Ian Wishart (journalist)

Early career

Wishart went to Onslow College, and studied journalism at Wellington Polytechnic, graduating in 1982. He has worked for Radio Windy, Radio Hauraki, Radio Pacific, TV3 and Television New Zealand.

Winebox affair

In 1992, New Zealand politician Winston Peters began raising a series of allegations in Parliament about prominent business leaders trying to bribe politicians. Wishart was assigned by the TV3 network to report on the case, and came into possession of some confidential business transaction papers that became popularly known as "The Winebox documents" because they had first turned up in an old wine carton.

The documents detailed extensive tax avoidance and tax evasion schemes run through Cook Islands offshore companies associated with an entity part owned by the New Zealand Government state bank, the Bank of New Zealand, and merchant bank Fay Richwhite & Co, whose principals Sir Michael Fay and David Richwhite were closely connected to both the Labour and National political parties.

Although Winston Peters and other financial journalists and newspapers also had copies of the Winebox documents, it was Wishart who first identified the key "Magnum" and "JIF" transactions, later confirmed by the Privy Council and the New Zealand Court of Appeal to be prima facie criminal fraud. against the revenues of New Zealand and Japan respectively.

Wishart continued working on the project as a special investigation for TVNZ, to be carried out in secret with the assistance of Frontline journalist Michael Wilson and producers Carol Hirschfeld and Mark Champion. The documentary was originally scheduled to air in December 1993, but was prevented from going to air by TVNZ management after the intervention of the TVNZ board of directors. Wishart and his colleagues decided to leak details of the banned programme to other news media, turning the blackout into a public issue.

The network was enjoined to an injunction forbidding broadcast of the programme, but the leak of further information made the gagging writ worthless and the documentary finally aired in June 1994 as a special primetime two-hour broadcast. The revelations forced the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Winebox transactions. A senior Inland Revenue Department investigator, Tony Loo, subsequently told the Commission of Inquiry that he and other IRD staff did not understand how the transactions had worked until they watched Wishart's documentary on TV.

Although the Commission report initially exonerated the transactions, the Commission findings were overturned by New Zealand’s highest court which found the transactions were prima facie fraudulent and that the Commission had made substantial errors in finding otherwise. Ian Wishart published three books detailing his investigations and the outcome: The Paradise Conspiracy (Howling At The Moon, 1995), The Vintage Winebox Guide (Howling At The Moon, 1996), and The Paradise Conspiracy 2 (Howling At The Moon, 1999).

Part of Wishart's first book, The Paradise Conspiracy, was loosely reworked as a feature film, Spooked, starring Cliff Curtis and directed by Geoff Murphy.

Post-TV career

After leaving TVNZ, Wishart covered the Winebox enquiry for the National Business Review, the Waikato Times, the Evening Post, the Christchurch Press and other daily newspapers. He has also written for the New Zealand Herald, The Sunday Star-Times and Metro magazine. In 1997 he was named as the host of the New Zealand version of reality series Real TV, which screened on the TV3 network. In 2000, Wishart began hosting talk radio shifts on the Radio Pacific network, taking over as regular evening host in the 7pm to 10pm slot. On one occasion he broadcast the phone numbers of Green Party MPs and urged his listeners to make protest calls, jamming the party's phone lines. Around this time, Wishart became a born-again Christian.

Publishing operations

Wishart established his own publishing company, Howling At The Moon, in 1995. A subsidiary company was established in 1999 to publish the monthly Investigate magazine.

Wishart is the editor of Investigate magazine, which addresses controversial current affairs issues from a conservative Christian editorial standpoint. It drew mainstream attention for articles critical of policies and members of the centre-left Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand, particularly the interview with former Cabinet Minister John Tamihere, which ended his prospects of a return to Cabinet.

Howling at the Moon has published 15 of Wishart's books, as well as books by other authors, mostly general non-fiction/current affairs titles.

Wishart's books are listed in full below. They include:

In November 2011, Wishart published the book The Hunt, co-authored with George London, chronicling the search for two children kidnapped off a London street in 1981 and never seen again. The day the book was published, one of the children made contact with their mother for the first time in 30 years. Lindsay Smallbone, the former husband of George London's wife, sued the authors for defamation in 2013 over the book's description of Mr Smallbone as sexually perverse, voyeuristic and otherwise deviant. The jury found that the material was published recklessly, and awarded NZ$270,000 in damages. The win was short-lived however. On the next working day the judge recalled the verdict and eventually ordered a full retrial after overturning the jury decision. Smallbone appealed to the Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court but lost both appeals.

Five of Wishart's books—The Paradise Conspiracy, Lawyers, Guns & Money, The Paradise Conspiracy II, Absolute Power and Air Con—have achieved number one bestseller status on the NZ Booksellers national "Bestsellers" list, while several more-Daylight Robbery, The Vintage Winebox Guide, Ben & Olivia, Eve's Bite and Arthur Allan Thomas-reached No.2 on the list.

Role in "Climategate" controversy

In November 2009 Wishart became involved in the "Climategate" controversy when he obtained confirmation that leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit were genuine, after reaching CRU's Phil Jones by phone. Wishart published stories on both the Investigate magazine blogsite "The Briefing Room" and in the online newspaper TGIF Edition confirming the authenticity of the emails, which formed the basis for other news reports on the developing story worldwide.

Personal life

Wishart has married twice, and has children from his first and second marriages. He and his second wife, Heidi, are Anglicans, Wishart having formerly been an atheist. He is also a proponent of intelligent design.