Drawn Out

by Tom Scott

  Many of my colleagues were later furious with themselves for not getting up and walking out with me. For ages their friends and neighbours accused them of being cowardly and gutless while I became, briefly at least, a fearless and saintly figure worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Joan of Arc, Thomas Becket and Che Guevara. I mentioned them anyway, whenever the expulsion came up, and if the expulsion didn’t come up I made sure that it did. Every time a significant anniversary of television broadcasting in New Zealand comes around they replay this clip—with me looking silly with my thinning afro and blue jacket with absurdly wide lapels. It reduces my heartless children to hysterics.

  One of the Prime Minister’s press officers told me that in the days that followed Muldoon got heaps of mail critical of his treatment of me and only a handful of letters in support. Muldoon was shocked by one letter congratulating him warmly—it was from my father. It was brief and to the point. ‘Egghead had it coming!’

  I might be drawing a long bow here, but I got the impression that Muldoon’s attitude towards me softened after this. His own father, Jim, contracted syphilis while serving in France in World War One. Jim’s health declined after his son was born. He lost the use of his right arm and his left leg and the power of speech. Confined to Carrington mental hospital he degenerated into a pitiful wreck, playing no part in the life of the small, bright boy who visited regularly with his mum.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  1981

  THE SPRINGBOK TOUR DOMINATED THE political landscape for much of 1981. I found it impossible to ignore, and even more difficult to rein in my own feelings. I was passionately opposed to the tour and yet had to sit down at the typewriter and force myself into an artificial state to write about it calmly and fairly. Often I didn’t make it. It was easier if I stuck to pure farce, like the following piece. It provoked a lot of angry letters from pro-tour people complaining about how I had insulted Errol Tobias, the only black player in the touring party. I was even the subject of a complaint to the Race Relations Conciliator, and in due course got a silly little letter from Hiwi Tauroa advising me to be more careful.

  The offending piece was a tour diary from an Afrikaner Springbok called Okkie, writing letters to his younger brother.

  Dear Danie,

  We are settling in here nicely. I went shopping this morning and got cheered later in a pub when I said that I supported racial equality, and as far as I was concerned all black people were equal. There has been a lot of talk about South Africans and New Zealanders dying alongside one another on Italian battlefields. This is true. And, as I have told some Kiwis, it wasn’t easy for people like our Uncle Heemie. Afrikaners like him, imprisoned for their pro-Nazi sympathies, had first to break out of South African jails, smuggle themselves across the South African border, hitchhike up the African continent, cross the Sahara on foot, swim the Mediterranean, joining the Allies and fighting for the side they didn’t agree with—surely the supreme sacrifice in anyone’s book. I must retire now. Our first practice run was gruelling. Claassen had the forwards running repeatedly head first into an iron girder. Still, I suppose I can count my lucky stars I wasn’t a Springbok back in the grim, unimaginative win-at-any-cost days.

  Your brother, Okkie

  LATER THAT YEAR A FULL Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was being held in Melbourne. I thought it important that the Listener attend this meeting as well. At first Peter Stewart enthusiastically agreed, but as it drew nearer he seemed less keen and ducked the subject when I brought it up. Eventually he left on a trip to the United States without saying a word, instead leaving it to others to instruct me that I wasn’t to attend. Peter was never the bravest of men. Even the way he sat in a chair, floppy and loose-limbed, implied less calcium than other people. He eventually quit the editorship to run a motel on the shores of Lake Taupō with his wife. Brilliant author and poet Vincent O’Sullivan, who worked for the Listener at the time, wrinkled his nose in distaste at this news. ‘Ooooh, can you imagine anything worse? Emptying out adulterers’ ashtrays!’

  I was angry with Peter on a number of counts. Had he told me to my face that the Melbourne trip was off I would have been surly and deeply disappointed, but accepting. In advance of the conference some African leaders denounced Muldoon for allowing the Springbok tour to proceed. In retaliation, Muldoon said that unlike their countries New Zealand wasn’t a dictatorship and didn’t have their appalling records of human rights abuses. I thought the Listener was opting out on a confrontation with huge implications for the New Zealand election, which was only a few weeks away. On a more personal level I thought that in not sending me to Melbourne the Listener was in effect apologising for sending me to India the year before.

