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Sunday investigates the impact of a one-punch kill. Marti Friedlander's photography captures the soul of New Zealand.

Miriama Kamo presents Sunday, award-winning investigations into the stories that matter, from a team of the country's most experienced journalists.

Primary Title
  • Sunday
Date Broadcast
  • Sunday 28 August 2016
Start Time
  • 19 : 00
Finish Time
  • 20 : 00
Duration
  • 60:00
Channel
  • TV One
Broadcaster
  • Television New Zealand
Programme Description
  • Miriama Kamo presents Sunday, award-winning investigations into the stories that matter, from a team of the country's most experienced journalists.
Episode Description
  • Sunday investigates the impact of a one-punch kill. Marti Friedlander's photography captures the soul of New Zealand.
Classification
  • Not Classified
Owning Collection
  • Chapman Archive
Broadcast Platform
  • Television
Languages
  • English
Captioning Languages
  • English
Captions
Live Broadcast
  • No
Rights Statement
  • Made for the University of Auckland's educational use as permitted by the Screenrights Licensing Agreement.
1 Sunday ` proudly brought to you by Mazda. Tonight on Sunday ` the appalling impact of just one punch. I'm going to make sure that people understand that one-punch deaths are cowardly. A one-punch killing. He was backed up against this post ` surrounded, no way out, his arms by his side. A wasted night that changed lives in an instant. My heart is broken. I cannot grasp why. And this family wants change. This notion that the more that you consume, in terms of alcohol and drugs, the tougher you are ` this is bullshit. I was a visitor. I mean, I wasn't a NZer, but I certainly photographed NZ in an absolute state of wonder. For nearly 60 years, the remarkable Marti Friedlander has been showing us ourselves. And people today, who are now adults, say to me, 'Marti, those photographs you took of me as a child, 'we still have them on the wall, and they are fantastic.' And I'm very moved by that. And turning other people's garbage into beautiful musical instruments. When you're looking at the instruments, there are pennies, there are bottle tops, there are keys that are bent. Those instruments are, I think, a gift from God. Really, you can see God in every instrument. There's a fork. (LAUGHS) The town built on trash that's giving the poorest of the poor the chance to change their lives. How many lives has it changed? Many, many, many. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 Kia ora, I'm Miriama Kamo. Earlier this year, Matt Coley was killed with one punch by a wasted youth on a late Invercargill night. The punch was powerful enough to smash his brain into his skull, causing haemorrhaging he could never recover from. It was thrown by a 16-year-old who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced this week. But are we taking the problem of drunken violence seriously enough, or do we need to change our laws? Here's Mark Crysell. INTRIGUING MUSIC Today is a day of great anticipation and trepidation for the Coley family... Very nervous. I don't know how I'm gonna react. ...because today, for the first time, they will see in court the man who killed their son and brother, Matt. I'm going to make sure that people understand that one-punch deaths are cowardly, not heroic. Tyrone Palmer killed Matt Coley on a wasted Invercargill night. The 16-year-old never met him, never spoke to him. In my eyes, this means he is a time bomb ready to explode. My phone is silent. There are no more texts, no more emails, no more Matt. My heart is broken. I cannot grasp why. A message must be sent to this man and his peers, local and national ` a message to a generation of young, brainless Kiwi men. One punch can kill. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC Matt Coley was much more than a victim of violent crime. Matt was, um, quite an adventurer. He, uh, was a loner, and he did a lot of travel all through NZ ` cheffing and surfing and writing. He was a really good fisherman. Yeah, I'd go out fishing with him, and that was one thing I was really looking forward to when he was coming` going to come back. Laraine, Mike, and their kids, Cherie, Graeme and Matt, were tight as a family growing up in Coromandel, but Cherie and Matt had an extra special bond. She always had him on her hip. And really, they became very closely bonded. They look alike, they think alike` thought alike. I remember him as a baby, because I was kind of like the second mum. And I didn't need a doll, cos I could push Matt round in my doll stroller. All right, geezer? They were close for all of Matt's 40 years. This is Matt and Cherie in London. Isn't he is a good-looking bloke? He looks great on camera. (CHUCKLES) Matt had itchy feet, was something of a nomad. In the end, we kind of call-called him our ho-hopeless wanderer. He was on the move a lot. Uh, and` So it was kind of like a` a lifestyle choice for him, until he settled down in Invercargill. In Invercargill, he started a journalism course, was writing a sci-fi novel ` he had plans. This one of, uh, Matt's creations? Yeah, this is it. This is one of the` the first one that he ever built. Prototype. > Prototype. Was he pretty proud of this? Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, most definitely, yeah. And he'd, uh, come up with that name, and` and I think it looks very good, you know? It's, uh` Was that him? Yeah. The voyager? Yeah. Yeah, that's him. (CHUCKLES) April 8th, earlier this year ` Friday night in Invercargill. Matt was about to go out drinking, but fired off a bunch of emails to his mum before he left the flat. He had been emailing me little notes that night while he was waiting to go out. Laraine was asleep by the time the last one arrived in her inbox and Matt was out on the town. By then, Tyrone Palmer had taken LSD, alcohol and marijuana, and already tried to start a fight with someone else. This guy managed to get in a cab and get away. Matt Coley would be next. By around 1.30am, Matt had had a few. He wandered off down this street. He became involved in some kind of argument with a couple of girls. Matt left, but they followed him to this Night 'n Day store. There was a group of people, kind of, forming around them, and Tyrone was there at that time. Matt was trying to get away. He was backed up against this post ` surrounded, no way out, his arms by his side ` and out of nowhere, Tyrone Palmer threw a punch. One punch. He just walked up to Matt and hit him s` right in the head, and that was it. He didn't slip down, and he didn't fall over and smash his head or anything. He just slid down the pole. Slid down the pole. And, uh, that was it. Tyrone Palmer took off. And as he was running, he saw somebody that he knew and he said, 'I've just king-hit someone.' What do you think of the term king-hit? I think it sucks. You know, it` it totally makes it seem like a` an act of bravado, and it's not ` it's actually an act of cowardice. A car came down Mike and Laraine's Coromandel driveway around four hours after the punch was thrown. I thought, 'Well, who's this?' And it was a policeman. And` He came in and said that our son had been seriously hurt ` he had a serious head injury. In shock, they rushed to the airport. Laraine printed out Matt's last email, his words now oddly prophetic. He, um, had said that night, um, 'I never see it coming, Mum.' He said, uh, 'Too much faith in humanity. 'Nuff said.' That was what he wrote. I never see it coming? He never saw it coming, no. The force from that one punch meant Matt Coley never stood a chance... Could he be saved? I don't think so. I think the swelling occurred so rapidly that there really is no useful treatment. Dr Mike Hunter is an intensive care consultant at Dunedin Hospital. Well, he was hit in the face, which rapidly accelerated the skull, crushing the brain on that left side, and causing bruising and swelling. And then, when the skull stopped, when it either hit another object or hit the ground, the brain is compressed against that side. The combination caused rapid swelling of the whole brain. Matt was in a deep coma by the time Mike and Laraine got to Invercargill. We both felt Matt's time had come,... (EXHALES SHAKILY) and... everyone was so kind to us. The family was willing him to hold on until Cherie could get there from Canada to say goodbye. So I arrived and he was on life support, um, which was, you know, really hard to see, actually. A photojournalist, Cherie pulled out her camera. I wanted to feel him, and connect with him, and just let him know that we loved him. (INHALES SHAKILY) Eventually, they had to let him go. I just said to him, 'Fly with the angels. Just go. 'Go to the stars.' # I will call you by name. # I will share your road. The boy they lovingly called the hopeless wanderer had reached the end of his journey. # Hold me fast, # cos I'm a hopeless wanderer... # Matt Coley was killed by one punch, but every Friday and Saturday night across NZ, hundreds of punches are thrown by the wasted. After 3am, nothing good happens. The later and longer we drink, the worse the violence becomes. WOMAN SHRIEKS There was a 6% rise in public assaults between 2014 and 2016. This notion that the more that you consume, in terms of alcohol and drugs, the tougher you are ` this is bullshit. They fill our emergency rooms, breaking bodies and hearts. It is a real scourge on our community, and the health services, the police, other emergency services, are run ragged in the small hours of the morning, and it really needs to stop. After the break ` do we need a one-punch law? They're doing it in Australia, and I think it needs to be done in NZ as well. And how Sydney's curbed the drunken violence. Blood, vomit ` it was an urban war zone. 2 SIRENS WAIL LAID-BACK ROCK MUSIC CHEERING They haven't escaped the toll of drunken violence across the Tasman. The Aussies call it a blue,... Get away from me. Bro, he's under