(SLOW CLASSICAL MUSIC) It's the early days of World War II, and the man with the plan` - (HIGH-PITCHED SCREECHING) - Wait, wait, wait! Sorry. Just trying to do the introduction. Sorry. It's the early days of World War II, and the man with the plans is Bob Semple, Minister of Public Works and Railways. He's volunteered to lead a battalion of fighting engineers into the theatre of war, but no one's taken him up on his offer because he's pushing 70. Thank goodness, though, because while he's not afraid of danger, he is obsessed with safety, and he's about to turn one of his greatest passions into something that might just keep New Zealand safe from one of the biggest threats we've ever faced. Are you done? Get on with it. (HIGH-PITCHED SCREECHING) New Zealand has a past filled with people who thought, 'She'll be right,' when more often than not, it wasn't. Join me as we celebrate these true stories of the history that history tried to forget. Copyright Able 2017 New Zealand has a proud tradition of people inventing things without first asking the simple question ` 'What could possibly go wrong?' To celebrate these true tales of extraordinary New Zealanders, I'm using some ordinary New Zealanders. One of my favourite journalists will play my favourite politician. I've borrowed some kids. I've even roped in my dad. What could possibly go wrong as we celebrate those amongst us who tried to put safety first? (SLOW ORCHESTRAL MUSIC) This is one of my favourite politicians. Bob Semple ` in his youth, a dashingly handsome young man. A militant unionist, he was virtually tossed out of his native Australia and arrived in New Zealand in 1904, where he became known as 'Fighting Bob', both for his passionate speeches and for his amateur boxing. (MAN GRUNTS, WHIP CRACKS) Semple's goal was not only to improve the lot of the worker but the safety and well-being of all New Zealanders. For example, in order to reduce the number of car accidents in the 1930s, Semple records a series of records, which he intends to distribute to automobile associations and to schools. The traffic officer today is the gentleman of the road. He will set a standard of good manners and will protect the decent citizen from the speed hog and the drunken driver. Incredible. 80 years on, nothing's changed. Still, that had to be a better safety first campaign than some previous ones, such as these two young girls here. Look at her. Fantastic. Although, she appears to have forgotten the E in safety. Though, she could always borrow an E from the alphabet girl next door. But like many drivers, Semple didn't necessarily think all of the rules applied to him. In the early 1950s, a rookie traffic cop called Russell Coddington issued his first-ever traffic ticket to none other than Bob Semple for an expired Warrant of Fitness and a broken headlight. To his credit though, Semple did tell Coddington that, 'If you hadn't given me a ticket, you would have been looking for a new job on Monday.' Semple also believed that a modern world was a safer world. So as the Minister for Public Works, Bob built better roads and wider bridges to make driving safer. He built viaducts and irrigation schemes and power plants to make life generally better all round. And when they were built, Bob was always there at the opening, because he knew the value of a good photo opportunity. And here's one of my favourites ` Bob Semple parking his ministerial car in an irrigation pipe in Rangitata. But when it comes to protecting the workers of New Zealand, well, given our lackadaisical attitude to workplace safety, Semple had his work cut out for him. Take this guy, who's recording the temperature of a boiling geothermal pool and whose only concession to safety is he's tucked his trousers into his socks. Or these guys, who seem blissfully unaware of the rather large rock right above them held up by some rather small sticks. Or these two gentlemen, who are installing power lines in Levin. Still, at least he's maintaining three points of contact. But there is one workplace safety image that in my opinion is the single greatest photograph ever taken in the history of New Zealand. It was taken here at Manapouri. This place is considered the birthplace of the modern conservation movement in New Zealand, because so many people signed a petition demanding that the level of this lake not be raised, that it threatened the safety of this tiny woman collecting them. So the government was forced to build the power station without raising the level of the lake. (EXPLOSION) They tunnel into the mountain and hollow out its heart for the turbine room. Then they carry on towards the fjord. It's an incredible feat of engineering, and with the eastern and the western tunnels about to meet, they say, 'We should celebrate this. 