It is the 15th of September 1975!
It is almost half a century ago!
It is interesting to see what people were saying ages ago and find out if they were right!
In Auckland a lady lawyer has been made a magistrate!
She is the first one.
That is why the headline says
Woman magistrate sworn in,
like it is strange for a woman to be a judge.
In 1975 there are hardly any women with an important job
apart from the Queen.
What will happen next?
say some of the men,
Woman jockeys and woman All Blacks? Haw haw haw!
15 years later a boy with a machete will attack Judge Wallace
in her courtroom
and she will nearly die.
And everyone who used to drink whisky with her will say
oh no poor Gussie.
But it is ok because she will get better.
Also, all the court security will be changed forever,
although it would probably have changed after 9/11 anyway.
The Prime Minister Mr Rowling is at the Annual New Zealand News Media Golf Tournament Dinner at Wairakei!
He is the guest speaker!
He is the guest speaker because he is Prime Minister.
He will not be the guest speaker at the next Annual New Zealand News Media Golf Tournament Dinner.
He does not know this yet.
Although maybe he does, a bit.
He says to the New Zealand news media,
Government economic policy is working.
He says,
The economy is turning the corner.
He tells the New Zealand news media
The need for objective reporting has never been so great.
He tells them,
While priorities and perspectives seem to have become victims in the search for sensation,
the role is always one of great responsibility,
and accepted as such.
Maybe this is something Prime Minister Jacinda would say too,
if she was guest speaker at
the Annual New Zealand News Media Golf Tournament Dinner.
It is still good manners to say flattering things
to someone who has invited you to dinner,
even if they are not really true.
What is on TV today in 1975?
The TV menu is not very big in 1975.
There is TV1 and there is TV2 if you live in the right place which is basically Auckland.
Otherwise you just have TV1.
It is not like Netflix where you can watch whatever you want or The Sopranos over and over.
If it is 11.30am on Sep 15 1975 you can watch Play School (repeat).
If it is 3.05pm you can watch Play School.
If it is 5.10pm you can watch Ready to Roll and then Happy Days and then This Week in Britain and then Dig This and then The News for half an hour with Dougal Stevenson which might have the Prime Minister talking at the Wairakei Annual Media Golf Hooley.
Then there will be Close to Home and Doctor at Sea and Viewers Letters and Colditz.
There is no Viewers Letters any more.
So you cannot write to TVNZ and say
I was offended and outraged.
But there is Twitter and Instagram.
So if you don't like someone on the TV,
you can just go ahead and get them cancelled.
It is the 15th of September 1975 in Parliament!
Mr P. Blanchfield (Lab., West Coast) says that licence fees should be adjusted to the quality of reception in the district of the viewer or listener.
Mr W. L. Young (Nat., Miramar) is unhappy that Wellington people have to pay the full licence fee,
even though they only get TV1.
Mr Blanchfield is unhappy about the same advertisements appearing three or four times a night.
Surely the commission can do without this punishing revenue, he says.
Mr Blanchfield suggests the West Coast weather reports should be given from Christchurch.
The MPs today say they are very good at their job.
But would Sam Uffindell get up in parliament and complain about the amount of advertising we have to listen to?
The Christchurch Greyhound Racing Club's first equalisator meeting at Queen Elizabeth II Park on Saturday 20 September 1975 has been cancelled!
The first bend has proved too tight for the dogs to take at almost full pace.
There have been several falls.
The dogs race at Addington now.
Maybe it is just as well.
It could have got quite confusing to talk about the King Charles Greyhounds.
Some people have started a land march!
They have set out from a little settlement in the far north.
They are heading for Wellington.
They have a petition to present.
Mrs Whina Cooper, who is 80,
says in 1862 Maori owned 63m acres in New Zealand.
In 1960, they owned 4m acres.
But by 1975 they has just 2.5 m acres left.
She says,
Pakeha understand too little the present feeling of Maoris about the alienation of land.
Maybe a lot more people will understand by the end of the march.
But maybe in 50 yearsā time there will still be people saying
Stop complaining.
And stop calling it Aotearoa. I live in New Zealand.
