1 Sunday ` proudly brought to you by Mazda. Tonight on Sunday, our trans-Tasman relationship. Is it fair? As an Australian, I actually find this a little bit embarrassing that we're treating New Zealanders like this. What's happened to the ANZAC spirit? We're having our rights stripped away. It just doesn't seem fair. Kiwis living across the ditch as second-class citizens. We're looking at Mia moving back to New Zealand. Gonna be sad. Yeah. While Aussies here are living the dream. Perhaps you should declare war on Australia a bit and get noticed. And a working mum in parliament. I immediately began to think, 'This is going to be much harder than I thought.' The private face of former MP Holly Walker. I had hit myself right here on the cheek, so I had a really swollen jaw. How managing motherhood was her toughest challenge yet. No one else really knew what was going on. Why did you feel the need to hit yourself? It's not a normal man-and-dog relationship scenario. Plus ` how an ultra runner met his best friend in the forbidding Gobi Desert. If I didn't pick her up, she wasn't crossing the water. This was a life-changing moment for both of us. His fight to take her home. I basically just said, 'I'll be back. We'll see each other again.' Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 Kia ora. I'm Miriama Kamo. The relationship between New Zealand and Australia is supposed to be special, built on the spirit of the ANZACs. In fact, a poll out this week in Australia says we're their best friend in the world. But how tight are we? Are we really trans-Tasman brothers and sisters? Kiwis living across the ditch say no. They say they're treated like guest workers, while Aussies here are living the good life. Is the ANZAC spirit alive and well, or are we heading for a divorce? Here's Mark Crysell. (AUSTRALIAN CRAWL'S 'THE BOYS LIGHT UP') Aussie rules. Well, it does at the famous Melbourne cricket ground, as a good a place as any to gauge the state of the Australian- New Zealand relationship. I love Kiwis. They're great fun, real larrikins. There's a special bond forged between Australians and New Zealanders. That'll be there forever. The ANZACs ` a bloody bond of brotherhood forged on the battlefields, honed by trade and the free movement of Kiwis and Aussies across each other's borders. The New Zealanders I know contribute here to our lifestyle and fit in very well. They seem to like us, but do they really? How would you characterise the state of the trans-Tasman relationship? She's rooted, mate. And this is why. On either side of ANZAC day this year, the Australian government dropped a bomb on the 650,000 Kiwis who choose to live there. It's a kick in the guts, really. We're either welcome here, or we're not. Reagan, use a plate. Without warning, it became even tougher for Kiwis to become Australian citizens and prohibitively expensive to send their kids to university. This is probably the worst thing I've ever seen Australia do, since the underarm incident. ARCHIVE: Did you ever believe it? That's a disappointing finish. Mike, Helen, Mia, Reagan and Dominic. When the Silich family moved here to Melbourne from Auckland eight years ago, they were issued the standard, special category visa for New Zealanders at the border. How long did you think you were going to live here for? Well, for me, it was permanent. We were moving here and establishing our family here. Becoming Aussies? Yeah. Yeah. I suppose, that's true, yeah. Never forget our New Zealand heritage. (CROWDED HOUSE'S 'DON'T DREAM IT'S OVER) Kiwiana may be all through the house, but Helen's mum and dad have moved over too, and the Silichs now call Australia home. OK, this is a bus that we've done a fairly major conversion on. Mike runs his own business fitting out mobile homes and buses. I've had the seats recovered, reversing camera fitted. Helen works in the office. You'll have to bring it back, and I'll have to do a warranty on it. The rest of the staff are Australian. Wolf, is that 12 volt or 240? 