CAPTIONS WERE MADE WITH THE SUPPORT OF NZ ON AIR. . (UPBEAT MUSIC) (BLEEP) off. Controversial. (CRASH!) Confrontational. ...beat your (BLEEP) head off. Compassionate. Oh my God! (APPLAUSE) These are just some of the things that have made Fair Go New Zealand's number one consumer watchdog. There is no need for this. Tonight we look back on the laughs... and the tears. (SOBS) You all right? Thank you. The moments that made Fair Go a hit... (TYRES SCREECH, ENGINE ROARS) ...for 40 years. You can turn that off. One thing I'll say for your programme ` you help get things done. Copyright Able 2018 In case you missed last week's show, we have been on a 40-year walk down memory lane,... It's massive. ...exploring the vaults of the Film and Television Archive,... Do you think my arse looks big in this shot? (LAUGHS) ...and digging into our own history. 40 years all wrapped up in about five corridors of a vault. When Fair Go started, it just rocketed to the top of the ratings and stayed there. We were bigger than the news in the '90s. We were number one in the ratings. What was rewarding was being able to get results for people. I mean, you can do press gallery news and journalism for years and achieve almost nothing. Everything you do is just wrapping fish the next day. Oh my God! But Fair Go, we got results, and we could show those results, and we saw the pleasure on people's faces when we actually delivered results. That was hugely rewarding. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's all right. And it is annoying to think that it takes the threat of the media to make companies and individuals do the right thing, and that's really disappointing. Check that out. 'Right from the very beginning, Fair Go courted controversy.' What were the first words ever uttered? READS: Good evening, and welcome to the first-ever Fair Go. Mm-hm. How am I doing so far? Brilliant. Yeah? Do I sound like the '70s? Mm-hm. READS: We're not gonna tell you what the programme is all about. Good. Teasing, even in the '70s. I like it. (CHUCKLES) Nice. It wasn't afraid to ruffle feathers. 'Your Fair Go programme on TV One is an incredible example of superficial research 'and flouting of the real truth.' Ooh. (GROANS) But it was here to protect the little guy. This appears to be a story from the 1970s talking about shrinkflation. No way. I kid you not. See? Some things don't change. Wow. (LAUGHS) For the first time, big business found itself being questioned in the court of public opinion. I remember I think it was Kevie's story about a man who had been charged for using a sex phone line ` you know, where you had to pay a credit card to listen to people talk dirty to you. And he was adamant that he had not done that. Telecom said, 'We don't make mistakes. 'This came from your number; it could only have been you.' And it threatened his marriage, and it threatened his job, and he was adamant that he hadn't done it, and as it turned out, it was a linesman who was actually able to short-circuit and get into other people's landlines. And it made me question authority and big government and big business saying, 'This cannot happen. We have things in place to prevent this happening,' when in actual fact, they were wrong. Top of the morning to you, Mr Larkin. And it wasn't just corporates running scared of being named and shamed. Can we have a word with you this time, please? No, thanks. Put the camera off. You won't talk to us at all? No. I never enjoyed the confrontation. I actually don't enjoy that kind of confrontation. I'd do anything to avoid it. But when it happened, what we were trying to do was to get that great moment of reveal, of showing what this person was like. Nobody ` not even TVNZ ` was off limits. Somebody had written in, complaining that there wasn't enough women's golf on TVNZ Sport. Was there any women's golf on TVNZ Sport? Oh, there was. The response they got from TVNZ was, 'Who's interested in women's golf?' Yowza. Unbelievably good. Yeah. And I loved it. I loved taking on TVNZ itself. 'Course, these people are going, 'What the hell are you guys doing?' And it was just` We loved it. This is a bit of Fair Go infamy. Is it? Check this out. In the early days, the confrontation was a rarity. I wonder what's gonna happen here. (SCRAPING) (TYRES SCREECH) (BOTH LAUGH) That was a rental. Yeah. In retrospect, I parked a little bit close to behind him, but he did have plenty of space to get out in front. But he decided that instead of going out forwards, he would ram me backwards. So he rammed my car and then drove off. It made great footage. But the judge didn't like it, so I got done for a traffic infringement. I'm very angry at them! I'm very angry! I'm very angry! In the late '80s and '90s, confrontation became a reoccurring theme. Get the volume control at the ready, because coming up is a right royal Fair Go showdown. We started seeing some extraordinary brawls going on. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! I've taken three punches to the face. That's bullshit! (SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY) Listen! (SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY) Come on! You're on my property here! Fair Go has always been known for its biff. Well, hopefully not our own reporters throwing punches, but we had to defend ourselves in some pretty tough situations. And the classic of those ` Sean Plunket ` I think, actually, probably the greatest couple of minutes of Fair Go ever. He had a ladder thrown at him. (MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) (CRASH!) Yeah, yeah. He was walking in on an itinerant roof-painter, house-painter kind of guy ` pretty nasty. (GRUNTS) Look, I'll (BLEEP)ing cream you with that. Go! Go away! Go on. (BLEEP) off. I'm leaving. Go. Don't. Go away! Hey! With the camera! You! I'll beat your (BLEEP)ing head off. Go on. Do it! Do it! Go on. Go on. (BLEEP) off. (GRUNTS) (BLEEP) off. It makes for wonderful TV. Increasingly, Fair Go reporters found themselves playing the role of referee,... This is a rip-off man! Hang on. He's ripped off us! ...like this dispute over a stone wall. The action of that story will always be something special. Stop them! Stop them! Stop them! It was, I thought, one of the most entertaining stories Fair Go ever did ` in the sense that it was just a complete shambles in a way. Man, because you... (SHOUTING DROWNS OUT SPEECH) I am a good man to you! I have been waiting for you! I have been counting for you for many times! You didn't come here until I bring the Fair Go! You had two people who I'm not sure quite understood each other. They both had pretty strong accents. The reporter was kind of left out of it. These two guys got into this brawl, leaving the reporter, basically, to stand there and observe this whole thing as it broke out. But it makes for wonderful television. Return my money back! Hey, calm down! It's worth looking at. It's Fair Go at its brilliant best. Return the money! 5000 you took from us! Hey, calm down. Wait. Bullshit! That's the job you have done to us! Even the kaumatua of Fair Go found himself caught in the occasional crossfire. John Milburn, National Finance, he was always offering loans to people, and he kept turning up year after year after year. Why don't you pay back all the people you owe money to, Mr Milburn? We did a walk-in on him, got some greats shots, but I also had with me the guy that had been ripped off, who was a big dude. This other guy comes from behind me and slams him up against the wall and starts to take him apart. That grand you took off me, I want it back. Hey, hey. And I think all sympathy for Fair Go in this argument is going out the door quickly as this rather elderly gentleman's getting slammed around by this much younger, larger bloke. He was rightly angry, but... Did he give any indication that he was gonna do it? No, none at all. I got a hell of a shock. Kevin got an even bigger shock when he found himself and his family on the receiving end of unwanted threats. There was a famous case of a guy who rang us up one Saturday morning and said he was gonna blow up the house. And so I immediately rang up Television New Zealand, and they said, 'Yes, he rang us also and said he was gonna blow up TVNZ and Kevin Milne's house. 'We've been in touch with the police. We've passed on all the information that we have. 'We don't believe he'll do anything.' And nothing did happen. Doing your job could put you on the wrong side of the law. Come on. We have spoken to... It was this confrontation that resulted in a larger-than-life Fair Go personality being accused of assault. ...you manhandling. Let me turn it off! He was a small, wiry guy, and to this day, I think, you know, what a farce, cos we did nothing. He came out fighting. What?! What are you like this for?! And there was much hilarity in the office ` lots of laughing at me, not with me ` about the fact that we'd never` no one in Fair Go history, evidently, had ever had an assault case against them. Look! There is no need for this. And then the judge had obviously made up his mind that ` how could a person who looks like me possibly feel threatened by a person that looks like the defendant, the guy who was pressing the charges? Cos he was so little. You've got to let him get up and turn the camera off. This is assault. He knew he was in the wrong, and he was an angry little man. And he, you know, said he would take us to court, and he did. And he won, which was just insult to injury. And that's not the only form of payback that reporters have been subjected to. So I knocked on the door and said, 'Look,' to one of the adult children, 'we're going to run this show, and you're welcome to come on it.' And he kept me talking. And I thought, 'This is a little bit odd.' And then I realised` I looked up just in time and realised that one of the daughters had been brewing the kettle and was pouring a kettle of boiling water on me. So I managed to get out of that, and they chased me down the road. Actually, one of the women chased me with a` broke a bottle and chased me with a broken bottle. So I was glad to get out of that one, but you have to give them the opportunity. Coming up ` we turn the focus on lighter, happier times. Hey, guys. Having a good day? # Got you under my skin. # I got you over my grin. # I got you under my skin. # And I got you. I... # (GIGGLES) (UPBEAT MUSIC) As you comb through the archive,... So, apparently, there's some more stuff down here from the '80s. Yes, a decade I was alive in. ...two things become immediately clear. Oh, these look like the real deal. Look at this. Check these out. The first is how much technology has changed. Wow. If only we had something to play it on. Look at these things. What do you think this X stands for? Fair Go X. (CHUCKLES) A short-lived Fair Go X-rated section? The second is how comedy, not just confrontation, has shaped the show. They had their, kind of, meat and potatoes at the top... Mm-hm. ...and their dessert at the bottom,... (CHUCKLES) ...if you wanna put it in culinary terms. Maybe I'm just getting hungry, but that was pretty tasty stuff. I just loved it. I'm one of the many people on television, I think, who really would love to be a stand-up comic, but just not funny enough. (LAUGHS) Ironically, that's quite funny. Fair Go gave the team the chance to express their showbiz talents. HUSKILY: Hi. It's so good to hear your voice. 