Paul Holmes began hosting Auckland’s 1ZB breakfast show in March 1987, introducing the new ‘newstalk’ format to a mixed initial response. By the time this clip reel was compiled for the 1989 Radio Awards, Holmes had arrested a ratings slump and pushed the station back up to second place in the competitive Auckland market. The reel shows him putting politicians on the spot, talking sympathetically to those caught in the crossfire of public events, arranging for a listener to attend her daughter’s birthday in London, and reading a silly serial. This combination of hard news and levity would become a hallmark of Holmes’ television show. Holmes is pictured in the studio in 1988.

Clip one: sparring with Roger Douglas

Paul Holmes 

Mr Douglas, it’s a simple question, is David Lange the man for the job?

Roger Douglas 

I think there isn’t any question about that at the moment.

Paul Holmes 

Are you saying ‘yes, he is the man for the job’?

Roger Douglas 

He is the man who has the job, he is the man who has performed quite brilliantly, at times, in that job.

Paul Holmes 

Well, there seems to be so much speculation, so much suspicion, so much rumour, that many of you in cabinet, Mr Douglas, are saying he is not the man for the job, why can you not say to me, ‘yes, he is the man for the job right now’?

Roger Douglas 

Oh, I think I have said that.

Paul Holmes 

No, you said ‘he is the man who has the job at the moment’.

Roger Douglas 

I think he is the man who has the job, and he has my support in that.

Clip two: supporting Kay Ward

Paul Holmes 

South Island police are very busy at the moment looking for a young woman who, it is alleged, was abducted from her flat over the weekend by someone she knew only vaguely, it seems, and the mother of the young fellow whom the police are looking for in connection with this business is Mrs Kay Ward from Wyndham, and she’s on the line. Good morning to you.

Kay Ward 

Good morning.

Paul Holmes 

I understand you’re pleading with your son to come out in the open, is that correct?

Kay Ward 

Yes, yes.

Paul Holmes 

Was he the kind of boy you’d expect to do something like this?

Kay Ward 

No, no, he’s not a violent person.

Paul Holmes 

So what would you say to him? If he were listening?

Kay Ward 

Um, well, if he was listening, [I’d say] surrender to the police, you know, makes it more easier for him, and for all those that are concerned.

Paul Holmes 

Have you got family around you?

Kay Ward 

Yes, I’ve got a handicapped daughter. It’s just my husband and I.

Paul Holmes 

Yes. And what about other family? Wider family?

Kay Ward 

Um, no, not close by.

Paul Holmes 

Are people being considerate and kind to you in Wyndham?

Kay Ward 

Well, not at this stage, because I don’t think people knew, but they will know now.

Paul Holmes 

Well I’m sure that you’ll be surprised at what some people do, and you might get a great deal of support.

Kay Ward 

I need it at the moment.

Clip three: World city

Paul Holmes 

(read theatrically against lush orchestral music) Tune this way for another riveting depiction of life as we all know it, for another irresistible episode of our international saga of aspiration, compassion, hatred, jealousy, anger and love: World City. Lady Susan Renouf sat on the fading upholstery of an old settee in one of the last of her houses, Kennerton Green, her country retreat. Lady Susan was deep in reflection and sipped at a small scotch. And this was the last but one of her homes, and she was selling up. Only one year ago Lady Susan had had access to seven homes in three countries. Lady Susan turned her elegant vulnerable neck, and looked out at the rose garden, which contained a bush planted by Princess Margaret, not that Princess Margaret would remember, too many gin and tonics had flowed under the bridge since then. Lady Susan sighed and considered her fate. She picked up the morning newspaper and felt a twinge of disappointment that she wasn’t in it. She found herself staring at a picture. It showed Britain’s premier peer, the Duke of Norfolk, visiting the nearby island of the same name. Lady Susan looked at her fading furniture and made a decision. He was a bit old, but did it matter? She picked up the phone and dialled Qantas. Tune this way again tomorrow for more of this great drama of human life itself, for more of our saga of international love, World city. 

Clip three: David Lange and rampant power

Paul Holmes 

You been in the job just over four years now, prime minister – are you surprised that you’ve had to fire two ministers?