'We should invite some dignitaries, 'have a bit of a do, fire a symbolic explosive charge.' Now, I don't know who packed the explosives into that charge, but they were clearly a New Zealander. And when someone said, 'How much do you think we should put in?' They said, 'Well, a little bit more won't do any harm.' Tap, tap, tap. Then with the dignitaries gathered, local MP Ralph Hanan presses the plunger down and fires the symbolic charge. And half a second later, this man here, Barry Durrant, took... this photograph. In my opinion, the single greatest image captured in the history of this country. Barry, it's a hell of a photo. Got local MP Ralph Hannan. He's just pressed the plunger down, and it appears that things have not gone according to plan. No, this is a big concussion from the blast that swept through the tunnel. The lights went out. Rocks were raining round, and in the dark, my flash went off. But I didn't have a clue what I had until I saw it in the dark room. And I really love this guy right here, who's` e-even though he's smoking a cigarette, he's got his` his hands in his h` in his ears. I mean, that guy almost looks euphoric. (LAUGHS) This guy here, he's got that look of a typical New Zealander who's, you know, hidden behind there thinking, - 'Oh, I thought that might happen.' - (BOTH CHUCKLE) Oh yeah. Could` Could well be. This photograph was taken in 1968, and there was a lot of big news events ` the Inangahua earthquake, the Wahine sunk. But this photograph cleaned up all the awards. It did. It was an amazing year for news, but, um, certainly it gave me a lot of sa` satisfaction, even though I was at Wahine, to take the top picture of this year. Yeah. But, um, quite moving to come back here and see the tunnels. Quite moving to have you here, because, as I say, this is my... absolute favourite photograph. Getting quite emotional. I` I really love this photograph, and this man,... he took it. I gave him a hearty backslap. I tell you what, this has bloody well made my day. (CLASSICAL MUSIC) What do you think of that, Bob? Ha! Would never have happened in my day. Bob Semple's all about protecting people, which is why he loves machinery and believes that it will be the saviour of the worker. I believe it's time to transfer laborious toil to machinery to make machinery the servant and not the master. Well said. And it's because of this love of machinery that Bob Semple has the greatest monument to any politician in the country. And here it is. A wonderful tribute in wood to a man who loved the working man. What is it? Well, let me explain. To demonstrate his belief in the power of machinery, here is Bob in 1937 driving a bulldozer over a wheelbarrow to symbolise that no more would the workers of New Zealand be slaves to physical labour ` unless they had some gardening to do on the weekend, because not even Bob could stop that. But if you look very closely at the handle of that wheelbarrow, you'll see that this is the exact same handle, immortalised forever as a tribute to Bob Semple. Was freeing people from the tyranny of physical labour Semple's greatest act? No, because he is about to attempt something that will keep us even safer still and will cement his place in our history. Finished yet? Not quite. (WRENCH CLICKS) (JAZZ MUSIC) How's it going? Good. Great. I'll go put the lunch on, then. Politician Bob Semple dreamed of a time when machines would end the back-breaking toil of the worker. But machines are not always the miracle devices the catalogues promise. Take deep freezers. In the mid-1960s, these are considered to be the latest mod con. But some people think they might just be a bit of a con, and the reason for that is simple. If you get any air trapped inside the freezer bag, then you get freezer burn and the food is ruined. The best brands in the frozen food world couldn't come up with a way to save the wasted toil of growing, picking, blanching, bagging and freezing food that would spoil. Until, standing at her kitchen bench, Manawatu housewife and inventor, Norma McCulloch, suddenly figures out a way to remove the trapped air and keep the food safe. And Norma invests a simple cardboard tube that does just that. And I watched my daughter pumping up her bicycle tyre one day... (REPORTER LAUGHS) ...and I thought, well if you can push air in without electricity, why can't you pull it out without electricity? And so I made up this little, uh, cylinder idea. You could just sit it like so and pump out the air. That's it. They were a massive hit. Yes, we sold over a million of them, yeah. Just didn't charge enough, I think. (LAUGHTER) The great thing about her as well is`is` is that classic phrase, 'But wait. There's more.' (LAUGHS) And really, you know, that summed up Norma. Cos not only did she` she look at this and invent something that could then suck air out, then she essentially reverse engineered it and created a resuscitator. This is very, very` It's just two tubes, right? Mm-hm. And it's just... (TUBES CLANK) ...a simple matter of pumping. And instead of squeezing the bag, you just simply... do that. Right. And so what it does is it delivers a set volume. And the great thing about this resuscitator is that it's not just for people. It's a very good example of her lateral