everyone will talk, you know. So the media always talks Chloe up and says, What's Chloe gonna do this year? There's always that profile that starts a year off, but she's pretty dim.

SPEAKER_04

And also, I think the whole um oh sorry, sorry, I'll just finish my my point.

Difficult Interviews And Fire And Fury

SPEAKER_01

Sorry. Sorry. Um, but but but but the thing, the thing with her um with the identity thing is like, and I think it's cost her in the post, is she'll be the thing with her being vocal about Israel and and and and a lot of the identity stuff is all you really need to do is sort of you know uh make a lot of noise, but you don't really have to come up with policy, you don't really have to sort of sit down and broker things. Like it's not it's not really politics, it's student politics.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, that's what I think.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's something you do, you know, between classes. You just have a little bit of a let off a bit of steam and it sounds good.

SPEAKER_04

She's good at whipping up the crowd, she's very good. She's very good. She wants a real cause. You know, she's like she's got no real cause. She needs a real cause, really, because she's she is she's this sort of Joan of Art, you know, sees herself in that light.

SPEAKER_01

But she see, yeah, yeah. She I think I think she got her bum knocked in a bit with the cannabis thing. Do it. It didn't quite okay. Yeah, it didn't quite work for her. And I think she just went a bit, she didn't handle defeat well either there. I think she thought she was gonna win it, but it was a very her approach was very statist. Okay. It was like, we're gonna take over marijuana and you know, and the shops are gonna be 20, you know, 200, you know, yeah, mm a mile or two outside of main centers and all that. And it's like, no, just let people grow through plants.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's a libertarian idea. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

She's a state control kind of person. I can imagine that. Yeah, yeah, she got that wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the regime, she is definitely that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So um, talking to difficult people, let's just move on to that uh quickly. We'll we'll probably wrap up fairly soon, but talking to difficult people, like we've sort of touched on that. I just wanted to bring up Fire and Fury, which was the New Zealand on air um documentary that got made uh a few years ago about the parliamentary protests. Yeah. Um, and that was Paula Penfold, who is a good journalist.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um she did not speak to any of the far right characters that you know that that she profiled. She was just sort of looking at, you know, and and but a couple of months earlier she sat down and did a very long form interview with Billy TK.

SPEAKER_04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

When he was doing the COVID stuff. Now that was just a very intense Paula Penfold in a room with Billy T. K. I think it was on stuff again. Went for about half an hour. She sort of started getting into potential infidelities on his part and stuff. So there was a walkout at the end, but he basically disappeared.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, why why do you think that was? Do you think it was as a result of that interview?

SPEAKER_01

I think it was. I think this is that whole free speech thing of getting, you know, sometimes when it's all out on the table, yeah, um, a person like that will wilt and sort of withdraw.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's how you cancel people.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Really, like by really doing and I I think maybe he had a marriage to save by the end of the end of the interview, but he kind of disappeared. She didn't use that approach with fire and fury.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And there was a severe backlash.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. I kind of I can hardly remember. I just remember I thought it was kind of laughable, to be honest. But anyway, I didn't rate it at all.

SPEAKER_01

No.

SPEAKER_04

Not at all.

SPEAKER_01

Did you? Do you remember why?

SPEAKER_04

Or well um just that it was only good one particular point of view, wasn't it? It was just it was over-dramatized. It was over-dramatized.

SPEAKER_01

Very much so. A lot of cinematic music, yeah, sort of special effects, sort of weird transitions, and that it just went a bit too, they were really trying to play out the threat and it and everything. So what's interesting there is NZ on Air got quite a hard time for fun.

SPEAKER_05

Oh, did they?

SPEAKER_01

And Yeah, they did. And I um because it was a polemic, you know. Yeah, it was. But I uh but I did speak to um NZ on air afterwards, and I said, um, you know, what I found interesting is like, you know, they don't often don't they're pretty good really. They don't approve like the content necessarily. What then they're not you know once you get the funding, they're not like, you know, let's have a meeting at the end of the week. How are you going? They're not doing that.

SPEAKER_04

That's good, hands off. That's good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I said, well, I said, well, you know, because there was quite a bit of media heat and and pushback on social media. Why didn't you clarify that for people? Oh, you know, if you're explaining, you're losing. And I was like, Okay, no, that doesn't apply here.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Awards, Clubbiness, And Credibility

SPEAKER_01

Just say we don't really get about because because that they would have been funded as a block. Yes, right?

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

They would have been funded as a block and they wouldn't have even known what they were gonna do. They just trusted the team.

SPEAKER_04

But yeah, I was surprised it won awards, weren't you? I was surprised, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But that's that's that's the you know, back to the the Voyager thing. There's a lot of patting on the back. I saw the Did you think that?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_01

I think that I I was an outsider, yeah. Andrea Vance got an award, yeah, and you know, she just you know called um uh Nicola Willis.

SPEAKER_04

Oh yeah, C-word.

SPEAKER_01

So everyone, whoa.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, it's very clubby. It's very clubby.

SPEAKER_00

Very clubby.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I agree, I agree. And it's kind of juvenile, really. I mean, they think they're they think they're pushing at the cutting edge, but they're not really. They're just they are just stenographers for the regime. They're not actually looking outside their bubble, they're not outside their dinner party circle, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that they're they're just well, you know, when I think about South Aucklanders and and different people like, you know, groups like that, like there's no one telling those stories at all.