arrest. ...and there's been a toll. Sydney's been forced to bring in a one-punch law. I was a victim of a one-punch by a man about two and a half years ago, so that caused me to fall to the floor and bleeding on the brain. Rebecca Stokes used to work as a business consultant. I suffered seizures and, um, got some cognitive damages as well that's had to have me leave work now. Rebecca was the victim of one of Australia's 70,000 alcohol-related assaults a year. Police, the judiciary and medical experts are calling it an epidemic. This is all blood and that's oedema around it. So, uh, he's in trouble. And that means that is a serious head injury. Boozy brawls that meant many ended their night out in an emergency ward. It was an urban war zone. It really really was. Blood, vomit on the floor. It was noisy. It was really out of control. St Vincent's Hospital, just round the corner from Sydney's Kings Cross, was on the front line. We had areas where the` we'd call it the vomitorium, because people were drinking to an excess. Over the years, we got more and more senseless violence, you know, when somebody's walking along the street minding their own business, would suddenly be attacked by several, and it just got nasty and more vicious all the time. In 2012, 18-year-old Thomas Kelly was on his first night out in Kings Cross when he was killed by one random punch from a drunk stranger. The pain just goes on every day. We miss our son. (SNIFFLES) The public outcry forced the New South Wales state government to crack down hard. In the end, it really was, sort of, timing. It captured people, the` the community, captured the media. FOREBODING MUSIC Take it from me ` one punch can be lethal. A public education campaign was launched on the dangers of throwing a punch. And basically, everybody got behind it, more or less, you know, cos they said, 'Well we don't want this. We don't want our children to not come home.' And in 2014, the lockout laws came in. Central Sydney bottle stores must now close at 10, you can't get into a bar after 1.30 and shots can't be served after midnight. Sydney, which was once famous for its nightlife, is now a very different place. Half past 12, Friday night, Kings Cross. What was once known as Sydney's Golden Mile has had the life sucked out of it by the lockout laws. 'For lease' signs where there used to be pubs and clubs ` the toll has been high for the hospitality industry. It is a ghost town. Raul Gonzales poured his life savings into building up his first bar, the Backroom. So this is` this is it. It looks just like a roller door. Yeah. Basically, all the magic happened behind here. The Backroom was one of Sydney's best-loved nightclubs. A lot of celebrities came, like Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown, Marilyn Manson. Uh, had a lot of, uh, Australian` you know, Australian celebrities as well. It lasted another six months after the lockout laws came in. 45 other businesses in Kings Cross have also shut their doors. The coward punches was a tragedy. I feel sorry for, you know every` all the families and everyone affected by it. But there's definitely other ways that they could have gone around. The main issue here was the public transport. Taxis ` there was no taxis. At one point, you had 15,000 people coming into one specific area. Uh, more visible policing, uh, in certain nightlife precincts. Would you recommend this lockout law model to your cousins in NZ? Definitely not. Definitely not. Uh, and if it did go in a place they would ha` definitely have to adapt and try to reinvent themselves very quick. But if safer streets are the measure, then the laws wrought by Thomas Kelly's one-punch death have been successful ` a 40% decline in drunken assaults in Kings Cross alone. Our intensive care has very few patients now. Our neurosurgeons get a good night's sleep. And no deaths? No deaths, touch wood. There's no easy answers here, but are Sydney's one-punch laws a lesson for us? I think NZ is very similar to us, right? I think they should look at it, uh, and then the society's gotta work out what they wanna do, how much they're prepared to pay to drink to excess. It's complicated ` there's casualties either way. But you get the sense that Sydney's safer than it was. Every weekend, groups of volunteers walk the CBD's streets looking to help those who've had one too many. I can't even describe how happy I am. Rebecca Stokes is one of those. I get the satisfaction of being able to give back, and, you know, I was lucky enough to survive where a lot of people have lost their lives from one punch, and` even though I'm living with the consequences of one punch. People have lost their voices, and at least I'm out here helping and hopefully making a change in the community for the positive. What happened to the guy that hit you? > Um, he received a year's sentence but it got reduced to eight weeks. Eight weeks? Yeah, eight weeks. Is that enough? I don't think it's sending a real strong message, but