240. We're paying tax. We make money, and we employ Australians who pay tax. Oldest son Reagan is a police officer in rural Victoria. Dominic's a Melbourne barista, and 17-year-old Mia's at high school, making plans to study science at nearby Monash University. I'll be the first person in our family to finish uni. But the Aussie government overnight changed the rules. Kiwi students who've been in Australia less than 10 years will no longer be treated as domestic students and will have to pay international fees. Now Mia cannot afford to study in Australia. The course that she was wanting to do, Bachelor of Science, was $9000 a year. Now it's gone to $34,000 a year. What are you going to do? We're looking at Mia moving back to New Zealand. Remember ` Mia's lived in Australia since she was 9. She found out as she was studying for her final exams. It was a massive shock to me. I'd planned my life here. I'd chosen out unis. I've got friends here, and just my whole life's here. Yeah. Come on, girls. Hardest of all will be leaving her family. The Silichs are tightknit, and she's particularly close to mum, Helen. What is your biggest worry? Oh, Mia being alone and not having any immediate family in New Zealand. And just financially surviving. Mm. Aw. (CHUCKLES) It's gonna be sad! Yeah. (CHUCKLES) The most recent figures show there are more than 12,000 New Zealanders living in Australia already studying at tertiary level. But those coming next may have to completely uproot their lives. Like Mia, they may have to leave their families and return to New Zealand to get a university education. Is what we're seeing here discrimination? I suppose it is discrimination. The people are here. They're paying taxes. They're contributing to society. They're allowed to stay here permanently. But they're just not being treated equally with other people in that same situation. Dr Tim Gassin is the chair of Oz Kiwi ` a voluntary organisation advocating for Kiwis in Australia. What nationality are you? I'm Australian. So why are you looking after New Zealanders? Well, essentially my wife's a New Zealander, and I suppose, over many years, we've seen sort of seen the absurdities of being a New Zealander in Australia that` how the rules keep changing, and I've known many people who've been affected by these rules. The Australian government started clamping down on Kiwis in 2001, making them ineligible for most benefits or a pathway to citizenship unless they obtained an expensive permanent visa. Where Kiwis have become an easy target for governments that want to plug holes in their budget. Australia's not the lucky country it used to be. The economy's in big trouble. We've got a $40 billion deficit. Australian senator David Leyonhjelm is sympathetic to the plight of Kiwis but says don't take it personally. I think the government is just counting pennies, and family are just casualties in that environment. The liberal democrat leader says he questioned the government on their education bombshell but had no response. I think you're probably suffering from too much familiarity. Perhaps you should declare war on Australia a bit and get noticed. Kiwis in Australia already feel like war's been declared on them. Their rights have eroded year by year since 2001. WOMAN: # Advance Australia fair. Why should the Australian government give New Zealanders special treatment? We've had this freedom of movement for a couple of hundred years essentially. This idea that people should be able to move freely, take advantage of opportunities, advance their lives, and if Australia's gonna start changing the rules on that, that undermines the whole relationship. Kiwis can move and live there but can't vote. Take the Silichs - they run a business, employ Aussies, pay tax but don't get a say in the government. And here we are, being taxed at something like $5 billion a year. That's coming from Kiwis working here, and we've got no representation, and we're having our rights stripped away. It just doesn't seem fair. Reagan Silich can be a policeman in Victoria, but he's not allowed to join the army or be a civil servant. Only state, not federal. 17-year-old Mia can't get subsidised travel like her schoolmates. And they're excluded from federal disability insurance, despite paying into it. If, per se, I was to break a leg at work, I would be unable to get paid for that. The Silichs could get all those rights if they became Australian citizens, but that's about to get harder and more expensive. We basically` For four years, we have to earn over $53,400 a year so you can prove over a continuous four-year period that you can earn money and support yourself. Problem with that is Mike hasn't paid himself a salary for years. We just kept pouring money back into the business to grow it, employing Australians, paying tax, doing all the right things. People's sense of security has just disappeared after these latest changes. There's a feeling that, 'Well, once they've done that, what's to stop them doing anything else?' And I think a lot of people are reconsidering their futures in Australia. I just live kind of in a state of constant anxiety, thinking, 'What's going to happen next?' I'm starting to look at myself and go, 'I've made a mistake. 