00:00:00
Runners
00:00:01
only with Dom Harvey and Duncan Garner.
00:00:05
Hey mate, how's things
00:00:07
going? Good. I'm I'm so pleased you
00:00:09
turned up. Um we had this we had this
00:00:11
podcast booked for a few weeks ago and
00:00:13
um you you just you didn't turn up this
00:00:16
morning. I had my camera guy set up. I
00:00:18
had you set up. I also had my mom set
00:00:21
up. I'm like, I've got Duncan coming,
00:00:23
but I don't know if he's going to turn
00:00:24
up. So mom was like an emergency backup
00:00:27
guest, but you were here.
00:00:28
So I'm that unreliable. So the first
00:00:29
time I was I was I was pumped and ready
00:00:31
to come. I blame media works right at
00:00:33
the start cuz they scheduled it happens
00:00:35
to me. What what happens to me is um
00:00:37
okay so I won't do I won't schedule
00:00:39
anything for a while and I'll schedule
00:00:40
this one. Okay, I better I bet I'll do
00:00:42
I'll say yes to this. So I scheduled it
00:00:43
and guess what every bastard possible
00:00:45
would then organize meetings without
00:00:47
knowing I had this meeting. So yeah, I
00:00:49
blame Leon.
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Leon Leon Rat that's the he's the um one
00:00:52
of the executives at Media Works. Okay.
00:00:55
Um yeah. So, oh, well, since we're there
00:00:58
already, maybe we start there. So, um,
00:01:00
today FM, um, that's the thing you've
00:01:02
most recently sort of been in the
00:01:03
headlines for, I guess. Uh, it was a
00:01:05
talk station you were working at, part
00:01:06
of Media Works from 9:00 a.m. to midday,
00:01:08
and then it was just, um, sort of cut
00:01:10
off the air and it was, um, it was
00:01:12
brutal when there was a voice break with
00:01:13
you and the breakfast announcer, To
00:01:15
O'Brien. Um, she said, what did she say?
00:01:17
They
00:01:18
they [ __ ] us.
00:01:19
They [ __ ] us. Yeah. It was raw.
00:01:21
Um, and you said it's betrayal. And then
00:01:24
the station was taken off the air and
00:01:25
music was playing a short time short
00:01:27
time later. It's probably still on
00:01:28
YouTube like you that stuff lingers
00:01:30
around forever.
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I think it might be part of history.
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Yeah. Now
00:01:32
but but your um so yeah. Yeah. Tell us
00:01:35
tell me about that day.
00:01:36
So um the the funny thing is the night
00:01:39
before I was I got a um an email from
00:01:41
from a guy in um to a father a listener
00:01:44
a caller to a to to my show. He his son
00:01:47
was almost abducted that that afternoon
00:01:49
from school from a school bus. He rang
00:01:51
the cops. Then he emailed me. He said,
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"You're the second guy I've thought
00:01:53
about. Uh, this is [ __ ] shocking in
00:01:56
this country. What do you think,
00:01:57
Duncan?" And I middle of the night, I
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emailed him back. You got to come on
00:02:02
with me this morning. Let's talk about
00:02:03
it. So, I was very excited for this day,
00:02:05
you know, and I know I even arrived at
00:02:06
work a little bit early because um which
00:02:08
is unlike me. And I had I I had this guy
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Nick the father lined up ready to go.
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And I arrived at the office. I saw
00:02:13
Dallas Goni across the um the the the
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desk and I gave him a little fist bump
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like you know I'm I'm early you prick
00:02:19
you know because they give
00:02:20
Dallas the boss the boss of today. So I
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gave him a little fist bump and he sort
00:02:23
of raised his eyebrows at me. I thought
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hey is he going to share my passion for
00:02:27
this story and this outrage of some
00:02:30
bastard trying to abduct an 11-year-old
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you know and so then I went into his
00:02:34
office and he's um I think something's
00:02:37
going down. I'm not sure what it is. He
00:02:38
said so there was something happening
00:02:39
but he wasn't quite sure. He knew there
00:02:41
was a meeting at lunchtime. Just get
00:02:42
ready for it. You know, there's
00:02:43
something to do with the station.
00:02:44
Hopefully, we'll be okay. And I thought,
00:02:47
was he what was he telling me? You know,
00:02:49
I was a bit confused. So, I went in with
00:02:50
Tover to do a breakfast debate at 10 to
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9. And I looked at her and she looked at
00:02:54
me. And then I got a text message from
00:02:56
the interim chief executive of Media
00:02:58
Works saying, "I want to see you in my
00:02:59
office if I can after your show today
00:03:01
midday." And suddenly the Lego was being
00:03:03
built. You could see the picture,
00:03:05
right? Yeah.
00:03:05
Shit's going shit's going down, you
00:03:07
know. M um and we flew threw out the
00:03:10
debate topic whatever it was and we said
00:03:13
something's up. We went public on it and
00:03:15
then at 9:00 I took over and did my
00:03:18
show. I was trying to do the right thing
00:03:19
professionally and people people
00:03:22
understood and they started bringing in
00:03:23
hey man I hope you guys don't go and
00:03:25
then to crashed through the studio back
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and said we're [ __ ] and everyone just
00:03:29
came in they were crying. So that was
00:03:32
all over. They brought up the music. One
00:03:35
guy actually rang me the last call I
00:03:36
got. He'd rang me the day earlier
00:03:38
abusing me for for being me. And then he
00:03:41
rang back said, "Oh my god, you're
00:03:42
going." And so he was he seemed he
00:03:44
seemed quite generally um upset about
00:03:45
it. We came off air.
00:03:48
People are just It's almost like, you
00:03:49
know, we'd had like a taking nothing
00:03:51
away from Christ Church earthquake, but
00:03:52
there'd been an earthquake in our lives,
00:03:53
you know, a really big shake
00:03:55
and we it's it's Yeah, it's unsettling.
00:03:58
Um, we got taken to we got taken to a
00:03:59
meeting and we got told there's two
00:04:01
hours consult we're going to consult you
00:04:03
for 2 hours and come back come back it's
00:04:05
all over
00:04:06
and we went down had a couple of beers
00:04:08
downstairs and left the building.
00:04:12
We have and most of them haven't been
00:04:13
back since.
00:04:14
Yeah. And then so this is the weekend
00:04:15
after that. What's that like? You you
00:04:17
wrote a column that weekend, didn't you?
00:04:18
So I'm in um I'm at home um with Buster.
00:04:22
He's your son. How old is he? 13.
00:04:23
He's 12. He's 12. Yeah. Thinks he's 15
00:04:26
anyway. So, and in fact, I went I'll
00:04:30
take you back a bit. I I went to pick
00:04:32
him up from school
00:04:34
and um he came out looking a bit worried
00:04:37
and I thought, "What does he know?" Of
00:04:39
course, it's been through social media.
00:04:40
Kids are on social media. You know, he's
00:04:42
still and he he hops in the car. I said,
00:04:44
"Oh, I got something to tell you." He
00:04:45
goes, "I know. Are you going to be all
00:04:46
right? You've lost your job." And his
00:04:48
eyes sort of welled up a bit and I see
00:04:50
the he's a he's a he's he's a great
00:04:53
great boy. boy, I love him so much, but
00:04:54
he he worries sometimes about things.
00:04:56
And you know, you try and protect your
00:04:59
kids from don't show them anything in
00:05:00
the emotion, but you know, I sort of
00:05:02
weld up there a bit too. And we drove
00:05:04
home. I said, "I'll be all right, mate.
00:05:05
We'll be we'll be okay. We'll be okay.
00:05:07
Are you sure, Dad?" I said, "Yep, yep.
00:05:09
Yep. I've been here, done that. We'll be
00:05:10
all right."
00:05:11
And then I I still hadn't spoke to my
00:05:13
mom. She She was a You know, your
00:05:14
mother's listen to you. And so mom had
00:05:16
mom had had heard I didn't get to my mom
00:05:18
till Friday night. This was Thursday,
00:05:19
remember? Two days. I couldn't get to
00:05:21
her. My phone was going crazy. U I had
00:05:24
to go to rugby practice that night with
00:05:26
my son. So I drive out. We're talking to
00:05:27
rugby practice. All the parents, you
00:05:29
know, because it wasn't a very private
00:05:31
dismissal. This was a public execution
00:05:33
as such, you know.
00:05:34
Yeah.
00:05:34
So here I am. Hi to the parents, you
00:05:36
know, just out of this rugby team.
00:05:38
They're looking at me.
00:05:39
Yeah. It must be a weird feeling cuz you
00:05:40
you've got a recognizable face and
00:05:42
everyone knows what you've been through.
00:05:43
And I suppose it
00:05:44
was all it was all in the media. You
00:05:46
didn't have to you couldn't you been in
00:05:47
a cave if you if you hadn't seen it. So,
00:05:49
you know, I went to her 50th birthday
00:05:50
that weekend and I left I left because
00:05:53
um I just I just just couldn't handle
00:05:54
all my mates at the 50th, you know,
00:05:55
lining up to talk about it. U there's so
00:05:58
much support, you know, because once you
00:05:59
become a bit of a mart like that as a as
00:06:01
a as a as a station, there's so much
00:06:03
more support for it. You know, finally
00:06:04
someone else does, you know, um we we
00:06:07
needed you.
00:06:09
But but so and but I wrote that column
00:06:11
on the afternoon on the Saturday
00:06:13
afternoon. It took me five hours. I
00:06:14
tears in my eyes through the whole 5
00:06:15
hours and um uh Buster kept going, "What
00:06:18
are you doing, Dad?" I said, "I'm just
00:06:19
doing some work." He goes, "You don't
00:06:20
have a job." I said, "I'm just whacking
00:06:23
out this column." And anyway, so I put
00:06:24
it out there. I put my I put my email at
00:06:26
the bottom of it, private email. And
00:06:28
that's how I got hold of you.
00:06:29
Yeah, that's right. And the next would
00:06:31
you not got hold of me otherwise?
00:06:32
I wouldn't know how to it was anyway. So
00:06:35
So um then I got like hundreds of
00:06:38
emails. People sent me really quality
00:06:40
emails, not just um oneliners, but they
00:06:42
were I remember when you said this 6
00:06:44
months ago about your dad or something
00:06:45
and you know New Zealanders are good
00:06:47
people.
00:06:48
Yeah.
00:06:48
Really good people and and they like the
00:06:50
underdog and they don't like it. They
00:06:51
don't like when they think something's
00:06:52
unfair and people have been treated
00:06:53
badly. So yeah.
00:06:55
Oh, rough time. Rough time. Have you
00:06:57
Have you you mentioned you were writing
00:06:58
the article with tears in your eyes and
00:07:00
you were crying with your son Buster. Do
00:07:01
you um have you always been quite an
00:07:03
emotional guy or is that something that
00:07:05
sort of crept up with you with age?
00:07:06
Yeah, I think um I think more less so
00:07:09
age but more so events. So I lost my dad
00:07:12
13 years ago to cancer. You know I lay
00:07:15
under the bed of his hospice bed when he
00:07:17
died. So I carry that heavily. Here's my
00:07:19
best mate hard case guy. You know you
00:07:22
are a result of you know you are um I've
00:07:25
got you know kids just been through a
00:07:28
divorce. Um I was selling the house. The
00:07:30
house was about to go as well. So there
00:07:31
all these things were were were sort of
00:07:33
crumbling around me and the job was just
00:07:35
one that I hadn't counted on lo. Oh,
00:07:37
that's gone, too. Cool. No wife, no
00:07:40
house, no job. What's next?
00:07:42
Yeah.
00:07:43
Get the car rebuilt. So, um,
00:07:46
have you have you always been, um, quite
00:07:47
resilient or do you think you've you've
00:07:49
sort of built it over the
00:07:50
You know, I've compartmentalized all my
00:07:51
life. Um, and what I do is I put things
00:07:54
into It's a really good question. Um,
00:07:56
have you thought about being on radio?
00:07:59
Hey, so
00:08:02
I compartmentalize, right? So, I
00:08:03
compartmentalize. I I put I just if
00:08:05
something's if something's a really big
00:08:06
issue, I I'll put it up there on the
00:08:08
shelf and I'll deal with that when I get
00:08:09
to it. So, I compartmentalize and that's
00:08:11
how I've managed to cope through um
00:08:13
marriage breakup, through um you know,
00:08:15
losing the kids to Oakland or you know,
00:08:17
having to having to chase my kids and um
00:08:19
through um um dealing with a marriage
00:08:22
breakup, then my wife going to
00:08:24
Wellington and I'm I'm in Oakland with
00:08:25
my child, Buster. You know, he's me, you
00:08:27
know. Yeah. I'm launching the A.M. show.
00:08:30
We got to be there at 3:00 a.m. and I've
00:08:31
got a seven-y old boy at home with me,
00:08:33
you know. M
00:08:34
um
00:08:34
yeah, what do you mean compartmentalize?
00:08:37
Well, there's an issue, I deal with it.
00:08:38
Yeah.
00:08:38
Um might park it
00:08:41
and then I'll cuz I have something that
00:08:42
I have to address immediately that's
00:08:44
like today's work, you know, or today's
00:08:46
show or something. So, I'll deal with
00:08:47
that and then I'll address that when I
00:08:49
can get to it.
00:08:50
There's no point in trying to address
00:08:51
eight balls in the air at the same time
00:08:52
cuz you you won't do anything well.
00:08:53
Yeah. It's funny funny you said that. I
00:08:54
had Susie Ko on the podcast and she
00:08:56
talked about the same thing. She was
00:08:57
dealing with like a miscarriage.
00:08:59
Um and she just sort of worked through.
00:09:01
She was like she she parked it to one
00:09:03
side. She said, "You know, I had
00:09:04
commitments to meet, so I just had to
00:09:05
keep on keeping on." And I knew that I
00:09:07
had to deal with it, but I deal dealt
00:09:09
with it once the job was done.
00:09:10
Correct.
00:09:11
Yeah.
00:09:11
Uh and so and so you did. And then
00:09:14
there's co dealing with the isolation,
00:09:16
all that sort of stuff.
00:09:18
Um
00:09:21
man, you've been through a lot.
00:09:22
Man, I I got arrested.
00:09:24
Did you?
00:09:24
I got arrested. Yeah. For um wrongfully
00:09:28
arrested. I was playing rugby. So my
00:09:29
wife and I stood up, right? And um she
00:09:33
had trespassed me from her house because
00:09:35
I dropped my son off at the front door
00:09:38
when it was wet. He had a broken ankle
00:09:40
from rugby and so I went too close to
00:09:41
the house apparently.
00:09:42
Right. So it was quite an acrimonious
00:09:44
split.
00:09:44
It has become that. And um sadly and um
00:09:50
so she cops turned up about 6 weeks
00:09:52
later and issued me a trespass notice
00:09:54
because it was in CO. So I said, "Okay,
00:09:55
so you can't you you can trespass anyone
00:09:57
you like. you know, you trespass you,
00:09:59
you can trespass me. So, I trespassed
00:10:01
and then a couple of months later, she
00:10:03
where she was living, she needed to um I
00:10:05
don't think I've spoken about this. She
00:10:07
needed her lawns done to, you know,
00:10:09
inspection and I she said, "Can you come
00:10:12
and do them?" So, I went around to her
00:10:13
house, mowed her lawns.
00:10:15
Didn't think much of it. 6 weeks later,
00:10:17
I had police come to the street where I
00:10:19
was living, my house. I was playing
00:10:20
rugby out the front um with my son and
00:10:23
other couple of mates. And the police
00:10:25
came down the street. I thought they
00:10:26
come down to see this gang member who
00:10:27
lives down our street. Oh, you got he's
00:10:28
in the [ __ ] again. They got a police
00:10:31
parked right in front of me and I said,
00:10:32
"Hey guys and I'm with the ball and said
00:10:34
Duncan." I said, "Yeah, mate. You're
00:10:37
under arrest."
00:10:40
I looked at the gang member's house and
00:10:44
what for? And they said, "We'll tell you
00:10:46
about it. I want the car." And I said,
00:10:47
"I want a car." I said, "Hang on, mate."
00:10:49
And they said I said, "Can I go get
00:10:51
some?" I've got gum boots on, rugby
00:10:52
shorts and I think t-shirt. Can I get
00:10:55
some clothes and shoes on? They said,
00:10:56
"We'll come with you." I said, "Hang on,
00:10:57
mate. What's What's all this about?"
00:11:00
This was on like a let's say it was a
00:11:02
Wednesday, Tuesday night, 5:00,
00:11:04
something like that.
00:11:06
So, I hopped in the car and I was
00:11:08
in front of in front of your son, too.
00:11:09
Well, my my wife turned up.
00:11:11
Okay.
00:11:11
Me wife turned up at the same time.
00:11:13
But your son saw this.
00:11:14
Yeah. Yeah. But she she grabbed him and
00:11:16
took away.
00:11:17
Yeah.
00:11:18
She'd been she'd been with the police
00:11:19
all day,
00:11:20
right? embarrassing in front of your
00:11:21
son.
00:11:22
Yeah. Humiliating, you know, and um so
00:11:24
but I'll be right, mate. You hop in the
00:11:25
car and I'm asking the the cop sits in
00:11:27
the back with me and I said, "Mate, I'm
00:11:29
not I'm not not a threat to you." And he
00:11:31
goes, "Mate, give me more lip and I'll
00:11:32
throw you in handcuffs." And I said,
00:11:33
"Okay, I'll shut up." Arrive at Aenddale
00:11:36
Police Station.
00:11:37
Were you Were you Were you giving him a
00:11:38
lip? Like, were you being
00:11:39
No, I was really polite. I said, I ask
00:11:41
what I'm doing, right?
00:11:42
You know,
00:11:43
as as as any
00:11:44
I've always respected police officers.
00:11:46
I've always respected and supported them
00:11:48
in their job, you know. Um, so I get to
00:11:51
the police station. I recognized all the
00:11:53
officers there because I've done stories
00:11:54
over the years with news and things,
00:11:56
child abuse stories with there was one
00:11:57
cop I went to school with, another cop
00:11:59
that we did some child abuse work with.
00:12:01
Anyway, they, "Hey, what are you doing?"
00:12:02
I said, "I'm
00:12:04
here." Went into a room and they said,
00:12:06
"You'll need a lawyer. You go to court
00:12:07
in the morning." I said, "What's this
00:12:08
for? You you went to your wife's um
00:12:11
house where she lives and you were under
00:12:13
trespass, so you've preached trespass."
00:12:14
I said, "No." I said, "You've got it
00:12:17
wrong, haven't I?" He goes, "No, we save
00:12:18
for a lawyer. Here's a list of lawyers."
00:12:19
I said, "I'm not getting a lawyer." I
00:12:21
said, he took my phone off, man. I said,
00:12:23
"You need to ring my ex-wife and ask her
00:12:25
one simple question. Was I invited
00:12:26
around there?" I mow your lawns. They
00:12:27
said,
00:12:28
"Oh,
00:12:29
oh." So, they locked me in this room.
00:12:31
And um
00:12:32
what? Like an interview room?
00:12:33
Yeah. Locked it up. And so I sat in
00:12:35
there.
00:12:36
About an hour later, they came back and
00:12:38
said, "Oh, here's your phone. Sorry.
00:12:40
We'll give you lif we've we didn't ask
00:12:42
that question."
00:12:44
I said, "It's the most basic question,
00:12:45
mate."
00:12:46
And um well, we didn't ask and I said,
00:12:48
"Oh, that's pathetic. I'm walking home.