  In the Press Gallery I complained bitterly to my colleagues about this infamy. I said that if I had somewhere else to place an article and get paid for it, I’d take annual leave from the Listener and go to Melbourne anyway. Radio New Zealand’s Trevor Henry suggested I ring Martinborough publisher Alister Taylor, which I did immediately. Within minutes the deal was done and the die was cast. He would bankroll me and I would write an eight-page article for his glossy magazine The New Zealander.

  As I was boarding a plane for Melbourne, Alister’s partner and the editor of this publication, Deborah Coddington, released a press statement to the effect that I was now on assignment for them. The gloating tone, while perfectly understandable, was hardly the ideal homecoming present for twitchy Peter Stewart, so it came as no surprise a few days later when Helen rang me in Melbourne to read out a letter that I’d just received from Stewart arguing that as I had not sought to renew my Listener contract (previously it had rolled over automatically, with me none the wiser), they would not be renewing it. It had only a few weeks to run anyway and no further work was required from me. Included was a cheque for $1800, effectively a full and final payment.

  In the same post there was a letter from our bank demanding that we do something about our $1900 overdraft. I was the main breadwinner for a whānau of seven. I no longer had a job, I was a hundred bucks in arrears, and my thirty-fourth birthday was just days away. I felt sick.

  It was a worsening of a queasy feeling that had begun flying in at night. Melbourne has been described as the largest lawn cemetery in the world, and flying in over Port Phillip Bay after dark provided little evidence to the contrary. Unlike Sydney or Los Angeles, where a foul incandescence lights up the horizon, Melbourne, at least from our jumbo in 1981, looked like a glowworm cave on strike. Was it a sign? I was coming to Melbourne in reckless pursuit of a big story. What if it didn’t eventuate? What if nothing happened? I was going to look pretty foolish.

  TO GENERATIONS OF MELBOURNE CHILDREN, the Royal Exhibition Building was a dread and terrible place. Within its vast interior thousands of schoolkids from all across the city gathered to sit certificate examinations. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was being held here. CHOGMs are a form of exam where every leader goes home with a pass. In 1981 one leader failed and came close to being expelled.

  That first morning at the REB we had to pass through an impressive security cordon, rare for this side of the world at that time, but once inside journalists swarmed through the halls with the brainless ecstasy of children at a trade fair—pausing at any one spot only long enough to snatch whatever was free before moving on. Facilities included a news agency, bank, duty-free shop, post office, two pie and sandwich counters, two bars, several lounges, three television studios, a number of radio- and television-editing booths, a 24-hour telex service, a shop selling Aboriginal arts and an exhibition of Australian photographs. In a separate enclave, leaders would enjoy even more elegant lounges and their own coffee bar.

  The innermost sanctum was the vast, hushed, circular conference room itself. It exemplified the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser’s ‘no expense spared’ approach to proceedings. So there could be no distractions, the walls were covered in soothing dark brown suede, the only splash of colour
being the specially woven carpet in the centre of the room, where a green map of Australia was emblazoned with a gold CHOGM symbol. The leaders would sit at plush, high-backed chairs. With its subdued lighting, it reminded me of the war room in Dr. Strangelove. The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Sonny Ramphal, saw it differently. Calling for good sportsmanship in his opening remarks, he trumpeted that the circular table was 22 metres in diameter. ‘Providentially, the exact length of a cricket pitch!’

  The one leader capable of bowling underarm and not averse to a little ball tampering, Rob Muldoon, was running late for the conference’s first press conference. The assembled media would forgive him if he provided good copy and they were not disappointed. He moved swiftly to the microphone and, although pale in person, the close-up face on the TV monitors around the room exuded a ruddy authority. He began insisting he would be raising the Gleneagles Agreement on sporting contacts with South Africa, warning that if there was not acceptance of his view that New Zealand had fulfilled its obligations, then his government would pull out of the agreement altogether.