'I've made a bad decision for my family by moving here.' That's a tough thing to admit. When we come back... is it time to call it quits on the trans-Tasman relationship? Are we still brothers? Yep, but different. Maybe same dad, different mums. And the Australians living the good life in New Zealand. - So how's the serenity? - (LAUGHTER) Lovely. 1 There are around 62,000 Australian citizens living amongst us. So, how's the serenity? Serenity's fantastic. (LAUGHS) David, Kylie, Ashley, Lachlan and Charlotte. The Craig family of Sydney ` and New Zealand residents For the past four years, they've been living the good life on a lifestyle block near Hamilton. Could you have had this in Sydney? No, absolutely. Well, sorry. Yes, you could, but we would have been quite a long way out of Sydney. Charlotte's high school is just down the road. Mum Kylie is an event manager, and dad David is an assistant vice chancellor at nearby Waikato University. I sort of fell in love, not only with the university, but the region. And I could really see us as a family fitting in here really well. Lachlan and Ashley are at Waikato too, studying. LACHLAN: So how did you get on in that assignment the other day? Oh, pretty good. Not too bad. Lachlan and Ashley pay the same fees as Kiwi students ` about $6000 a year. For the most part, it didn't feel that different overall. I just felt like I was put in as just another New Zealand citizen. Remember ` the Australian government has just introduced huge university fee hikes for Kiwis living there. Kiwis like Mia Silich in Melbourne, who now can't afford to study in Australia. It couldn't have come at a worse time, when she's studying for her final exams. She's got to rethink her whole future. Meanwhile, the Craig family and other Australians living here get pretty much most of the rights Kiwis are now shut out of in Australia. They can vote. What happens insofar as the leadership of the country affects us just as much as it affects everyone else. And so, you know, the ability for us to make a contribution to that is something that we appreciate. By next year, they'll be eligible for New Zealand citizenship. It would certainly be something we'd think about, yeah. But without being citizens, the Craigs still have access to benefits, student travel concessions, can work for the public service or even join our army if they want to. You don't get more ANZAC than that. It really was very seamless for us. It's sort of like sometimes, in the first year, I kept forgetting I was in another country. Kiwis in Australia aren't feeling the same love. We're kind of the Mexicans in California. You know, we're invited here to work, but we're not really wanted. That's the impression that the government's giving to us. As an Australian, I actually find this a little bit embarrassing. We're made to feel incredibly welcome in this country and treated extremely well, and you know, I'd like to think that Australians make New Zealanders feel just as welcome, but it would appear that... Perhaps not. Not so much. When you look at it through the eyes of the Aussies and Kiwis living in each other's countries, it's hard not to think the trans-Tasman relationship is very one-sided in favour of Australia. Take the latest crackdown on citizenship and university fees. The announcement completely blindsided the New Zealand government. We're pretty unhappy about it. There's now significant uncertainty about that Australian attitude towards that traditional arrangement. Bill English hastily dispatched his foreign minister Gerry Brownlee to Sydney for an explanation from his Aussie counterpart, Julie Bishop. Mr Brownlee appeared far less gung-ho after the meeting. The warmth of our discussions today reaffirms the deep friendship between our countries. He was an embarrassment to the country, coming over here. What we saw on the news here was just appalling. Why bother coming? (CHUCKLES) But Gerry Brownlee says he told Julie Bishop New Zealand was extremely disappointed that it had been left out of the loop. If I'd gone over there and taken a big fight to the Australians, then I think I'd have let down pretty much everybody on this side of the Tasman who needs the investment we have here, who, more than that, needs the trade that 75% of our exporters have into Australia for their jobs in this country. So what's more important here ` trade or people? Unless you have a strong economy, you're not in much of a position to advantage the social side of people's lives, the social requirements of people's lives. And don't expect any tit-for-tat retaliation from the New Zealand government for Aussies living here. Well, that's not a question that's on the agenda at the present time. But there are those who say it's time to strike back. We still see Aussies as being like Kiwis, but Australia sees Kiwis as damn foreigners that have to be controlled. When Aussie Malcolm was the Immigration Minister in the smoke-filled Muldoon cabinet of the late 1970s, you didn't need a passport to enter either country. That's how he got here from his Melbourne birthplace. He's not called Aussie for nothing. I came here, and I believed in the trans-Tasman agreement, and I've spent all my adult life here, and I'm proud to be a Kiwi. 