00:12:50
I don't want you. I don't want you. I
00:12:51
don't want to lift." They said, "No, we
00:12:53
have to. It's getting late." Cuz it was
00:12:54
late now. It's 9:00 at night.
00:12:56
And so they they dropped me home. I feel
00:12:58
pissed off about it.
00:13:00
Yeah.
00:13:00
I haven't spoken about. I went to the AM
00:13:02
show the next day. Did the did the show.
00:13:04
Oh,
00:13:05
wow.
00:13:05
I did the show and um
00:13:07
See, how are you how are you? I mean, I
00:13:10
I did radio for a number of years, so I
00:13:12
know there's there's a there's a saying,
00:13:14
you got to leave your problems, leave
00:13:15
your ego, leave leave whatever at the
00:13:16
studio door, but it's easier. I mean, I
00:13:18
never dealt with something like that.
00:13:20
That's
00:13:20
that was just that was um
00:13:22
So, you go into the AM show the next
00:13:24
morning, you tell you tell Mark
00:13:25
Richardson and the team there. No,
00:13:28
no, but I told I always kept I always
00:13:30
let the bosses know what was going on,
00:13:32
you know, in in the marriage because it
00:13:34
got volatile and certain things. So I
00:13:36
was and you know I've I was always told
00:13:38
and taught well by my father about how
00:13:40
to treat women. So so I I um I knew I I
00:13:44
knew my I knew my story and so um I
00:13:48
couldn't tell Mark or anything that day.
00:13:49
I've subsequently told him of course.
00:13:50
Yeah.
00:13:50
So here I am jo
00:13:52
whatever whatever we did that day. I
00:13:54
went to my mom's and I just and I just
00:13:57
about a week later I went to my mom's
00:13:58
and I told her
00:13:59
I said what I've been through last week.
00:14:00
She just was mouth jaw dropped open. I
00:14:03
got a bit upset then, but um
00:14:05
Oh, yeah. I'd be Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:06
Yeah. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.
00:14:07
The cops, they needed to do they needed
00:14:09
to understand the what the issue was,
00:14:11
what sort of threat I am. Um um and get
00:14:14
the facts.
00:14:15
But how did things get so bad?
00:14:17
Uh
00:14:18
I So, um I've you know, I've been
00:14:20
through a marriage breakup as well, JJ
00:14:22
and I, but we we've we've got a
00:14:23
wonderful relationship. You know, I um I
00:14:25
I get emotional just even even talking
00:14:27
about it.
00:14:27
She's a great woman. I really love her.
00:14:28
Yeah. And she's she's been that good to
00:14:30
me. Honestly, I I there there are times
00:14:33
in my life where I reckon um
00:14:35
if it wasn't having her support, I
00:14:37
reckon I would have I would have, you
00:14:38
know, maybe topped myself a couple of
00:14:40
times really
00:14:40
like she's been that,
00:14:42
you know,ve I've thought about that at
00:14:43
times.
00:14:44
Have you when like recently?
00:14:46
No, just just um just been like I I
00:14:49
don't want to say too much about I can't
00:14:50
speak for my wife, ex-wife. Um but
00:14:54
um
00:14:58
um so I supported her a lot and and so
00:15:01
she but but she sometimes struggles with
00:15:05
um I know um like with bipolar and that
00:15:08
sort of you know so there's that kind of
00:15:09
thing in the background in the
00:15:10
background
00:15:11
and so you're dealing with um you're not
00:15:14
you're not dealing with something at
00:15:16
face value you're dealing you know when
00:15:17
they go up you go I got to go up and
00:15:18
when they go down you must come down and
00:15:20
sometimes you want to go down you know
00:15:21
you talk to people with that sort of
00:15:23
issue and it's a problem. So, um it got
00:15:26
volatile because I felt like I felt um I
00:15:29
was unjustly and it was unjustified the
00:15:32
treatment of me.
00:15:33
Um I I I I threw everything into the
00:15:36
marriage. I threw everything into into
00:15:37
the kids and everything and I I I I feel
00:15:40
um I don't feel it was right.
00:15:43
But yeah, it's it's very hard being in a
00:15:45
relationship with someone that's um you
00:15:47
know got a got an illness like that like
00:15:48
bipolar or clinical depression. It's
00:15:50
bloody hard. So I don't so I don't want
00:15:51
to I don't want to I need to be careful
00:15:53
what I say because I want to respect her
00:15:55
you know but um
00:15:57
you know things like um kids being used
00:15:59
as tools of manipulation or being
00:16:01
withheld or you know I have kids from a
00:16:04
from a previous relationship too that
00:16:07
you know can be used as pawns in this
00:16:09
game as well and I just it's just it's
00:16:10
it's been a hot mess. Um and I've just
00:16:13
tried to keep my head you know try to
00:16:14
get through it and out of it alive.
00:16:16
Yeah
00:16:16
to be honest.
00:16:18
Yeah. Choose your partner carefully. Um
00:16:21
um do due diligence
00:16:23
um be careful, be cautious, and do the
00:16:27
right things. But life is not black and
00:16:29
white. It's gray.
00:16:30
Like the older I get, the the more gray
00:16:32
it becomes.
00:16:34
I'm the same. The older I get, the real
00:16:35
the realize the less I know.
00:16:36
Yeah. When when I was in my 20ies, I'd
00:16:40
see someone that was 50 and I'd think
00:16:41
they've got it all figured out. And then
00:16:43
as you get older, you realize, no,
00:16:45
everyone's just making it up as they go
00:16:46
along and everyone's dealing with [ __ ]
00:16:47
You're right. It's like just like like
00:16:49
podcasting like we we I don't know
00:16:51
anything about podcasting but I'm doing
00:16:52
one you are. Um so I I you know I have
00:16:57
four kids and and I had marriage and and
00:16:59
and the only license I've ever had is
00:17:01
one for a car.
00:17:02
You know like I can go get a boat
00:17:04
without a license. I had kids without a
00:17:06
license. I became a father with a
00:17:07
license. I'm married without a license.
00:17:09
you know, it's such a complex world
00:17:12
and there's all the pressure of the work
00:17:14
stuff because we we're in an industry
00:17:15
where um it's not a job for life, mate.
00:17:18
You know, you're not working in the
00:17:19
bank. You're not insurance agent, you
00:17:20
know. So, so it's all these things. So,
00:17:22
you know, I've had a I've had a [ __ ]
00:17:24
prick of a time,
00:17:26
you know. I've had a really rough um
00:17:28
almost I don't know 10 years, but I can
00:17:31
now see the light, you know. Can you?
00:17:33
Yeah, I can. Because And I've never felt
00:17:35
freer, you know. I I don't have a wife.
00:17:37
I don't have and I'm not interested in
00:17:38
in in relationships really, you know, I
00:17:41
need to get right in my head and I don't
00:17:43
I don't and I have a job that's um I'm
00:17:45
podcasting for a living,
00:17:48
you know. Um
00:17:49
so there's a lot of good going enough
00:17:51
good going on.
00:17:52
No, but I feel free.
00:17:53
Yeah,
00:17:53
I feel free. I feel like I've had
00:17:55
progress.
00:17:55
I hate paying lawyers money, but
00:17:59
no one loves that apart from the
00:18:00
lawyers.
00:18:01
Yeah. Yeah. Lawyers love that. So, so,
00:18:02
so I feel Dom, honestly, I feel
00:18:04
when you gave me the opportunity to
00:18:05
speak on here,
00:18:06
I I I wanted to take it and I'm sorry I
00:18:09
didn't turn up the first time.
00:18:10
I understand you had a work meeting.
00:18:12
Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:12
That's got to take priority.
00:18:14
Hate meetings. I'm Mr. Anti meeting, you
00:18:16
know. I I don't go to work to to mix and
00:18:18
mingle. Like, I'll go there to do a job,
00:18:19
whack it out, and go. I'm not a water
00:18:21
cooler guy,
00:18:22
you know? Like, I just [ __ ] it. I see I
00:18:24
overhear [ __ ] at work
00:18:26
and I'm thinking what do why people
00:18:28
coming here to tell us this [ __ ] just
00:18:30
do your gig and go.
00:18:32
Yeah.
00:18:32
You know, you know this is [ __ ]
00:18:35
Anyway, so that's me. That's it. So,
00:18:37
it's been a rough time, but I'm I'm I'm
00:18:39
pretty tough. I'm pretty resilient and
00:18:41
I've got healthy kids
00:18:43
and I live through them, you know, like
00:18:45
my son's playing rugby, you know, his
00:18:46
first year in rugby. He's played league
00:18:48
for eight years.
00:18:49
And I I I just I love what he does, you
00:18:51
know. I'm I'm one of those guys, you
00:18:53
know, like man, if you lower your body a
00:18:55
bit more, you'll smash them, you know.
00:18:56
You get a bit low. I'm one of those
00:18:58
guys, you know.
00:18:59
Yeah. I I know what I know what's
00:19:01
possible.
00:19:01
Yeah.
00:19:03
For, you know, for young people now. And
00:19:05
and and would we do it all would we do
00:19:08
it differently all over again? I bet we
00:19:09
wouldn't.
00:19:10
Yeah. Maybe a couple of things, but not
00:19:12
much.
00:19:12
Yeah. I mean, this is life. This is this
00:19:14
is the navigation of life.
00:19:15
Yeah.
00:19:16
Like, you know, you need to get to the
00:19:17
end of your life and have rich stories.
00:19:19
uh really a great group of friends and
00:19:22
um have had a wholesome, you know, the
00:19:25
things I develop sometimes are the
00:19:26
mistakes because [ __ ] it was fun making
00:19:27
them and it was a bloody horrific on the
00:19:29
back end of them. But I tell you what,
00:19:32
when I catch up with my mates, when I
00:19:34
when I catch up with my mates and we
00:19:36
reminisce, holy [ __ ] Yeah.
00:19:38
Yeah. So, um so you so you've got four
00:19:41
kids. You got two kids to uh for
00:19:44
Yeah. I got um girls to me and um I got
00:19:46
I got a son in Fer and I got
00:19:48
Max that was a short relationship.
00:19:50
Was it wasn't Yeah, very short.
00:19:52
Uh he's a good boy. Yeah, very good boy.
00:19:54
Have you have you would you say you've
00:19:56
been lucky in love or unlucky in love?
00:19:58
What do you reckon?
00:19:59
So So Mihang Forbes, you weren't um
00:20:01
married but you were 10 years more or
00:20:03
less a marriage.
00:20:04
She's really she's really um amazing
00:20:06
person.
00:20:06
Yeah.
00:20:07
What happened there? Just run its
00:20:08
course.
00:20:09
Uh
00:20:11
we g her apart cuz we're working so
00:20:12
hard. I was running around the press
00:20:14
gallery. She was running around, you
00:20:15
know, she'd come from Mai Mai media to
00:20:17
mainstream media and was forging away.
00:20:19
We had two young kids. Pressure.
00:20:21
Yeah.
00:20:22
So, yeah. Um,
00:20:22
relationships are hard.
00:20:24
Drunk too much. Drunk too much, you
00:20:25
know, back then, you know. Oh,
00:20:26
cuz you were in Parliament.
00:20:27
Yeah, man. It was madness. And I was
00:20:28
just making my way through, you know.
00:20:30
Yeah.
00:20:30
Um, you know, some of the days I when I
00:20:32
was working for the homes program, I had
00:20:34
two little girls at home and I'd leave 7
00:20:36
in the morning and get home at 8:30 at
00:20:38
night. you know, it's 5 days a week, you
00:20:40
know, and you'd be flying around the
00:20:41
world of the country, wherever you were,
00:20:43
went to Brazil, Peter Blake died, all
00:20:44
that stuff, and you still got two little
00:20:46
girls, you know, and my parents were
00:20:48
fantastic. They moved to Wellington.
00:20:49
They've sort of moved wherever we've
00:20:50
gone.
00:20:50
Really um really loyal, you know, and
00:20:54
and and and they see past the mistakes.
00:20:57
Oh, they they'll mark them down, give me
00:21:00
an elbow. But um but no one's perfect,
00:21:03
you know, people that claim sort of
00:21:05
perfection. I love seeing those meeting
00:21:06
those people because you just pull them
00:21:08
apart. Yeah. Just full of [ __ ]
00:21:10
Oh, there's so many people, especially
00:21:11
online that are holier than thou.
00:21:13
Oh, well. Yeah. Don't read the comments.
00:21:15
Don't read the comments. I say to my mom
00:21:17
who's, you know, sits at home and reads
00:21:19
the stuff, "Mom, that's not true."
00:21:21
"Yeah, but they said that you had a
00:21:22
brown jacket on." And I said, "But mom,
00:21:24
it was orange." But they said brown.
00:21:27
Mom, that's not true. Don't believe
00:21:31
Don't believe what someone else's
00:21:33
[ __ ] and don't believe your own.
00:21:35
you know, don't we're only as good as,
00:21:39
you know, your last thing you did. And
00:21:40
we all end up we could all end up in a
00:21:42
sausage factory, you know.
00:21:43
Yeah. But also, um I I think fail
00:21:45
failure is good. That's something I was
00:21:47
just [ __ ] scared of failure earlier on.
00:21:49
And I realiz
00:21:50
I fear it.
00:21:50
Do you? But it's so important though
00:21:52
because that's where you got to fail
00:21:53
before you succeed at most things. I bet
00:21:55
you I bet you were a [ __ ] journalist
00:21:56
when you first started. I bet you failed
00:21:58
heaps.
00:21:58
I wouldn't go that far, mate.
00:22:01
Um I did. I'll tell you a story about
00:22:03
it. Rodney Hyde. I I tried to put a hit
00:22:05
on Rodney Hyde. I was just a parliament.
00:22:07
I was 20 21 when I went 21 when I got to
00:22:09
parliament. That's young. Really young.
00:22:11
That is young.
00:22:12
Younger than the mayor of Gore.
00:22:15
Who lasted longer anyway? So, so he is
00:22:18
younger from is I mean silly old chief
00:22:21
executive. He can't handle it, you know.
00:22:23
Anyway, um and Rodney Hyde um who I'd
00:22:26
been working closely with on other
00:22:27
stories. I turned around did a hit on
00:22:29
him or something and he called me down
00:22:31
to just outside parliament where the
00:22:32
parliamentarians sit and I went into the
00:22:34
chamber there and he sat me down and he
00:22:36
pulls out this script which was my
00:22:38
script for the night before with this
00:22:39
red marks all through it. Each red mark
00:22:41
was a mistake was a factual error and he
00:22:44
had 12 red lines in a one page and I
00:22:47
thought [ __ ] Now, that was my wake up
00:22:50
call to get better, to be better, and to
00:22:53
realize that in parliament there were 36
00:22:55
press secretaries at the time. They were
00:22:56
all checking your work and you're one
00:22:59
person. So, you had the eyes of the
00:23:00
state on you at any one time. You were
00:23:02
you were you were you were you were
00:23:03
being observed everything you did. So,
00:23:05
that was a great that was great. And but
00:23:06
Rodney Hyde didn't go to the
00:23:07
broadcasting stands authority and try
00:23:09
and nail me. He taught me a lesson.
00:23:12
Brilliant.
00:23:12
Isn't that brilliant? That's really And
00:23:14
I'll never That was 30 years ago. So he
00:23:16
could he could have thrown you under the
00:23:17
bus if he
00:23:18
Yeah. But he knew that um I might be I
00:23:21
was young.
00:23:22
Didn't want to bruise bruise me, wanted
00:23:23
me to learn and he realized that hey
00:23:26
um he obviously liked me to a point and
00:23:29
he thought I'm going to work on and off
00:23:31
with this guy throughout a lifetime.
00:23:32
This is a small country and in a small
00:23:34
world you come across people all the
00:23:35
time. Uh and he did it the right way.
00:23:37
I'll never forget it.
00:23:38
Yeah, that's really nice.
00:23:40
It's good, eh?
00:23:41
Yeah. I I want to get into all the
00:23:42
parliament stuff. I feel like we've gone
00:23:44
straight into some heavy [ __ ] Haven't
00:23:46
we?
00:23:46
Should we wind it back and go with some
00:23:47
um fun stuff first? Um
00:23:49
Well, it was all fun. I mean, it was
00:23:52
Oh, no. It's just the the complexities
00:23:54
of life.
00:23:55
Oh, yes. It's dark and deep and Yeah.
00:23:57
But but but you know, you talked about,
00:23:59
you know, the possibility of of taking
00:24:01
your own life and that alarmed me
00:24:03
because I've thought about that a couple
00:24:04
times. If you want, we don't talk about
00:24:06
fun stuff. This is dark stuff. And I I
00:24:07
know people who've taken their life.
00:24:08
Yeah. um as we all do and it's it's a to
00:24:11
me I've got a mate of mine who played
00:24:13
softball for New Zealand for 13 years in
00:24:15
that brilliant team that didn't get the
00:24:16
recognition great sportsman and smart
00:24:19
guy and he said to me you know he's been
00:24:22
alongside me in the last 10 years
00:24:24
especially he says to me um
00:24:27
never look for a permanent solution to
00:24:30
what is a temporary problem
00:24:32
and you know he'd often say that to me
00:24:34
as I wanted to jump in the car and storm
00:24:35
out to my ex-wife house and have it out
00:24:37
with her about something you know why
00:24:38
can't when I get access to my son, you
00:24:39
know, why you playing games over this
00:24:40
two weeks, you know, the holidays,
00:24:41
whatever.
00:24:42
And he said,
00:24:44
not worth it,
00:24:45
breathe. And I learned to walk away from
00:24:46
from trouble. So, so I learned to really
00:24:49
walk away. You know, one night when when
00:24:52
we went out, we went out and I didn't
00:24:54
want to go out this function.
00:24:55
And I thought this person that I was
00:24:57
with
00:24:57
was really racist to the taxi driver and
00:24:59
I and I and this person was my wife and
00:25:01
and so we had it out. We had nostalgia
00:25:03
about it and and I ended up coping, you
00:25:05
know, I got smacked in the head that
00:25:07
night, right? And so I told TV3 about
00:25:10
all this, but I learned to walk away as
00:25:12
soon as I was hit and I took about 20
00:25:13
hits. I put my hands from your partner.
00:25:15
Yeah. Yeah. And I I put my hands out at
00:25:17
the end of it and I, you know, she
00:25:19
thought I was filming, you see, and I
00:25:20
just put my hands up and I walked away
00:25:21
and went down to my mate's house to save
00:25:22
the night because if I touched her, the
00:25:25
headline the next day is,
00:25:27
"Oh yeah, you're Tony Beach. Tony,
00:25:30
I said that." And after she hit me, I
00:25:32
said, "I'm a I'm a I'm I'm a hero. I'm a
00:25:33
Kiwi. I'm a male hero."
00:25:35
And that really pissed her off even more
00:25:37
because I didn't touch you
00:25:38
and you've just you just banged me up 20
00:25:41
times.
00:25:41
So, it's those things. I've never speak
00:25:44
spoken about that before. It's such
00:25:45
private personal stuff, but it's it's
00:25:47
it's it's what's happened to me.
00:25:50
You know, you can't say, "Oh, well, I'll
00:25:51
cop my can't compartmentalize that
00:25:53
forever."
00:25:54
But you can't.
00:25:55
If if you went to the police with that,
00:25:56
do you think they'd take it seriously or
00:25:58
do you think they'd be like, "Come on,
00:25:59
mate. Come on. you can handle it.
00:26:01
Yeah. Well, if that's the case,
00:26:02
it's domestic it's domestic violence.
