by Paul Henry
We had a lot of meetings. Sharon sat at the end of the table and I was gradually moved to sit next to her, not because of my place in the hierarchy but so that she could kick me under the table or hit me over the head with a glitter wand she used to have. This would occur, I felt, whenever I said something that sounded like it was getting close to the truth.
At these meetings we pored over documents that were tabled and discussed the ramifications of the restructuring and how the huge number of redundancies that were necessary could be kept from the staff because they would mutiny if they found out. It was obvious to me that they had to find out if anything was ever going to happen. Plan A seemed to be talked about for so long, I wondered if the others were hoping the government would change its mind before anything final had been done. That would also require someone to come up with an extra $50 million so wasn’t very likely.
Another constant irritation was that I was the only person at the table who understood that we had entirely enough money to do what we needed to do to meet our obligations under the broadcasting charter. Everyone else seemed determined to prove to the government that we didn’t have enough money.
I was turning into one of the things I loathe most — a bureaucrat. There was hardly any time to focus on presentation and the way the programmes sounded. I wanted to update the sound of National Radio. It has a fantastic role and it’s a brilliant opportunity. It’s commercial-free, which meant we had an opportunity to push the boundaries with news and drama. They had very talented journalists. I wanted to make more of the news. It was ridiculous that there were extraordinarily dull access programmes on, when they could have had extended news bulletins. There are times of the day when you simply don’t want to listen to fusion music. Not for a whole hour.
Then someone on the management team decided the bird call had had its day. There was a battle we didn’t need to have. It wasn’t like we were getting a lot of mail complaining about the bird. Fortunately, if I achieved nothing else in my time I managed to save the bird.
There was no reason why almost all of the suggested restructuring shouldn’t have happened. There were too many people. There were staff there wandering around with their heads up their arses. There was a belief that nobody else in the country could produce radio like they were producing it. Well, there were lots of people who could. I used to plead with the others to bite the bullet on the redundancies and then see whether that would leave us enough money to do what we were obliged to under the charter. But I was told we couldn’t make people redundant before Christmas. After Christmas I was told we couldn’t make people redundant while they were on holiday.
There were regular meetings with staff that management were rostered to attend. The only staff who went were the agitators, who had no shortage of fuel. There were weeks when management representatives were eaten alive. There were managers who avoided walking through the newsroom because of the hostility in the air.
Most of the staff who were agitators and who were anti-change didn’t realise that the reason it was being done so badly was because those on senior management charged with doing it were siding with them. But they couldn’t tell the staff they were doing that because that would’ve been embarrassing. They would’ve looked silly so instead they looked incompetent. There were faults on both sides but the greater fault was with the management for allowing it to happen.
When Dick Weir was made redundant, it was done incredibly clumsily, partly because there was a huge reluctance to do it, and so to do it properly was inconceivable. Everyone knew it was going to happen before it did, including Dick.
Someone decided we should display floor plans to show the staff how lovely the new building would look, in order to boost morale. I mentioned that the staff were not stupid and one of them was almost certain to count the desks and realise there were fewer of them in the new building than in the old. However, the pictures were put up and the number of redundancies, which we had known for some time, became general knowledge and another storm blew up. That was really irrelevant by now because, given we had decided not to make people redundant before or after Christmas, we had got to the point where we couldn’t make people redundant at any time because we had used up all the redundancy money by continuing to pay the salaries.
While all this was going on, we were also supposed to be going digital. Staff had been assigned to make it happen and flew around the world looking at systems. Because not only were we going to go digital, which was obviously a good idea, but we were going to lead the world, which was a bad idea. We couldn’t afford the airfares we were paying for.
I tried to explain that we didn’t need to lead the world. ‘Digital world leaders’ wasn’t core business and certainly not relevant to the charter. ‘We don’t need to be new,’ I said. ‘Let’s find a system we can afford that’ll do the job easily. Let’s lead New Zealand now and make sure we can upgrade later.’
In the end, the troops were brought home, the process came to a halt and all this money was wasted. It would have cost less to buy a whole package that didn’t work and then ditch it than the money we spent getting halfway there.
But the ultimate example of things that were sacred and didn’t work was the ‘commercial arm’. This was essentially two things. Replay Radio, which sold recordings of programmes by mail order and the sale of news services. Apparently this would be our financial salvation by making up for the money we weren’t getting from the government. I thought a commercial arm was unnecessary because there was no requirement on us anywhere to make money and we could afford to do our job with the money we had. It was obvious, too, that the internet meant we were just a few years away from a world where no one would be buying recordings of radio programmes.
I believed that it cost more to run this department than we made and I believed it was the job of the person in charge of the department and in charge of finance to prove that it was contributing to our bottom line. If it was a good idea, then at the end of every year we should have had money to spend on public radio, thanks to our commercial arm.
In the time I was there, no one was ever able to prove that.
At one meeting the commercial arm arrived with a report that had been typed on a typewriter. It contained a list of numbers where the bottom line was presented to everyone and to put to rest my concerns. This is the money we would not have without the commercial arm.
