Thirty Years On. By Mark Sainsbury.

Can it really be thirty years since the Rainbow Warrior bombing?  Thirty years since the unimaginable?  French secret agents infiltrating our country and planting bombs beneath the Greenpeace flagship in an attempt to not only scuttle the ship, but sink any chance of it being used for the highly visible protests against French nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. I was driving home from Kilbirnie with my wife Ramona after the opening of her law practice that Wednesday evening. It must have been the midnight or more likely the 1am news on National Radio and what we heard was that there had been an explosion on board the Rainbow Warrior. The bombs (as we later discovered them to be) went off at 11:38pm then cruelly a second one at 11:45 which killed Fernando Pereira who went back to try and rescue his camera equipment.

Two things struck us at the time. One was that we had a loose connection to the vessel as Bunny McDiarmid, the only Kiwi on board, was the sister of one of our good friends who had tried to get us interested in the Rainbow Warrior’s mission. Secondly was the presumption that some “accident” had occurred, either a gas cylinder or a boiler exploding, the idea of a terrorist act did not enter our consciousness.

You have to understand the climate at the time. Four months earlier David Lange became the hero of the anti nuclear movement when he gave his famous “I can smell the uranium on your breath” line during the Oxford Union debate over his government’s ban of nuclear ships. The other big news at the time was that Coca Cola was reverting back to its original formula, America was struggling with immigration and Madonna had two hits on the New Zealand top 10. She shared space there with the Mockers, Simple Minds, and Tears for Fears.

And in Kilbirnie a fledgling law practice started with a reasonably well known politician called Winston Peters doing the official opening. Welcome to the eighties.

How much has changed since then! The French who thought New Zealand Police were like the Keystone cops hadn’t factored in New Zealander’s innate nosiness which meant their actions had been seen, noted and dobbed in by locals and neighbourhood watch alike. Some of the French agents even stayed in a motel unit owned by David Lange as an investment property. The ones caught, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur were tried, sentenced, then whisked away to a French atoll then eventually back to France in return for a trade deal and visa free access. The cooling of relations is now well repaired.

Winston Peters went on from that law practice launch to break away from National, set up his own party and become treasurer and deputy prime minister.   Bunny McDiarmid has only recently retired as the New Zealand face of Greenpeace and Madonna obviously feels so connected she has announced plans to tour here.

There are few times that remain so clear in your own mind as that Wednesday turning into early Thursday back in 1985. I even remember earlier in the day carrying the jukebox up the office stairs for the launch helped by Ross Stevens, the 60 Minutes reporter who we would lose all too early.  Both of us would spend much of our professional lives dealing with the repercussions of that night. But on the day, the excitement was about a new venture, a new start and a risk to make it work. It was for sure a night that would never be forgotten.