A look back on some memorable moments on Fair Go and Sunday
Saturday, 9 March 2024
Fair Go and Sunday have been canned with TVNZ’s new restructure, the state-owned broadcaster confirmed on Friday.
Fair Go has been on air for 47 years, while Sunday has for 21.
The investigative news shows have broken major stories over the decades.
After decades on air, TVNZ’s investigative news shows Fair Go and Sunday will be cancelled as TVNZ looks to restructure.
Having first aired in 1977, Fair Go is one of New Zealand’s longest-running television programmes, running on the ethos of catching crooks with a name-and-shame approach.
Meanwhile, Sunday has been a TVNZ staple since 2002. From 2012, the show was shortened to a half-hour bulletin while TVNZ reviewed the future of the show, before returning to its original 60-minute programming in 2014.
Fair Go and Sunday represent TVNZ’s, and Aotearoa’s, last investigative television news shows.
From Tim Shadbolt having to cough up a refund on Fair Go, to Gloriavale’s Hopeful Christian giving his first-ever media interview to Sunday, here’s a look back at some memorable moments from the shows.
Fair Go: Gordon Harcourt gets bloodied
Reporter Gordon Harcourt was left with a bloodied face following an altercation on Fair Go in 2011.
Harcourt had visited used-car dealer Alan Spiers in Mount Manganui when he was punched three times in the head - he later fronted the camera with blood over his chin and underneath his nose.
Spiers was convicted of assault a month later, and was ordered to pay over $1,500 in reparations to Harcourt, and more than $600 for damage caused to a camera.
The Tauranga man was later fined $65,000 over repossession practices.
Harcourt appeared at court, telling the judge Spiers caused “a high degree of real harm” to customers of his finance company, MAC Warranties.
Sunday: The Lost Children of Porirua Hospital
In 2022, host Miriama Kamo told Stuff her most memorable Sunday story from her 20 years of making the show was a special on former child inmates of Porirua Hospital.
At the time, the inmates, who had since become adults, were seeking an inquiry and reparations for the physical and mental abuse they allegedly faced.
“Porirua Hospital was, like Lake Alice, a place of horror for many ex-inmates, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. Among them, state wards were placed there when welfare beds were full,” Kamo said.
“Healthy children, as young as 8, lived alongside some of the country’s most seriously mentally ill adults.
“Their claims of abuse were deeply shocking; forced electric shock therapy, beatings, and sexual abuse. The people we interviewed were courageous, their stories horrific.”
Fair Go: The concreting conman with 15 years of appearances
Loyal Fair Go viewers will recognise Gordon Bayne, the concreting conman who appeared on the show over 15 years - even signing an affidavit promising never to take advantage of customers again.
Bayne became a concreting pariah after promising clients work, and leaving them with a unfinished mess while he pocketed the money.
One memorable Bayne appearance involved the concreter driving off in his van while a Fair Go reporter attempted to chase him down in 2017.
The concrete was adjudicated bankrupt four times by that year.
In 2020, Bayne was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison in Auckland District Court on charges of managing a business while bankrupt, concealing property and misleading the Official Assignee.
Sunday: The man who sunk the Rainbow Warrior
Jean-Luc Kister, the French man who planted the bombs which sunk Greenpeace’s iconic Rainbow Warrior, sat down for an exclusive interview with reporter John Hudson in 2015.
Kister, who has been involved in many military operations and at the time still served for France, told Hudson the Rainbow Warrior was a true regret.
“You Kiwis helped liberate France from the Nazis,” Kister said, when he took Hudson and crew to a graveyard of Commonwealth airmen shot down during WWII.
“This is why the Rainbow Warrior bombing was so wrong.”
Fair Go: Tim Shadbolt apologises for being mayor
Former Invercargill mayor Tim Shadbolt was featured in three Fair Go broadcasts in 2002 after he failed to balance his political duties with promised handiwork.
Shadbolt owed one Kiwi, Ron deRooy, $600 after building him a cracked water tank the mayor couldn’t fix until his Christmas holidays.
He paid what he owed in full for the cameras, with a bit of interest added on top.
“I got so caught up in being the mayor that I neglected my personal life,” he said.
Sunday: Father goes face to face with men who murdered his son
Years after Mongrel Mob members killed his son, Sunday brought Iafeta Matalasi together with one his child’s killers in a moment of forgiveness.
Matalasi’s son, Sio, was shot at point-blank range from inside a car by Shane Harrison and Dillin Pakai in 2013.
On the eve of giving his impact statement, Matalasi said he heard his son’s voice tell him to forgive his murderers. He asked the judge to let the men walk free.
In 2021, with the work of Sunday producer Chris Cooke who spent years building relationships with the men, Matalasi and Harrison came together with a hongi inside prison.
“Apologies, sorrys, can never bring back your son, bring back that peace that you’re missing in your family’s life now … from the whole of my heart, I’m so thankful for this blessing,” Harrison told Matalasi.
Fair Go: Crook painter throws a ladder at crew
Fair Go has had its fair share of impassioned encounters over the years, but perhaps the fit (and ladder) thrown by painter Edward Travers takes the cake as being the most memorable.
The tradesman featured three times on the show for his allegedly shoddy handiwork, and when a reporter and cameraman showed up at his door, he threw a ladder and came at the crew with a piece of wood.
In 2015, the show labelled it “probably the most famous confrontation ever on Fair Go.”
Sunday: NZ is introduced to Gloriavale
Sunday brought the then-largely unknown Gloriavale into the spotlight with the first in-depth look at life inside the Christian community.
Late leader Hopeful Christian gave his first-ever media interview to reporter Janet McIntyre, who had to conform to community dress code in order to enter the commune.
Since McIntyre’s interview, multiple investigations have been made into alleged abuse inside Gloriavale and employment malpractices.
“I am still amazed that late leader, Hopeful Christian, ever agreed to sit down with me. It was his first and only formal interview and he may have regretted it,” McIntyre told 1News in 2020.
Fair Go: “You are nothing but a stupid media agent”
In 1992, Fair Go’s Kevin Milne shared a delightfully strongly-worded call sent in by a Kiwi scorned by the show.
“You are nothing but a stupid media agent,” the caller said.
“Don’t play the hero, because I’m going to spit you out, okay?”
Afterwards, Milne simply looked to the camera and laughed: “Bit unpleasant.”
Sunday: Lake Alice doctor admits to shocking children
In 2007, three decades on from the abuse at Lake Alice Hospital, veteran broadcaster Ian Sinclair knocked on the door of Dr Selwyn Leeks, accused of providing electric shock therapy to children without anaesthetic.
Survivors told Sinclair the doctor would leave the door open so he could hear their screams.
When Sinclair door knocked Leeks, the doctor invited the journalist into his home, and admitted to using electric shocks on the child victims for “behaviour modification”.
Unbeknownst to Sinclair, cameras had recorded his admission.
The footage was later a key part to a 2022 inquiry into the abuse of children in state care, in which Leeks was the subject.