Labour Party leader Andrew Little. Photo / Mark Mitchell
What was your summer job when you were at school/uni, and what did it entail?
I was employed as a labourer for the contractor digging the main cable trench for what was then the Waitara Valley National Park, Taranaki, part of the Think Big project.
So this was the summer of
83-84 and I was 17. I was one of three students recruited to this and by day two, I was the only one who turned up.
The job was, the trench had been dug, but they needed to keep it clean so all the cables each morning had to be dug out. So I would start at one end of the trench in the morning - and this is about a 1.5km-long trench - and dig out all the cables, and it varied between sort of 2m deep to 1m deep, and worked my way along the trench. I never ever got to the other end of the trench, I have to say.
Then eventually the cables were ready to be laid, sand had to be put on it, cables laid, more sand, concrete on top of there, filled in.
Although the contractor - and this was probably the flavour of much of New Zealand business at the time - would put in half a metre of sand if a metre was required and if it required 300mm deep of concrete, he put 100mm, this was just the nature of it.
How/why did you end up working there?
School holidays, it was just before my first year of university, and it was great to do.
What did you like/not like about it?
It was outside, and it was pretty obvious, pretty simple work to do. I was left to my own devices and they liked the speed at which I worked.
