Cherished Ideas

Summary

The Commune – Episode 7: Cherished Ideas

Podcast: The Commune
Host: Stuff Audio (Adam Dudding)
Date: June 5, 2022
Series Theme: Investigating the notorious Centrepoint commune in New Zealand—a focus not on “whodunnit” but “whydunnit,” exploring deeper psychological, social, and philosophical currents behind its ideology and subsequent crimes.

---

Overview of the Episode’s Main Theme

"Cherished Ideas" examines how dangerous or self-serving ideas were justified and maintained within Centrepoint—particularly around sexual freedom and financial authority. Using firsthand accounts and critical incidents, the episode explores the introduction of controversial academic texts, the community’s rationalizations, the harms caused (especially to children), and the shifting dynamics of power, drugs, and dissent within the commune.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Arrival of a Controversial Book and a Turning Point for Barry

• [00:59–06:33]
  Barry, a long-time Centrepoint member, describes a “life-changing” epiphany after reading Children and Sex: New Findings, New Perspectives (ed. Larry Constantine & Floyd Martenson).
  • Although some used the book to justify sexual acts with children, Barry finds articles in it (notably by Dr. David Finkelhor) that refute these beliefs and outline the actual harm caused to children, especially regarding power imbalances and age gaps.
  • Quote:

    “It elaborated where the harm comes. The bigger the age difference, the more harm, the bigger the power difference that the child can’t say.” —Barry [06:04]

• This pivotal moment challenges the prevailing ideology and deepens Barry’s concerns for children.

2. Rationalization and Cherry-Picking of Academic Sources

• [03:35–06:52]
  The leadership (notably Bert Potter) and upper hierarchy use select parts of academic texts to rationalize their own behaviors, disregarding critical findings that contradict their practices.
  • Barry pushes against these self-serving narratives, emphasizing the need for comprehensive, evidence-based understanding.
  • Quote:

    “A scientific experiment takes in everything. It doesn’t just pick out the bits that suit.” —Barry [06:45]

3. Internal Response: Committees Instead of Justice

• [08:38–09:15]
  Rather than reporting concerns of sexual abuse to authorities, Barry and other women form an internal committee in the hope of supporting impacted children—reflecting both the insularity and denial within the commune.
  • Quote:

    “Any of the children that had concerns could come to us and we would...bring them up in the community.” —Barry [09:02]

4. A Child’s Experience: Nate’s Perspective

• [10:43–14:20]
  Nate’s personal account as a child reveals both Centrepoint’s alluring, adventure-filled aspects (music, freedom) and its neglect. Children had vast freedom, little supervision, and were witnesses to adult self-interest and dysfunction.
  • Quote:

    “I tried to be a good kid and then at one point I stopped giving a fuck.” —Nate [10:43]

  • Fond memories contrast with disturbing exposure to adult misbehavior.

5. The “Benji” Incident: Abuse and the Limits of Commune Justice

• [21:20–29:39]
  The arrival and behavior of “Benji,” a charismatic but predatory adult, exposes both the depth of risk for children and the commune’s insular way of handling abuse:
  • Nate describes waking up to Benji’s hand between his legs and witnessing other boys being abused in the “Turtle Hut.”
  • Other children’s warnings go unheeded, and only after a parent’s intervention is Benji removed—not by police, but via informal exile and a supposed “specialized course.”
  • Memorable exchange:

    “I would do as much as I possibly could to disrupt that. ...I would slam on the side of the hut, I would call him a pedo fuck, I would yell...yet no one listened to me.” —Nate [23:33]
    “Why Benji? ...Why didn’t that happen more often? Because if it had, the story of Centrepoint might have turned out very, very differently...” —Adam Dudding [29:05]

6. Financial Meltdown and Power Struggles

• [15:16–19:29]
  Bert Potter’s risky investments in futures and a goat farm result in catastrophic financial loss ($1.4 million total). Barry confronts Bert, proposing democratized management and a finance committee. For once, her plan passes—revealing both Bert’s dominance and unexpected limits to his authority.
  • Quote:

    “If Bert said that car was white, that car would be white.” —Nate [17:51]

  • Bert throws tantrums and ultimately isolates himself, signaling a shift in power dynamics.