David Lange 

Well, I mean, you have to get that into perspective, too. You see in Australia huge volatility. Harold Macmillan once, in Britain, sacked a third of his cabinet one night. I don’t think there’s anyone [who] started out with Margaret Thatcher that’s still there.

Paul Holmes 

Geoffrey Howe is.

David Lange 

Oh Geoffrey Howe is, but he’s been transformed into the foreign secretary and the chancellor of the Exchequer.

Paul Holmes 

And also Peter Walker, I think, too.

David Lange 

Is he still there? He’s a rather pedestrian sort of fellow.

Paul Holmes 

He certainly is, yes. But two people you’ve had to fire – are you surprised that you’ve had the toughness to do it?

David Lange 

Oh, no. I mean, let’s be quite clear about it: if someone says to you that they can’t serve under your leadership, what toughness is required in that? You tell the governor-general and get a new minister of finance.

Paul Holmes 

You used to say, prime minister, a couple of years ago, that you hoped that you’d know when to get out of the job, when to leave it, when you could no longer bring anything to it. Do you still think that you’ll know that?

David Lange 

Oh, I sure will. I mean, and also I know exactly when not to, and now is exactly when not to and I’m [not] going to go.

Paul Holmes 

Does power corrupt, though, I wonder if it does because Henry Kissinger used to say that once you’ve had power for some time you start to think it’s your God-given right, I mean, is that a problem, do you think, about power?

David Lange 

Oh it could be, but when it comes to power, I’m not some sort of ... look, two people have said to me, ‘You’re wrong. I can’t work with you’, one of them saying rather more extraordinary things than that, and so they’re no longer in the cabinet. Is that rampant power?

Clip five: a trip to London

Paul Holmes 

Laurel McMeekin, you tell us next, your secret desire is to be with your youngest daughter on her 21st birthday in London, and you tell us you can’t afford the fares, and then you say, ‘I know this is a big secret desire, but I thought if I didn’t write in you couldn’t even consider it, and it would just remain my secret.’ Laurel McMeekin, I have very great pleasure in telling you that Newstalk 1ZB, and Cathay Pacific, and Air New Zealand, are flying you to London for Anne’s 21st birthday.

Laurel McMeekin 

Thank you so much!

Paul Holmes 

It’s absolutely true. It was a wonderful letter you sent us, and early next week, probably Monday or Tuesday, we’re going to put you on the Cathay Pacific, and the Air New Zealand, and we’re sending you to London, and you’re going to be there, I s’pose, in good time for Anne’s birthday, you’ll have time to get her something nice in London for her 21st birthday, and I’m sure you’re going to have a wonderful time with her.

Laurel McMeekin 

Oh thank you very, very much, I really can’t believe it.

Clip six: Wellington’s worst sightseeing tour

Paul Holmes 

Well now these cruises they aren’t cheap, are they, I mean, people pay a bit of dough to go on these, don’t they, they go around the world and stuff and it’s a fascinating way to travel, but it’s quite expensive, isn’t it, Ross?

Guest 

Yes, they’re paying quite big biscuit, but there’s 900 of them all flying in from the States to Auckland on that day, and we had a request to try and do something a little bit different for them when they came down this part of the world and ...

Paul Holmes 

Different, yes.

Guest 

And that’s why we came up with Wellington’s worst sightseeing tour.

Paul Holmes 

Yes, yes, yes, different alright, but I wonder why anyone who’s paid money, any one of these 900, would want to go and have a look at the sewer outlet?

Guest 

Well, it’s not just a sewer outlet of course, there’s a lot of other good attractions like the dog pound, Wellington’s domestic terminal, which is well known to you. There’s a tunnel under the airport with a lot of graffiti, they’re gonna have a walk through there, we’re gonna drop them off one side and pick them up the other side. We’re going to show them where the Pope stayed when he was in Wellington, and they they’re gonna drive past the zoo gates.

Paul Holmes 

Oh, they’re nice are they?

Guest 

Oh, very nice yes, I mean it saves them going in there, it saves them a lot of time. And then one of the big attractions is they’re going out to the tip, do you remember the tip at Happy Valley?

Paul Holmes 

Yes I do.

Guest 

Yeah, well they’re going out there to watch the bulldozer driver at work, and hopefully we’ll have him in a dinner suit and a top hat, and we’re having a group photograph out there with an award-winning chateau cardboard.