'Australia,' says Aussie Malcolm, 'no longer holds up its end of the trans-Tasman relationship.' 'Time,' he says, 'for New Zealand to get out with its dignity intact.' I'd suggest we start by saying Australia's like the rest of the world. You want to come for a holiday ` three-month easy visa. No problem. Come and enjoy Queenstown, spend your money. You want to come and live here, work, send your kids to our schools, our universities, commit crimes and go to our prisons, then you have to apply, pay the fee. Let us look you over, let us check your qualifications. Do you have a job? Do we want you? And if we don't, you can't come. Are we still brothers? Yep, but different. Maybe same dad, different mums. 'Hang in there,' say Australian politicians. 'We're still mates.' There is no animosity towards New Zealand at all. I don't see a tendency to say, 'Oh, we don't like New Zealand any more.' There's no feeling of that. It's more just a matter of, 'Well, we forgot about you. Oops.' If the trans-Tasman relationship, the various commercial harmonisations that we've had over the last 20 or 30 years, are going to mean anything, they have to be backed up with some of the people-to-people stuff as well. And, look, they agree that there's work to do there. The Kiwi Silich family just bought a new house in Melbourne, so they're staying for now. But they worry about what might come next. And they're going to have to say goodbye to daughter Mia, who'll have to return to New Zealand to study. Growing up, what I saw was a real freedom between the two countries, both trade-wise and people-wise. It's falling back to just commercial realities now. There's no` There's no feeling for the people that are involved. Advance Australia ` it just doesn't seem fair. I expect, you know, a Kiwi to think twice before coming to Australia. We've moved our whole entire family over, and I just sort of am left thinking, 'God, what did we do?' I felt Australian, and I saw my future here, and that has changed now. So, what do you think? Should Australians living in New Zealand be treated the way we are over there? Go to our Facebook page and join the discussion. Well, later, the heart-warming story of Gobi, the desert dog. But up next ` former Green MP Holly Walker opens up about her struggle with postnatal depression. I felt really off-kilter, like I was a radio between stations. READS: There is nothing normal about crawling up the hallway, screaming and hitting yourself in the head in front of your baby. I wasn't functioning on my normal, rational, human level any more. 1 Welcome back. She was poised to be the poster girl for working mums, but in private, former Green MP Holly Walker was struggling. With a newborn and a job in parliament, her life as a new mum wasn't at all how she'd imagined. In the depths of postnatal depression, Holly turned her rage inwards, hitting and bashing herself and spiralling into shame. Here's Billie Jo Ropiha with this very candid account of Holly's struggles. READS: There is nothing normal about crawling up the hallway, screaming and hitting yourself in the head in front of your baby... Holly Walker ` young politician and new mum... I had hit myself right here on the cheek, so I had a really swollen jaw. That was a time that I thought, 'Oh, things are really bad. I need to get this under control.' I told people that I'd had my wisdom teeth out, which was a plausible explanation for having a swollen jaw. She had a public front, but in private, things were vastly different. I felt really off-kilter, like I was a radio between stations. I was making a loud noise, and... I wasn't functioning on my normal, rational, human level any more. Holly was the quintessential overachieving '80s kid. I was very busy as a kid. Ballet dancing and tap dancing, piano lessons, and speech and drama, and swimming (CHUCKLES) I probably had something on every day after school. It's a lot for a kid to be busy all the