'You sound like a big strong man. I'll bet you are. (GASPS) 'I like big strong men. 'I suppose you're wondering what I'm wearing. Well, have I got a surprise for you? 'I'm not wearing`' Uh, and that's, uh... That's where we leave it. Most of our life was deadly serious. We wanted at some point or another to have a bit of a laugh and try and express ourselves with a bit of comedy ` poorly. Same as usual, Kev? You know what? I think I might try something different. Good for you, Kevin. Get a perm. WHISPERS: Nobody's really getting perms these days. Get a perm. Get a perm. (PENSIVE MUSIC) Good evening. Welcome to Fair Go. Tonight ` a serious look at the building industry. This guy's not bad ` almost as good as the other bloke. With the Ad Awards, ad spoofs became a regular feature. I'm going to show you the benefits of these amazing lawn-aerator sandals, brought to you by those stalwarts of style, masters of mail order, Health Pride. But aerating your lawn is not all these amazing sandals can do. No, sir. Say you want a coleslaw for your barbecue. Just put the cabbage down here. But some of the best moments were spontaneous and unplanned. I remember one classic case where Philip Alpers, stuck for anything to do, and a guy from Colenso or Saatchis or somebody came up to get his award. Phil leans over and gives him a kiss. And I` nobody has ever understood, including Philip, why that happened. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Loved the commercial. Thank you. Can we do this every week? Can I get one? Nah, I'd better not. Yes. Mwah! (LAUGHTER) It's not legal yet. Oh! Oh yes. A moment of insanity. Who did I kiss? Bri` No, it wasn't Brian. It was a man. Was it Brian Edwards? No, it wasn't Brian Edwards. I think it was an ad man who'd kissed Judy. That's right. And so I insisted on a kiss as well. Yeah, that's right. Mwah! (LAUGHTER) There was glitz and glamour, but the Ad Awards were always a low-budget affair. One Fair Go, I wore a shearer's singlet ` a black shearer's singlet with a belt ` you know, as my little black dress, cos that was all I could afford, and I'd worn everything. (LAUGHS) As for Alpers' flamboyant fashion, well, it was designed to catch the eye. I wore things on Fair Go that I wouldn't be seen dead in in the street. I did choose my ties for shock value. I didn't put anything rude on them. Oh, Paul Holmes gave me one that had sperm all the way through it at one stage. I wore that a few times. But I don't think anybody even noticed that. Alpers used fashion to hide super-sleuth gadgets galore. I lucked on to a former Savile Row tailor who lived in Petone, and he made me these wonderful suits, and what he did was he built little paths through the suits for various wires ` for sound and video and all sorts of things. And so I'd walk around a walking recording studio with video and the rest of it. The cameras were still quite large at that stage. By the time I left Fair Go, we'd just got to the stage where I could hide a camera in my hat. And you did that? Oh yeah. But there were some shoots, no matter how hard you tried, it was impossible to hide a mic, let alone a camera. How did you end up walking through the TVNZ newsroom in the nude? (LAUGHS) I wasn't actually in the nude. I had a pair of undies on. A very small pair of undies, Kevin. A fairly smallish pair of` Well, actually, no, they weren't too dinky. But the weird thing about being painted is that you actually think you've got clothes on. # And I got you, # I got you under my kiss, and I got you over my... # Defining a good ad and a bad ad can be subjective, as can be determining what makes a wonderful story. The big, flashy stories, all well and good, but I think part of what has made Fair Go such an icon down through the years is that there was no story too small. What a picture this is ` colouring-in heaven. What could possibly be wrong? Like a pack of felt pens missing the colour green. And I looked at that and just immediately thought, 'Oh, that's a good story.' And I remember Kevin ` he was so scoffy about it, and he was rolling his eyes in our meeting and, '(SCOFFS, GROANS).' Yep, the ultimate rip-off. Move over, insurance companies, lawyers, dodgy-car dealers and rip-off roof-painters, Andrew Cossey of Papakura, Auckland, has been sold a green felt tip that writes black. This is indeed a sad day for colourers-in everywhere. And I remember Liane going out to film that and thinking, 'What has this programme come to?' Honestly, I thought, 'This is ridiculous.' Anyway, she went out and filmed this beautiful, beautiful piece, all, sort of, from a child's point of view about what you can't do if you haven't got a green pen. It was just brilliant. And also it said something about Fair Go ` that we're not all after the, sort of, whinebox stories or the big investigations all the time. So maybe this wasn't really that