It’s 1977. The occupation at Bastion Point begins. Sleeping Dogs becomes the the first full-length feature film made entirely by a New Zealand production crew. The Queen opens the Beehive. God Defend New Zealand becomes the country’s second national anthem. And there are 1000 computers in offices around Aotearoa.
“The managers of businesses in the future will virtually do away with their desk. They will have a computer terminal installed in their office space or their room; they will have an audio visual telephone that will give them access to businessmen worldwide. They will be able to talk to them and see them as they speak to them. We now have the ability to communicate between computers anywhere in the world via satellite…” says one person interviewed in this documentary, compiled and presented by Cindy Beavis.
“It is a young people’s industry,” says another. “It is an industry where people working for the computer companies will be predominately younger people. Because of the change in technology that is going on, people must be adaptable, flexible, must be able to keep up…”
A new hierarchy has grown up around electronic data processing workers who “inhabit a different world... full of jargon and youth and pushiness”, the documentary reports.
Audio courtesy of New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua Me Ngā Taonga Kōrero.
Cover image: Flickr user Marie Mosley