compared to some of the other cases, it's a lot longer than some people have received. Sentencing has since been toughened up. In New South Wales, a one-punch assault can earn you life in prison or a minimum of eight years. In NZ, we have no one-punch law, so when Tyrone Palmer walked into court this week, there was a very real chance he'd get home detention for killing Matt Coley. Mr Palmer, would you please stand. He'd already pleaded guilty. On the charge of manslaughter, I sentence you to 22 months' imprisonment. Stand down please. The judge would only allow us to use still images of Tyrone Palmer in court. His age and the fact that he'd pleaded guilty meant his sentence was more than halved. The message must go out to young people and to all who are involved in the street or situations such as this that a strike to the head can cause death and imprisonment is a likely outcome. A deterrent? The Coleys aren't so sure. My heart at the moment is just full of sorrow that my son's life was only worth 22 months. If he behaves himself in prison, Tyrone Palmer will be back on the streets in less than a year. If this boy doesn't get the rehab that he needs as soon as possible, then the` it will all be a waste. READS: Dearest Matt, thinking of you always on your journey into... Two families' sons ` a single punch on a wasted night has taken them both away. You know, I think that NZ does kind of need to wake up, and` and be a bit more proactive about preventing these deaths. I think we need law changes, but, uh, specifically around sentencing for one-punch deaths, like what they're doing in Sydney ` the lockout laws. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life in hatred, so I just have, um, to endure... endure losing a son to violence. So yes, um,... goodbye, Matt. Well, the Coleys say their priority now will be to publish Matt's sci-fi novel, which he was writing for the past 10 years. Later, we go a small town in Paraguay that's changing the lives of their kids for the better by turning unwanted trash into something beautiful. But up next ` she's taken some of this country's most iconic images. A delightful encounter with Marti Friedlander. Look, here I am talking to you in my 89th year. How fortunate can you be? It's all about imagination. It's all about wit. It's all about thoughtfulness. And it's all about seeing, seeing, seeing beyond what other people might observe ` your own particular and unique observation. 3 Hello again. It's said that Marti Friedlander's photography captured the soul of NZ. From her haunting kuia series with their chiselled moko to young Kiwi kids at play, Marti has been there to record a nation that's growing up. From iconic artists like Ralph Hotere to our prime ministers ` Norman Kirk, Helen Clark, and this one of John Key complete with cat. Tonight, Marti tells our cameras about her journey. This from John Hudson. OK. Ready? Where's the sound man? MAN: You're looking at them. > We have to do everything now. > Oh. Yeah. Sign of the times. > Oh, that's amazing. Marti Friedlander ` photographer. For nearly 60 years, she's captured our landscapes, our history, good keen blokes, courageous families, politicians, painters, protesters, iconic Kiwi images. When she started, though, there was nothing Kiwi about her. Marti was a stranger in a strange land. I was a visitor. I mean, I wasn't a NZer, but I certainly photographed NZ as a` in an absolute state of wonder. Complete wonder. Marti was a Londoner. She grew up in a Jewish orphanage during the Great Depression. We grew up in a time when there was a tremendous amount of poverty in the East End of London, and so we had a sense of being fortunate to have been taken out of that incredible poverty and placed in a very secure environment. I can remember very well my first impression of the dining room; sitting there with the other children eating some treat that we were given on the Sunday. It was a lovely place to be. You were without parents. How did you find love? First of all, I had a sister, which helped a great deal. So we could share a lot of things. But, secondly, I think life is all about attitude. I was certainly born with a very optimistic nature. If I hadn't been optimistic, I probably wouldn't be here talking to you. When war broke out, Marti was 11. Within months the East End was being bombed. It was terrifying sitting on my bed in the dormitory and hearing those bombers going overhead; really feeling that the world was going to come to an end. Marti and her sister, Anne, were among the thousands of schoolchildren being evacuated. ARCHIVE: We don't forget the safety of our children on whom the future of our race depends. Then Marti gained a trade-school scholarship, learning the basics in photographic processing. Now, having survived childhood illness and a war, she stumbled into a new career. Don't ask me why, but I photographed Napoleon's Tomb, in the Louvre, with a little box brownie. And then I went to Israel and took photos of the