Unfortunately, I am no financial genius and needed things explained to me. ‘Is this number the turnover of the department, or does this represent a true net gain for Radio New Zealand?’ I asked. No one could tell me.
I decided I had to leave. I had never dreamt of doing the job. As usual, I just wanted to get it. I kept pulling out the charter and reading it and thinking, ‘It’s all so easy. Why is it being made so hard?’
Many commercial radio stations are operating professional broadcasting units by any criteria you choose, including National Radio’s own. But they don’t have National’s sense of self-importance. Grandeur doesn’t increase the quality of your news.
In some ways my standards were even more conservative than theirs. I don’t believe that music should just fade out and the news should start. I think the music should stop and then the news should start. On the hour, if you’re going to have time signals they should be heard clearly, not over a piece of music that has run over because it wasn’t started at the right time. I think all those disciplines are important.
But I don’t think it’s important to have wall-to-wall pomposity. An interview isn’t good just because it’s long. And it isn’t good just because there are a lot of pauses when people are thinking hard before they answer questions.
‘We’re giving them time to breathe,’ I was told.
‘Tell them to breathe faster,’ I said. Actually, they had nothing to say and all we had done was bore people rigid.
Nearly every time I have resigned from a job I have been asked to stay, but I’ve never done that. I would never try to persuade
anyone to stay. If they’ve decided to go and they’ve worked through the process, they’re going to go no matter what. The only thing a manager can do is offer the departing worker something they really want. But if you’re doing that, you’re a bad manager, because you should have seen this coming and done that earlier.
Sharon was genuinely surprised and very disappointed when I quit. She tried to persuade me to stay and when I wouldn’t stay she tried to persuade me to stay a bit longer, which I also wouldn’t do. That never works. I was offered considerably more money to stay but I knew we couldn’t afford to pay me that much.
Many people doubtless thought and think that I wasn’t the ‘right fit’ for National Radio and they are absolutely right. But I was what was needed because I was prepared for change. Someone who was the right fit would’ve been the wrong person for National Radio at the time.
The only right thing to do was leave.
There was definitely an element of copping out on my part. It had become too hard. Perhaps I should have stayed, pegged back my immediate expectations and gnawed away at it — but I’m not a gnawer. I hate the thought of going to work every day and just chipping away. There were people making decisions who were actually hurting public radio by wasting huge amounts of time and money. At the same time, there were great broadcasters and people doing great work who could have done twice as much great work if they’d been allowed.
I started talking to Brent Impey at Radio Pacific to tee up the next job, as was my practice. In the back of my mind there was this idea forming about working as a foreign correspondent.
Best advice
The best single piece of advice I’ve ever received was from Annabelle White, on barbecuing steak: no poking, no pricking and only one turn. Apparently the last point is now the subject of some debate, but I wouldn’t want to get involved in any sort of controversy over such an insignificant matter.
“I WAS VERY HAPPY TO BE PART OF THE PROTEST. I HAD ALWAYS DESPISED THE FRENCH TESTING. I HAD NEVER MET PETER, THOUGH I WAS AWARE OF HIS REPUTATION AS A LAWYER AND PENAL REFORMER. HE WOULD BECOME A FIRM FRIEND, ALTHOUGH, LIKE MOST OF MY FRIENDS, I HARDLY EVER SEE HIM.”
* * *
MY NEXT BIG OVERSEAS assignment was covering the French testing at Mururoa in 1995. I think it was Derek Lowe’s idea. If not, I’m happy to give him the credit as he’s not getting any money from this book, even though he was responsible for so many of the things in it.
A lot of journalists were making the voyage to Mururoa to cover what would turn out to be the last French nuclear tests in the Pacific. Many were going with the New Zealand Navy on the Kiwi, others had hitched rides on miscellaneous craft. There would be the inevitable protest flotilla and Greenpeace representation. As well as the French Navy, French media vessels would also be in the area, so it looked like it could get quite crowded.
It was decided that I would go with the flotilla on Peter Williams QC’s 53-foot yacht, the Aquila d’Oro. I was very happy to be part of the protest. I had always despised the French testing. I had never met Peter, though I was aware of his reputation as a lawyer and penal reformer. He would become a firm friend, although, like most of my friends, I hardly ever see him. I found him to be a strange mixture of socialist, capitalist, friend to all and enemy to all. It was also obvious he had an absolute belief in fairness, except when he was arguing with you.
He and I flew to Rarotonga while a small crew sailed the boat up. We were then going to take it to Tahiti before sailing to Mururoa and back again. That is a sea voyage and a half. Peter put a lot of money into this protest. A good sailor himself, he also employed a full crew.
As we were farewelled from Rarotonga, there was a huge hurrah and our hearts were full of pride. Within half an hour we were in a major swell. I was feeling queasy and the photographer was seriously seasick. We retired to our bunks but I ascertained very soon that your bunk was no place to get better. Instead, I went back on deck where I vomited the last of the sickness out. I think I had got competitive, too, and it helped that the photographer was nearly dead.