time. The message that girls could do anything was everywhere during her childhood in Lower Hutt. I used to have a ruler in the '80s that said 'girls can do anything,' and that was a message I absorbed very strongly and strongly believed. At university, she edited the student magazine then became a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford, before returning to New Zealand to work for the Green Party. A move into politics was the logical next step. It felt like a way I could work on those issues and contribute to making a difference, and I thought, 'Where better than Parliament, 'than where the laws are made?' I probably wanted the approval too and the recognition and the public fame, if you like, of being a politician. It's probably what was motivating me. In 2011, she married her sweetheart David Haines in a civil union ceremony. WOMAN: Holly Ruth Haines Walker. The same year, she became a Greens MP at the age of 29. (SPEAKS MAORI) Holly Ruth Haines Walker... When Holly became pregnant a year and a half later, both she and David saw no reason to quit politics. We had an attitude of 'let's just see what happens', which was probably quite naive, but we thought, 'I'm sure we could make that work.' Everything else that I had done in my life up to that point had more or less fallen into place. After all, a handful of other women had done it before her. So, this is the select committee that commemorates all the women members of parliament. Whetu Tirikatene Sullivan, who was the first MP to have a baby while she was in office and also the first cabinet minister to have a baby, and possibly the only one, I think. Ruth Richardson, who was the first to breastfeed and to request facilities near the House where she could breastfeed her babies,... Oh right. ...which is not what we typically associate her political legacy to be. The mother of all budgets. That's right. And the mother of babies. (CHUCKLES) Also brought in breastfeeding. Two weeks overdue, weighing a whopping 10 pounds, Esther was born in a drug-free home birth in October 2013. This feeling is indescribable, you know. I just felt so proud and so content. She was a colicky baby. She didn't sleep much right from the start. Holly was back at work full-time when Esther was just four months old. And I immediately began to think, 'This is going to be much harder than I thought.' And it was. David, who has a rare form of muscular dystrophy, developed chronic pain. Yeah, it's that real juxtaposition of having this wonderful new thing in your life and having so much joy and also having heaps of hardship at the same time. Both of us were, really, in pretty bad places. No one else really knew what was going on. And that's when Holly developed postnatal depression. READS: I'd gone from a confident overachiever to an anxious shadow of my former self. Holly would harm herself when things got tense. Why did you feel the need to hit yourself? I have no idea. You know, I think that's... It's a state` that state you get into where your brain is no longer functioning on a rational level. It could happen out of the blue. (CLICKS FINGERS) Sometimes it happened five minutes into a discussion about something. It wasn't like we would go for an hour, and then, you know, we'd reach a crescendo. And the shock, you know? 'Oh my god. How did that just happen?' It's like that state where you see red, you know? It's like rage and looking for a way out of a circular argument that's going nowhere and looking for a way to break that circuit. So almost dulling the noise, so to speak? Yeah. Trying to make it stop. Trying to break that radio. Yep. Yep. Trying to just reset the situation in some way. Holly quit politics when Esther was 9 months old. It would be over a year before she felt well again. Sometimes in life you have this idea that if you just do this certain thing, everything will be better. And certainly leaving Parliament did help ` it took a lot of the pressure off. But it didn't magically fix my anxiety, and it didn't magically fix Dave's pain. It didn't magically fix Esther's poor sleep. She found solace in reading, and writing a book. One realisation I have come to is that I don't have to do everything all at once, that it's OK to see a kind of sequence to things, and it's OK to put some of the other stuff on hold; it doesn't have to be all at once. Can you get a bowl? (DISHES CLATTER) These days, she has a 9-to-5 job at the Children's Commission. Esther is 3�. You had a big sleep this morning, Esther. And there's another baby on the way. Gonna run out of milk. 