00:26:03
It is domestic violence. And I was
00:26:04
speaking to um a woman yesterday on my
00:26:07
podcast um who is an ex gang member
00:26:09
who's who was beaten up terribly and who
00:26:11
who who who came good and she's an
00:26:14
amazing woman. She works in domestic
00:26:15
violence. She said to me yesterday and
00:26:16
she's been very loyal to me.
00:26:19
Baby Mo who was killed is her mother.
00:26:21
It's his mother.
00:26:21
Okay.
00:26:22
And she said to me, "If a woman hits a
00:26:24
man, it's it's violence."
00:26:25
So, I don't think the police would take
00:26:27
me seriously. And my ex-wife was relying
00:26:29
on that too. Oh, you're not going to go,
00:26:30
you [ __ ] you know. And I'm
00:26:33
disappointed that the police I think
00:26:34
that's what how they'd take it. They
00:26:36
would say publicly that they would take
00:26:37
it seriously. I don't know if they would
00:26:39
say, you know,
00:26:40
if if if your ex was um sitting here in
00:26:42
the chair for the podcast now, what
00:26:44
would she what would she say your flaws
00:26:47
are?
00:26:47
She wouldn't have walked in. She
00:26:48
wouldn't have come through the door.
00:26:49
She'd say that I'm um well well she'd
00:26:52
say I'm everything bad under the sun.
00:26:53
Yeah.
00:26:54
Um but depends on what day you got her
00:26:55
on. might say that I'm I'm I'm a good
00:26:57
guy and a great dad
00:26:59
and a real great provider and um and um
00:27:01
she regrets it all. Or she might say,
00:27:03
"Oh, he's a um narcissistic prick."
00:27:07
You know, one day I got home from from
00:27:09
work and there was a thing in the said
00:27:11
20 20 reasons to 20 20 ways to spot a
00:27:14
narcissist. She'd cut it out and put it
00:27:15
on my
00:27:17
Are you a narcissist?
00:27:18
Well, what's a narcissist? You know,
00:27:20
I don't know. I feel like anyone that's
00:27:21
in this the sort of um
00:27:22
I feel anyone might be
00:27:24
Yeah. Anyone that's in the sort of any
00:27:26
sort of performance medium probably has
00:27:29
like
00:27:29
do I have narcissistic traits I mean
00:27:31
probably I mean I think I think I think
00:27:33
men um possibly have when I looked at
00:27:36
the list I thought man back at you baby.
00:27:39
Yeah.
00:27:40
Um yeah I I I walk away from trouble now
00:27:43
and I always did with her too.
00:27:45
Um I can proudly say that you know I
00:27:47
walked away and and I'd go to the top of
00:27:49
the road and back and breathe. Don't
00:27:51
send the email you think I've got a
00:27:52
whole host of emails at home but I never
00:27:54
sent you know because wake up the next
00:27:56
day do you wish you'd sent it or do you
00:27:58
regret sending it? That's that's crucial
00:28:00
that day.
00:28:00
Yeah.
00:28:01
So
00:28:01
it's but yeah best to write something
00:28:02
and then just sit on it. Leave Leave it
00:28:04
in your
00:28:04
I've written some nasty bastard emails,
00:28:06
you know, and that's the great thing is
00:28:07
they're just sitting in the drafts.
00:28:09
You don't accidentally send them.
00:28:11
Yeah.
00:28:12
Wow. God, you've been through some [ __ ]
00:28:14
Oh yeah. It's um it's just the it's the
00:28:17
it's the uncertain being in a
00:28:18
relationship that's um that's going
00:28:20
downhill and and ending and then having
00:28:22
a long 5-year divorce period, you know,
00:28:25
it's really unsettling and it's not fair
00:28:26
on the kids and it's it's not fair on on
00:28:28
either the either of us as well. Co
00:28:30
didn't help cuz that extended things
00:28:31
through
00:28:32
and um it's just I hope that we can
00:28:36
I hope we can draw a line under it and
00:28:37
and and we're going to have to move.
00:28:40
Time heals a lot of wounds e so maybe
00:28:41
you'll be amicable in time. It's just an
00:28:44
adjustment period to the
00:28:45
narcissist would um would not get over
00:28:46
it. So So I'll get over it.
00:28:48
So um yes. So there was an article
00:28:51
online a couple of weeks ago about you
00:28:52
living at your mom's house at the
00:28:53
moment. Is that is that sort of a beat
00:28:54
up or
00:28:55
Have you been Have you met my mom?
00:28:57
I've seen her in like women's magazines
00:28:58
and stuff. Same age.
00:29:00
She love you saying that.
00:29:01
Same age as my similar age to my mom.
00:29:03
Same name as my mom and seems like a
00:29:04
similar relationship. Like my mom
00:29:06
listens to every single episode of the
00:29:07
podcast I do. They're longsuffering,
00:29:10
aren't they?
00:29:10
Yeah, they are. Aren't they? I mean, but
00:29:12
they someone has to love us.
00:29:16
And some others. My mom. Um, what was
00:29:18
your question? My mom. So, so living
00:29:20
home with your mom. Is that is that a
00:29:21
bit of a beat up? No.
00:29:22
Feel like a sensationalist sort of
00:29:23
headline.
00:29:23
Yeah, that was true.
00:29:24
Right. Um,
00:29:25
so you're there out of necessity.
00:29:26
Oh, I'm there because um well, I'm there
00:29:30
because I've sold my house and I know
00:29:33
what I want to get and I need to go up
00:29:36
north to get it and to do the deal. And
00:29:39
I'm yet to um yet to get up there
00:29:41
basically. So as soon as I can get
00:29:43
something I want to get some land. I
00:29:45
love fishing. I love the hunting in the
00:29:46
sea and outdoors. So I want to head to
00:29:50
the hook. So I want to put um um I want
00:29:53
to get some land. I've seen some land up
00:29:54
there that I want to but I'm doing it
00:29:56
with a mate. So we just
00:29:57
I need to get up there see and see these
00:29:59
people and um and do the deal. So rather
00:30:01
than move moving house was just
00:30:04
traumatic. You know, the guy that bought
00:30:06
the house stood outside all day with his
00:30:08
hands crossed waiting for me to go, you
00:30:09
know, and I said to him, "Mate, it's not
00:30:11
you're not going to it's not going to
00:30:12
happen any quicker with you standing
00:30:13
there." I had a few mates around there
00:30:15
helping me and they were
00:30:16
Was this like settlement day or
00:30:17
Yeah. It was pretty ugly, you know. I
00:30:19
had a few mates around there who were
00:30:20
sort of going, "Oh, what do you want us
00:30:21
to do here?" And I said, "Just make sure
00:30:22
he doesn't come near me cuz this is this
00:30:24
is getting ugly." They came around and
00:30:26
they were moaning about they came around
00:30:28
the day before settlement and they
00:30:30
moaning that there was stuff out out the
00:30:31
front of the house on the boom. Well,
00:30:33
where the hell else am I going to
00:30:34
[ __ ] put it? I'm waiting for the
00:30:35
truck to turn up, you know, and they
00:30:37
wanted money off it. Just it was ugly.
00:30:38
It was just bad timing, you know.
00:30:40
Do do you just attract chaos?
00:30:42
I think so. But but but but it is like
00:30:46
chaos is great because it keeps you
00:30:47
busy. But you know, my mom thinks I'm
00:30:49
messy at home at the moment. I say,
00:30:51
"Mom, I'm just keeping you busy. I'm
00:30:52
giving you purpose." you know, cuz my
00:30:54
mom, she mothers me a bit, but she's
00:30:56
also old enough and wise enough and been
00:30:58
around the clock enough and had a few
00:30:59
enough drinks over the years to know
00:31:01
that um
00:31:03
uh that stuff comes with life, you know,
00:31:05
the ups and downs, you know, and you
00:31:07
know, she goes, "Oh, what's going to
00:31:08
happen next to you?" I said, "I don't
00:31:08
know what else could happen, you know."
00:31:11
And so, but she she just wants the best
00:31:13
for me. But,
00:31:14
of course,
00:31:14
um a lot of the stuff is out of your own
00:31:16
own it's out of your ability to control
00:31:19
it sometimes. Only control what you can
00:31:20
control and only worry about what you
00:31:22
can worry about. Yeah.
00:31:23
Um there's no use I said to I don't want
00:31:24
to hear this stuff from you. I don't
00:31:26
want to be worried all the time. I'm all
00:31:28
right with that. That's life, mom.
00:31:30
Life's not a white picket fence and
00:31:32
perfection, you know.
00:31:33
As much as we groomed it, we we we we
00:31:36
they tell us all this [ __ ] They should
00:31:37
get rid of nursery rhymes and all that
00:31:38
stuff. And as a young kid, cuz it's all
00:31:40
[ __ ] you know.
00:31:41
So, how how long are you living with
00:31:42
your mom for?
00:31:43
Um
00:31:44
is it a good is it a good environment?
00:31:46
I've had Dean Lonigan on the podcast. He
00:31:47
lives with his mom by choice. Does he?
00:31:49
Yeah. His mom and his sister though,
00:31:51
it's like a threestory townhouse, so
00:31:52
they've each got their own floor.
00:31:54
See, this is actually So, um I don't
00:31:56
know whether mom would be pleased to be
00:31:57
listening to this or not, but she
00:31:58
certainly she knows what you do. And she
00:32:00
might she might be considering that you
00:32:02
could put you've just laid an idea that
00:32:04
I can start. Uh mom makes it really easy
00:32:07
for me, you know, cuz cuz we're we were
00:32:09
there a lot anyway cuz mom we lost our I
00:32:11
lost my dad. She lost her husband and so
00:32:13
she's on her own, right? Well, she's got
00:32:14
a bloke, but he's not there. He's not
00:32:16
there now that I'm there. I keep saying
00:32:17
to him, it's nice room I got here, mate.
00:32:20
So, so um so she loves us being there,
00:32:24
you know. She's had 13 years of silence
00:32:27
and now the door opens three or four
00:32:28
times a day and it's it's me and Buster.
00:32:30
It's like this is her pride and joy, you
00:32:32
know, especially Buster.
00:32:34
Um and so she loves that. So, um I'm
00:32:38
quite enjoying just the the home comfort
00:32:40
of being at home of all the familiar
00:32:42
things around me. Um you know, of work.
00:32:44
I can work there really in peace. you
00:32:45
know, I do a lot of the work there. Um,
00:32:48
but I don't want to stay there forever.
00:32:50
I I'll get my money out of the house at
00:32:51
some stage shortly and and move on.
00:32:53
Yeah.
00:32:53
Yeah. How much money you expected from
00:32:55
the house or was that too personal?
00:32:56
Uh, or half of half of what's left.
00:32:58
Yeah.
00:32:59
Did you have much of a mortgage on it?
00:33:00
Not really. But so I sold in a in the
00:33:03
worst period possible,
00:33:04
which which again I regret, but I had no
00:33:06
choice. You know, I tried to buy the
00:33:07
house and I, you know, it wasn't
00:33:09
accepted.
00:33:09
Um, and my wife forced a sale through
00:33:12
the court, so we're selling. And the we
00:33:15
we we launched when the market went up
00:33:18
75% in interest rates that you know the
00:33:20
and that week that week the the breaks
00:33:23
went on the market. No one turned up. I
00:33:25
spent cuz I did all the open homes cuz
00:33:26
I'm living in the house. I I [ __ ]
00:33:28
worked my ass off morning, noon, and
00:33:30
night for open homes to get the house
00:33:31
ready. You try to maximize the price and
00:33:33
um yeah, all house prices. It seems
00:33:34
great and and I don't have a huge
00:33:36
mortgage. So, you know, we're going to
00:33:37
split a reasonable good sum of money.
00:33:39
But when you split something in half, it
00:33:41
doesn't buy you [ __ ]
00:33:43
You know, you take off lawyers fees.
00:33:45
Hey, take off lawyers fees and any other
00:33:47
debts you've got or whatever jointly,
00:33:48
which is not too bad. But I would have
00:33:51
spent um 100 grand on lawyer.
00:33:53
But you you must have earned some good
00:33:54
money over the years, right? Where's it
00:33:56
gone? Have you not been smart with
00:33:57
No, no, no. I I had four houses,
00:33:58
right?
00:33:58
Yeah. So, I had two places up north.
00:34:00
Yeah.
00:34:00
I had two batches up north, place in
00:34:02
Australia and and um and a place here.
00:34:04
Uh I've sold them all,
00:34:06
right?
00:34:06
You know, cuz legal action has been
00:34:08
expensive. I've been to the court for 4
00:34:09
years.
00:34:11
I mean, at 800 bucks an hour for a
00:34:12
barristister,
00:34:13
it just rinses you.
00:34:15
But, um, I'm not destitute, don't get me
00:34:17
wrong. And I could go,
00:34:19
Yeah. That's what I wondered about the
00:34:20
the the click baity headline about you
00:34:22
living with your mom. It's not like it's
00:34:24
not like rock bottom.
00:34:25
No [ __ ] No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm
00:34:27
not, you know, I I can still eat, live,
00:34:30
and I could put a if I needed to walk
00:34:32
out there today, I could go and, you
00:34:33
know, either pick up a flat and put a
00:34:35
all by house, you know. So, but I don't
00:34:38
want to rush into anything because
00:34:39
everything's been such madness and
00:34:41
especially losing the job and
00:34:42
everything. Just getting this the new
00:34:44
job sort of up and running.
00:34:46
The last thing I need to be doing is
00:34:48
overcommitting to a house or something.
00:34:49
I'm not really and interest rates are
00:34:50
like if you coming up well if you have
00:34:52
some money you put it on interest rate
00:34:54
on a decent deposit right now.
00:34:55
Yeah. 5%.
00:34:56
Well, all six. So, so that's where I'm
00:34:59
at. I'm just I just need to let the
00:35:00
market settle, find a place
00:35:04
and I also want to know where I want to
00:35:05
be. Do I want to be up north? You want
00:35:06
to have a apartment in Oakuckland and a
00:35:07
and a crib up north, you know, hunting
00:35:09
lodge on hunting b.
00:35:12
Yeah.
00:35:13
I hope you find happiness.
00:35:15
I found it.
00:35:16
Have you?
00:35:17
Yeah. I'm I'm I'm
00:35:18
you know you're you're at peace. You're
00:35:20
despite everything I've said on this
00:35:21
that I'm just offloading because you
00:35:23
asked me the questions.
00:35:24
But when I jump on my electric motorbike
00:35:26
that you've just seen downstairs,
00:35:28
um that's freedom. That's a mental
00:35:29
health freedom. I I I get you should get
00:35:31
one because I get you a cheap one. You
00:35:34
get some you get you get you get you get
00:35:37
motor bike I mean and you get some air
00:35:39
running through your head you know you
00:35:40
get the breeze coming through your face
00:35:41
and and and I'll take the long way back
00:35:43
to mom and she's far too close to work
00:35:44
you see so I'll go the down PY road and
00:35:46
you know maybe going down Queen Street
00:35:48
on the it's whatever you know and all
00:35:50
around the bays you get 50ks out of it
00:35:52
and it's it's good fun I feel I feel
00:35:54
free
00:35:55
you know I don't have to answer to
00:35:56
anyone
00:35:58
um uh I love putting time and effort
00:36:00
into the kids um I love broadcasting
00:36:03
still want what I do with with
00:36:04
podcasting and I'm I'm and I got enough
00:36:07
dough to go and grab something somewhere
00:36:09
maybe maybe not in Oakuckland cuz it's
00:36:12
you know how big a mortgage do you want
00:36:13
at 50 you know
00:36:14
that's that's another thing you know I
00:36:16
I'm don't need fancy [ __ ] I I need stuff
00:36:18
that's that works
00:36:21
um and that's useful I don't you know if
00:36:23
I'm I wouldn't mind getting a upgrading
00:36:25
a boat you know getting a boat cuz we
00:36:27
love fishing and we got a you know bit
00:36:30
of a rubber ducky thing so yeah Just
00:36:33
those things.
00:36:33
Yeah.
00:36:34
Well, that's cool. Well, I'm I'm happy
00:36:36
you're happy
00:36:37
at peace. Yeah. Um
00:36:38
It's nice seeing you.
00:36:39
Yeah. It's great seeing you, too. It's
00:36:41
It's great. We got We've been going for
00:36:43
almost 40 minutes and haven't got
00:36:44
haven't got to any of the good stuff
00:36:45
yet. I I want to go.
00:36:46
I've told you heaps of good stuff.
00:36:47
I've told you heaps of good stuff.
00:36:48
No, I mean like fun stuff. A lot of it's
00:36:50
been like quite quite heavy for you, but
00:36:52
you're you know, there's um it's been a
00:36:54
glorious career and I think there's a
00:36:55
lot worth reminiscing on and
00:36:57
celebrating. So, first of all, um, so
00:36:59
you're you're born and raised in Oakland
00:37:01
on the Northshore. Conservative banking
00:37:03
sort of family.
00:37:04
Born in Wellington. Well, yeah. Born in
00:37:05
Wellington. Um, and dad was in the bank
00:37:09
and they moved to Oakland when I was
00:37:11
two. Um, dad was a banker, but didn't
00:37:14
didn't he wanted to do his own. He
00:37:16
wanted to be an engineer, but his mom
00:37:17
died when he was 12 at the beach in
00:37:19
Gisman. And so, he was sent to St. Hence
00:37:22
and he couldn't really he wanted to be
00:37:23
an engineer, you know, he wanted to
00:37:24
build bridges and stuff and he he had a
00:37:26
great grades and he could have done that
00:37:27
but his dad was a banker so he weren't
00:37:29
banking so he's in finance. So yeah,
00:37:30
conservative parents, but also when I
00:37:32
say conservative parents, they were
00:37:34
pretty loose as well. You know, we we we
00:37:36
learned to drink with them, you know, we
00:37:37
were doing drinking games with our
00:37:38
parents and we had 50 guys from Westlake
00:37:40
Boys on our section we had down the
00:37:42
Corandle, you know, partying and
00:37:44
drinking, you know, all our teenage
00:37:45
years. So
00:37:47
when I say conservative, you know,
00:37:48
Yeah. But so when you say to your
00:37:50
parents, oh, I want to get into I want
00:37:51
to um do a communication course. I want
00:37:53
to become a journalist,
00:37:54
they back me.
00:37:55
Yeah, they did. Yeah.
00:37:56
Yeah. They they I mean dad understood
00:37:59
finance. They didn't understand the
00:38:00
media, but they always backed me. You go
00:38:01
for it, you know, we support you and
00:38:03
they didn't understand media, whatever,
00:38:04
but they just they went with it, you
00:38:05
know.
00:38:06
Mine were mine were much the same.
00:38:07
Being a 16year-old old in Palmer North
00:38:10
wanting to get into radio, it seemed
00:38:11
like the most outlandish thing ever, but
00:38:13
they were they were fully supportive and
00:38:15
and um looking back now, I think, god,
00:38:19
would I would I would I recommend the
00:38:20
career now?
00:38:22
U for fun. I I've got the best the best
00:38:25
people I've met are in the industry. you
00:38:27
know, guys like Mark Sainsbury, fun
00:38:29
people, lifelong friends, Guy Spanel,
00:38:31
those I mean, they are they are good
00:38:34
people and they're very talented people
00:38:35
and but they're just solid, man. You
00:38:37
know, um and we've had some [ __ ]
00:38:39
outrageous times as well, you know. Some
00:38:41
real fun times.