  It was a gritty, taking-charge performance spoilt only by a very sharp response to an ebony-coloured journalist in a tribal kaftan who nervously ventured that sporting contacts with apartheid-practising South Africa was an emotional issue to many African countries. Muldoon leaned into his microphone, jutted his big jaw, and barked, ‘There are some people who think only folk with black faces have feelings!’ You could hear air being sucked in all across the room and the poor man half-vanished into his robes. Asked whether he would be producing his now infamous dossier on the shabby human rights records of some Commonwealth countries, Muldoon growled ominously, ‘Let’s see what happens.’ Challenged on New Zealand’s record on human rights, he took a moment to smile then conceded that we had deficiencies in this area—the major one being whether boys and girls should get separate prizes in painting competitions. The auditorium, which was looking for something to ease the electric tension, erupted in laughter. He was able to swat away all questions with ease after this, like Don Bradman at the crease facing an opening spell from the Queen Mother with a rib injury.

  IF AUSTRALIA HAS ONE PLACE of worship every bit as sacrosanct as the Taj Mahal, it is the Long Room at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. With its twenty-five-year waiting list and nine-year probationary period before you become a full member, it is one of sport’s holiest shrines. Linseed-stained, yellowing, autographed cricket bats line the walls along with scores of framed sepia photographs of heroes from yesteryear and notices advising that ties or cravats must be worn at all times—not that the CHOGM media managed this the night the Australian Prime Minister hosted us to drinks. High above the famous oval, a vivid jade in the dying light, the room above all else symbolised the enduring value of ‘mateship’.

  By constantly and knowingly upstaging his host, Muldoon was not being a good mate. Fraser was ferociously committed to ending apartheid and it was no secret that his impatience with Muldoon bordered on loathing. While we stood sipping gin and tonics and nibbling canapés, Fraser worked the room like a whale swimming in a shoal of herrings. When the New Zealand news media quizzed him about Muldoon, he sighed and rolled his deep-set Easter Island statue eyes that perfectly matched his Easter Island statue face and giant frame, nodded and quickly moved on.

  Two South African journalists asked me in a low whisper if I wanted to duck away and shoot out to Monash University with them to hear Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe give a speech. They made it sound slightly illicit. In the car, one of them, named TJ, explained, ‘To be born a white South African is to know original sin. Even though you hate the fucking place, man, you are condemned to spending the rest of your life in perpetual atonement.’ For them, going to hear Mugabe was a step on the long road of guilt exorcism.

  With the other journalist, Bruce, at the wheel, a huge map spread across his lap, we were soon hurtling down a wide motorway, not sure if we were going in the right direction. Then a racing motorcade with police outriders, sirens and flashing lights shot past us. ‘That’ll be him!’ screamed TJ. ‘Don’t lose them!’

  Bruce dropped down a gear, veered into the fast lane and planted his foot. Racing up behind the last car in the motorcade aroused suspicions. Mugabe’s security men turned around to see who was chasing them and I got a small whiff of what it’s like to live in a police state.

  ‘Pull back! Pull back! Jesus!’ screamed TJ. ‘Those bulls probably think we’re BOSS agents! They’ll shoot our fucking tyres out, man, and we’ll end up wrapped around a power pole. Pull back!’ Their paranoia was palpable and contagious. The motorcade accelerated through a series of intersections against the lights and left us far behind and I wasn’t sorry.

  I declined to go with the South Africans again the next night to hear Margaret Thatcher. Instead I caught up for drinks with Bill Darcy and some of his media mates in a hotel off Swanston Street in the central city. One of Bill’s mates was supposed to be covering the Thatcher event. Word came through that her car had been surrounded and was being rocked by angry students. Bill’s mate was due to report live to a Perth radio station in a few minutes’ time. No worries, cobber. We all shot up to Bill’s room, someone opened the windows to let in traffic and street noise and someone else passed around a joint the size of a didgeridoo. I passed. I’m not musical.