'This time,' Holly says, 'things will be different.' Esther's older. She sleeps better. She's a wonderful source of joy and happiness in our life. Mmm, they're apples. (CHUCKLES) So we felt, really for the first time, that we could contemplate having another baby. I'm much more relaxed and realistic about what the challenges of parenting are going to be and how I can roll with the punches and take a much longer period of parental leave. Not try to go back to a crazy job really soon after the baby's born. But she's still sorry more young mums are not represented in our highest office. But we still have a double standard. So it's still very possible for men to become fathers while they're members of parliament or holding high-profile jobs and not to feel as though they're tearing themselves in two trying to do that. (GENTLE MUSIC) It would be great if it was easier for parents to have young children in parliament because then we'd have a more representative parliament that would make better decisions for families. READS: Had I stayed in parliament longer, without the challenges of a small child and a sick partner, I'm sure I would have overcome many of the hurdles that made it so overwhelming at first. I do think I had a lot to offer as an MP. While I missed out on the career I had planned for myself when I stepped down earlier than I'd hoped, Parliament missed out on something too. And Holly and David's second daughter is due in mid-September. Holly's book 'The Whole Intimate Mess' is out now. If you think you might be suffering from postnatal depression, speak with your Plunket nurse or GP. Up next ` an inspiring tale of courage and mateship. See how Gobi the dog and marathon runner Dion Leonard became the best of friends. The gun goes off, and we start running off, and this little dog is still looking at me and running beside me and looking up at me, and I'm waiting for her still to peel off. 50m, 100m, 200m. She's keeping up with you. She's just keeping up with me. She's actually running a little bit ahead and looking over her shoulder at me. 1 She was just one of millions of stray dogs in China, yet Gobi's tale of courage and survival has warmed the hearts of animal lovers around the world. Aussie ultra marathon runner Dion Leonard befriended the scruffy chihuahua-cross during a race across China's forbidding Gobi Desert last year. The pair became inseparable, Gobi tenaciously running alongside Dion for the entire race. He was determined to adopt his little friend and take her home, but as Steve Pennells discovered, his plans would soon be put to the test. (WIND GUSTS) What do you reckon it was about you? Why did she choose you? That's the million-dollar question. If only Gobi could answer that question herself, I think that would be quality. It's certainly not my looks, so (CHUCKLES) I don't know why. Some people have said maybe I smell so much. It could be that she likes my smell. She knows exactly where he is, and she just need to be by his side all the time. There's definitely a magic bond between them. They just click. There has to be something, because it's not a normal man-and-dog relationship scenario. It's clearly more than that. It feels like we have known each other forever. Gobi, the scruffy desert dog, and Dion, the lanky Aussie ultra marathon runner have a remarkable and unshakeable bond. How they found and lost and then found each other again is one of the most incredible stories of fate and friendship. It's a love story. Yeah. Absolutely. (CHUCKLES) Good old-fashioned love story. With a happy ending. Yeah. Thank goodness. (UPBEAT MUSIC) Dion and his wife Lucja are both from Queensland. But 10 years ago, they moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, when Dion got a job as an executive at a whiskey company. Outside of work, they kept fit by running. Dion took it to the next level, taking up the extreme sport of ultra running, covering hundreds, sometimes thousands, of kilometres. You introduced him to running, didn't you? I did. Silly move, cos it was something I was actually good at until he took it on, and now he's better than me, so... (CHUCKLES) June last year. The Gobi Desert in Central China. Dion and 100 other runners have travelled from all corners of the globe to put their bodies and their minds to the ultimate test by running across one of the most desolate places on Earth. Dion knew what he had to do. Very steely minded, wasn't here to make friends. Was here to race, and that was it. On the first day of the week-long race, Dion noticed a stray dog in the camp. I just saw this little scruffball, this ragged dog walking around. I didn't think too much of