7. Social and Relational Breakdown

• [29:55–31:25]
  Barry’s marriage ends in the context of communal sexual experimentation, bringing personal realization that what she felt wasn't enlightenment but numbness and exhaustion.
  • Quote:

    “Maybe I’m enlightened now. ...Actually, no, this is not enlightenment. I am just numbing, and I’m over it.” —Barry [30:06]

8. The Invasion of Ecstasy and LSD

• [33:42–41:57]
  While drugs were generally discouraged in Centrepoint’s early years, the late 1980s see a flood of ecstasy and LSD, first introduced by a member and enthusiastically embraced by Bert and others. Drug-taking becomes a new form of communal bonding and therapy, further diluting critical thinking and social restraints.
  • Early mass ecstasy events—exclusive, ritualistic gatherings—fostered a euphoric but “mindless” unity under Bert’s direction.
  • Quote:

    “Ecstasy is very euphoric but very mindless. And so all the critique and questionings just went. And just as, oh, we love everybody.” —Barry [38:02]

  • Drugs also provide distraction and another way for Bert to reclaim authority.

9. Police Begin to Investigate Again

• [41:57–43:06]
  Renewed police interest, led by Detective Sergeant Ray Van Bainen, is reignited by reports of increased drug use and insider accounts—suggesting external pressures were again converging on Centrepoint as abuses and excesses continued.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• Barry on the damaging rationalizations:

  “It's not my opinion and it makes sense and everything. All the harm conditions are here and they're happening in front of my eyes.” [07:13]

• Nate’s vigilant resistance:

  “I would slam on the side of the hut, I would call him a pedo fuck...yet no one listened to me.” [23:33]

• Barry on her epiphany:

  “Just an epiphany.” [08:38]

• Adam Dudding on Centrepoint’s broken democratic process:

  “If Bert said that car was white, that car would be white.” —Nate [17:51]
  “All you had to do was say the magic words, Bert says, and people would suddenly agree with you.” [17:53]

• Barry after mass ecstasy event:

  “Ecstasy is very euphoric but very mindless. And so all the critique and questionings just went. And just as, oh, we love everybody.” [38:02]

• Nate on communal neglect:

  “They just...no one seemed to notice. This dude turned up. Everyone thought, oh, he's a really cool guy, he's looking after the kids. What parent does that?” [28:39]

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

| Time | Content | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------| | 00:59-06:33 | Barry’s epiphany via a controversial book | | 08:38-10:20 | Formation of an internal “child welfare” committee | | 10:43-14:20 | Nate’s childhood memories of life at Centrepoint | | 21:20-29:39 | The “Benji” incident and the community’s response | | 15:16-19:29 | Stock market crash, Barry challenges Bert’s rule | | 29:55-31:25 | Barry’s account of marriage breakdown | | 33:42-41:57 | Drugs take over: rise of ecstasy, LSD, ketamine | | 41:57-43:06 | Police begin a new investigation |

---

Flow and Tone

The episode flows as an engrossing, sometimes harrowing, oral history—mixing matter-of-fact narrative with moments of raw personal reflection. The speakers, especially Barry and Nate, use clear, sometimes visceral, language. Host Adam Dudding maintains a thoughtful, questioning tone, balancing empathy for individuals with a critical eye on structural failings and dangerous ideologies.

---

For Listeners: Why This Episode Matters

This episode exposes how a community built on “cherished ideas”—about freedom, love, and breaking taboos—rationalized abuse and financial disaster, and how dissent emerged from within. It illustrates the perils of cherry-picking ideology over evidence, the enduring harm to children, and the slow, often faltering, return of reality and accountability.

---

End of summary

Transcript

[Barbara]

Staff podcasts.

[Adam Dudding]

Previously on the Commune.

[Bert Potter]

There was Potter sitting in the office taking tea, and Bicky's Potter was sitting there like the cat had got the cream.

[Renee]

There'd be a pack of you, like a little wolf pack.

[Adam Dudding]

It seemed to me like it was

[Bert Potter]

a good opportunity to open up a

[Adam Dudding]

Pandora's box and see what was inside. This episode of the Commune contains strong language and descriptions of drug taking and sexual abuse. The day that Barry clicked, the day that she started to realise she'd been sold a lie, the day she started listening to her instincts about what was happening with the Centrepoint children, it was all because of a book, right?

