The death of well-known NZ broadcaster Paul Holmes today marks the end of an era in what passes for in-depth news / current affairs interviewing in New Zealand
Personally, I was never a big fan of Holmes’ as a current affairs interviewer; he didn’t have the best diction, he ‘um’ed and ‘arr’ed and in the early days at least had a slight, but noticable lisp. It made listening to a Holmes interview rather irritating.
Holmes may not have been a Jeremy Paxman or John Suchet, but he did manage to cut a number of people down to size; in an interview with Margaret Thatcher, he suggested that her management style resembled a Nuremburg rally. And America’s cup arsehole Dennis Connor walked out of the studio after Holmes suggested that now he was in New Zealand (we had beaten Conner’s arse and taken the cup) he should apologise for insulting comments he had made about members of the Kiwi crew/support team.
He also managed to wind up super-shithead Gordon Ramsay, which in my opinion is enough to earn him a medal on it’s own. 
Away from the interview studio, Holmes was a key figure in changing a number of social conventions in Godzone. He was instrumental in raising funds for the first NZ para-olympic team. He supported his adopted daughter Millie Holmes through her arrest and trial for possession of methamphetamine. He championed the cause of 3-year-old Aids victim Eve van Grafhorst, helping her and her family leave the bigoted Australian town of Kincumber and settle in New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay. The two remained close friends until Eve’s death in 1993, aged 11 years.
Holmes was something of an everyman as well; when a staff member’s wedding was in jeopardy after a venue cancellation two weeks before the big day, Holmes offered to host the wedding at his luxury Hawkes Bay estate. Another time, he reportedly loaned his prized Jaguar to a complete stranger as a bridal car.
He was never one to shy away from controversial topics. An article he wrote about Waitangi day for the New Zealand Herald had the gold-bricking Maori radical spongers screaming racism at the top of their lungs. Holmes couldn’t have cared less. Less than a year later, he described Waitangi whinger Tariana Turia as a “confused bag of lard”, “a bully” who “folded under pressure” and who did not have the “guts to vote”, as being “all mouth and no trousers, all talk and no walk” and a “complete fool”
Paul Holmes was made Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2013 New Year’s Honours, for his services to broadcasting and the community, just weeks before his death. It was an honour that he felt was well-deserved but more importantly for him, an honour for his wife Deborah, in recognition of her years of support and assistance. Holmes died today from Prostate cancer at his home, surrounded by his family.
But he’s left quite a legacy and a fair body of work behind…
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