big a deal for a lot of you watching, but think about it ` a consumer was sold a faulty product. Now, just because the consumer is 7 years old and the faulty product was a felt-tip pen, shouldn't really make any difference, should it? I remember after the story aired, Kevin came up to me and shook my hand, and I thought, 'What's this all about?' And he went, 'I really enjoyed that story.' He said, 'I never would've thought you could've made a story out of that.' If we can't help a kid with a packet of felts, who can we help? Mm. After the break ` regrets and remorse. So, you've got Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan all coming over here, have you? That'll be our business, not yours. Some of the stories that haunt veteran reporters. I'm telling you in the name of the Lord ` you make an appointment with me. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) . (UPBEAT MUSIC) It's a strange thing, but little issues have always had a big impact on Fair Go,... Not the same hand that grasps the ice cream takes the money. ...like why is it OK for dairy owners to put their dirty digits on your ice cream cone? Yeah, we got these huge ice creams from these really dirty-fingered, sweaty little hands. And it put the whole country` It was a huge story. We got an enormous response. And now you don't often find anywhere that hasn't got some sort of a wrap around an ice cream cone. Over the course of 40 years, there have been many wins,... Oh my God! ...many stoushes... Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Listen! (SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY) Come on! You're on my property here! ...and time to reflect on the fairness of Fair Go. There are a couple of shows I do regret, where I think I was unfair. But that's not a bad record out of all those years. We were very, very careful about what we said, and we did try extraordinarily hard to be fair. Brian Edwards used to point out that the very format of the show is unfair. But I don't think it's any more unfair than the front page of a newspaper. You're gonna apologise to my company. Of course, everyone makes mistakes. Well, it's good to be back on TV again. That's all I got to say. And Fair Go reporters are no exception. I'm telling you in the name of the Lord, you make an appointment with me. A couple of run-ins with this fella gave Milne cause for concern. The Reverend Kawana Morehu, we called him the Rip-Off Reverend, but he was a very odd character. He had all these grand ideas ` billion-dollar` He wanted to make a billion-dollar village just out of Palmerston North, and he claimed that he knew the President of the United States, and his claims were outrageous. And he was always trying to get money off people. I reflect now on those programmes, and I think, 'I wonder whether, really, I wasn't attacking a guy that had a problem.' So, you've got Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan all coming over here, have you? That'll be our business, not yours. Do you have many of those regrets? Not really. There was another guy... One of the funniest stories we ever did was about a hoarder called Keith Montreal. I've met Keith Montreal. OK. Lovely, lovely guy. Ah. Right. (CHUCKLING, LOW EXCLAMATIONS) Up here? Oh, I see. That's the` Is that the living room, Keith? Yeah. She's a little bit messy, eh? Keith was the subject of neighbourhood complaints but was happy for Kev to come and have a look inside his home. This is the hallway area. You got a outboard motor, is it? Yes, it is. 45-horse electric Chrysler. Oh yeah. Very nice. Now, again, time to think about Keith, you know? Did we put him up for some sort of... for the amusement of the public in a way? Mm. And I do think about him too. I think, with him in particular, I would've treated the scripts differently somehow. After 27 years of fighting for New Zealand consumers, this old war horse finally called it quits. You know, I was 60 or so, and I think at that time, you gotta say, 'Well, I don't want to be dashing out, running after crooks any more.' You know? 'Time to calm down a bit.' If there's one thing most reporters of old agree on, it's that Fair Go should never, ever be retired. I'm astonished that it's lasted for 40 years. I mean, nothing in television lasts for 40 years. That's wonderful. And I'd be delighted if it went on for another 40 years. It's got heart; it's got integrity; it's got authenticity; it's got longevity; it's got nous; and it's got sassy. And the very best Fair Go presenters are all that. Fair Go's a force. I think in New Zealand, anyhow, Fair Go ` and long may it last ` will always be that threat and 'I'll show you not to pick on the little person.' I think that's what it is. I think TVNZ should be really proud of the fact that it was happy to run that show, year on, year off, for so long. Good on 'em. And I hope it lasts for a lot longer. So if you've been ripped of,... Keith, have you got any money at all that you can give these people? ...given the run-around,... You've got a contract with us saying you won't do this again, Gordon. Gordon! ...give us a call,... Garth Bray from Fair Go. How are you? These guys are so confident in their product that they're going to let me pick at random... ...because we are only too happy to go in to bat for the little guy or girl. 40 years of television history. I've been on the show about five minutes. Mm. (LIGHTS CLICK) (JAUNTY PIANO MUSIC)