[Barry]

I'm only just picking this book up again, and my memory of it was there was a paper that just jumped

[Adam Dudding]

out at me when we first interview Barry. She hasn't actually seen a copy of this book for decades, but when we visit again some weeks later, she's just received a secondhand copy that she's bought online and now she's flicking through, trying to find the exact page that she found. So life changing back in 1985.

[Barry]

I know there was a furore in the States when the book came out,

[Adam Dudding]

and here's what happened. Len, he was the psychology graduate and Centrepoint member who would eventually write a book about how great Centrepoint was. He became aware of an American researcher called Larry Constantine, because Constantine had published a book that seemed to jibe with some of the views held at Centrepoint.

[Barry]

Well, he'd compiled a book of different papers and some were kind of advocating for sexual freedom.

[Adam Dudding]

A copy got passed around the Commune and yeah, this is the same book we talked about with the American child abuse expert, Dr. David Finkelhaugh. Back in an earlier episode. He wrote one of the papers in it.

[Barry]

This book was being read down the hierarchy. So, you know, Bert had read it and some of the senior therapists had read it.

[Adam Dudding]

Like I said earlier, the book is a real mix. Dr. Finkelhaugh's article was a solid academic piece looking at sibling incest in California. But some of the other papers and some of the conclusions were pretty shocking.

[Barry]

There's a paper in it where a girl was describing that she'd had an incestuous relationship with her father. And it wasn't till she got to school that she realised this wasn't okay. And so this was being talked about by the seniors in the therapy group. So this proves it's society that makes it wrong, but it was really, really natural.

[Adam Dudding]

It almost sounded like this was the kind of supposed evidence that Bert Potter might point to in arguing that early sexual experiences were absolutely marvellous for children. Barry wanted to read it for herself.

[Barry]

But when she did, and it was just like. And then different children would show up in my mind, you know, this child I' and this child's not okay. This is what's happening. This is the harm. This is what I'm seeing.

[Philip Alpiss]

When it comes to the point of saying, am I prepared to really look at my basic beliefs and all the cherished ideas I've had and I've been taught and cultured over the years, Can I look at them and be prepared to let them go and change them? Conditions do change. There's no way that you can stop social change from happening. The one that can do what we can do is look at ourselves and say, what can I do for myself in this? How can I change my own outlook? Can I stop looking for this? Great answer up there.

[Adam Dudding]

I'm Adam Dudding, and this is the Commune episode seven, Cherished Ideas.

[Barry]

Right. This book is Children and Sex, New Findings, New Perspectives, edited by Larry Constantine and Floyd Martenson, and it was published in 1981. But in my recollection, it didn't come into the community until about 1985, and Len found it in his studies at university, 1985.

[Adam Dudding]

Barry has been a Centrepoint member for seven years. She's been wrestling with her concerns about the Commune's children for ages. But now, weirdly, in a book which contains discussion of the sexual liberation of children, she's found the exact opposite message from the one that Bert seems to have found.

[Barry]

It was being read and talked about by all the people up the hierarchy from me. And so I was hearing about this book as it absolutely justifies everything we're doing. There's no harm to children, it's good for children. And so eventually it came down the hierarchy and I got hold of it.

[Adam Dudding]

She reads it, and sure, you can see why Bert would like it. There's an article about the children of northern India's Muria tribe who supposedly lose their virginity around the age of six and supposedly do just fine. There's an article which claims that many children have perfectly happy memories of a sexual relationship with an adult. And it's only when they get talking to police or psychologists or other interfering busybodies that they start showing the signs of trauma. But there are also the more mainstream articles in there, and these are the ones that Barry was clocking. David Finkelhaugh's paper on sibling incest, a study looking at the importance of large age Gaps, discussions about what consent could possibly mean. If you're talking about a young child

[Barry]

and an adult, it elaborated where the harm comes. Bigger the age difference, the more harm, the bigger the power difference that the child can't say. And as it went through, I thought, this is it. And it just. For the first time, I felt like I've got some knowledge. I've not got people telling me I'm blocked off, I need to go and look at my own pain.

[Adam Dudding]

As Barry saw it, Centrepoint was an experiment, a process of trying new things in the hope of finding better ways to live. But when you're doing experiments, you're meant to follow evidence, not dogma.

[Barry]

A scientific experiment takes in everything. It doesn't just pick out the bits that suit.

