Queer Nation - Marilyn Waring
The episode opens with a story about the Maxim Institute, an international think tank that has been linked to anti-gay fundamentalist groups. The main feature focuses on Marilyn Waring, an MP from 1975 until 84. She talks candidly about the personal cost of being in parliament — especially when she was outed as a lesbian. Waring also shares her opinions about the Civil Unions Bill and why she is opposed to it. The show finishes with a gay literature review and an interview with James Hadley, the incoming programme manager of Wellington's Bats Theatre.
Donogh Rees: From Constance to Marilyn Waring and Nurse Judy...
Donogh Rees is an accomplished actress in theatre and on screen. Her feature film debut was playing the lead role in Constance. She won a Film and TV award for her portrayal of a woman with a head injury in the film Crush, and in 2012 was seen playing Lady Capulet in an unorthodox film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Her most well known television role was playing Nurse Judy Brownlee in Shortland Street, but she has been in a number of TV shows such as Marlin Bay, Xena and the mini-series Fallout.
Pioneering Women
This collection celebrates women and feminism in New Zealand — the first country in the world to give all women the vote. We shine the light on a line of female achievers: suffrage pioneers, educators, unionists, politicians, writers, musicians, mothers and feminist warriors — from Kate Sheppard to Sonja Davies to Shona Laing. In her backgrounder, TV veteran and journalism tutor Allison Webber writes how the collection helps us understand and honour our past, asks why feminism gets a bad rap, and considers the challenges faced by feminism in connecting past and present.
The Game of Our Lives - Tries and Penalties
This episode of rugby series The Game Of Our Lives looks at the impact the sport has had on race relations in New Zealand. The country's history of rugby forging bonds between Māori and Pākehā is a stark contrast to South Africa's apartheid policy. Tries and Penalties focuses on the troubles between Aotearoa and South Africa — from coloured players George Nepia and Ranji Wilson being excluded from All Blacks tours to South Africa, to the infamous 1981 Springboks tour, and Nelson Mandela opening the 1995 Rugby World Cup final between the two teams.
Tonight with Cathy Saunders - Series One, Episode 12
Merv Smith, Rob Campbell, Diamond Lil, and Mary Mountier are the guests on this 1980s chat show. Host Cathy Saunders talks to Smith about 20 years as Auckland’s number one radio host, before Smith takes over to interview Diamond Lil (aka female impersonator Marcus Craig), in a segment littered with innuendo. Campbell covers the contradictions of being a unionist on the BNZ board, and horse racing expert Mountier talks Kiwi thoroughbreds. Also appearing are Limbs Dance Company, Wellington band Hot Cafe, and 1985 Telequest winner Sharon Cunningham.
50 Years of New Zealand Television: 2 - The Whole World's Watching
The birth of television in the 1960s meant that suddenly protests and civil unrest could be broadcast directly into Kiwi homes. This episode of 50 Years of New Zealand Television looks at many of those events — involving everything from the Vietnam War and the Springbok tour, to Bastion Point and the Homosexual Law Reform Act. It also examines how being televised altered their impact. Interviews with both protestors and reporters provide a unique insight into what it was like to be living through extraordinary periods of New Zealand history.
Fallout
Written by Tom Scott and Greg McGee, South Pacific Pictures-produced Fallout was an award-winning two-part mini-series dramatising events leading up to NZ’s 80s anti-nuclear stand. PM Robert Muldoon (Ian Mune) calls a snap election when his MP Marilyn Waring crosses the floor on the ‘no nukes’ bill, but his gamble fails, and David Lange's Labour Party is elected. Lange (played by Australian actor Mark Mitchell) is pressured from all sides (including a bullish US administration) to take a firm stance on his anti-nuclear platform. He finally accepts there is no middle ground.
Fallout - Part One
Written by Tom Scott and Greg McGee, Fallout was an award-winning two-part mini-series about the events leading up to New Zealand's 80s anti-nuclear stand. In this first episode Labour sweeps into power with an anti-nuclear platform. Upon taking office, David Lange (played by Australian actor Mark Mitchell) faces pressure to live up to his campaign rhetoric. In this excerpt, we see the parliamentary cut and thrust leading up to the election, with National MP Marilyn Waring defying Muldoon (Ian Mune) to cross the floor on the Nuclear Free New Zealand bill.
Encounter - Take a Girl like You
With her election in 1975 at age 23, Marilyn Waring became NZ’s youngest MP. This TV doco, directed by George Andrews, follows her as she settles into parliamentary life and prepares her maiden speech. Waring happily takes guidance on House decorum from a venerable Keith Holyoake, but is unwilling to let her age or inexperience deflect her advocacy for youth and women’s issues. Her relationship with PM Rob Muldoon is already cautious. It will be more confrontational eight years later when she provokes his ill-fated calling of an early election in 1984.
Andrew Whiteside
Andrew Whiteside made his name as a reporter, director and producer on Queer Nation, one of the world's longest running queer television programmes. After nine years with the show, Whiteside went on to set up his own company, Roll Tape Productions.