new Frederick Man Auditorium and a kibbutz I was working on. And I sent them to The Evening Standard, and they published them, and I thought, 'Oh, I think I'll become a photographer.' Her first photographic job was with the men who made the catalogues for Harrods. I was working in the studio of Douglas Glass and Gordon Crocker. I was printing all their photographs. Ah, so you were watching the best? > Oh yeah. And the best took these photographs of young Marti and her sister, Anne. I thought, 'I am so lucky. Here I am in the centre of London and so much involved with what's going on.' Marti may have lived in a bedsit but she was at the centre of an empire. London was the mecca. I'd go to the Albert Hall, because it cost nothing to go up in the gods. I went to the opera. So it didn't matter if you were poor in London at the time, because there was so much that you could go to. I wouldn't have wanted to have lived anywhere else. It may have continued that way had a friend not shown her a photograph of Kiwi trampers. And there was this gorgeous blond man, and I pointed to him and said, 'Who's that?' And he said, 'That's my very best friend, Gerrard.' On Friday the 13th of April 1956, Marti met Gerrard. The doorbell rang at about 8 in the evening, and there was this beautiful, utterly beautiful man, standing on the doorstep. A total innocent. Uh, really, he was just so beautiful. And I said, 'Are you Gerrard?' Handsome, shy and fresh off the boat. She knew exactly who I was because she had seen my photograph. And that's how it started. She thought you were a bit of an Adonis at the time. Well, I suppose if you look... You had no idea how handsome you were, darling. That was the attraction. The man had no... Gerrard, really. Well, I think I've probably grown into being handsome today. (LAUGHS) But I never thought I was handsome in those days. I was just me. Exactly. Gerrard, the Kiwi dentist, on his OE. Well, I rang him up a week later and said, 'Would you like to have dinner?' which was going to be cooked on my small gas ring in my bedsit. And he said, 'Yes, I'd love it.' Well, in those days, men would never have responded like that. They didn't like women chasing them. But Gerrard is totally different. And he didn't see it as peculiar. Nor did they think twice about getting married. We got married in the synagogue because my sister insisted, and we were happy enough to do that for her. Then they were off on the Lambretta. For nine months they rode across Europe, eventually ditching the scooter in Israel, but by then Gerrard had persuaded his young wife to come to NZ. When we were travelling on our scooter, for instance, in Macedonia, I'd say, 'Gerrard, this is the most beautiful place I have ever been.' And Gerrard would say, 'Wait till you get to NZ.' What was NZ like when you came here in 1958? For me? For me, it was the loneliest place on Earth. ARCHIVE: One NZer in every five lives in metropolitan Auckland. From London, Marti and Gerrard moved to Auckland; for her a strange city with even stranger people. I could not believe that I was going to be living in a place where people didn't communicate easily. It was a very strange country to me. Um, beautiful, yes, but you can't live with beauty alone. You have to have conversation. Struggling to find identity, Marti turned back to photography. I wanted to be my own person. And I just said to myself, 'From now on I'm going to be a photographer.' Her timing couldn't have been better. Kiwis were starting to change and some were beginning to protest. I'm not a press photographer, so every photograph I take has a personal need and a personal involvement. If I hadn't had my camera, I would have been marching. Marti captured a culture on the move ` sexual revolution, anti-war, anti-apartheid. I photographed NZ at a time when it needed to be photographed, just to show young people today what NZ was like. The early winemakers, the 6 o'clock swill, rural blokes, suburban blokettes, shorts and skirts, a tipple and a giggle. It's all about imagination. It's all about wit. It's all about thoughtfulness. And it's all about seeing, seeing, seeing beyond what other people might observe ` your own particular and unique observation. She was one of the first to capture the natural emotions of Kiwi kids, sometimes by sending their parents outside. Childhood photography can be really revealing, you know, showing bruises, tears, smiles. And people today, who are now adults, say to me, 'Marti, those photographs you took of me as a child, 'we still have them on the wall, and they are fantastic.' And I'm very moved by that. From the very young to the very old, with historian Michael King, Marti recorded kuia with the chiselled moko. She tracked down the singers, violinists, historians, writers and painters. The very first person I photographed was Don Binney. I thought to myself, 'I'm so lucky. 