SPEAKER_04

No, no, no, and that's why I liked meeting those Ryan Tamaki supporters. I thought these are nice ordinary people, they're really these are Kiwis I've got more in common with than I have in this little grey lynchet, to be honest. They're concerned about ordinary things, things that and things that you're not allowed to talk about, unspeakable things. You know, there's still those there is an emergen in lots of topics in New Zealand, I think. In that kind of nice people's politics. There's certain things you can't do.

SPEAKER_01

Well, the other thing, like South Auckland's a good example, because you know, you could have a gang member on your on the you know, the gang house on the India Street and everything. I mean, yeah I've had lots of experiences where I'll talk to someone, I get on with them, and then we're having a few beers, and then they say, Oh, I think this is a conspiracy theorist. And I think, oh my god, you're just completely deranged.

SPEAKER_07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So I talk about something else and we just don't talk about that anymore. And then I'm then I'm I I'm sort of getting on with the guy again.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. You know, they've got all the oh, that is weird. Okay. Well we well, we all have we, you know, we probably all have a kooky idea is it might not appreciate.

SPEAKER_01

But we don't but we say, well, I like this part about the person. Yes, that's right.

SPEAKER_04

That's right. That's right. Yeah, it's just interesting about the people that the media co focuses on and the people they don't. Anyway, I think the media's in a very very dismal state at the moment. But but things change, don't they? New media comes up, it is an appetite for it, something will happen. Yeah, I'm still still hopeful that people are curious and hungry for news. Really, yeah. I am hopeful for that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, well, well, you know, the Substack has got some amazing writers. I discover amazing pieces all the time.

Talking To The Unheard: Tamaki Supporters

SPEAKER_04

Me too. Me too. It's where I get more different views from. Really, really different. Yeah. And so I'm really pleased about that because before I think I probably just had a quite an accepted narrow worldview. Probably I did. Probably I did. Now I'm reading a much more varied overseas. Yeah, I'm reading all sorts of things. Yeah. So I think it's quite an exciting time to be in the media, really, at this point. It's hard in New Zealand because it's small and we're a small market. That is really tricky to make money in this part of the world. So I can understand that. But I do love a lot of the things that are happening overseas. I do love some of the podcasts and things I listen to. It's yeah, it's fabulous. It's fabulous. And I've changed my mind. You you probably have too, all the things. One of the things I've changed my mind on. Phenomenal. Phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. No, that's that's right. Yeah. Um and and, you know, defending people in the free speech union and meeting people that I never would have probably gravitated towards. But see, I mean, you'd know this as a journalist, I mean this as a documentary writer. You know, like I I went in one day and and the boss said, Are you gonna go to America and learn about missile defense lobbying? Because you're doing a profile of this Māori guy that became a gridiron star and then he moved into missile defense.

SPEAKER_03

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

And so so next thing, you know, I'm sitting down with people in the Bush administration and learning all about the Iron Dome and uh.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my god, how fantastic.

SPEAKER_01

It was it was amazing. Yeah, I I would have never pursued that.

SPEAKER_04

No, no, that's the wonderful thing. That's a good thing about journalism, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01

That's the wonderful thing about documentary and journalism. It's like where am I going now? Oh, yeah, I have to become a mini expert in this thing in six weeks.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, that's really cool. And you do that. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01

And and you're shaking hands with people you never would have met.

SPEAKER_04

Me too, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and giving people credence that I would never have given any credence to in the past, and taking all sorts of people seriously that I never would have in the past. So yeah, I've changed my mind a lot, a lot.

SPEAKER_01

But honoring those people too.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

See, I don't jump people, I'm not that guy. I don't ambush people, I'm just not into it. Even people I really don't wouldn't like, yeah, I'd still feel wrong about ambushing them.

SPEAKER_04

Doing a gotcha, a gotcha interview.

SPEAKER_01

I've never been a big fan of that. Yeah, I'm not a fan of it. If someone's prepared to give their story to you, yeah, and and share personal details, you know, this is a this is quite a gift.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, it is. It's it's trust, isn't it? It's trust.

SPEAKER_01

There's trust.

SPEAKER_04

You have to be a complete psychopath just to be the gotcha person because you're really just some people are. Yeah, you're feigning empathy, you're feigning compassion, but deep down you're thinking, oh, goody, goody, that's good, you know. And that's yeah, yeah, that's a yeah, people can do it, but yeah, I don't want to do that. I don't want to go home and do that. Yeah, no, but it works for a lot of people, it works.

SPEAKER_01

For some people it works, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, but we're very privileged, aren't we? The people we get to meet. I think we're lucky. Yeah, really lucky.

SPEAKER_01

Definitely.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, well, it's lovely to talk to you today. Probably time for you to go now.

SPEAKER_01

It it probably is because I think you've got to be somewhere. Yeah, I've got to be somewhere.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, it'd been lovely to chat to you too. Really cool.

SPEAKER_01

Also, so um I'll I'll just do our sign off. So, people, um, so this was another great episode. I'm sure you'll agree. Uh, if you have questions for us or the show, do contact us on uh podcast at fsu.nz? Yes, I think it is.

SPEAKER_04

Isn't it is it? Well, or is it org? It's not org, is it?

SPEAKER_01

No, it's nz. It's.nz, fsu.nz. Um, so do do send those questions through and we'll see you again on free to speak.

SPEAKER_04

Thanks very much, Dane.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you for listening to Free to Speak. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider sharing the podcast with others. We release new episodes regularly, and subscribing is the easiest way to stay up to date. If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, you can contact us at podcast at fsu.nz. If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union, visit fsu.nz.