03 November 2002
By AMIE RICHARDSON and HAYDON DEWES
When it comes to Halloween, our rich and famous are a bunch of sweeties.
The Sunday Star-Times sent three groups of trick or treaters to the homes of the rich and famous on Thursday and found even
the strictest security can be breached with the help of a scary mask and a wizard hat.
Guards at Government House in Wellington waved our group through with a smile - but sadly, governor-general Dame Silvia
Cartwright wasn't home.
Horrormeister Peter Jackson wasn't home either but left a sign on his gate "trick or treaters: No one home, please go next door".
It was, of course, Jackson's birthday and he knew where he was sending the kids - his neighbours came through with a bag of
sweets - the best loot of the night. United Future MP Peter Dunne offered a warm welcome - mini chocolate bars from a large
bowl.
Dunne was particularly amused by one fierce ghoul who had forgotten his trick: "He had to ask his mum. It was quite fun - my
only fear would be if they came to my house and we didn't have anything to give."
At children commissioner Roger McClay's home, wife Dawn came through with a choice of two chocolate bars for the kids - a
Cadbury Dream bar and a Moro bar.
At the Herne Bay, Auckland, home of multi-millionaire Colin Giltrap, a surprised woman getting ready for the ballet met the trick
or treaters at the door.
Although she had no sweets, she gave each of the three children $2.
At Adam Parore and Sally Ridge's house, Parore answered the door prepared. Clutching a bag of goodies, he passed out one
gummy hamburger to each of the children.
Television frontman Bill Ralston charmed his visitors by dishing out handfuls of fruit bursts, Minties and toffees.
Pickings were not so good at the home of Breakfast host Kate Hawkesby, where hubby Richard Lyne sheepishly poked his head
out the door and said: "We've got nothing to give, sorry."
SPCA chief executive Bob Kerridge was undaunted by the devil's prods with his rubber trident, offering a plate of Crunchie bars.
The trick or treaters curse turned out to be the proliferation of intercom systems and automatic gates in Auckland's finest
suburbs.
At Lucy Lawless' Mission Bay home, several prods at the intercom failed to get a response.
However, as our dejected kids were leaving a couple pulled up in a car, spoke into the intercom and was granted access.
The children's favourite, however, was the Mission Bay home of Fonterra chief executive Craig Norgate.
Passing a skeleton hanging by the front door, a woman with fake blood oozing down her face was waiting with the biggest haul
of the night - Halloween bags containing two chocolate bars.
