Anna's Fair Go spirit 'I'M STILL MAKING A DIFFERENCE

After years of championing the underdog, people remain at the heart of her endeavours

- Donna Fleming

Her face is familiar to TV viewers as a journalist who championed the rights of Kiwis on Fair Go for many years, but it's her dulcet tones people tend to recognise these days from Radio New Zealand. Anna Thomas, 56, catches up with the Weekly to fill us in on what she's been up to since her Fair Go days and reflect on a varied career that she fell into by accident.

“I never planned on being a journalist. I wanted to be a cop. I left school at 16 because I knew I was going to fail UE [University Entrance], but I was too young to go into the police. I’d always liked English and creative writing, and a friend told me about a job going at Radio Avon in Christchurch. They got me to write a story and speak into a microphone, and said, ‘Right, we’ll give you a whirl.’ I thought I was a general radio cadet and I’d spend time in the newsroom, then go on to sales or marketing, but after about six months, I realised, ‘Oh, I’m a cadet reporter.’

It was 1985 and after two weeks in the job, I ended up interviewing [former Prime Minister] Robert Muldoon. It was a sink or swim moment. He’d lost the election the year before and I had to ask him about GST. I didn’t even know what GST was at the time. I said, ‘Mr Muldoon, I’m from Radio Avon, can I have five minutes of your time, please?’ He held up two fingers and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s giving me the fingers.’ Then he said, ‘I’ll give you two minutes.’ I said, ‘What do you think of GST?’ and he said, ‘What do you think I think of GST?’ I thought, ‘Oh, no, this is a disaster.’ Then he gave me the 20-second grab I needed and that was it.