it. I thought she was with the crew and the organisers. I just assumed that this dog might run 50m or 100m with me and then peel off as we come stampeding through. There's quite a lot of noise and a bit of action and excitement from the start of the race, so I thought she'd probably get scared of that. The gun goes off,... and we start running off, and this little dog's, you know, still looking at me and running beside me and looking up at me, and I'm waiting for her still to peel off, and 50m, 100m, 200m,... She's keeping up with you. ...she's just keeping up with me. She's actually running a little bit ahead and looking over her shoulder at me. The chihuahua-terrier cross ran stride for stride with Dion for the rest of the day. Throughout none of this period have I spoken to her, have I called her, have I fed her, have I watered her. I just literally didn't think she'd stay with me. You ignored her? (CHUCKLES) Yeah. I get to the finish line, and I hear this little rustle behind me, and it's Gobi. She's done the race as well, and I look down at her, and it's like, 'Wow!' (CHUCKLES) It's tough enough for me to do it, let alone a little dog, so I'm starting to think, 'God, I've gotta give her some of my food.' That's a big decision. It is a big decision, absolutely, because it also affects my recovery. That takes way from everything that I've set out and pre-planned for in terms of eating, recovery, and that's really when the first bond was made, is in that tent when I started sharing my food. I mean, during a multi-stage, he doesn't even give me food. Gobi definitely, definitely had a big impact on him. Lucja was back in Edinburgh, following the race on social media. Photos of Dion and his furry running mate, who'd they'd nicknamed Gobi, had gone viral and were being shared across China and around the world. And it was from day two that I started seeing the photos consistently with Dion, so that's when I started to think, 'What's going on here? cos Dion runs quick as well, 'and this dog only has little legs, like this, and how's she keeping up with him? I can't keep up with him.' But every day of the race, Gobi turned up at the start line ready to run with Dion again. What did you think was happening? Well, I could see what was happening. There was certainly a bond forming, a friendship forming. (WIND HOWLS) Halfway into the race, Dion and Gobi were in fourth place. Ahead ` the toughest stage of all. It was wide river crossings, which would be up to my waist in height, rushing water, where Gobi wouldn't have been able to cross that on her own. Why'd you go back and pick up that dog? If I didn't pick her up, she wasn't crossing the water. She was no longer with me, and I could tell by the way she was also running up and down and barking and yelping and squealing that this was a life-changing moment for both of us, in some respects, so it wasn't something that I had time to think about. I just felt the bond. At this point, you're no longer racing alone. No. (CHUCKLES) (UPLIFTING MUSIC) Dion, with Gobi by his side, won that stage of the race ` and won the hearts of millions of followers across China. Dion was doing interview after interview, and people were just, yeah, absolutely enthralled by the story, and I was just amazed at how much people fell in love with Gobi. I don't know. They seemed to feel like Gobi's part of their life as well and how much joy she's bringing people. (MOMENTOUS MUSIC) They finished the race together. Dion won silver. But even better, he had a new best friend. (CHEERING) I wasn't aware that everyone was blogging about this little dog. I wasn't aware that the race organisers were talking about Gobi competing and` So you had no idea Gobi was famous. So I had no idea that she was starting to become, yeah, famous (CHUCKLES) already. So when I actually went to ring Lucja and say, 'Hey, uh...' She just cuts me off, though. She says, 'I see you've been running with this little dog. Are you bring her home? What about Gobi?' She knew the name as well. I was like, 'Yeah, I'd love to. What do you think?' And she was like, '(SCOFFS) There's no question. I knew you were gonna do it.' Let's go. Gobi would need to spend months in quarantine before she'd be allowed to return to the UK with Dion. A friend in the city of Urumqi offered to look after her. So you're about to leave. What did you say to her? I basically just said, 'I'll be back.' (CHUCKLES) Sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know. 