[Adam Dudding]

And here was some proper science of the kind Barry could point to with footnotes and citations and articles that had been collated from proper academic journals. Scattered through this book was evidence that child sex was harmful. And that matched the evidence that had been unfolding in front of her every day at Centrepoint.

[Barry]

Yes, and that was me. It's not my opinion and it makes sense and everything. All the harm conditions are here and they're happening in front of my eyes.

[Adam Dudding]

Centrepoint's connection to this book actually went a little further. One of the book's editors, Larry Constantine, visited the commune a few times. Barry says that during one of his later visits, he said something that she took as a kind of warning. This happened where else? In the communal showers.

[Barry]

And I was once in the shower with Larry, like he'd came in, you know, several shower heads, and he said to me, basically, sort of, this won't bode well if Centrepoint keeps going like this. The silver lining to communal showering, there's something about warm water and. And a wall around you. I just remember leaving the shower with the idea from him that if Centrepoint continues down this track, it's just not going to go well.

[Adam Dudding]

We've tried to contact Larry Constantine, but have had no luck. Barry describes that moment of reading the Larry Constantine book as an epiphany.

[Barry]

Just a epiphany.

[Adam Dudding]

So she now understands that child sex is actually harmful and she wants to do something about it.

[Barry]

Sex abuse needs to stop in the community.

[Adam Dudding]

Ok, so she'll be straight off to the police, right? No, she and a couple of other women in the community form a committee.

[Barry]

You know, we talked a lot and we just decided to form this committee that any of the children that had concerns could come to us and we would. Would address issues and Bring them up in the community.

[Adam Dudding]

A committee for addressing issues. Again, hindsight is 20 20, but this seems so odd. Barry. Even the newly enlightened Post Epiphany Barry is responding to a culture of child sex abuse. Not by leaving and taking her children with her, not by calling the police. No. She organises a committee and instigates a low key private conversation within the community, apparently in the hope of tidying things up. She's not 100% on Team Centrepoint anymore, but she's not exactly tearing the place down. At least not yet. As Barry and a few others begin a rather tentative revision of Centrepoint's sexual culture, Bert Potter appears to take absolutely no notice. He's got other fish to fry. It's the mid-80s, remember. He's been investing in the futures market and in a goat stud and a farm. And Centerpoint's also got its hooks into the AMAC abortion clinic over in the city.

[Philip Alpiss]

Well, there are other ways. In any situation you happen to find yourself. Find yourself. But it's a matter of being.

[Adam Dudding]

In the previous episode, we heard from Renee and also from Angie, two sisters who arrived at Centrepoint in 1985. That's the same year that Barry reads this book about children and sex. Now, though, I'd like to introduce you to another former child of Centrepoint.

[Nate]

I tried to be a good kid and then at one point I stopped giving a fuck.

[Adam Dudding]

This is Nate.

[Nate]

Oh, I'm Nate. Centrepoint used to call me Nat.

[Adam Dudding]

Nate is a few years younger than Renee and his family arrived a bit later than hers. He's not 100% on the dates.

[Nate]

It's really, really hazy.

[Adam Dudding]

Recently, we visited Nate at his home south of Auckland. He used to drive trucks for a living, but injured his back a while

[Nate]

ago and now I sit on my ass with a permanent injury. So I tend to carve things and try and keep myself busy being creative.

[Adam Dudding]

For Nate's family as for Renee's, Centrepoint was partly a place of refuge from a troubled and precarious past.

[Nate]

Dad was doing the best he could. He had no money. There was times we were really hungry.

[Adam Dudding]

They visited Centrepoint for a while, but then it became a formal thing. Nate wasn't keen at first. The place felt alien and the other kids weren't very welcoming.

[Nate]

I can recall the night dad told us we were going to be members. We were waiting. It was dark. We were planning on trampoline outside the meeting and dad come out and told us and I lost my shit at it. We did not want to be There.

[Adam Dudding]

But he got used to it.

[Nate]

Yeah, we did eventually. I mean, kids adapt, you know, there long enough, you become part of the crew.

[Adam Dudding]

Nate says the adults seemed caught up in their own business. He wouldn't see his dad for days on end. But like Rene, he had a lot of fun. In spite of, and partly because of the lack of adult supervision, we had adventures together.