thinking. She said, 'I'm going to Massey University. I'm sure this'll work on animals.' The results were fantastic, first of all, on newborn calves, and then we prototyped one for newborn lambs ` foals, piglets, small animals right down to cats and kittens and puppies. Cos I'm, you know, the son of a farmer, and there is nothing worse than having to give mouth-to-mouth to a calf. Because of that, and dozens of other inventions, Norma was named one of world's top female inventors. But one of the Manawatu's other great innovators was electric engineer John Hart. During World War II, his simple invention was used on far-flung battlefields to keep our soldiers safe and content. Because when it comes to safety, it's important to have... safe tea. See what I did there? And the Thermette that John Hart designed to boil water was standard issue for New Zealand troops. It's a simple principle ` water inside, fire underneath, an internal chimney to create efficient updraught and a large surface area to heat the water. It was certainly safer than the British billy boiling method, which was to put sand in a biscuit tin, pour petrol in and light it. Known as the Benghazi boiler, it could boil 12 cups of tea in five minutes using anything that would burn as fuel. Mine's a little bigger than the original, but I really like tea. And how important was tea to the war effort? Well, in 1942, the British government bought the world's entire crop of tea, apart from that grown in Japanese-occupied territories. They were quite fond of tea too. But there was something invented in Taranaki in the 1950s that I suspect Bob will enjoy even more. (JAUNTY MUSIC) (WHIMSICAL MUSIC) This is a boxthorn hedge. These terrible thorny hedges love Taranaki almost as much as the people of Taranaki hate them. Why? Well, prior to the Second World War, they were virtually uncontrollable. They'd grow to be 10m, 20m, 30m wide. Entire herds of cows were being lost in them. Clearly, something had to be done. Fortunately, at the end of the Second World War, there was quite a lot of cheap military surplus. And the locals thought to themselves, 'I've got an idea.' They went out, and they purchased used tanks, trucks and Bren Gun Carriers. On to them, they mount the largest motors they can find, and on to those they fit the biggest blades they can manufacture in their garages, creating what I believe to be the greatest feat of hedge cutters ever built in the history of hedges. Marvel at the majesty of these magnificent men and their mowing machines. Frankly, I'm amazed OSH hasn't published these photographs on a series of commemorative calendars. Look at the ease with which that massive blade slices effortlessly through the hedge. Sometimes the blades came off, and I suspect they were never seen again. But this machine here, though, is my absolute favourite. That's an old puddle jumper truck, and you can see that they used whatever they could lay their hands on. That pulley is a tyre, and that stabiliser is simply a bicycle wheel. And in the driving seat is one of the Butler brothers, who built many of these machines. Is he even wearing any safety gear? Well, as far as New Zealanders go, he is very well equipped in his sunglasses and a jaunty beret. But while safety may not have been first for the farmers of Taranaki, Bob Semple would've loved the idea of using military machines as hedge cutters. However, what he is about to do with a bulldozer will become his greatest contribution to the safety of this country. Are you nearly finished? Not quite! Better take a break, then. (ROUSING MILITARY MUSIC) 1 Bob Semple ` amateur boxer, militant unionist, snappy dresser, a Minister of Public Works ` is obsessed with keeping New Zealanders safe. He is also passionate about progress, which is why he was right behind the search for minerals to help propel this country into the nuclear age during the heady days of atomic optimism in the late 40s and early 50s. The government spent years looking for those minerals, but they couldn't find any. These blokes, however, did. You won't see a better example of what it means to be a West Coaster than these two gentlemen. Frederick Cassin and Charles Jacobsen ` looking as happy as you'll ever see a Coaster look as they stand there, holding their Geiger counter and a piece of radioactive uranium with a sense of casual disdain. You may well ask yourselves, 'Why are they so happy?' And why are they holding a piece of radioactive uranium? Well, the answer is simple. They'd been drinking. Heading home to Greymouth after a hard Sunday of prospecting and a quiet beer at the legendary Berlins Hotel, they stop at Batty's Creek in the Buller Gorge to answer the call of nature. When all of a sudden, nature calls out to them. (STATIC) Their Geiger counter begins to gallop. Cassin and Jacobsen are ecstatic. This could only mean one thing... (BOTH CHEER) They leap back into their car and race into town. Within days, the media descends on Greymouth as Cassin declares, 'We believe we've found the second