'These are the people I want to meet anyway, and here I'm being commissioned.' Painter Rita Angus. People said, 'She's a very difficult woman.' Well, I mean, I loved her. Artist Philip Clairmont. I was determined to take memorable photos of him. And I did. And I also bought one of his paintings. Brothers and sisters, I wanna see a sea o' hands out there. I wanna see a sea o' hands. And politician Tim Shadbolt. Well, Tim. He was always fronting up to everything, so he was irresistible as a person to photograph. Ralph Hotere. He was so generous. He really was. He allowed me to photograph him whenever I wanted to. He actually gave Gerrard and me this beautiful work. It was the first of that series. In 1969, she met Norman Kirk. I went up to him and I just said, 'Excuse me, Mr Kirk, but I've never seen a decent photograph of you. 'Would you allow me to take one?' And surprisingly, he said yes. Rob Muldoon, Helen Clark and a cat with John Key. Don't often photograph a prime minister, or impending prime minister, with a cat. I think it's lovely. Selfies aren't new. Marti Friedlander led the way. I never realised, of course, that one day it would be called a selfie. As I've always said, one day we'll all be just a photograph. BOTH: Might as well be a good one. Well, why not? And it's true. At an age when many people can no longer drive, Marti is still behind the wheel. And for how long have you been driving now? Since I came to NZ because I realised it was the only thing that would give me independence. I have a feeling of absolute gratitude that I was there at that time to record that event. I've photographed protests here in the` at the museum... I won't take a shot now. It's a bit too sunny. I actually prefer not so much sun. Look, here I am talking to you in my 89th year. How fortunate can you be? My mind is 100%. My body's breaking down. So what? Marti and Gerrard recently celebrated their 60-year love affair. Do you love her as much now as you did? Yes, of course I do. I mean... Today, um, part of that initial attraction is not there any more. But of` In this... LAUGHTER I mean... I mean who the hell...? That'll be the highlight of the whole interview. Who the hell has a strong sexual life at our age? Oh, we do, darling! Your initial, sort of, attraction probably is physical. And, you know, you grow past that and you become friends. Enough already. Enough already? He's still` I still see the red light. ALL LAUGH Oh, I love this man. And no, Marti doesn't have a favourite photo. She says she's in love with all of them; she would not have taken them otherwise. Next, the poverty-stricken town that is using others people's garbage to create an orchestra that's getting worldwide attention. What do you see as being the magic of that place? Oh, there's a dance as well! The love. The love is the magic of the place,... Oh, this is gonna make me dizzy. ...cos you can be the toughest person, but when you're there, you are love. You wanna hug people there. ALL YELL It's magical. LAUGHTER 4 Welcome back. They live in the shadow of a mountainous rubbish dump, and yet you'd be hard-pressed to find a more welcoming community. In part, it's because they make the most of what they do have ` stuff other people throw away. And thanks to one gifted and inventive resident, junk is transformed into remarkable instruments, and a band of children is transformed into an incredible orchestra. Denham Hitchcock has their inspirational story. SOMBRE PIANO MUSIC Paraguay is a country stricken by poverty. The capital, Asuncion, has an enormous waste dump. Here, people sort the glass from the plastic, the trash from the treasure. They call them gancheros. There are so many of them they created an entire town in the tip. It's called Cateura. There are streets, garbage all over. Houses made of wood or things that they found in the landfill. Kids playing all over in dirty` very very dirty and toxic water with a lot of rubbish around. They're barefoot ` all of them, they're barefoot. But still I say it's a magical town. The magic begins in the tip. This piece of trash will find its way to a tiny workshop in the slum. This former ganchero makes extraordinary instruments out of junk. CLASSICAL CELLO MUSIC This is incredible. Where are all these parts? Where have they come from? (SPEAKS SPANISH) TRANSLATOR: Almost everything comes from the landfill. When you're looking at the instruments, there are pennies, uh, there are bottle tops, there are keys that are bent` Forks. ...there are forks. Yeah, that's creativity. Soon the stuff we throw away becomes works of art ` instruments. We need a musician, because I am certainly not one. (TUNES INSTRUMENT) MAN SPEAKS SPANISH TRANSLATOR: It feels like it's waking up, receiving the soul and stretching. Those instruments are, I think, a giv` gift from God. Really, you can see God in every instrument, and it's changing everything. Our guide is Fiorella Migliore. She represented Paraguay in the Miss World pageant. She could be anywhere in the world, but she's here, working as the ambassador for the orchestra. MOTORCYCLE PUTTERS, MAN SPEAKS