Peter and I passed the time with some intense philosophical debates. He is extraordinarily opinionated, which I admire very much. Better still, he can be opinionated because he’s very clever and extraordinarily well read. We had some phenomenal discussions which were very exciting but entirely unwinnable for me, because if things weren’t going his way Peter would turn into the courtroom performer, against whom a mere broadcaster had no chance at all. Mainly we argued about Jesus creating the world. One evening, we were becalmed, the skies were clear and you could see the galaxies and the rim of the earth in every direction. There was just water, sky and the most amazing starscape.
‘This is how you know that God created the universe,’ said Peter.
‘What?’ I said. ‘How?’
‘Look at it. Look at how vast it is. Do you know how many things had to come together perfectly at exactly the right time for this boat to be on this water, under this sky, surrounded by this air, with these people skippering it?’
‘Actually, Peter, I believe what we’re looking at now proves just how likely it is that all of those things would come together in one place at one time to create this environment.’ I based this on the fact that the universe is so big and contains so many possibilities that it’s impossible to imagine that somewhere this wasn’t going to happen.
‘But happening here, what are the odds that it would happen here so that we could be alive?’
‘Anyone could say that on any one of those stars, but for the fact that it didn’t happen there so they’re not alive to say it. Don’t you see?’
He couldn’t understand. In the end I was persecuted and made to feel like an idiot for holding the beliefs that I held. It was extremely enjoyable.
I love boats, but not yachts and I came to despise the Aquila d’Oro because the trip was so unpleasant physically. Peter’s description of yachting is ‘prison with an increased risk of dying’. When we finally got to Tahiti, the photographer was indeed on the point of death, and if we hadn’t arrived when we did we were going to have to tip him up and push things into his bottom to keep him alive. I was opposed to that. Obviously on some boats people are tipped up and have things pushed into their bottoms all the time. It’s a time-honoured way for crew and passengers to get to know each other. So we were talking about it, but on balance I thought it was preferable to let him die.
There was a small group of locals gathered to meet us at Tahiti. These were the people most affected by the testing, and they were appalled that the French would again thumb their noses at the rest of the world and be doing this.
Peter became incensed that no one from Greenpeace was there to give us an official welcome, given we were there to support a cause they claimed to own. Malodorous as we were, he decided it was a priority to track down Greenpeace immediately to give them the opportunity to apologise for not fronting up. The photographer was improving before our eyes. Peter grabbed him and we headed off to the Greenpeace office, which was not far away.
‘You know, Peter,’ I said on the way there, ‘it is bad that they weren’t here to meet us, but maybe we should just hear their side first.’
The door was opened by a young German man, sipping, we couldn’t fail to notice, an imported beer.
‘Yes?’ he said, and at that point I had absolutely no interest in hearing his side. I stood back so as not to get in the way of the tirade I knew would be coming from Peter, who uttered words to the effect of: ‘I’m Peter Williams, this is my dying photographer, and this is Paul Henry, a journalist of extraordinary renown in New Zealand. We have just piloted a 53-foot boat in rugged seas from our country to be part of the anti-nuclear protest and we were greeted by a small bunch of local people. Why were you not down there to greet us?’
I’m paraphrasing.
By now he had forced his way with his words and his body into the centre of this room, which became his stage. It also contained a group of attracti
ve, youngish women and, you’d have to say, attractive, youngish men. He proceeded to tear them to shreds. He destroyed their work. He didn’t bother to find out anyone’s name.
‘You’re German, aren’t you?’ he snapped at one young man, who reluctantly admitted he was.
‘Typical,’ said Peter, but he never backed that up. He simply added that they might like to share some of their imported beer with us. He went on to tell them that we intended to go to Mururoa.
‘You better go quickly or you’ll be too late,’ said the first young man.
‘Too late for what?’
‘Oh, I can’t really tell you.’
‘What do you mean you can’t tell us?’ I said.
‘What do you fucking mean you can’t fucking tell us?’ said Peter. ‘I’ve just told you we’re sailors. We’ve been out there in the rugged ocean risking our fucking lives and you’ve got something planned?’
In the end the Greenpeace functionary, fearful, I think, for his life, told us that something was going to happen that he couldn’t tell us about but that would have international impact, so we should go very quickly. So our time on land was regrettably short as we made our way back out into the ocean straight away, leaving the photographer behind in Tahiti, for everyone’s sake.
Mururoa isn’t a destination, because you can’t get within 12 nautical miles of it. For us, it was a GPS point and the voyage to that point seemed to take a lifetime. The tropical heat and humidity meant we had condensation constantly dripping from the ceiling, so essentially you were permanently showering in other people’s distilled sweat. You’ve got spots all around your genitals because you haven’t been able to wash for days, and when you have it’s been with salt water and you’ve put damp clothes on over the top.