most concentrated deposit of uranium in the world.' Why did they say the second most concentrated deposit? Because they're New Zealanders, and we don't like to brag. People are over the moon. The government had been looking for uranium for over 20 years, but it had proved too expensive to continue the search. So they'd outsourced it to ordinary people. They issued instructions for 'build your own' Geiger counter kits. They gave them to hunters and trampers and to parents to give to their kids, saying, 'Send them up into the hills and don't let them come back until they glow.' But no one could find uranium until Cassin and Jacobsen sparked the great uranium rush of 1955. People flocked to the West Coast to cash in on the boom. They even have uranium flavoured ice cream. Tourists are even given bits of radioactive rock to give to the kids to play with in the car on the way home. Cassin and Jacobsen become national heroes. And there they are, still euphoric, still holding the rock. They receive a cash reward from the government, and they even get mountains named after themselves ` Mt Cassin and Mt Jacobsen. But perhaps the best reward is the adulation of the women of the district. And there's Jacobsen with some of the wonderful women of the Coast. And what I love about this photograph is that all of those women are in their Sunday best. And there he is, a typical Kiwi male, still in his work pants and his jersey, still holding his rock. Still holding his rock. Look at that. You still holding your rock? Yes. (LAUGHTER) Unfortunately for Cassin and Jacobsen, it didn't turn out to be the second most concentrated deposit of uranium in the world. Apparently, everything on the West Coast is slightly radioactive, especially... if you're using a homemade Geiger counter. Can you imagine it? The government issuing instructions for homemade Geiger counters. Now, it's even illegal to look for uranium. It's one of the laws I have broken. But as for Bob Semple, he had a homemade machine as well. The only difference was his was designed to keep us safe. Safe from what? Well, at the beginning of the Second World War, our fighting men were in Europe along with most of our weapons. New Zealanders had to improvise to keep the country safe in the event of a Japanese invasion. Bob Semple famously said: 'Instead of sitting down and moaning, we should manufacture 'weapons from any materials at our disposal.' Based solely on a postcard he had once seen from the United States, he took some bulldozers, some corrugated iron and some number eight wire, and Bob Semple built a fleet of Semple tanks. (INSTRUMENTAL 'GOD DEFEND NEW ZEALAND') By fleet, I mean six. The greatest weapon of war ever built in the history of New Zealand. Officially known as a mobile strongpoint, the press dubbed them, 'Semple's pie carts'. They had a top speed of 24km/h, a crew of eight and five guns. (GUNFIRE) ('GOD DEFEND NEW ZEALAND' CONTINUES) (GUNFIRE CONTINUES) My favourite gun is this one right here. In order to man that weapon, the gunner had to bring along his own mattress, slide it in on the engine cowling, and then slither in to get to his gun. Which was something of a redundant action, because it's said that the Semple tank was so notoriously unstable that its guns couldn't hit a barn door if it was parked inside a barn made entirely of doors. And, uh, that's my dad. He built the replica. Dad, what was the` the theory behind the Semple tank? Well, we couldn't import tanks, but we had lots of bulldozers, and the principle was if the Japanese came, they would take them out, and they would drop a tank body on top of them and go off and do their business. It's in theory a very good idea. No. Oh. In theory, not a good idea. Why not? Because they weigh 26 tonne. They were too heavy for all our bridges to be transported. They were 4.2m high, and they stood out on the battlefield like a sore thumb. And hence, because they were 4.2m high, this one is, what, exactly half-sized? 50%, yes. Which is why, and this is, I think, the best idea that he has had in a long time... child soldiers. Well, we had a half-size tank, so we needed half-size soldiers. So, there we go. I'm gonna lock you back in here. What's it like to ride in? Horrible. (LAUGHS) (CHEERS, APPLAUSE) Undaunted by the critics, Semple takes his tanks on a morale-building tour through towns and cities the length of the country. And... salute! And morale was suitably increased. Left, right, left. And then, in one of the most shameful moments in our military past, the powers that be said, 'Thanks, but no tanks.' And they dismantled every single Semple tank. A travesty because, I honestly believe, had the country been ringed with Semple tanks and an enemy fleet had turned up, they would have taken one look at us and said, 'Nah. We're not really into that.' And sailed all the way off, and New Zealand would've been safe thanks to Bob Semple. So, how 'bout three cheers for Fighting Bob? Hip hip... ALL: ...hooray! Hip hip... ...hooray! - Bravo. - (SCATTERED APPLAUSE)