'I'll be back. We'll see each other again.' But after the break, Gobi gets restless and runs away from Dion's friend into what seems like a hopeless situation. She was lost, somewhere in a city of three million people and thousands of stray dogs. I knew it was a big city. I knew that that was a busy city and that a little dog there wasn't going to survive. 1 (MIIKE SNOW'S 'GENGHIS KHAN') Dion and Gobi the dog had crossed a desert together. The scruffy stray had made such a huge impression on Dion that he was determined to bring her home to Scotland. I remember patting her on the head, saying, 'Just trust me. 'I'll get you back to the UK. We'll be together again soon.' But Gobi, who was in quarantine at Dion's friend's house in the Chinese industrial city of Urumqi, went missing. (DOGS BARK) There must be hundreds in there. If anyone could help find Gobi, it was American animal welfare activist Chris Barden. Hey, Steve. Chris. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. (DOGS BARK) Wow. They're beautiful. Chris runs this huge dog shelter in Beijing. He's been rescuing strays off the streets in China for the best part of a decade. In this particular location, we have about 230 dogs. Most of them are rescued from the dog meat trade. So these dogs here, they would have been eaten? Yes. Yes. All the dogs here were going to be dog meat. Chris had heard of Gobi from news reports about her epic desert crossing with Dion. Gobi's going to go overseas to have this wonderful new home in the UK, and then suddenly Gobi gets lost. Chris sent photos of Gobi to his unique network of thousands of supporters, asking them to help. Everyone got together and said, 'We're gonna find this dog.' And without exaggeration, there must have been hundreds of people actively looking for Gobi. At the same time, Dion arrived back in China, beginning his search at the place Gobi was last seen. What we had to do was make sure that everyone in Urumqi was aware of it, so we went crazy across social media, the news, TV. We had over 30,000 flyers delivered across the city. Everywhere you went, you knew Gobi was missing, and that was the best that we could do. So the whole city knew now ` there's a missing dog on the streets, and you're looking for her. Yeah. We got so many leads. It just went ballistic. Over 200 leads a day on Gobi sightings across the city. But as each day passed, and as each new lead led to a dead end, Dion became disheartened. It had broken you down. It had worn you down. Yeah, I was spent. I really was completely... at the lowest I've been ever. Emotionally wrecked. To actually know that I had let her down was something that I would have to regret for the rest of my life. But 10 long days after Gobi went missing, a break in the search. Among the scores of photos sent in by the public, one looked promising. Dion drive across the city to a small apartment. The recognition was immediate. (KNOCKS ON DOOR) (DOG BARKS INSIDE) Hi. Hi. Gobi's come running across the ground and is literally coming, jumping up into my arms,... She recognised you straight away. ...shrieking and barking and squealing and just filled with excitement to see me. And I hadn't said a word. (WOMAN SPEAKS MANDARIN) This mobile phone video was taken minutes after their reunion. Dion was so shocked. He couldn't believe he'd found Gobi. (UPLIFTING MUSIC) He just said, 'We've found her!' and there was just tears. I started crying. Everyone around me started crying, and it was just amazing. But the story was not over. During her days living on the streets of Urumqi, Gobi had taken a battering. She was seriously injured and required surgery to repair a broken bone in her leg. With the best care possible and plenty of rest and love,... Got the tail wag still going. Gobi made a full recovery. There you go. Within weeks, she was back to her old self, as feisty as ever. Smile, Gobi. Perfect. That's cool. That's a good one. And she's cleared to fly back to Scotland with Dion. LUCJA: Welcome to Paris! 6000km by air, by sea and by road. Then, after three solid days of travel, the warmest of homecomings for Dion, Lucja and Gobi. (CHEERING) This is Gobi! Hey! That was the best finish line ever, and it's been the longest race ever, and that's how I've put it ` it's been a long, long journey ` and this has been the best reward, the best race medal, if you like. (UPLIFTING MUSIC CONTINUES) (SMOOCHES) Aw! And not surprisingly, a Hollywood movie based on Dion and Gobi's story is already in the works. Dion reckons Hugh Jackman could play him but says the producers will have a tough time finding a dog like Gobi. That's our show for tonight. Do join us on Facebook and Twitter ` SundayTVNZ. And thanks for joining us this evening. Nga mihi nui, hei kona.