Paul Holmes 

Well that’ll be excellent. No expense ...

Guest 

No expense is spared.

Paul Holmes 

At all! (laughter)

Guest 

And then if they’ve got any money left, we’ll take them down to Newtown for some shopping.

Clip seven: Holmes’ fan mail

Paul Holmes 

I want to read you another one of these charming, moving, poignant letters to the editor. Now this one, I have to tell you, it’s not signed, and I don’t know where it comes from, and the party who actually wrote it seems not to like me. He says, ‘I had four and a half years of war so a pro-bloody-Māori commie like you could have the right to speak. You’d be an ugly, flat-faced, four-eyed bastard full of windy prattle. Go back to your billabong! New Zealand forever, or take up arms again.’ Well, I thank you, anonymous person, for your most challenging letter, but one little thing there – billabong – oh no, I think you’re mistaken. I can’t help thinking you mean my colleague Leighton Smith, who, after all, is the four-eyed, flat-faced bastard that they fished up out of the billabong.

Clip eight: fired by David Lange

Bevan Burgess

No, of course not.

Paul Holmes 

But nevertheless, the prime minister’s office, and the prime minister himself, from all reports, seem to have been convinced, for quite some time, that you were conducting an insidious, and discreet, and subtle campaign of destabilising. Now why would they think that, over the course of time, if you weren’t doing it?

Bevan Burgess 

There have been a lot of arguments between the PM and his office and Roger Douglas, not so much about policy but about what’s called, in the game, strategy, and I’m the guy who sat down with the typewriter and helped to get them on paper. So if you like the hands that run the typewriter get cut off.

Paul Holmes 

We’re talking to the sacked Douglas press secretary, Mr Bevan Burgess. Would you say you were loyal to Mr Douglas?

Bevan Burgess 

Of course. I’ve worked for lot of bosses in my lifetime, I haven’t worked for a better one.

Paul Holmes 

So being loyal, wouldn’t you have had, over the past year, ample cause to raise serious doubts, in various places, about the wisdom of some of the Lange decisions?

Bevan Burgess 

No, you don’t do it that way if you are a professional person.

Paul Holmes 

So why did the Lange office get rid of you?

Bevan Burgess 

I guess because sometimes, in our view, they were doing very foolish things, and Roger wanted to argue that, through the system, not by going outside and giving false feeds to journalists or anything like that, I mean, I’ve yet to see the evidence that I’ve been doing that.

Clip nine: American foreign policy

Paul Holmes 

Well the Americans seem to have made the sad admission.

Guest 

They have, Reagan officials have just confirmed their conclusion that the US has destroyed a civilian Iranian Airbus aircraft, in an incident over the Gulf, believing it, they say, to have been an F-14 fighter.

Clip ten: today in history

Paul Holmes 

Join me once again, my ghoulish ones, voyeurs of the vanished, as the parade of life itself gathers for the grand parade, as once again, before us, past the laudatory and the laudable, the legends and the legal, the leery and the leerers, the limitrophes and the limonites, the limes, the lions and the Limpopos, in today in history, September 27th, George Stephenson opened his Stockton to Darlington line, today in 1825. It was the start of the age of rail. The line ran for 20 miles, there were six goods wagons, six passenger coaches and 14 wagons for workmen. You see, the over-manning started early.

There was crisis in Europe today in 1938. Hitler had annexed the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. There was uproar. Hitler agreed to a meeting with Daladier of France, Mussolini of Italy and Neville Chamberlain of England, who believed Herr Hitler could be contained. Here’s Neville Chamberlain setting out for Munich today in 1938.

Neville Chamberlain 

(archival recording) I ask you to wait as calmly as you can the events of the next few days. As long as war has not begun, there is always hope that it may be prevented, and you know that I’m going to work for peace to the last moment.

Paul Holmes 

Here’s Chamberlain upon his return, having given in to a bully.

Neville Chamberlain 

(archival recording) We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. [Cheers]

Paul Holmes 

The Queen Mother launched the Queen Elizabeth today in 1938. It was a bad day and the British needed a bit of cheering up.

Elizabeth, the Queen Mother 

(archival recording) I have, however, a message for you from the King. He bids the people of this country to be of good cheer in spite ...