For someone who liked order and harmony – and went out of his way to avoid conflict in his personal life – the late Rod Vaughan was a man of many contradictions.
“He loved the quiet life,” his daughter Larissa told a memorial service for Vaughan in Christchurch at the end of last month. “He liked playing golf and mowing the lawn.”
But the former TVNZ investigative reporter and LawNews freelancer who died on 25 August also liked flying light aircraft (and managed to crash twice). And the most famous moment of this ‘quiet’ man’s career was a brutal confrontation with businessman and former NZ Party leader Sir Bob Jones on a riverbank near Turangi which left Vaughan bruised, bloodied and nursing a broken nose.
When it came to his work, this homebody who liked nothing better than “a beer, a barbecue, watching tv and listening to music” switched gears.
He was tenacious – “like a terrier” – his daughter said – and was famous for his determination and persistence. It took him 17 years to get permission to film at Mururoa Atoll – the site of France’s nuclear testing program in the Pacific – but he got there in the end.
Vaughan’s work required frequent international travel, often to danger zones which were anything but glamorous.
He slept in train stations in India, flew to Pakistan 24 hours after the 9/11 attacks in New York City in 2001 and defied his TVNZ bosses by illegally crossing the border into Afghanistan, and travelled to South Africa in the lead-up to its first post-apartheid elections in 1994.
He even managed to track down the elusive Ray Smith to a resort in Utah after the rogue Goldcorp director fled New Zealand in the wake of the 1987 sharemarket crash, falsely claiming to out-of-pocket investors that he was destitute.
But it was the encounter with Bob Jones that made Vaughan a household name.
Biffo with Bob
The backdrop was a decision by Jones, the leader of the New Zealand Party, to put the party – the country’s third biggest at the time – into recess in the aftermath of the 1984 general election. Vaughan wanted to question Jones about this decision and, after hearing his target was staying at his holiday home north of Turangi, decided to find him.
Vaughan and cameraman Peter Mayo hired a chopper, located Jones who was fishing in the lower reaches of the Tongariro River, and landed on the bank. As they leapt from the chopper, camera rolling, the pair were confronted by Sir Bob who had seen them hovering overhead and had hidden in the bush.
Screaming expletives, Jones emerged suddenly from the bush charged towards them, knocking Mayo and his camera to the ground and punching Vaughan on the nose. Bruised and with blood streaming down his face, Vaughan picked himself up and delivered a memorable (and often replayed) piece to camera.
Hugely addictive
Vaughan was a natural storyteller who drifted into journalism after emigrating from the UK with his family at the age of 17. He joined The New Zealand Herald as a cadet, then moved to the government-owned NZBC in 1968 where he became interested in television production.
Among his early creations was a current affairs show that included heavyweights such as Ian Fraser, David Beatson and satirist John Clarke (aka Fred Dagg).
Vaughan then moved into investigative journalism, working on award-winning programs such as Holmes, Frontline and Assignment. In his 2012 memoir Bloodied but not Beaten he describes as “hugely addictive” the task of chasing down a good story in a remote location.
“I think it’s just an insatiable curiosity which you either have or don’t have,” he said. “You want to find out the story behind the story and crack it open.”
The downside was hate-mail and threats.
“You don’t win many friends doing this job. For every person who respects or admires you, there are probably two or three others that think you’re no better than a dodgy lawyer or a used car salesman,” he said.
Vaughan’s other great love was flying which he learnt to do as a teenager in the UK. But this too became steeped in drama.
In retirement, Vaughan hit the headlines when he crash-landed his plane near Waihi after its windscreen exploded in mid-air. His son Richard, who was also on board, later said his father had remained calm throughout the ordeal and “heroically” landed the plane which came to rest upside down in a paddock.
Four years later, in 2022, Vaughan found himself in the news once again after crash-landing on the main highway near Thames, narrowly missing a motorcyclist. He had been preparing to land but was hit by sunstrike and collided with powerlines adjacent to the airport.
He told LawNews at the time that his wife, Lois, had decided he needed to find a new hobby.
In April this year, soon after returning from a trip to the US to visit his sons in New York and Chicago, Vaughan was diagnosed with cancer. Four months later he was dead, at the age of 77.
RIP Rod. The team at LawNews will miss your excellent bullshit detector, your determination to “tell it as it is” and your wicked sense of humour.
Read also: ‘LawNews writer crashes light plane onto Thames highway’
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