00:38:42
Um did my parents know what I was
00:38:44
getting into? No, I applied for
00:38:45
university in Australia in case I missed
00:38:46
the one in Oakland because it was so
00:38:47
competitive, you know. Um but I went to
00:38:50
a class of 30 people. Two of them were
00:38:53
guys. The rest there was 28 women in
00:38:56
this class. Why weren't the men
00:38:57
applying? Lucy Hawkings was in there.
00:38:59
She's a BBC presenter. It's her her
00:39:01
brother is missing in the Laf Lodge fire
00:39:04
in Wellington, you know. So I got to
00:39:05
know this boy, you know, this guy, this
00:39:06
this the brother of this. So yeah, um
00:39:10
I've had um a really
00:39:13
journalism to me has been a hobby and I
00:39:16
got paid, you know, well for a hobby and
00:39:19
I still consider that I haven't done a
00:39:20
day's work in my life. I love it.
00:39:22
Yeah.
00:39:22
You know, I love telling stories. I love
00:39:24
scandal. I love um um breaking stories,
00:39:27
coups of politicians, rolling people.
00:39:30
It's [ __ ] brilliant.
00:39:32
And and and I've been right at that
00:39:34
right at the um um front and forefront
00:39:36
of that, you know, parliamentary
00:39:37
reporting, you know, hiring guys like
00:39:39
Patty Gar and Tover, you know, I was
00:39:42
responsible for that.
00:39:43
Um we got [ __ ] for hiring Patty, but you
00:39:44
know, I backed him, you know.
00:39:46
Oh, yeah. Um yeah, I saw something on um
00:39:49
Instagram just the other day. Yeah. a
00:39:51
moment on your podcast with um Patrick
00:39:53
Gow and he he talked about something
00:39:56
about distancing himself from you. What
00:39:58
did he mean by that?
00:39:59
He thought that he was
00:40:00
it was it was a real nice moment. By the
00:40:02
way,
00:40:02
he's a great guy and complex guy. He
00:40:04
thought he was he was too busy being
00:40:06
compared to me. So when I hired Patty,
00:40:09
he got a contract with Mediworks. I gave
00:40:11
him a separate contract between DG and
00:40:12
PG. 18 points he wanted sorted. So I had
00:40:14
to protect him, look after him, make
00:40:16
sure he wasn't exposed and never let him
00:40:18
fail. So as my dad was dying at the same
00:40:20
time as Patty was just acknowledging
00:40:21
that in the podcast saying thank you for
00:40:23
never letting me fail and I said you're
00:40:24
welcome PG one of the great guys you
00:40:26
know the best people are complex people
00:40:29
the most interesting people are complex
00:40:31
people the most interesting people um
00:40:34
are some of the most difficult people
00:40:37
but
00:40:38
if you can get around all that
00:40:40
um those people are fascinating you can
00:40:41
you can spend hours with these people
00:40:42
and you don't know hours have gone
00:40:45
you know
00:40:46
so um So you graduate and then you your
00:40:49
first job as a sports reporter at TVNZ.
00:40:51
Yeah.
00:40:52
Um so you're how old? Like 20 21.
00:40:54
I was 20. I was cuz um I went to TVZ
00:40:56
sport under Richard Beck. It was 1995
00:40:59
World Cup. Yeah. Interviewing Jonah and
00:41:00
Colin Me and all this and it came time
00:41:03
to be my birthday and um Richard Beck
00:41:05
the sports editor put on this big [ __ ]
00:41:08
cake. So it was like you know he said I
00:41:10
was I was a [ __ ] So he put on this big
00:41:12
chocolate [ __ ] cake.
00:41:13
Um they they could see that I was um I
00:41:17
was really passionate about it. You
00:41:18
know, I was really into it. This is all
00:41:20
I want ever wanted to do. So they sent
00:41:21
me to Wellington under under Linda Clark
00:41:23
in the press gallery parliament. First
00:41:24
MMP election was the following year.
00:41:27
They said run his run this guy's bloody
00:41:29
butt off, you know, he's he's almost too
00:41:31
keen. So I went there and there, you
00:41:32
know, Bill Rston and all these oldtimes,
00:41:34
you know, in the press gallery, you
00:41:36
know, [ __ ] even smelled old, you
00:41:38
know, and um this was before MMP. This
00:41:41
is first passed the post
00:41:43
and we were flying around around New
00:41:44
Zealand with Bulger on planes and I got
00:41:46
invited to his 60th birthday. Not that I
00:41:48
knew the guy, but I was a bloke and
00:41:50
Bulier was, you know, he like bloke
00:41:52
reporters. So I'd been at TVZ 6 minutes
00:41:53
and I was up there with all these
00:41:54
oldtimes drinking whiskey with Bulier in
00:41:57
his office with Winston Peters in in the
00:41:58
mid '90s and stuff. Uh I wasn't a
00:42:00
whiskey man.
00:42:01
Unreal. Oh, you f that in though,
00:42:03
wouldn't you? Peer pressure.
00:42:04
Oh, I just downed it. Yeah. And um and
00:42:06
um then ended up going out that night.
00:42:07
And it was raining and I fell into a
00:42:09
pond and Courtney placed my only suit
00:42:11
that I had was all crimped up and I went
00:42:13
home and I dried it and next day I went
00:42:14
out to Bulges press conference out up a
00:42:16
hut at some factory and I turned up with
00:42:18
this crimpy suit that was still damp and
00:42:20
he looked at me and he sort of grinned.
00:42:22
He looked he looked 100% sweet. You no
00:42:23
hangover, nothing. And I must have worn
00:42:25
a hangover like a dog and I had this
00:42:27
half wet suit you know promised um you
00:42:30
pull yourself together you know
00:42:33
you know and he was to blame. It was his
00:42:35
birthday and so but I was 21 Dom.
00:42:37
Yeah. So you you didn't have the
00:42:38
tolerance that he had.
00:42:40
Well no I mean we we I played rugby. We
00:42:42
had drinking sessions and done all that
00:42:44
crap but but this was next level you
00:42:46
know and I was with Winston Peters you
00:42:48
know the night that they had that fight
00:42:49
with the girl and the and brava bar.
00:42:52
What's that? What's that?
00:42:53
There was a fight one night. Some girl
00:42:54
had to go Peters and one of Peters's
00:42:56
henchmen might have pushed her or
00:42:58
something and she scraped back and there
00:42:59
was a big dust up you know. I just
00:43:01
remember, you know, eating cheese rolls
00:43:03
and just drinking watching the whole
00:43:04
thing because we were there with Peters,
00:43:05
you know, we we were we were the night
00:43:07
of the coalition talks and, you know,
00:43:08
eight eight 10 weeks of that stuff.
00:43:10
Outrageous sort of length of time, but
00:43:12
that's what it was then and you know, we
00:43:13
were running around and bloody on boats
00:43:16
chasing him and all sorts of things.
00:43:18
Were they Were they good years? Were
00:43:19
they fun years? You were there like 17
00:43:21
years, right? Did you stay Did you
00:43:23
overstay your welcome?
00:43:25
Only by a year cuz I had to train Patty
00:43:26
for that last year.
00:43:28
Yeah.
00:43:29
Did you Did you just love it? So you
00:43:30
wanted to stay there, you
00:43:31
I was broken, you know. I I I did love
00:43:33
when it just happens. It's it's it's um
00:43:35
it's the heart of where everything and
00:43:37
and a small country like New Zealand
00:43:38
everything all leads all roads lead back
00:43:40
to where the power is and the power is,
00:43:42
you know, isn't Wellington in that base,
00:43:44
you know.
00:43:45
Um so I just couldn't stop, you know,
00:43:48
everything would be the same but
00:43:50
different. You know, not Winston Peters
00:43:52
got quite repetitive with his stuff ups,
00:43:54
you know. I got sick of him saying yes
00:43:56
when he went no and that sort of thing.
00:43:57
that got a bit repetitive, you know, but
00:43:59
um parliament I mean they come and they
00:44:01
go and it's fascinating new new it's
00:44:03
like sport winners losers you know
00:44:06
aggression not aggression um tactics you
00:44:08
know and and victories and and losses
00:44:10
and I loved it and I got to know a lot
00:44:12
of politicians and um they're not all
00:44:14
bad people want the best
00:44:16
not all bad people
00:44:16
but they want the best for they want the
00:44:18
best um for themsel uh for themselves
00:44:21
for their country um
00:44:23
they just have different ways of getting
00:44:24
there you know
00:44:25
um but a lot of them shouldn't be there.
00:44:27
They let they eat their lunch. A lot of
00:44:29
them a lot of people don't contribute at
00:44:30
all. There's only really a handful of
00:44:32
power brokers, you know, in each party
00:44:34
and and and it's quite bland at the
00:44:36
moment. Parliament, it's bland as all
00:44:37
money, you know. I mean, bring back
00:44:40
Peter Dunn. I mean, I mean,
00:44:42
Winston, I mean, the place is, you know,
00:44:44
it's two bland guys. Chris Hipkins, the
00:44:47
prime minister, I spoke to him when he
00:44:49
was a student at Victoria University as
00:44:51
part of a panel talking to them about
00:44:53
media and politics. And I remember this
00:44:55
little guy, you know.
00:44:58
Yeah. I think this is a sign that we're
00:44:59
older.
00:45:00
Yeah.
00:45:00
This is a sign that we're old.
00:45:02
It's it's weird. There's weird
00:45:03
milestones in your life where you
00:45:04
realize um you see the All Black line up
00:45:06
and you're like, "Oh [ __ ] I'm older
00:45:08
than all the All Blacks
00:45:08
or police officers."
00:45:10
Yeah. Well, yeah. You're being arrested
00:45:11
by some kid.
00:45:13
Well, I have been or you know, you go to
00:45:16
the doctor and suddenly, you know, it's
00:45:17
not uncommon for the doctor to be
00:45:19
younger than what you are. It's uh
00:45:21
friends die. When your friends start to
00:45:22
die, that hasn't happened yet.
00:45:24
Um, but you know, we're in that zone
00:45:26
now.
00:45:27
We're in the zone where you can drop
00:45:28
dead.
00:45:29
Yeah. Can I mean it would be
00:45:31
Would you have any Would you have any
00:45:32
regrets? If you drop dead right now,
00:45:36
how have you left it?
00:45:37
Yeah.
00:45:39
Yeah. Of course, a few regrets. I I
00:45:41
think um anyone that says they've got no
00:45:42
regrets is probably lying, don't you
00:45:44
think?
00:45:45
Of course they are.
00:45:45
Yeah. Yeah. Everyone has, you know,
00:45:48
everyone has regrets.
00:45:51
You haven't lived. If if you got no
00:45:52
regrets, you haven't lived. M
00:45:53
you've you've wrapped yourself up in
00:45:55
cotton wool and stayed, you know, locked
00:45:56
yourself in the shower.
00:45:57
Yeah.
00:45:58
You know,
00:46:00
well then then that would be your
00:46:01
regret, not actually living a full life.
00:46:03
Well, not leaving the bathroom.
00:46:04
Yeah.
00:46:04
So, um so the the parliament stuff, were
00:46:07
you were you f would you say you're
00:46:08
friends with any of the politicians over
00:46:09
the years? Like you mentioned drinking
00:46:10
with Jim Bulier and Winston and that.
00:46:13
Were they friends or no? They you sort
00:46:15
of keep them at your arms length.
00:46:17
They're really familiar and and and
00:46:21
some of them would like to think that
00:46:22
you're friends. And what's a friend?
00:46:24
Is a friend someone you catch up with
00:46:26
regularly? Yep. A friend someone you
00:46:28
talk to regularly? Yep. A friend is
00:46:30
someone or is a friend someone who's
00:46:31
familiar and they pop into your life
00:46:33
once every 10 years. When I'm my best
00:46:34
mate, uh, one of my best mates is
00:46:37
overseas in Ireland. Now, he's always
00:46:39
going to be a friend, right? We see each
00:46:41
other once every 10 years.
00:46:43
Politicians aren't friends.
00:46:44
Politicians are subjects. um you're
00:46:47
familiar with me. You get on and you
00:46:48
like some of them more than others,
00:46:49
right?
00:46:50
Like when I lost the job, Jerry Brownie
00:46:51
text me. Um Annette King would text me.
00:46:55
Um
00:46:57
so, okay. You know,
00:46:58
so it's so it's kind of like a
00:47:00
friendship, but you know that if you
00:47:02
have to stab them or they have to stab
00:47:03
you in the back, they will.
00:47:04
You got to nail them.
00:47:05
Yeah.
00:47:06
Look, you've got to always um be
00:47:07
professional and and to the point where
00:47:11
you could either go out for dinner with
00:47:12
them and talk to them and the next day
00:47:14
you ask them. This is a job and and and
00:47:18
journalists who become friends with
00:47:20
politicians and can no longer do their
00:47:22
job properly are pointless.
00:47:24
Yeah.
00:47:25
Yeah. Because you're you're too skewed.
00:47:27
Yeah.
00:47:27
You're absolutely pointless because you
00:47:29
are there for protecting them.
00:47:31
So I wouldn't say any of them are
00:47:32
friends and and and the best compliment
00:47:35
I ever received was from a guy in the
00:47:37
Labour party, Mike Monroe, who was Helen
00:47:38
Clark's boss. Uh Helen, no one's the
00:47:40
boss of her. Helen Clark's press
00:47:42
secretary. and he said um someone asked
00:47:44
him if I was biased. He goes, "This guy
00:47:46
loves blood if it's red or blue."
00:47:48
So that's and that's what I tried to
00:47:50
talk to Patty about a lot too early on.
00:47:52
Yeah.
00:47:52
And you you you were there for like as I
00:47:54
said 17 years something like six
00:47:56
election cycles. You were [ __ ] good
00:47:58
at your job. Were you in hindsight do do
00:48:01
you look back and go I was I was I was a
00:48:02
bully or I was
00:48:04
you because you
00:48:05
feral
00:48:06
because you had to be or
00:48:08
Yeah. Because there's no other what's
00:48:09
the other option being in Foster like
00:48:12
you know well no but what I mean is
00:48:14
being being mediocre like you know this
00:48:16
is the thing every night at 6:00 the
00:48:18
boss is your the guy that pays your
00:48:20
salary is sitting in his office with TV3
00:48:22
TV1 in front of him right and in in fact
00:48:25
and we all are right so every night for
00:48:29
17 years you're being charged how much
00:48:32
pressure is that and I got to do a real
00:48:33
tussle arm wrestle with Guy Espen who
00:48:36
was a political editor when I was
00:48:37
political at three and so your work is
00:48:40
judged every night. Who's got the scoop
00:48:41
tonight? It's [ __ ] just debilitating
00:48:44
pressure.
00:48:45
But but I thrive on that for some
00:48:47
reason. You know, I would I teach our
00:48:49
guys how to strut past their office and
00:48:50
pretend we've got something. So, you
00:48:52
know, and I and I and I call it
00:48:54
psychological warfare. So, I'd look at
00:48:56
them in the morning and say, "You'll be
00:48:58
regretting that 6:00 tonight, boys." You
00:49:01
know, and and if I hadn't seen them for
00:49:03
the day, I'd be like, "Where the hell
00:49:04
are these guys?" And if as far as one
00:49:06
one day I was at the at the hospital
00:49:07
with my dad and the rumor got around
00:49:10
that I had this big story that I was
00:49:11
working on. I was sitting next to my dad
00:49:13
who was dying. But where he's gone
00:49:15
that's what it's like this paranoid fear
00:49:18
of failure you know
00:49:19
which is which to me just creates energy
00:49:22
you know.
00:49:22
Yeah. It it's um it's not normal and it
00:49:25
can't be healthy though and that's why
00:49:28
you end up drinking like Patty or
00:49:29
myself. Uh it's why relationships don't
00:49:31
last. This is something's got to pop.
00:49:33
something pops, you know, and you can't
00:49:35
it's not it's not a norm. It's not you
00:49:37
don't go home at 4:30, 5:00 in your
00:49:40
company car with your company cell phone
00:49:42
and and don't talk to your people again
00:49:44
until the next day. I'd have Markings
00:49:45
calling me at 10:00 at night. Great hit,
00:49:47
mate. Sorry I haven't got a hold of you
00:49:48
till now. I've just been busy with the
00:49:49
lawyers, you know, we're through it.
00:49:51
[ __ ] great hit now. We need another
00:49:53
one tomorrow because the momentum is
00:49:55
great. You know, it's like it's
00:49:56
relentless.
00:49:57
It's unrelenting. You know, I when I had
00:49:59
um when when the girls were just born um
00:50:01
you know, the phone had ring and I look
00:50:03
at it and Helen Clark, you know, wants
00:50:04
to talk about my coverage of the poll
00:50:06
tonight. I'll be like, "Can I ring you
00:50:07
back, Helen? One of the kids." And she
00:50:09
was, "Oh, no problem." And ring back
00:50:10
you. Well, um don't. And so suddenly
00:50:12
you're in this bloody, oh god, what have
00:50:14
I [ __ ] done now? And then that that
00:50:16
might put you in a bad mood. You
00:50:17
suddenly you're arguing with your MS,
00:50:18
you know, whatever. So it's just but I
00:50:21
wouldn't change a thing
00:50:22
in terms of that that time at parliament
00:50:25
because I had to become feral and you
00:50:27
had to become was it bully boy? Um
00:50:32
I suppose there's a fine line between
00:50:33
being being a bully and just holding
00:50:35
them to account.
00:50:35
Probably at times we we weren't pretty
00:50:37
aggressive
00:50:38
around Chris Carter and things like
00:50:40
that, but he was running around the
00:50:40
world having a bloody expose on the
00:50:42
taxpayer and you know, you know,
00:50:45
parliament's a place of bullies, mate.
00:50:46
You know, parliament parliament
00:50:47
parliament there's a there's an area
00:50:49
with a tustling. You know, I remember I
00:50:50
remember David Samuels. Um David Samuels
00:50:53
looked at Rodney or Richard Pri wants to
00:50:55
come over here and I'll smack you. You
00:50:56
know, like this is Lily White nowadays.
00:50:59
This this is wussy now. You know, back
00:51:01
in those, you know, Maldon, you know, I
00:51:03
showed some pictures, some video to my
00:51:06
son of Maldoon the other night when
00:51:07
Maldon called the snap election. Now,
00:51:09
84. I was only 10 years old, so I don't
00:51:10
really
00:51:11
But when he was pissed.
00:51:11
Yeah, but he not not only was he pissed.
00:51:13
Have a look at his stance. I showed my
00:51:15
son this. I said, "This guy was a tough
00:51:16
little bastard, you know, but Maldon
00:51:18
tough and and and intimidating. He's a
00:51:21
short little guy." and and and and when
00:51:22
he I didn't realize this, but when he
00:51:23
does his um doesn't get my opponent much
00:51:27
time into the election, he's going like
00:51:28
this with his shoulders and so he stands
00:51:31
like this and he's like this
00:51:34
like with his shoulders, you know,
00:51:36
like sort of arcing up like he's ready
00:51:37
for
00:51:37
like bring it, you know, and and my son
00:51:39
my son noticed it. He goes, "Look at
00:51:41
this is brilliant. Who's this guy?" you
00:51:42
know, and because you know, like like a
00:51:44
UFC fighter or something, you know, and
00:51:45
and those were the days when, you know,
00:51:48
you look at all the people around
00:51:49
Maldun, they look scared of him, even
00:51:51
they're his own people. So, um,
00:51:53
he wouldn't have been great with social
00:51:54
media, would he?
