In 2010 they had some difficulties when a neighbor came onto their property and shot a pet goat, only getting found out because they entered it into a local wild food competition and won.
There was some media coverage around that and the TV2 show "Neighbors at War" were interested in doing a show on it.
My sister wasn’t interested. With the help of the police she felt that she could sort things out with her neighbors without humiliating them on national TV.
There then followed a series of bullying and threatening phone calls from Greenstone, the production company that makes "Neighbors at War," demanding that she participate in the show or they would get her anyway without her telling her side of the story.
I was shocked and appalled at some of the tactics they used to try and force her to front. The sort of stuff that we would think twice about using even if we were going after hardened criminals and certainly not the victim of a nasty crime.
Now Greenstone is going ahead, despite the fact that she never participated in the show in any way, and TV2 is promoting a show with my sister in it next week using file footage of animals not even on her farm. Once again I’m appalled as I’ve never worked on a reality TV show before that tried to make a show without a signed release form from the participants.
18 months after the incident my sister and her neighbors are getting on better. The last thing she wants is to publicly pick at old scabs all for some poorly made trash TV.
The Broadcasting Standers Authority seem only to be interested after the show screens but by then the damage would be done.
I cant think of anything my sister can do proactively to prevent Greenstone from benefiting from their unethical behavior.
I feel betrayed by my industry.