  When Bill’s mate picked up the phone to talk to Perth the others all started chanting ‘THATCHER OUT! THATCHER OUT!’ Bill’s mate had to shout into the mouthpiece to be heard. He painted an astonishingly vivid picture of the student demonstration and Thatcher’s bodyguards having to bundle her to safety—it was almost like being there. I think some of the guys completely off their faces really thought they were there. I have never been prouder of my profession.

  ONE BRIEF ENCOUNTER MADE THE CHOGM trip worthwhile irrespective of what had gone before and what would follow. At a cocktail party at the Hilton the long-time, legendary African correspondent for the Observer, Colin Legum, guided me across a crowded atrium towards the tiny Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere.

  ‘Mwalimu,’ said Legum, removing a semi-permanent cigar from his mouth. ‘I want you to meet a New Zealand journalist who is an enemy of Mr Muldoon’s.’ Nyerere’s intelligent, surprisingly boyish face broke in half with a wicked grin, his top teeth filed to points like the blades of a saw. He gripped my hands in his.

  ‘I want to thank you. New Zealanders must be the nicest people in the world. You have done so much for the black man.’ When I demurred and apologised for the Springbok tour, his sing-song delivery rose in pitch. ‘Look what happened during the tour! All across Africa, black men, women and children are listening to the BBC World News. And what are they hearing? White people on the opposite side of the world, white people who have so much, are sitting on motorways for the dignity of black men. The dignity of black men they will never meet. How can we punish New Zealand after what you have done for us?’ He hugged me. I was close to tears.

  I INCORPORATED THIS EXCHANGE INTO Rage, the telefeature on the 1981 Springbok tour that I wrote with Averil’s brother, Grant O’Fee, a ‘good bastard’, to use the highest compliment Grant can pay anyone. He joined the police as a sixteen-year-old cadet and retired as Commissioner of Police in the Kingdom of Tonga. Along the way he was head of the Armed Offenders Squad, District Commander of the Tasman Police District and Superintendent in charge of security for the 2011 Rugby World Cup held in New Zealand.

  As befits a top cop, Grant had a great eye for detail and photographic recall of events tense, tragic and comic, but more than this he had a genius ability to re-create the tone and subtext of these moments. He was a delight to work with, except when coming to grips with scriptwriting software on his computer. When things went wrong, which they frequently did, his temper would erupt like a volcano. He would leap from his desk screaming, ‘I would like to drive a red-hot frigging railway spike right down the eye of Bill Gates’ penis!’

  We also wrote Tiger County together
, which holds up remarkably well today due to the raw authenticity Grant brought to the table. He was adored on set because he quietly worked his way around the cast and crew and by the end of the first week was able to greet everyone by their Christian name, and they could tell that he was genuinely interested in what they did.

  It helped that he had a great turn of phrase. He was particularly fond of one television newsreader—he couldn’t watch her without sighing, ‘I would crawl on my belly across broken glass to stick toothpicks in her poop!’

  In the middle of the night in 1995, Averil and I were watching Jonah Lomu single-handedly demolish the English rugby team at the World Cup in South Africa. Jonah had just run over the top of their fullback, Mike Catt, when the phone rang. There was no introduction, just someone screaming joyously at the other end of the line. ‘DID YOU SEE THAT? DID YOU SEE THAT? JONAH MUST HAVE MUSCLES IN HIS SHIT!’ And with that, Grant hung up.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE MONEY LENDERS

  AFTER THE BITTER, BRUISING AND divisive Springbok tour, Muldoon won the bitter, bruising and divisive 1981 election by the narrowest of margins. At the risk of sounding like a Game of Thrones trailer, his aura of invincibility was punctured, the authority of his government was haemorrhaging badly, the skies over the Beehive were growing dark with economic chickens coming home to roost, malevolent forces were on the prowl, winter was coming. The only good news for National was that Bill Rowling, desperate for vindication, wanted to stay on as Leader of the Opposition for a fourth crack at winning an election. Logic and electoral mathematics decreed that he must surely win next time, and many in his party were sentimental enough to want him to have that chance.