SPANISH Hola! Hello! With her are two of the stars of the orchestra, including Ada. She carries her most precious possession everywhere. There's a fork. (CHUCKLES) When I'm playing, sometimes I feel that the vibration is weird, so I have to open my violin and fix it by myself. GIRLS PLAY GENTLE MUSIC What would you like to do when you get older? (SPEAKS SPANISH) TRANSLATOR: I want to be a musician, to help the community and teach all the kids different instruments, always connected to the community and to the music. Their proud father is Jorge Rios. As a boy, he worked in the rubbish dump. (SPEAKS SPANISH) TRANSLATOR: In the rubbish, I found many things, like dead bodies, dead babies. GIRLS CONTINUE PLAYING What he wants now as a father is to give his girls another life ` another chance. (LAUGHS, APPLAUDS) Beautiful. Beautiful. Muchas gracias. VEHICLE PUTTERS CHILDREN CHATTER There is so much garbage here ` so much. Yeah. Yeah. None of this could have happened without Favio Chavez. He got a job in the tip as an engineer. He was shocked at the workers' conditions. One dollar for day. Yeah, one dollar per day. Yeah. That's what they earn. Yeah. And then he saw the town. Muchos ninos. Muchos ninos. Muchos ninos. Everywhere ` lots of kids. Yeah. No` No school. No school. They're` They're very small. They wor` And they end up working up there in the landfill. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. (PLAYS CLASSICAL GUITAR MUSIC) Favio has a background in classical music, so he began to teach the guitar, the violin, the cello. Soon it was an orchestra. ORCHESTRA PLAYS UPLIFTING MUSIC (SPEAKS SPANISH) TRANSLATOR: People here in Cateura see the rubbish not as garbage. Here, garbage is something that you can use to do something else. (SPEAKS SPANISH) When we began, we were 10, and now we are 200. So it's like trying to find a treasure, but as you dig you find the treasure's actually bigger. With the kids, we try to change their minds. We try to change their families. We try to change Paraguay. Paraguay is one of the poorest countries in South America. 25% of people here live below the poverty line ` that's one in four. Well, this is the line below that line, and when it comes to the family home, let me show you what it looks like. (CHUCKLES) Hola, Maria. Hola. Pasa? This is Maria's house. She's a single mum with three kids, and they all work in the landfill. Actually, everything inside this house is from the landfill, and it is a pretty simple existence. Gracias, Maria. Nada. Hopscotch time. Si. Ooh. 'What do you see as being the magic of that place?' Oh, there's a dance as well! LAUGHTER The love. The love is the magic of the place,... Oh, this is gonna make me dizzy. ...cos you can be the toughest person, but when you're there, you are love. You wanna hug people there. ALL YELL It's magical. LAUGHTER And so, for Ada, there's something magical coming, but first, the world stage awaits. And the world's biggest bands are now coming to them. This is Metallica. # Enter night. # Take my hand, # we're off to never-never land. APPLAUSE INDISTINCT SHOUTING 5 INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS Not long ago, Cateura rumbled to the sound of garbage trucks. Now, the people who have very little are rich in something else. ORCHESTRA PLAYS BEETHOVEN'S FIFTH SYMPHONY How many lives has it changed? FIORELLA: Many, many, many. Many more than the ones who live there. It's such a lesson for everybody. It doesn't matter what you have or what you don't have; it's what you do with what you have. What do you see for the future of the orchestra? > (SPEAKS SPANISH) TRANSLATOR: I want the orchestra to change lives. Music has an extreme power, so big it can't just be owned by the musicians. That's why we make music with anything,... (SPEAKS SPANISH) ...anywhere, and with everybody. ORCHESTRA CONTINUES PLAYING This is Amsterdam, and yes, those are the instruments from the tip. As their fame grew, so did the donations and the invitations to perform. CHEERING, APPLAUSE And the world's biggest bands are now coming to them. This is Metallica. # Enter night. # Take my hand, # we're off to never-never land. TRANSLATOR: For us, it's amazing walking on the stage and all these cheering and yelling, saying the name of our community ` it's unbelievable. CHEERING, APPLAUSE INDISTINCT SHOUTING (PLAYS VIOLIN) To Ada, her junkyard violin is priceless, but it's not the real thing. A concert violin would be worth more than the family home. Music was her gift to us, so we had something for her. Ada, hola. Hola. I` I know you already have a beautiful instrument, but I wanna give you a backup instrument. (SPEAKS SPANISH) (SPEAKS SPANISH) (LAUGHS) BOTH SPEAK SPANISH Is it really me? It's really for me? Si. (CHUCKLES) Claro. Can I see it? Of course. (PLAYS PACHELBEL'S 'CANON IN D MAJOR') APPLAUSE, LAUGHTER WOMAN: Sounds incredible. Beautiful. Isn't that fantastic? Well, that's our show for tonight. Do join us on Facebook and Twitter ` Sunday TVNZ.