00:51:56
It wouldn't have been a complete f. He
00:51:58
would have banned it, actually, cuz
00:51:59
that's what he did. I mean, this is a
00:52:00
guy that this is a guy that banned
00:52:01
butter being exported from New Zealand.
00:52:03
You know, we we had to get a license to
00:52:04
to export butter. This is what young New
00:52:05
Zealanders don't know about. They go to
00:52:06
the fridge and they get butter. In the
00:52:08
1980s, you needed an export license to
00:52:10
get rid of butter to to sell it. You
00:52:12
know, we're only going to sell it to New
00:52:14
Zealanders and we'll become rich selling
00:52:15
to ourselves, you know.
00:52:16
So, um, a couple of names you've
00:52:18
mentioned, um, like heavyweight
00:52:20
political journalists. There's, um,
00:52:21
Patty Gawa and Guyion Spinner. Um,
00:52:24
they're both on like a path of sobriety
00:52:26
now that's been well documented. What's
00:52:28
um, what's your relationship with booze
00:52:29
like?
00:52:29
Um, I don't I don't really drink much
00:52:31
anymore. No, but I'm I'm not um I'm not
00:52:34
um like those guys that have gone down
00:52:35
that path because
00:52:37
um
00:52:38
yeah,
00:52:38
I just made a decision just to pull back
00:52:40
a bit on it because well, I've drunk and
00:52:42
for the first um so we started drinking
00:52:44
probably about 14, you know, at school.
00:52:46
Uh it was promoted at school. We had
00:52:48
parents who put on kegs after each first
00:52:50
game have a ke party.
00:52:52
Yeah, we're the same age.
00:52:53
Yeah. Yeah. We afford them a you know 12
00:52:56
and a half liters each.
00:52:57
Yep.
00:52:58
All that [ __ ] And parents bifle, you
00:52:59
know. So this is a different generation.
00:53:00
And I look at the school now and they've
00:53:02
cleaned themselves up. They had to um
00:53:04
you know we I lost a mate um pissed um
00:53:08
off the back of a a dinghy and the
00:53:10
Mediterranean on on a knowi um she got
00:53:12
pissed and fell off the boat and that
00:53:14
was the end of him. Got sent back as um
00:53:16
cremated you know. So
00:53:18
great guy love fun guy. And so alcohol
00:53:22
is alcohol's
00:53:24
alcohol um is part of our society. It is
00:53:28
just here and it's one of those accepted
00:53:30
drugs, right?
00:53:31
All the other bad drugs you can't have,
00:53:33
but you can have this one and it does a
00:53:35
lot of damage in the wrong hands and
00:53:37
dealt with badly
00:53:39
dealt with properly. It's fine. Whatever
00:53:42
it is, but I get I'd drink far too much
00:53:44
as a coping mechanism. Sometimes I would
00:53:46
turn up to functions I felt
00:53:47
uncomfortable being there without
00:53:48
drinking. I had to drink. I had to have
00:53:50
drink or two in my hand, you know.
00:53:51
I think a lot of people are like that.
00:53:52
So that's why they call it a social
00:53:53
lubricant.
00:53:54
Yeah. So that's what I'd be like. And um
00:53:56
but nowadays um if I turn no I'm all
00:53:59
right I'm driving. I don't want to get
00:54:00
DIC you know gives company ammo you
00:54:02
know. So I'll say no thanks. What's
00:54:04
wrong with you mate? And my mom's a
00:54:06
heart. Why don't you have a drink with
00:54:07
me?
00:54:08
Well I'm about to drive to Northland mom
00:54:10
and if I have one I might have two and
00:54:11
then you know I don't want that report
00:54:13
that says he died with alcohol. You know
00:54:15
so so I'm just a lot more careful now.
00:54:17
You know I don't it is so easy to get an
00:54:20
Uber or get a cab if you're drinking you
00:54:22
know or not drink at all because I'm
00:54:23
driving and I've got work in the morning
00:54:25
or whatever. I don't need to drink
00:54:26
anymore. It used to be for me an
00:54:28
enabler. It used to be part of really
00:54:30
part of who we are, especially the rugby
00:54:32
community and everything.
00:54:33
But I look at I look at alcohol now and
00:54:34
I largely just took my nose over it.
00:54:36
Yeah. I think that people are getting a
00:54:38
lot more accepting um for the most part
00:54:40
if you say you're not drinking rather
00:54:41
than shame you about it. Although I was
00:54:43
doing MCing a thing in Wellington a
00:54:44
couple of weeks ago and uh I was at the
00:54:46
table with one of the organizers. So I
00:54:47
was there working. It was their staff
00:54:48
awards and uh one of the organizers he
00:54:50
said, "Oh, you drinking tonight?" And
00:54:52
I'm like um and he handed me a beer and
00:54:54
I'm like, "Sure." He goes, "Good man."
00:54:56
Good man. Yeah. I I got taken to the
00:54:58
tennis by Heineken and um uh they only
00:55:02
served me light beer. The new the new
00:55:03
zero the hine a few years 0.0. That's
00:55:06
great by the way.
00:55:07
And I Oh, and I tell you what, I missed
00:55:09
so much of the tennis cuz I was in the
00:55:10
toilet all night. I think I ended up
00:55:12
doing
00:55:12
lines. What? I ended up having I was in
00:55:16
the toilet night having a piss and and
00:55:18
and I I had something like 14 of these
00:55:20
zero hinekans all afternoon pissing all
00:55:23
afternoon and I missed the most of the
00:55:25
tennis. Um and but then drove home.
00:55:27
Yeah. You know,
00:55:28
amazing.
00:55:28
Now, is that alcohol? Could you give
00:55:30
your kid that? I mean, what's the what's
00:55:32
the deal?
00:55:32
Well, you know, kids can't buy it at the
00:55:33
supermarket,
00:55:34
but zero alcohol.
00:55:35
Yeah, I know. I know. It's basically a
00:55:36
soft drink.
00:55:38
I tell you what, it goes straight
00:55:39
through you, though.
00:55:39
Yeah. Um let's get on to your dad. Talk
00:55:42
about your dad. So, so he died at the
00:55:44
age of 62. Um, cancer.
00:55:46
Yeah, he had um So,
00:55:48
so you were how old? Late 30s. Mid-30s.
00:55:50
37 I think. Yeah. Yeah. Something like
00:55:52
that.
00:55:52
How was that? Were you were you guys
00:55:53
close?
00:55:53
Oh, yeah. Really close. Dad Dad was um
00:55:57
um he was a he was a tough strong guy
00:55:59
growing up, you know. He was always to
00:56:00
me big a big strong guy. Um
00:56:03
he was he was um he always did the right
00:56:06
thing. My mom, you know, he was a very
00:56:08
loyal
00:56:10
father. We went to Eden Park our whole
00:56:12
life. season tickets, you know,
00:56:13
everything was revolved around rugby. He
00:56:14
was a big rugby guy, so I played rugby
00:56:16
with my life and he but he was also um
00:56:19
he deeply supportive, you know, he would
00:56:20
always he'd always be there and I knew
00:56:21
if my dad was there, I wouldn't play
00:56:22
that well or but he'd be at everything,
00:56:25
you know, he was present, you know,
00:56:26
and they were they were married right to
00:56:28
the end.
00:56:29
Yeah. Oh, yeah. They were still together
00:56:31
44 years married. Um they were just they
00:56:34
were such a tight tight you know and dad
00:56:36
was really well liked by all my mates
00:56:37
you know they he's and he was one of the
00:56:41
boys but he was also but still their
00:56:43
father so he was you know one of the
00:56:44
boys but not yeah
00:56:46
you know he'd come down he came down the
00:56:48
lions tour in 2005 you know he had some
00:56:50
mates mates with me he has some mates
00:56:53
down from Northland for the weekend so
00:56:54
the Lions tour 2005 big dad came down
00:56:56
from they were living in to he came down
00:56:58
and he stayed with me and you know we we
00:57:01
We we we got really, you know, too much
00:57:04
alcohol and great bloody weekend. And he
00:57:06
the Sunday morning he was heading back
00:57:07
to mom, you see. So he gets up really
00:57:08
early. I saw he's all all dressed and he
00:57:10
stinks of alcohol, all dressed up
00:57:11
really, you know, nothing happened this
00:57:13
weekend. I'm back back to mom and you
00:57:14
know he got home and mom said he stunk
00:57:17
off the plane and everything. He had a
00:57:18
great time. I I did a lot of stuff with
00:57:20
dad and um I just wish that he was was
00:57:23
able to enjoy a retirement that he was
00:57:25
denied by cancer. you know, he' worked
00:57:26
hard, saved hard, and and had, you know,
00:57:28
financially was really, you know, set it
00:57:30
set up and he didn't get to enjoy it.
00:57:32
You know, he, you know, I'd like to be
00:57:33
out there fishing with him now. And just
00:57:35
chatting to him about [ __ ] that's gone
00:57:38
on the last year. He's missed all the he
00:57:39
saw all this me on the way up. He never
00:57:41
saw the [ __ ] that happened in the last
00:57:42
10 years, you know.
00:57:43
Is that kind of good? I mean, obviously
00:57:45
it's not good having having your mate
00:57:46
here, your dad, but he at least he
00:57:48
didn't get to because he it would have
00:57:50
been stressful for him to see you going
00:57:51
through the stuff you've been through.
00:57:53
Mom's had to take it all.
00:57:54
Yeah. Yeah. So mom's had to take take it
00:57:56
for both of them. Um he he I I miss him
00:58:00
because he would have given me good
00:58:02
advice and as much as I love mom and she
00:58:05
it's not bloke's advice, it's mom's
00:58:06
advice
00:58:07
and and maybe I'm a bit dismissive
00:58:08
sometimes and mom's advice. Maybe
00:58:11
I see exactly I don't know. I suppose as
00:58:13
a as a son you want to like protect your
00:58:14
mom whereas your dad you know
00:58:17
I tell mom stuff you know I tell mom
00:58:19
stuff and it really upsets her and she
00:58:21
gets down about it. You know I don't
00:58:22
want to I don't want that. Whereas dad
00:58:24
would be I don't know. I miss him. I
00:58:26
miss a man's advice in my life, you
00:58:28
know. I miss dad's advice because I've
00:58:31
all the toughest stuff that I've been
00:58:32
through. He hasn't been there to um and
00:58:34
he'd hate not been there for it, you
00:58:35
know. I just wish I'd been able to
00:58:37
bounce some stuff off him and I might
00:58:39
have done something differently, you
00:58:40
know. But
00:58:41
have you got anyone like that in your
00:58:42
life now? You know,
00:58:44
great mates. Yeah. Yeah. Heaps of heaps
00:58:46
of lads. But um they
00:58:50
Yeah. They've been very loyal loyal
00:58:52
friendships. Yeah. Yeah. Um and um um
00:58:55
I've got a couple of guys who are a bit
00:58:57
older than me. Um you know, sort of late
00:58:59
50s, early 60s who have become my father
00:59:01
figures, you know.
00:59:02
Yeah.
00:59:02
Um especially up north.
00:59:05
I've got to know lots of people. I've
00:59:06
got I've got to know from this job, I
00:59:08
got to know some really amazing people,
00:59:09
some really bad people. Um and
00:59:13
no one's no one's all good or all bad
00:59:15
though, are they?
00:59:15
Oh [ __ ] No, that's why I said
00:59:17
everything's great. But, you know, some
00:59:19
of the some of the some of the worst
00:59:21
bastards, you know, have committed
00:59:23
terrible things.
00:59:25
Some sometimes they're the first ones to
00:59:26
maybe text you and they'll see
00:59:28
something.
00:59:29
Are you okay, mate?
00:59:31
Um,
00:59:33
I can only treat people I can only I can
00:59:35
only gauge people by how they treat me
00:59:36
or how they treat my family or my kids.
00:59:38
And some of the worst bes we might
00:59:40
think, oh, terrible people
00:59:43
have been nothing but supportive and
00:59:44
loyal and you know,
00:59:46
that's the thing. You got to take people
00:59:47
how you find them. I I always do. Yeah.
00:59:49
Yeah. You know. Um
00:59:51
Yeah.
00:59:52
So, um yeah. Back to your dad. So, um
00:59:55
how long was he ill for?
00:59:57
9 months. So, he got he got diagnosed. I
00:59:59
was at work at TV3. At that night, for
01:00:02
some reason, whatever happened, I was it
01:00:04
was 5:00 and I didn't have to do a story
01:00:07
that it was maybe something was going
01:00:08
on. Anyway, um I got a call from mom.
01:00:11
Can you come up your father and I at
01:00:13
home? We need to see you. and my heart
01:00:15
just dropped because it's an unusual
01:00:17
call.
01:00:18
Yeah.
01:00:18
And um I had um I think I'd ridden my
01:00:22
bike to work that day. I used to come
01:00:24
around because it's flat on Wellington
01:00:26
from where we were. So I used to I went
01:00:28
home on my bike to get my car and as I
01:00:32
was coming around Oriental Bay I just
01:00:33
felt this overwhelming cuz I didn't know
01:00:35
what was going on but I knew something I
01:00:36
knew.
01:00:37
And is this when they
01:00:39
they told me to come they told me to
01:00:41
come and see them? No. No. They told me
01:00:42
to come and see them. They don't need to
01:00:43
see me tonight. It's serious now. I've
01:00:47
always feared cancer. Dad was sick when
01:00:49
he was late 30s, 40 and I thought and he
01:00:51
was in a ward with people with cancer.
01:00:52
He got he had gh bladder stones or
01:00:54
gallstones or something like that. He
01:00:56
looked like he was dying when I was a
01:00:57
young young kid. So I never forgotten
01:00:58
what those guys with cancer looked like,
01:00:59
you know,
01:01:00
and I just thought it's cancer, you
01:01:02
know. I just I knew and so I rode my
01:01:03
bike home and I got to oral bane. I was
01:01:05
crying. My eyes were welling up and I
01:01:07
couldn't see the road. And I went I
01:01:10
drove I rode my boat and all the way
01:01:11
home back to Murma. I don't remember I
01:01:13
don't remember the ride. I don't
01:01:14
remember the seeing the road because of
01:01:16
my eyes, you know. It's like with a wind
01:01:18
screen that's got water on it, you know.
01:01:19
Really like sobbing.
01:01:21
Yeah. Just just just
01:01:22
Yeah. just thinking about him, you know,
01:01:25
like and then I got in the car and I I
01:01:28
drove um up to the place in Kandala and
01:01:31
I open the door, shut the door and I
01:01:33
open the door of the house and dad's at
01:01:36
the top of the stairs
01:01:38
and I start to walk up there and he's
01:01:40
shaking and he hugs me and all I
01:01:43
remember him saying was, "I'm [ __ ]
01:01:45
I'm [ __ ] mate." And I just was
01:01:48
hugging him and I sat down on the couch
01:01:50
and he goes, "This is the deal." And he
01:01:52
told me that, you know, he'd been having
01:01:53
physio for a bad back and I remember
01:01:54
that. But he what he happened he had
01:01:57
kidney cancer and the the cancer he got
01:01:59
out of his kidney in the six month
01:02:01
period where they had misdiagnosed him
01:02:02
and they're rubbing his back and had
01:02:04
gone through his spine, lungs and was
01:02:06
heading towards the brain. I think over
01:02:08
9 months.
01:02:08
So sort of straight to palative care
01:02:11
pretty much. He was working he was um he
01:02:14
he he'd retired. He was 62. He had
01:02:15
retired from from finance and
01:02:17
everything, but he had gone back to work
01:02:19
to run um a charity, I think St. John's
01:02:22
Church in the city or something, you
01:02:23
know, pathetic pay for a guy with all
01:02:25
those skills to do, you know, to run the
01:02:27
place. And so he quit that on that day
01:02:29
and um he said, "I'll try and fight
01:02:31
this, but I think I'm fucked." So we got
01:02:32
some pills, some expensive farm type
01:02:34
things that didn't work. So we were just
01:02:36
waiting for him to die. It's really
01:02:37
taxing on families that you my mom was
01:02:39
just a trooper, you know.
01:02:41
We were watching dad die, you know, and
01:02:43
I look back now and I think, did I do
01:02:44
enough? I was I was there every day and
01:02:47
right the way through a nurse who the
01:02:50
nurse who was there when he died and
01:02:53
helped me walk the him to the hearse
01:02:56
emailed me when today if he went under
01:02:58
to say I was a listener you don't know
01:03:00
me I've met you briefly I was on the bed
01:03:03
that day that we pushed your dad to the
01:03:05
hearse
01:03:06
and I read that that was the day I was
01:03:08
writing that the article I read that and
01:03:10
and I've since been in touch with that
01:03:12
lady and that's powerful [ __ ] you when
01:03:14
someone does that.
01:03:16
And so he he did nine months. He fought
01:03:19
it really. He fought it and he he was
01:03:21
still this big strong guy right to the
01:03:23
end there. And on the Sunday I I a few
01:03:26
weeks before he died, I had to go to
01:03:28
Afghanistan with John Ke. I've been
01:03:29
sitting on this secret because only we
01:03:31
only myself and Guy knew that he was
01:03:33
going to Afghanistan. So we knew a month
01:03:35
earlier and because we were going to
01:03:37
part of the security detail, we had to
01:03:38
shut up. The trip didn't exist until we
01:03:41
got back. So here I am with dad. I need
01:03:44
to go to Afghanistan. Are you What do
01:03:46
you reckon, Dad? And he's a month away
01:03:48
from his death. But it could have been
01:03:50
any time.
01:03:50
Yeah.
01:03:51
And he thought I was going to die
01:03:55
going to a war zone.
01:03:56
And and there's I tell you what, the the
01:03:58
way things panned out, it could have
01:04:00
happened, you know, coming down snipers
01:04:01
alley in a bloody paj with a glass a
01:04:03
little bit thicker than, you know.
01:04:04
Anyway, um I said I said, "I'm going to
01:04:07
go,
01:04:08
but if you tell me not to, I won't go."
01:04:10
He goes, "You go." You know, I remember
01:04:11
saying goodbye to him at the time.
01:04:14
Heaviest thing. And we took Gett did all
01:04:17
that and came back and um cuz I couldn't
01:04:21
ring them cuz we're not we weren't we
01:04:23
weren't allowed to. So I didn't know if
01:04:25
he died.
01:04:26
How long was the trip?
01:04:27
Six was six or seven days. It was meant
01:04:30
to be. But it got delayed cuz Ke never
01:04:32
made it to Dubai in time. So we're in
01:04:34
this limbo just drinking in this pub
01:04:37
after 6:00 cuz you can drink after 600,
01:04:38
you know. So just sitting there waiting
01:04:40
for Ke to turn up. going to start to do
01:04:41
all of that and that gave me a real good
01:04:43
context you know for um for being you
01:04:47
know like the guys from the resilience
01:04:48
project be grateful for what you've got
01:04:50
you know so it gave me a new perspective
01:04:52
go to Afghanistan and seeing what people
01:04:54
didn't have the subsistence lives that
01:04:56
they lead and all this [ __ ]
01:04:57
oh man people's the average living age
01:05:00
is 44 you know so um I got back and dad
01:05:03
was alive and 3 weeks later he was dead
01:05:06
Sunday when I watched the Chiefs Chiefs
01:05:07
Huracans with him on a Saturday night in
01:05:09
his room Sunday, didn't go over there. I
01:05:12
was just texted. And that Sunday night,
01:05:14
dad checked himself into a St. John's
01:05:16
ambulance, rang them up, and they talked
01:05:17
to the hospice and by Monday night, he
01:05:19
was in a coma and died on the Thursday
01:05:21
morning, which is a budget day 13 years
01:05:22
ago.
01:05:23
Yeah.
01:05:23
Can you remember your last um
01:05:24
conversation with him?
01:05:26
Um yeah, he was agitated.
01:05:27
He was he was wanting to get out of the
01:05:29
bed. And I remember the last thing he
01:05:30
said to me was my mom. Because his mom
01:05:33
died young, he started to see his mom.
01:05:35
So the doctors said to us four days
01:05:37
before he died, he's going to die this
01:05:39
week because they can see the vitals all
01:05:40
change.
01:05:41
So, you know, I'm pleased and proud that
01:05:44
um what mom and I did that time. You
01:05:46
know, I've got two sisters. I got a twin
01:05:48
sister and I got an older sister and um
01:05:51
they were there at the end too. You
01:05:52
know, they were they were great at the
01:05:53
end. But um mom mom did it on herself.
01:05:57
You know, I was there as much as I could
01:05:58
and I don't I look back now I'm pleased
01:06:00
that I spent a shitload of time with
01:06:02
them. Well, I always did anyway, you
01:06:03
know. Um, but it hasn't been the same
01:06:05
since. You know, I could ring up and
01:06:06
discuss all sorts of things with him.
01:06:08
You know, what's the what are the
01:06:10
markets doing? What do you think of the
01:06:11
All Black team? What about all this
01:06:13
[ __ ] You know, or this or that or
01:06:15
what do you make of this or that and you
01:06:17
he sp was a spade. He'd tell me stuff.
01:06:19
But he wasn't he was very loyal. He
01:06:20
wasn't um he never he never criticized
01:06:24
people.
01:06:24
Yeah.
01:06:25
You know, he wasn't he was if he judged
01:06:26
that, he kept it within himself. Very
01:06:28
fair guy. um would spot an [ __ ] a
01:06:31
mile away, you know, and
01:06:33
good [ __ ] detector.
01:06:34
Yeah. Oh, yeah. All that [ __ ] And he
01:06:35
and did a fools, you know, you know, he
01:06:38
went to boarding school. He's got a good
01:06:39
good group of mates, you know. He knows
01:06:40
things. So, yeah. So, so yeah, I miss I
01:06:43
missed dad, but I know um you know, and
01:06:45
time does heal. Time does time does
01:06:47
you reckon? Well, no, no, it doesn't,
01:06:49
but it gives you a coping mechanism.
01:06:51
I've got a context.
01:06:55
I got, you know, um got all these basket
01:06:57
cases on my wall. a head case, a basket
01:06:59
case, you know, the hard case. And so,
01:07:02
you know, there's all these things and,
01:07:03
you know, dad's dad's top for me. But,
01:07:06
um, I've learned to cope.
01:07:08
You know, I've learned to
01:07:09
That's the thing. The time doesn't
01:07:10
necessarily heal the wounds, but you
01:07:12
just you you adapt to this new normal.
01:07:15
You have to,
01:07:16
but it leaves a [ __ ] hole.
01:07:17
Leaves a massive hole, but you have to
01:07:18
walk through it.
01:07:19
And you because the other option is not
01:07:21
carrying on. You have to walk through
01:07:23
it. You have to carry on. You got I got
01:07:25
my own kids. M
01:07:26
um so I I look back with pride with my
01:07:28
relationship with him now and I wish you
01:07:30
know he will never know what what I what
01:07:32
I did. Um he'll know what I was heading
01:07:36
to but he won't know how how it ended.
01:07:38
Um I'm not a big I'm not a religious guy
01:07:40
and I'm not a big after after life sort
01:07:42
of guy. Um but I had this dream once
01:07:45
that he was a he was a he came back as a
01:07:47
as a what do you call them? Um
01:07:48
an angel.
01:07:49
No no definitely not an angel. He got
01:07:52
caned far too much at St. Ken College
01:07:54
for that. He came back as a fan tale. I
01:07:55
think it was it was a paka or something.
01:07:58
Yeah. Yeah. Isn't there something
01:08:01
about that spiritual?
01:08:02
I'm sure there is.
01:08:03
And every time I'd be at the back of my
01:08:04
house, especially late at night, don't
01:08:07
ask what it's doing late at night
01:08:08
outside the back of my house, but there
01:08:10
would be that when I left the house that
01:08:12
last day before I sold it, I was out
01:08:14
there just putting something back and in
01:08:17
the tree was this pew walker, this
01:08:18
little fans out at night. They I don't
01:08:21
know if they ever seen at night and it
01:08:22
flew around me and then flew off. I
01:08:23
thought
01:08:26
I don't think I'm loopy, but to me that
01:08:29
was just a sign off, you know.
01:08:30
I'm sure it's it's a moldy legend or
01:08:31
something, isn't it?
01:08:32
Yeah. I don't wasn't strong on the multi
01:08:34
legend stuff, so I don't know.
01:08:37
He was a Duncan. It's me.
01:08:40
O, he was in a different era.
01:08:43
Yeah. Do Do you think he'd be proud of
01:08:44
you though of the man you are and the
01:08:46
man you've become?
01:08:48
Yeah, because I look I look at my son
01:08:49
and if if my son um because some things
01:08:53
out of your control as well, you know,
01:08:54
you know, marriage breakups happen, you
01:08:55
know, 50%, you know, 50% fail. Um [ __ ]
01:08:59
happens, you know. Um it's how you deal
01:09:00
with and how you recover and how you
01:09:01
move on is is was always dad's
01:09:03
philosophy. So I think he'd be hopefully
01:09:05
hopefully he'd be proud of me. Um and um
01:09:09
content to the knowledge that I'm I'm
01:09:11
okay, you know, I'm still alive. I
01:09:12
haven't done anything. I I you know I
01:09:15
haven't I haven't been so bad that I'm
01:09:18
I'm in jail or I haven't you know I
01:09:20
haven't you know yeah I've done lots of
01:09:22
things wrong but we all do things wrong
01:09:25
because we're human beings.
01:09:26
So I'm still here and I I'm still
01:09:28
working and I've had a really privileged
01:09:30
life and really privileged career. Um
01:09:33
and I've been to 90 countries. I've met
01:09:35
promises and presidents and I've covered
01:09:37
all that stuff. Had every job under the
01:09:38
sun and I'm grateful and thankful for
01:09:40
people who have given me those jobs.
01:09:41
I've hopefully I've I've done the right
01:09:43
thing by them and worked hard and
01:09:44
achieved things. You know, we all we've
01:09:46
all won awards and things over the years
01:09:48
and that's that they're nice to win, but
01:09:50
um it's the people that you've that
01:09:52
you've worked with and the the people
01:09:54
that you've done the stories on and your
01:09:55
family and all that that matter, you
01:09:56
know, like for me, all that matters for
01:09:58
me is my kids, you know. Um and they're
01:10:01
navigating a [ __ ] strange world, you
01:10:03
know? They're navigating a tough world.
01:10:04
Really tough world, you know. My son
01:10:06
doesn't watch TV or listen to the radio
01:10:08
because it's all done on this, you know.
01:10:09
It's all done
01:10:09
on the phone. Yeah. [ __ ] YouTube and
01:10:11
whatnot,
01:10:12
mate. He's a Tik Tok. He's a Tik Tok
01:10:13
man, you know. He's He's Mr. Tik Tok,
01:10:14
you know. He goes, we walk down the
01:10:16
street. Yo, baby. Oh, he sees someone on
01:10:18
TikTok, you know. [ __ ] this dude, bro?
01:10:21
You know.
01:10:21
Oh, yes. It's it's its own sort of
01:10:23
culture and environment.
01:10:24
Oh, yeah. But it's dangerous as hell
01:10:25
because, you know, I don't want them to
01:10:27
think that life is life and
01:10:28
relationships is through a lens of Tik
01:10:30
Tok, you know, like
01:10:31
just he's smart enough to park it, you
01:10:33
know, but life's about, you know, going
01:10:34
and playing footy or going fishing or
01:10:36
doing ballet or whatever, you know,
01:10:38
having other outside events that don't
01:10:40
be controlled by a device, you know.
01:10:41
Also, just before you mentioned um, you
01:10:43
know, the uh resilience project and how
01:10:46
the there there's basically a lot of
01:10:48
people in the world that are happier
01:10:48
with a lot less. Um, so if you look on
01:10:51
Instagram, it's like um you're comparing
01:10:52
up because everyone's living their best
01:10:54
life. Um, but you're a lot happier if
01:10:56
you just compare down and be grateful
01:10:58
for the things that you do have rather
01:10:59
than the things that you don't.
01:11:00
It's so important, you know, and I I
01:11:02
don't compare cuz I can't be [ __ ] you
01:11:03
know. Um um um but you know, I used to
01:11:07
think maybe material things were
01:11:09
important, but not overly. So, you know,
01:11:12
all I want in life is um uh my kids to
01:11:16
have the fullest, longest, happiest
01:11:17
lives, you know, and get into healthy
01:11:19
relationships. Like, healthy
01:11:20
relationships and content relationships
01:11:22
is really important for me now, you
01:11:24
know, after failing on that front. So,
01:11:26
that's important because that's about
01:11:27
the health of your child, you know,
01:11:28
that's about the their happiness. So,
01:11:30
that's really important and money can't
01:11:32
buy that. um judgment and being a good
01:11:34
person can um I'll be happy to be um in
01:11:37
the hook you in and you know fishing
01:11:40
every day with a small small little
01:11:42
house that you know that's that's warm
01:11:44
and doesn't leak and um a four-wheel
01:11:47
drive out the front with a boat that um
01:11:49
that works and floats and doesn't kill
01:11:51
me for the rest of my life. Idelic
01:11:54
and and without without any trouble
01:11:56
without any any you know and and if
01:11:59
there are gang members down the road
01:12:00
which there are in Northland um how you
01:12:02
go mate you know I don't get in your way
01:12:05
you don't get in mine I'm not judging
01:12:06
you cuz you're in a gang you would have
01:12:08
you would had a [ __ ] life of growing up
01:12:10
I know gangsters who've been sexually
01:12:11
abused from the ages of four through to
01:12:13
16 and their fathers went to jail and
01:12:16
they came out of jail they still abused
01:12:18
them
01:12:18
they their lives were set in stone ro
01:12:20
from I'm not going to judge them We're
01:12:22
too quick to report.
01:12:23
Yeah. Yeah. You I mean you don't you
01:12:25
don't know what baggage anyone's
01:12:26
carrying, do you? That's the thing. Um
01:12:28
just sorry just going back to your dad
01:12:30
stuff like did you have any counseling
01:12:32
or anything after that? Have you ever
01:12:33
seen a therapist?
01:12:34
Yeah, I have seen a counselor. Yeah, I
01:12:35
saw a guy um
01:12:37
[ __ ] funny. The guy in um marriage
01:12:40
counseling, right? Cuz our marriage was
01:12:41
on the rocks and I wanted to try and
01:12:42
save it.
01:12:43
Right.
01:12:43
And so she told me I need to go to
01:12:46
counseling.
01:12:47
I need to go to counseling. I tried it
01:12:49
off to counseling at 200 bucks a
01:12:51
session. And the dude says to me,
01:12:53
"Where's your wife?" And I said, "She
01:12:54
doesn't need to come."
01:12:59
He goes, "What?" I said, "She doesn't
01:13:00
need to come." But I I'm the guy with
01:13:02
all the issues. He goes, "He heard this
01:13:06
before." He goes, "Well, I'll give you a
01:13:08
few sessions and we'll get her in." I
01:13:09
said, "How's that going to go?" "Well,
01:13:10
I'll tell you how it goes." He said,
01:13:11
"And she'll be she'll do this, this,
01:13:14
this, and this, and then she won't come
01:13:15
back." And
01:13:18
She accused him of ripping it off or
01:13:20
something, you know. Um, I really found
01:13:22
him great. He compartmentalized these
01:13:24
things. He took all my compartments off
01:13:25
the shelf and broke them down. He drew
01:13:27
with these graphics and he was bloody
01:13:29
great. And I still drive past his house
01:13:31
and think he was he it's like when you I
01:13:35
I did some boxing in one. I trained for
01:13:36
boxing and once you train for boxing,
01:13:38
you learn this your strength. You learn
01:13:40
what a what a punch can do and so you
01:13:42
respect that. And he gave me the tools
01:13:45
and power of contentment and being
01:13:47
comfortable that I had some help.
01:13:49
M
01:13:50
and everything he said would happen
01:13:52
happened and I was if I hadn't had him I
01:13:55
would have thought that was strange that
01:13:56
you know but he made it okay. Yeah. You
01:13:58
know so he was he was really really
01:14:00
really really helpful.
01:14:01
Yeah. I think it's hard for guys our age
01:14:03
to sort of open up but it's a good thing
01:14:05
to do
01:14:05
mate. This wouldn't have happened years
01:14:07
ago. Like I had a mate of mine. He was
01:14:09
really good rugby player. Played super
01:14:10
rugby. Played New Zealand Maldi and big,
01:14:12
strong, strapping, handsome um man,
01:14:16
kids, wife, everything. All from the
01:14:17
outside all good. He was suffering
01:14:19
depression. The black dog. And I've had
01:14:21
mates who have who have who've been
01:14:23
pulled out of a car with tried to cast
01:14:25
themselves.
01:14:26
You know, we got to them in time. This
01:14:29
guy came across one night to our house.
01:14:31
I wonder why he just showed up like
01:14:33
that. He said, "Just talk to me, Duncy."
01:14:35
And he just want to talk all night. And
01:14:37
he goes, "What I'm saying is I'm
01:14:39
depressed." And I said, "What do you
01:14:41
mean? What's wrong there, mate? You got
01:14:42
everything." And he goes, "I'm
01:14:44
depressed." Now, was it because he used
01:14:47
to be well doing well in rugby and he no
01:14:49
longer was? It was all these all these
01:14:51
all these issues.
01:14:52
And so all night I sat there with him
01:14:53
and by the end of the night, we'd
01:14:55
finished talking. He was all this weight
01:14:57
was off his shoulders and he started
01:14:58
getting the rotten fruit from my bowl
01:14:59
and throwing it at me on the way out. So
01:15:01
he was he he but he needs that constant
01:15:04
constant chat time and that's taxing
01:15:06
time.
01:15:07
Um
01:15:08
it is it's good to speak to your mates
01:15:10
but your mates aren't necessarily
01:15:11
trained or know the right thing to say
01:15:13
or do
01:15:14
but they just sometimes have to be there
01:15:15
to listen. Yeah.
01:15:16
Like to to so if you know so we're
01:15:18
talking today finding this quartic
01:15:20
actually you know quite you know it's
01:15:21
like a counseling session. Hope I hope
01:15:23
it's not hope it's not beaten enough. No
01:15:26
it's been great. This is real. this I
01:15:28
mean I've said stuff today that um
01:15:32
that journalists in the newspapers have
01:15:33
been trying to get out of me for for
01:15:34
decades but for some reason I don't
01:15:36
trust them but I do trust you
01:15:38
you know I appreciate that
01:15:39
it's disarming you know it's um and
01:15:41
we've we got to know each other you know
01:15:42
briefly over the years turned up and
01:15:45
tried to be ridiculous on on the edge
01:15:47
with you and over the years you know
01:15:48
during the politics when you guys show
01:15:50
interest once every three years and
01:15:51
stuff
01:15:53
and I I don't blame you um but so and I
01:15:56
really respect what you what you've
01:15:57
achieved and what you did up there and
01:15:59
I think you
01:16:00
you know with your with your you know
01:16:01
your powerhouse and and and you're
01:16:02
running and stuff you know like you
01:16:03
should be proud of yourself
01:16:05
you know
01:16:05
and maybe we don't tell people that
01:16:07
enough you know
01:16:08
I tell my son he tells me I tell him
01:16:10
every day I love him and we kiss each
01:16:12
other
01:16:13
and I never did that with my dad
01:16:14
yeah that's really cool
01:16:15
on the phone he's like to his mom love
01:16:17
you mom and even if we might have had an
01:16:19
argument okay well no you get no no bust
01:16:22
okay love you dad
01:16:23
he's always always he's a deeply um fun
01:16:26
orientated boy you know That's cool.
01:16:29
Well, we haven't even talked about the
01:16:30
um the AM show stuff. I I always thought
01:16:32
there were there must be some smoking
01:16:34
gun there because you So, you finished
01:16:35
up on the AM show and you just you just
01:16:38
disappeared. There was no farewell or
01:16:39
anything. And when when that happens in
01:16:41
media, there's usually some sort of
01:16:43
um
01:16:43
God has done something wrong.
01:16:45
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But there wasn't
01:16:46
right. There was no
01:16:47
I I'd um
01:16:49
So, this was um uh August 23, 2021.
01:16:52
They were so they wanted to change
01:16:53
things up,
01:16:53
right? Uh, and I didn't there were new
01:16:57
owners. They probably walked in and saw
01:16:59
what I was paid and they put a red ring
01:17:00
around it and said, "We're going to be
01:17:03
scaling back." I was, "What's this guy
01:17:04
doing this for?" You know, that's
01:17:05
probably the truth. That's probably the
01:17:06
truth realistically.
01:17:07
Yeah. Yeah. But, um, so I knew they
01:17:09
would make some changes and I disagreed
01:17:11
with it cuz it was rating well and it
01:17:13
was it had we done five five long hard
01:17:16
years of establishing ourselves and
01:17:17
it was you and Mark Richardson and Ame.
01:17:19
Yeah. Five years is a long time for um
01:17:21
breakfast TV radio show because it was
01:17:23
both you know hard to do and um so Paul
01:17:27
had done two years so we done five after
01:17:28
that and I loved working with you know
01:17:30
Mandra Mark it was fun had some fun
01:17:32
times um but I disagreed with it and the
01:17:35
relationship sailed from there from
01:17:36
there and then I went on then I went on
01:17:39
um I went on leave for two weeks school
01:17:41
holidays to my mother sends me to her
01:17:44
brother's to my uncle's he had a he had
01:17:46
a motel you know in in in Topo and And
01:17:49
he sends me there and it's full of the
01:17:51
old emergency housing people. This mom
01:17:53
thought I needed a break. So she sends
01:17:54
me to this next to me. There was a
01:17:56
prostitute hooker. There was the pimp.
01:17:58
There was a drug dealer. There was a guy
01:17:59
on really serious assault charges. And
01:18:01
then there's another family down there
01:18:02
that couldn't get accommodation
01:18:02
otherwise. And another hooker. And I
01:18:04
said this come to Jesus moment. This is
01:18:07
great. This is there were parties every
01:18:10
night. And my uncle was just pulling in
01:18:12
huge coin from working income. He just
01:18:14
kept paying these bills. No wonder he
01:18:15
sold it. Went to the next place. But
01:18:17
what's going to happen to these people?
01:18:18
and M's like, "Who are these people? Why
01:18:20
are these people going to their house
01:18:21
every night?" Well, this is what it is,
01:18:24
mate. M will tell you now. So, you know,
01:18:26
oh my god,
01:18:27
thanks for the holiday, Mom. And my
01:18:28
uncle charged me 500 bucks for the for
01:18:29
the for the compliment, you know. Um but
01:18:31
I came back from there and I came back
01:18:33
from the holiday and
01:18:37
um that was sour from there. I didn't go
01:18:39
back on. I think I might have gone on
01:18:41
for two days and then um then we
01:18:44
basically we went into a meeting and
01:18:46
they said, "We're going to change." I
01:18:47
said, "I don't agree with it." and I
01:18:48
took a line of the sand on it because I
01:18:50
didn't want to I didn't want to I didn't
01:18:52
want to do what they wanted to do.
01:18:53
So, not good on you leaving on your own
01:18:55
terms, but um
01:18:56
and it was feels feels um I don't know.
01:18:59
It feels mean that you didn't get to say
01:19:00
farewell to the built.
01:19:02
I wanted to and because we were
01:19:04
disagreeing on the on the future. I
01:19:05
don't think they trusted me to get back
01:19:07
on air. You know what to to to say a
01:19:10
positive goodbye. Now, I'm professional.
01:19:12
I could have
01:19:13
we fast forward two years. What the way
01:19:14
you exited today FM that maybe they had
01:19:16
their reason to be It's all there.
01:19:18
That's the And the great thing about the
01:19:20
I tell you what I tell you what with
01:19:21
Media Works and you know these guys. Um
01:19:23
and it's a fun it's fun place to work
01:19:25
and that sort of thing. Um it's always a
01:19:27
challenge a brand you know especially in
01:19:28
TV was
01:19:29
um but um they I I was we lost our jobs
01:19:34
in the heat of the moment right so I'm
01:19:36
not going to say well I'll be back to
01:19:38
you shortly with a prepared statement
01:19:39
you know
01:19:40
mate this is [ __ ] this I thought this
01:19:42
was betrayal because we've been told all
01:19:43
these things. So to me in those moments
01:19:45
that was now I said to the bosses
01:19:47
afterwards um because they came to me
01:19:49
and said you know we want to talk to
01:19:50
you. Um so they clearly thought that I
01:19:53
had something more to give. I thought I
01:19:54
did and but I said all those things and
01:19:56
I wrote that column and I said you guys
01:20:00
need to be adult enough to deal with
01:20:01
that and I'm adult enough to deal with
01:20:03
the fact that you've just sacked this
01:20:04
life.
01:20:05
And we both shook on it and said sweet
01:20:07
go and I think this really adult this
01:20:09
really adult thing. This is not
01:20:10
personal. Yeah,
01:20:11
this is professionals business and I'll
01:20:13
prove to you guys that you know um I'm
01:20:16
still sweet carrying on. You have got to
01:20:17
prove to me that you still want to
01:20:18
support it.
01:20:19
Well, they have and um
01:20:22
yeah, it's a really mature working
01:20:24
relationship, isn't it? When you can do
01:20:25
that. I mean, I the things I said about
01:20:27
them, don't send your bloody Australian
01:20:29
henchman over here and [ __ ] do us
01:20:30
over, you know? And I said all these
01:20:32
things. Um
01:20:33
walking back in the door,
01:20:34
walking back like [ __ ] I'm back, you
01:20:37
know. And I tell you what, people and
01:20:39
I've I've had moment I've you know sat
01:20:41
down with the chief executive and and
01:20:42
you know and the two IC 3 and I've said
01:20:45
you know I stand by those things. Um
01:20:47
it's not personal and they've said the
01:20:48
same thing to me and we've had a really
01:20:50
a really good really good robust chat
01:20:53
about it.
01:20:54
Honest debate should they there's no
01:20:56
handbook for closing down a radio
01:20:58
station. There's no oh this this is the
01:21:00
way things well
01:21:02
you know it was done badly and um um and
01:21:07
the company has paid a price for that
01:21:09
you know it's been in tatters you know
01:21:11
over it but but um it doesn't mean that
01:21:14
they can't do it right.
01:21:15
Yeah you know
01:21:16
and and how um how's uh how have the
01:21:18
other today FM staff been with you like
01:21:20
do they think you're a traitor for going
01:21:22
back? Um, not that they've told me and
01:21:24
and and and I've and I've seen some of
01:21:26
them, right? So, I was I one night I had
01:21:28
a decision to do. Do I podcast? What is
01:21:30
this podcasting thing again? Or do I
01:21:33
take the legal action? Now, I'm I have
01:21:35
I've had remember my life. I got lawyers
01:21:36
running around the family court and
01:21:37
everything. So, I was over lawyers, you
01:21:39
know, I really started to not to dislike
01:21:41
lawyers. So, that night I had to make a
01:21:43
decision. Go with my gut. Now, I'm a
01:21:45
worker. My gut said carry on. you have
01:21:48
good enough relationships with all those
01:21:50
guys despite what you've already said
01:21:52
because they need to face the fact of
01:21:54
how they they how it was presented to us
01:21:55
too, you know. So, they've got some [ __ ]
01:21:57
to deal with.
01:21:57
Oh, yeah. They they treated you guys
01:21:58
badly.
01:21:59
So, so you know, I mean I mean and they
01:22:01
ended up saying to me, "Oh, no, you were
01:22:02
really um professional on your way out.
01:22:03
Thanks." So, if that's professional then
01:22:06
then sweet. So, we can Oh, can we deal
01:22:08
with that?
01:22:09
They know that um if I'm on your side,
01:22:12
I'm on your side.
01:22:13
You know, I'll go into the trenches for
01:22:14
you. Um, and I appreciate the
01:22:17
opportunity. It's good to launch a
01:22:19
podcast with support around you. Yeah.
01:22:20
Yeah. Because I didn't know what I was
01:22:21
doing.
01:22:22
I still don't. But um
01:22:23
Oh, I'll tell you, as someone that has
01:22:25
um done it on his on it on on his own,
01:22:27
it's um it's it's it's scary and it's
01:22:31
lonely and it's um and it's hard and
01:22:33
there's there's I've got some help and
01:22:35
support now, but uh there's no one to
01:22:37
celebrate the wins with. You have a good
01:22:38
win and
01:22:39
Friday night drinks already, don't you?
01:22:40
Yeah.
01:22:42
Maybe it's Friday afternoon, but you
01:22:43
know what I Although I'm not big on
01:22:45
office camaraderie. I think it's all
01:22:46
[ __ ] really, you know, but but but
01:22:48
um
01:22:48
your wins are, you know, you will know
01:22:50
when your wins, you know, you look at
01:22:52
your numbers or whatever and you cannot
01:22:54
hide in a podcast.
01:22:56
The numbers do not lie because the
01:22:57
numbers they will tell you who's who's
01:22:59
um listening, where they are, when
01:23:01
they're there, how many times they've
01:23:03
been there, um what country they're in,
01:23:05
and like the metrics and the the
01:23:06
dashboard and the data is [ __ ]
01:23:08
brilliant.
01:23:08
Yeah, I love it.
01:23:09
It is. It is honest. I love it. You
01:23:11
know, I've had to stop getting obsessed
01:23:13
with the numbers.
01:23:14
Oh, I know. You got to stop that. Yeah.
01:23:14
And I used to be like that on social
01:23:16
media, but I came off social media
01:23:17
because I thought I turning actually
01:23:18
mentally ill by fighting people on
01:23:20
social media. You know, if you if you
01:23:22
say controversial stuff and you are at
01:23:24
the forefront of political journalism,
01:23:25
you think, people are going to smash you
01:23:26
all the time. I got sick of being
01:23:27
smashed, you know, and wanted to sm
01:23:30
responding to one day. I knew that was
01:23:31
the end of me. I had to stop.
01:23:32
Yeah. Well, you don't need it. Who are
01:23:33
these people?
01:23:34
Nobody [ __ ] that live in their own
01:23:36
little bar. So, so, so, so
01:23:39
I don't I don't engage. got good people
01:23:40
at Media Works doing all that social
01:23:42
media stuff, you know, and I'll jump on
01:23:43
every now and then, send some messages.
01:23:44
Um uh but I couldn't have I couldn't I'm
01:23:48
I'm not entrepreneurial, you know. Um
01:23:50
I'm I'm not um I don't know I I know how
01:23:53
to do my business, my job, but do I know
01:23:56
how to run the place and set it up from
01:23:57
scratch? Like you you broken new ground.
01:24:00
You've got a
01:24:02
neon sign with your name on it and it's
01:24:04
and it's I mean what sort of what sort
01:24:06
of build do you get for that? you know,
01:24:07
like it's at least 1,500 bucks plus
01:24:09
power, you know, and it's cool.
01:24:11
No, company did it for free, which is
01:24:12
very nice. Um, but your your podcast is
01:24:14
going great. Sh, we've um we we've
01:24:16
talked for so long.
01:24:17
How long we talk for?
01:24:18
Uh, almost an hour and a half now. Do
01:24:19
you know I feel like I've only talked
01:24:20
about half my life.
01:24:21
Yeah. I we might have to get you back
01:24:22
for a part two.
01:24:23
Do you see how part one goes first? If
01:24:25
the numbers are no good, then
01:24:26
Yeah. s sitting um on it. That's
01:24:28
something I've stopped obsessing about
01:24:30
the numbers so much cuz you have a I
01:24:31
have a good chat with someone and it may
01:24:33
not get the same numbers as
01:24:34
but you've got [ __ ] out of me that that
01:24:36
that people that people Thank you that
01:24:38
people I trust you.
01:24:40
Yeah.
01:24:40
Um um I don't know. I mean is it because
01:24:43
I I see a like-minded 50-year-old
01:24:45
opposite me or a guy that will
01:24:47
understand, you know, if I say I've fell
01:24:49
into the gutter on this issue, I look at
01:24:51
you and you sort of nod at me like you
01:24:54
I joined you in the gutter, you know.
01:24:56
So, so
01:24:56
what gutter were you in?
01:24:57
Well, you on the K road chicken to the
01:24:59
left there. So, so, but yeah, I've
01:25:01
lived.
01:25:01
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you have. I think that's
01:25:03
good. Um,
01:25:04
is it just this is the longest chat
01:25:06
we've ever had, you and I sitting down
01:25:07
together. I I wonder have you I mean,
01:25:09
you're the same similar age to me. So,
01:25:11
when you're growing up in the 70s and
01:25:12
the 80s, [ __ ] just wasn't diagnosed the
01:25:14
way it is now. But, do you think you're
01:25:16
ADHD
01:25:17
or or on the on the spectrum somewhere?
01:25:20
Do you think I am?
01:25:22
Well, I Well, I think I am. I wonder if
01:25:24
you are.
01:25:25
Um, I hope so. I I mean I hope I'm I
01:25:30
mean I I speak fast. I'm I'm The guys in
01:25:33
the press gallery used to call me
01:25:34
Ritalin boy.
01:25:37
Yeah. You like that? So, um um I think I
01:25:42
we broke a fax machine over that cuz we
01:25:43
put a scrum down and whoever won, you
01:25:45
know, won the rights not to call me
01:25:46
that. But um um I I don't I think um
01:25:51
well, did we diagnose me as narcissistic
01:25:53
earlier on in the interview? Yeah. No,
01:25:55
your ex-wife diagnosed you as
01:25:57
narcissistic.
01:25:57
Well, she put a herald cutting in front
01:25:59
of me.
01:25:59
We we both agreed that um there's
01:26:01
elements of narcissism and a lot of
01:26:03
people.
01:26:03
Oh, me especially. Yeah. But woman women
01:26:06
are women can be bad too. Like you know,
01:26:07
woman can be really bad. But um what
01:26:10
what is ADHD? Attention deficit
01:26:12
disorder.
01:26:12
Yeah. Hyperactiv hyperactivity disorder.
01:26:15
My twin sister was probably more
01:26:16
hyperactive than me.
01:26:17
Um but I think I am I'm an active
01:26:20
relaxer. M
01:26:21
so to relax I might grab my fishing rod
01:26:23
at 10:00 at night and go down to the
01:26:25
harbor bridge and fish down there and I
01:26:27
find that really um rewarding and I find
01:26:30
it really relaxing
01:26:31
uh to be doing stuff you know I um I
01:26:34
don't I don't I sleep but I sleep across
01:26:37
my bed rather than up and I don't I
01:26:39
don't hop in the sheets I don't hop in
01:26:40
because I'm I very warm person so I just
01:26:43
see I see my
01:26:44
You're running a hot temperature.
01:26:45
Yeah. Well, my mom said to me the other
01:26:46
night, she came in and I I zonked and I
01:26:48
crashed out of my clothes with her head
01:26:50
down and she I was across the bed. I
01:26:52
said, "I'm always like that. What's
01:26:53
unusual about that?" I just I walk in
01:26:54
and I crash across the bed, you know.
01:26:56
But when you've been single for a few
01:26:57
years, you can do that, you know?
01:26:59
Yeah.
01:26:59
Um
01:27:02
Yeah.
01:27:03
I wonder if you are. I like I mean
01:27:04
there's test. What does it mean though?
01:27:06
What does it mean?
01:27:07
Well, that's the thing. There's tests
01:27:08
you can do to find out, but I'm I'm not
01:27:10
sure how to change me.
01:27:12
Well Well, I don't want to be changed
01:27:14
now. Like if it means I slow down and
01:27:16
become, you know, sort of more of a
01:27:18
ponderous, I don't want to be like that.
01:27:20
Yeah. Yeah.
01:27:20
You know, you're only here once.
01:27:22
Make your mark and go.
01:27:24
How's um how's how's your health? Are
01:27:25
you are you worried about dying? Like
01:27:27
you you know, your dad died painfully
01:27:29
young.
01:27:29
I I've always felt like I'm an ox, you
01:27:31
know, like
01:27:33
except except except the other night I'm
01:27:35
I'm um um
01:27:38
I was um I we're doing some tackling.
01:27:41
Remember my son? And he's he's just got
01:27:44
um he's he's a big boy, but he's just
01:27:45
got taller and bit leaner and he's doing
01:27:47
weights now, you know, and just gentle
01:27:49
just growing into himself.
01:27:50
Yeah. Yeah. And um so I notic, you know,
01:27:53
on the field he's he's a good tough
01:27:54
player, but whenever he takes me on, he
01:27:56
toughens up even more like I'm not going
01:27:58
to take out the old man. I'm like,
01:28:00
"Okay, well, you what you know about me,
01:28:02
P, you know, you know, in my day, I
01:28:04
could I could do this, too." And but I'm
01:28:06
50. And the other night he he we got
01:28:08
this little little we went down to the
01:28:10
punch raing grounds and in between the
01:28:12
post you run at me and if you can get
01:28:14
past me and score another post then you
01:28:15
know you win and vice versa. So you know
01:28:17
I'm running at him he runs at me and he
01:28:19
goes can you tackle or not dad you know
01:28:20
cuz I go quite light on him I take his
01:28:22
head off anyway he challenged me to
01:28:24
tackle him. So I went I wanted to show
01:28:26
him how to do you know he knows how to
01:28:27
tackle properly but so I went low. So I
01:28:29
went in there and go, he was like rock
01:28:32
hard solid buddy thighs and you know
01:28:34
when I hit him and then my neck just
01:28:36
went I heard this I heard this I heard
01:28:38
this compress compressing it and went
01:28:40
like this and I said, "Oh shit." And he
01:28:44
goes and he's very caring. He goes, "Oh,
01:28:45
what what did I do?" And I said, "Well,
01:28:47
don't fall on me for a start." Which he
01:28:48
did. And I just I just said, "Oh." And
01:28:50
then I realiz [ __ ] And the last couple
01:28:53
of days I've been rubbing um you know um
01:28:56
like deep heat
01:28:57
all that [ __ ] I' got about three or
01:28:58
four different and I've even got the
01:28:59
spray one that you know puts it out of
01:29:00
misery. So I'm just a bit stiff in the
01:29:02
neck. But I've realized you know some
01:29:05
something happened in the 40s. Men in
01:29:07
their 40s to watch it.
01:29:09
Lots of stuff happened to me in my 40s.
01:29:10
Um I I used to be able to run and then
01:29:13
suddenly I got then suddenly I struggled
01:29:16
to um you know your legs become tight
01:29:18
and sore and um cuz I played rugby for
01:29:20
quite quite some time and and you know
01:29:23
enjoyed the confrontation of it all.
01:29:25
Yeah.
01:29:26
Now everything hurts you know I've got
01:29:27
um I don't know what Richard Mc
01:29:31
he seems like he's in great Nick though.
01:29:32
I know but he's well he's just kept
01:29:34
busy. He's kept running and you got to
01:29:36
keep moving. So um I've I've cycled.
01:29:38
I've I've run a half marathon. Um uh I
01:29:42
do a lot of fishing and so I do I always
01:29:44
try hunting physical, you know.
01:29:46
Um but I could be healthier. Yeah.
01:29:48
Yeah. Um how how close um do you think
01:29:51
you are now to being the person that you
01:29:53
want to be?
01:29:53
Do you feel like you're there?
01:29:54
No, I'm not there yet. No, no, no. I'm
01:29:56
not there. Got plenty to do yet. Um
01:29:58
I think that's good though. If anyone
01:30:00
says if you ask someone that question,
01:30:02
they go, I'm there now. You're wanking.
01:30:03
It's like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't
01:30:05
think I'll ever get there.
01:30:06
I think I think you've got to be
01:30:07
constantly changing, right? You only
01:30:08
ever get there in your own mind. Yeah.
01:30:09
But you never get there properly.
01:30:11
Um
01:30:12
what do you what do you think your big
01:30:13
work on?
01:30:14
Do you know um
01:30:16
uh getting a house and settling down
01:30:18
settling down again, you know, setting
01:30:20
down I want to you know I I need to I
01:30:22
need to I want to you know you need a
01:30:24
place to call your pet but my that my
01:30:27
calling is up north.
01:30:29
Um a lot of my friends
01:30:31
hard though with the the career you do
01:30:33
because everything is Oakuckland based
01:30:34
right?
01:30:34
But it doesn't have to be anymore. like
01:30:36
what what we're doing here in central
01:30:38
you are you're as central Oakland as you
01:30:40
can be right.
01:30:40
What's stopping you doing this in um
01:30:42
Ekatahuna?
01:30:42
Yeah, it's true actually. Yeah. Yeah.
01:30:44
Sorry, I I take that back. Paul Holmes,
01:30:46
didn't he did the last couple of years
01:30:47
of his ZB show from his house in Hawks
01:30:49
Bay?
01:30:49
Yeah. And a lot of lot of lot of guys do
01:30:51
that. Um but um the bosses just like
01:30:54
you. They're going to see, you know,
01:30:56
tell you how much of a pay cut you're
01:30:58
about to take, you know, but um um also
01:31:00
you have to life is um is a marathon.
01:31:03
You know, not a sprint.
01:31:04
There's no sprint. If you sprint, you
01:31:06
die. So, it's a marathon. And um I mean,
01:31:10
look at Tony Beach sprint, you know. So,
01:31:12
so it's there's there's a lot more to
01:31:15
give, you know.
01:31:15
Yeah.
01:31:16
And what I would love to do is my I I I
01:31:19
I
01:31:21
in a very non um sort of Jimmy Seville,
01:31:25
Ralph Harris way. I love kids and I love
01:31:27
I love seeing kids develop, you know,
01:31:29
and so I've had a lot to do with buses
01:31:31
friends over the years who've sort of
01:31:33
come into the house and been there all
01:31:34
weekend, every weekend, you know,
01:31:35
they're from big families, rugby league
01:31:36
guys. So, you know, I've provided and
01:31:39
helped them, help parent them, you know,
01:31:41
they a lot of the families call me the
01:31:42
white dad, you know, because I take the
01:31:44
kids on and and I get enormous joy in um
01:31:47
in a lot of kids that, you know, haven't
01:31:49
got the means to or the resources, the
01:31:50
family taking them on doing it. And I
01:31:52
would love to one day be able to um have
01:31:55
this huge pot of money which um I
01:31:58
oversaw which I allocated to um talent
01:32:01
that I could I could identify in the
01:32:03
community and and put them on the path
01:32:05
to success. That would be my that would
01:32:07
be my dream job.
01:32:08
Like a mentor or a big buddy sort of
01:32:10
thing.
01:32:10
Yeah. Yeah. just like a like a a head of
01:32:12
a trust
01:32:13
that um that um would identify kids and
01:32:18
um bring them through, you know, cuz a
01:32:20
couple of my mates have played really
01:32:22
top level sport and and I've learned a
01:32:24
lot them about um sporting success and
01:32:28
what's necessary and you know the psych
01:32:30
psychology of it all and everything and
01:32:32
and and
01:32:33
I played enough sport to also to put it
01:32:36
all into context. There's some amazing
01:32:38
talent out there that is just not
01:32:39
harnessed.
01:32:39
Yeah. There's a lot of kids that make it
01:32:41
in the first 10 years who are never
01:32:42
going to carry on because they're going
01:32:44
to bomb out the physically and mentally
01:32:45
they don't have it. They made all the
01:32:47
rep teams at 10 and 11 with the dad was
01:32:49
a coach or something. But these other
01:32:51
kids that that sit in the all these
01:32:53
pockets around New Zealand
01:32:54
which their talent goes to waste, you
01:32:56
know, I'd love to be able to just be a
01:32:58
small part of a solution around
01:33:00
something like that. It'll probably
01:33:01
never happen, but um it would be
01:33:03
exciting.
01:33:04
Yeah. Yeah, it would be. It would be.
01:33:05
And if you're thinking about it, I don't
01:33:07
know. I sort of think manifesting does
01:33:08
sort of work in a way if you think
01:33:10
visual visualize. I used to visualize
01:33:11
when I played rugby. I used to visualize
01:33:13
what what we could do that day and
01:33:14
sometimes it happened. It worked. I know
01:33:16
I know especially of one child one kid
01:33:18
uses a mate and his age
01:33:20
now. Yeah. Most kids don't make it.
01:33:22
Okay. But it's top sport you know um you
01:33:25
go to school out of all these people
01:33:27
here none of you will be all blacks. You
01:33:28
know you need to understand this. They
01:33:30
all want to be. So you don't tell them
01:33:31
the truth. But I know one kid who who is
01:33:34
an astonishing um rugby slugby league
01:33:37
player. Not big, but he's just
01:33:39
enormously strong, enormously fast,
01:33:41
enormously gifted, and enormously tough
01:33:43
mentally and physically.
01:33:45
I'd love to be able to help him. He's
01:33:47
got 10 brothers and sisters.
01:33:48
Yeah.
01:33:49
Um and I I've had a lot to do with him,
01:33:51
you know, and this kid, I'd love to be
01:33:53
able to, you know, get a pot of money
01:33:55
say put him into a school which
01:33:57
promotes, you know, his excellence.
01:33:59
I wonder if we don't promote excellence.
01:34:00
What worries me is that you know in all
01:34:02
the schools these days everyone's we're
01:34:04
not we're embarrassed to promote
01:34:05
excellence because it then highlights
01:34:07
ordinary and so everyone's ordinary. No
01:34:10
no no no there is some people are born
01:34:13
differently they have different skills
01:34:15
and different levels of ability
01:34:17
get them highlight them embrace them
01:34:20
push them.
01:34:22
Not everyone can be that and not can be
01:34:24
this. You know these people here will
01:34:25
still be success stories. Yeah.
01:34:27
Remarkable ones. But if we can identify
01:34:30
this, they may not make it, but at least
01:34:31
give it every shot that they go to.
01:34:32
100%. And do you think um would would
01:34:36
you marry again?
01:34:37
No.
01:34:39
Isn't there part of you like that that I
01:34:41
mean you
01:34:43
Okay, Winston.
01:34:44
Okay.
01:34:47
No, but um I'm thinking like the the way
01:34:48
that you were raised and your your you
01:34:50
know your the wonderful relationship
01:34:51
that your parents had. Like is is there
01:34:53
not part of you that like like yearns
01:34:55
for that or wants that knows what's
01:34:56
possible?
01:34:57
No, cuz I'm too cynical and too
01:34:58
skeptical now.
01:34:58
You've just been burnt.
01:34:59
Well, it's just that it doesn't mean
01:35:01
anything. You know, if you can exit
01:35:02
marriage so easy and lots of people do,
01:35:04
what's the point of it?
01:35:05
Yeah.
01:35:05
You know, like you know, marriage has
01:35:06
been a complete failure.
01:35:07
Yeah. But
01:35:08
as much as been a success,
01:35:09
no, but do you think you you you're yet
01:35:11
to find that one that one true love and
01:35:12
may maybe you need to become more the
01:35:14
person that that you're growing into
01:35:16
before that person is
01:35:17
Yeah. Look, you know, um,
01:35:21
and I haven't been looking, so, you
01:35:23
know, but I have started thinking about
01:35:25
this and in the leadup to speaking with
01:35:27
you today. I actually asked myself that
01:35:29
question last night, strangely. Is there
01:35:31
is there's no one really at the moment,
01:35:34
you know, that
01:35:36
I haven't put myself out there and I'm
01:35:37
not interested.
01:35:38
You're not on any of the apps.
01:35:39
[ __ ] No.
01:35:40
There was that thing. No, no, no, no. I
01:35:42
talked to guy on Spinner about this. No,
01:35:44
it's too weird.
01:35:45
It's too weird. He was on it and then it
01:35:47
became a story in the spy. Embarrassing.
01:35:49
He was like you with the Ashley Madison
01:35:51
scandal.
01:35:51
Well, well, we did. So, so
01:35:53
Ashley Madison, by the way, it's a
01:35:56
dating website,
01:35:56
but we did that at Radio Live as a as a
01:35:58
as I'm
01:35:59
there was a big like data leak and you
01:36:00
were on there.
01:36:02
Well, yeah. But we we were on there
01:36:04
because what we did was we were we were
01:36:05
doing it at Radio Live for a so we did a
01:36:07
big thing. Could I get a date on Radio
01:36:10
Live that afternoon? So, I was on there
01:36:11
openly on there because our social media
01:36:13
people signed signed us up. Um uh I also
01:36:16
went on um I think we went on Tinder
01:36:17
once too um for that purpose. Uhuh. And
01:36:20
um and I ended up with like I ended up
01:36:22
the only person that you know wanted me
01:36:24
was was this woman with like 15 cats or
01:36:25
something like
01:36:28
but I have seen how it works. I know
01:36:29
this guy this mate of mine who you know
01:36:31
it was a hookup site. He was on Tinder
01:36:33
and he'd say DD look this place go look
01:36:35
at this ding ding ding bang you you. I
01:36:37
mean I don't want that you know.
01:36:39
Yeah.
01:36:39
But how do you meet people that you know
01:36:41
I'm quite old fashioned in that sense.
01:36:42
Yeah. Um Yeah, I understand that. I feel
01:36:45
like you just you're happy on your own,
01:36:46
but then like
01:36:48
Yes. No, the silence for me in my life
01:36:49
is definitely
01:36:51
like listen to this.
01:36:58
That's definitely, you know, like so if
01:37:01
I want to drop my son off to his mom, I
01:37:03
might be driving back to home and
01:37:07
I had this house and it was dark and
01:37:09
then it was empty and the girls were,
01:37:12
you know, they're older now. 219 one's
01:37:16
my youngest daughter's in one she's
01:37:17
living her life my 21-year-old's at
01:37:19
university going to do honors and things
01:37:21
you know they they're away
01:37:24
but it's definely
01:37:25
you know I I and maybe I am ADHD maybe I
01:37:27
need people around me I need something
01:37:29
cuz there's a there's a difference
01:37:30
between being alone and being lonely
01:37:31
like being lonely is terrible
01:37:33
being alone is fine I love being alone
01:37:36
I hate being lonely
01:37:38
I I love being alone
01:37:39
there's some stats that say like
01:37:40
loneliness is a like a bigger killer
01:37:42
than cigarettes Um, well, no one's
01:37:44
smoking anymore. So, you can you can
01:37:46
vape and still be lonely. But, you know,
01:37:50
loneliness is a killer, you know, and my
01:37:51
mom has been lonely at times in the last
01:37:53
13 years when the dad has been there.
01:37:55
She said the greatest thing about me
01:37:56
going to live with her was that she can
01:37:58
hear the noise in the house again.
01:37:59
Yeah.
01:38:00
You know, and she's right beside a
01:38:01
school, Gra. And I will hear her. I I
01:38:05
will hear all these kids. So, I'll go
01:38:07
I'll go home shortly and I'll jump on my
01:38:08
computer and do some work. I'll hear the
01:38:10
kids playing. It's joyful and it's it's
01:38:13
a great filler, you know. So that's been
01:38:14
good for mom that noise next door. But
01:38:15
when it's not there, my mom
01:38:18
can fall into a little hole, you know.
01:38:19
So So
01:38:21
in many ways, it's good to be going
01:38:23
home, too, cuz I'm doing something for
01:38:24
mom.
01:38:24
Yeah.
01:38:25
Even though she's doing everything for
01:38:26
me, I'm doing something for her, you
01:38:27
know.
01:38:28
Well, you're helping each helping each
01:38:29
other. And I think that's that's a good
01:38:30
thing being a, you know, that's what
01:38:31
family's for, and friends to lean on.
01:38:33
Well, when you need families are
01:38:34
families family's like your best mates.
01:38:37
They should always have the couch
01:38:38
available for you and they should always
01:38:39
be there, you know. And um they'll
01:38:42
they'll protect you and when you're most
01:38:43
vulnerable. They won't judge you and
01:38:46
um my mom's like that, you know. The
01:38:49
door I I need help. Mom opens the door
01:38:53
and sit down there. We'll sort this out.
01:38:54
You're you're safe now. You know, that's
01:38:56
how I feel about
01:38:57
with all this turmoil and change.
01:38:58
Yeah. How it's it's peace.
01:39:00
It's a serene place.
01:39:01
It's content. Yeah. I'll put on I'll put
01:39:03
on Sky TV, whatever. or watch some foot
01:39:06
and this is okay this is familiar again
01:39:08
you know
01:39:09
um cuz the turmoil of you know lawyers
01:39:12
don't care about your marriage break up
01:39:13
they they just want someone to rinse you
01:39:15
it's [ __ ] brutal you know I wanted to
01:39:18
take the other lawyer out you know I was
01:39:19
[ __ ] threatening all sorts of things
01:39:21
in my head you know just settle this
01:39:23
[ __ ] thing just settle stop asking
01:39:25
stupid questions and cost me another
01:39:27
grand just settle now
01:39:30
it's taking us six weeks to to which we
01:39:31
could have done six weeks ago for [ __ ]
01:39:33
sake
01:39:33
that's rough
01:39:34
anyway I'm not bitter and twisted. I'm
01:39:36
over it. I'm fine.
01:39:36
I I I can I can I can tell it's taken
01:39:39
its toll on you, though. And I'm not
01:39:40
surprised. It's an ex it's an exhausting
01:39:41
thing to go. It's tiring. Yeah.
01:39:43
You know, it it is. And you know,
01:39:45
sometimes you just don't want to talk
01:39:46
about it.
01:39:47
Um sometimes I'll be really angry with
01:39:48
my mom. She said, "When's it going to
01:39:50
end?" I like, "Mom, you told me to get a
01:39:52
good lawyer."
01:39:54
Great lawyers just dragging on. You
01:39:55
know, you know, they're off overseas for
01:39:57
six weeks shortly.
01:39:59
How long we spoken for?
01:40:00
It's been an hour 40.
01:40:01
Is that Is that one of your longest
01:40:02
ones? Yeah, it's up there. I'm up there.
01:40:04
But I I appreciate it. I feel like we're
01:40:06
just We're going to have to wrap it up
01:40:07
now, but I feel like we're just
01:40:08
scratching the surface. So much more to
01:40:10
chat about with you.
01:40:10
Is this a genuine podcast length? Cuz
01:40:12
mine are about 45 minutes.
01:40:13
Yeah. It depends. Some of them are like
01:40:15
under an hour. Some of them you go up
01:40:16
near 2 hours. [ __ ]
01:40:17
It's a long time, isn't it?
01:40:18
But it is. It's it's it's fun though.
01:40:20
And I the sort of feedback I get from
01:40:22
people is like they say it's like eaves
01:40:23
dropping in on a on a private
01:40:24
conversation. And I love that sort of
01:40:26
tone. Do
01:40:26
you know what the best podcasts are if
01:40:29
someone else is in that room and you
01:40:30
don't realize they're there. So that's
01:40:32
the listener.
01:40:32
Yeah.
01:40:33
And we just yarned and you know we've
01:40:34
got we've we've known each other a
01:40:35
little bit over the years. Say good day.
01:40:36
And yeah, but this is the longest I've
01:40:39
sat with someone and spoken to. It's
01:40:42
like a free counseling session.
01:40:44
Do
01:40:45
you think I'm I'm a strange guy?
01:40:46
Do you think I'm a complex strange?
01:40:48
Weird.
01:40:48
Yes. Yes, you are.
01:40:49
Yeah.
01:40:50
I wouldn't say weird. I'd say I'd say um
01:40:52
complex though. But I think um I think I
01:40:54
am too. I think a lot of people are.
01:40:55
Yeah. I think you are.
01:40:56
I think you have to embrace it. You're a
01:40:57
lad from the provinces that came to the
01:40:59
city and had a great time and you're
01:41:01
very talented guy and and and you've
01:41:02
done well
01:41:04
work hard
01:41:04
and you're driven you've you've driven
01:41:06
[ __ ] off hard
01:41:08
and probably have and then sacrificed
01:41:12
relationship marriages as a result.
01:41:14
Yeah. I I look back on um
01:41:16
because I wanted to be successful for my
01:41:17
family.
01:41:18
It's the exactly the same with me and
01:41:19
JJ. I I feel like I I worked hard on my
01:41:22
career or our career but not hard on the
01:41:25
relationship. And then uh if you don't
01:41:27
water something, it doesn't grow.
01:41:28
And and and that's so important. You
01:41:30
know how many people lift the lid and
01:41:32
work on the engine of the relationship?
01:41:34
They don't. They expect it just to be
01:41:35
good all the time.
01:41:36
It it wears thin.
01:41:38
You lose respect. Something happens.
01:41:40
It's over.
01:41:41
Yeah.
01:41:41
You cannot share
01:41:44
the lounge, the bedroom, the the the
01:41:46
house anymore with someone who who's
01:41:49
done something to you or crossed you or
01:41:50
disrespected you. So many times the tire
01:41:53
the tread on the tire gets them
01:41:55
you know
01:41:56
but you see this is why I think you
01:41:58
could have another relationship like
01:41:59
you've learned all this stuff you learn
01:42:00
so much and then um you take that
01:42:02
forward with you so maybe that one true
01:42:04
love
01:42:05
maybe maybe I am looking for that but
01:42:07
maybe I'm so weary and so battle aren't
01:42:09
that uh any anything on anything that
01:42:12
anyone I come across that shows any
01:42:14
exhibits any signs of you know alarm
01:42:16
bells in the past I've said I'll work on
01:42:18
that and I'll marry them now I'm like
01:42:20
[ __ ]
01:42:21
Yeah. You know what I mean?
01:42:22
You can't change someone. Yeah.
01:42:23
Um I I believe that um you can't change
01:42:25
someone. No, you are who you are. But
01:42:27
especially men, like we should probably
01:42:28
only be let out when we're 40, you know.
01:42:30
Lock us up in a Mariah we're 40 and then
01:42:32
let us out under supervision till we're
01:42:34
50 and then let us go and do it now. But
01:42:35
even then we we'd have we'd be wanting
01:42:38
to release and pop, you know?
01:42:40
Do you think do you think all the
01:42:41
naughty and bad stuff is out of you?
01:42:44
Um
01:42:45
I'm um I'm I'm pretty calm these days. I
01:42:48
I've still got in like um I think I'm a
01:42:50
good person now, but I've still got some
01:42:51
inner demons.
01:42:52
Do you think you weren't a good person?
01:42:54
I I always have been, but I'm just I'm
01:42:55
not overly kind to myself. I'm very hard
01:42:57
on myself.
01:42:58
Ah, see you got to stop that. You're
01:42:59
beating yourself up, right?
01:43:00
Yeah. My my inner voice is terrible at
01:43:02
times. I'm a bully.
01:43:03
Are you Catholic?
01:43:04
Yeah, there we go.
01:43:05
Raised Catholic.
01:43:05
Yeah, that sums it up. My best mate
01:43:08
Catholic um has done some real bad [ __ ]
01:43:10
in his life and um he would ring me.
01:43:14
This is when he was allowed to ring me
01:43:15
because my wife stopped him from
01:43:16
ringing. Um he would ring and say oh
01:43:19
with the basics D. Yeah I'm a terrible
01:43:21
I'm terrible mate you know. So and I say
01:43:23
no you know just one of the lads this is
01:43:25
you. It's the Catholicism but the first
01:43:27
I blame that is Catholic guilt is real
01:43:31
is very low.
01:43:32
Catholic it has to be. But Catholic
01:43:35
guilt is real you know and I worry I
01:43:38
went to this I went to this party you
01:43:39
know with all the all the boys you know
01:43:41
just after we went under.
01:43:43
Most of the guys are from a Catholic
01:43:44
school. I was mates with a lot of girls
01:43:46
from different schools. This Catholic
01:43:47
boys and um
01:43:49
that's different breed
01:43:51
you know we just we just you know with
01:43:55
the breastian boys we just oh yeah we
01:43:57
[ __ ] up. They would almost be in half
01:43:59
denial and half trying to turn into
01:44:00
success and then they know they were
01:44:01
bad. It's all over the show. Yeah.
01:44:02
Yeah.
01:44:03
All right. Hey Ghana, it's been um it's
01:44:06
been wonderful man. It's I appreciate
01:44:07
you coming around and um having this
01:44:09
conversation. I think um the big
01:44:11
takeaway from for me from this chat is
01:44:12
probably just what a good dad you are
01:44:14
and how much how much love you have for
01:44:15
your for your son in particular. I
01:44:18
suppose that's to do with the proximity
01:44:20
and being a soul caregiver.
01:44:22
He's with me a lot of time. So that's
01:44:24
Yeah. It doesn't mean I don't love the
01:44:24
others.
01:44:25
No, no, no, no, no. Not saying that.
01:44:26
I I have done and they've moved on to
01:44:29
I'm proud of what they're doing now, but
01:44:30
I've still got the care of this boy, you
01:44:32
know. And
01:44:33
all right. Well, don't plan on moving up
01:44:35
north just yet cuz I still I still feel
01:44:36
like you've got a lot to offer. maybe
01:44:38
even that your your best career years
01:44:39
are ahead of you if you want them to be.
01:44:41
Well, you know, because I've learned so
01:44:43
much from the past that maybe that maybe
01:44:44
there is and I'm excited. I actually am
01:44:47
really excited about what what what I'm
01:44:48
doing now and and seeing what you're
01:44:49
doing as well as, you know, um there's
01:44:52
shitload more to do.
01:44:54
Yeah, 100%.
01:44:55
Best place to leave it.
01:44:56
Thanks, Duncan Garner.
01:44:57
Thank you, Dom Harvey. Good on you,
01:44:59
mate.
01:45:00
[Music]
01:45:15
Hey,