[Nate]

We had this big bush, go up to the top of their lookout and camp out up there when it was raining and big, much like down into the creek. We had a lot of good times.

[Adam Dudding]

Like Rene, he remembers that the commune made real efforts to make things fun for kids. Not long after they joined, his father told him they were off to see Pink Floyd at Western Springs.

[Nate]

I was over the moon, it was awesome. Big brown Cinnabon bus with all the hippies. And I went to Pink Floyd and Western Springs and had a joint and a beer.

[Adam Dudding]

And what age were you?

[Nate]

Nine, I think. I don't remember the exact year.

[Adam Dudding]

Quick fact check. Pink Floyd came to Auckland in 1988 and Nate was born in 77, so he would have been 11ish.

[Nate]

But anyway, great fun. I remember watching the dogs come out of this big round laser screen and the big pink pig in the giant bed. I remember the entire concert. It was beautiful, amazing. And living at Centre Point. Any concert we went, we didn't have decades. We jumped the fence, U2, Metallica, ACDC, several times. So, yeah, music was a massive part of Centerpoint.

[Adam Dudding]

There was one resident on the commune who had a little studio and he'd strung up speakers throughout the trees. So as the kids went about their

[Nate]

adventures and there was music playing in the background, like living in a movie. Like if you watch a movie, there's always background music. We kind of live like that. It's kind of cool.

[Adam Dudding]

So, yeah, kids making their own fun, running a bit wild. You can see the parallels with Rene. But there are a couple of things Nate witnessed that we think are especially telling moments in the Centrepoint story. And they're things that, as best we can tell, have never been reported before. We'll get to Nate's stories, but before that, we need to tell you a bit more about what was happening to Centrepoint on a larger scale, because things are about to get quite messy. That's coming up. The year is 2020. The outbreak centres on the city of a deadly pandemic is raging and in Aotearoa, New Zealand cabinet meet this afternoon, our government slams the board shut. I'm Adam Dudding.

[Eugene Bingham]

I'm Eugene Bingham and In our new series Quarantine Nation, we are looking back at New Zealand's experience of a global catastrophe.

[Barry]

You're holding in your hand this sample and it's like, this could just change New Zealand.

[Bert Potter]

I can recall pacing around the room thinking, we've just got to move quickly.

[Adam Dudding]

Living through Covid was deeply weird.

[Nate]

Big surge in New Zealand. So, you know, it's terrible.

[Eugene Bingham]

So when Quarantine Nation, we take a minute to figure out just what happened.

[Nate]

What were they thinking?

[Adam Dudding]

What was the world thinking? Made with the support of NZ On Air out. Now, remember how Bert Potter instructed Dave the money man to invest some of Centrepoint's money, like 130 grand on the futures market.

[Barry]

He would invest it in futures, plus

[Adam Dudding]

a breeding stud for Angora goats and a 600 acre farm.

[Barry]

And for a while he was putting up big remarks, reports on the notice board about how much he was making. But then slowly, they stopped going up.

[Adam Dudding]

The reason Bert stopped posting updates about his investment prowess. Well, in late 1987, something happened faster

[Philip Alpiss]

than a skydiver without a purse. The law of gravity hit Wall street today and financial markets around the world

[Adam Dudding]

as the stock markets crashed all over the world. I was near the end of my last year of school and I distinctly remember one of my teachers coming into our class the next morning with a slightly dazed look on her face and telling us that she and her husband had just lost their savings, tens of thousands of dollars, overnight. In New Zealand, which had an especially deregulated system, the market collapse was more extreme than just about anywhere else. At its low point, the stock market had lost almost two thirds of its value. Businesses folded, investments and financial dreams evaporated. Centrepoint ended up losing $125,000 on the futures market. The value of Angora goats fell off a cliff. And when they finally sold the stud and the farm a few years later, the total loss was $1.4 million. It looked like Bert was about as good at picking the market as he was at using a chainsaw. Barry says that once she learned how much money Bert had lost, she challenged her directly.

[Barry]

So I went to Bert and said, right, you shouldn't be involved in the money. The trustee said, you shouldn't be involved in the money.

[Adam Dudding]

She wanted a new system where Centrepoint's finances would be managed more carefully.

[Barry]

So I want a committee of six handling different aspects of the money so it's shared around. And this is my plan, Mousey.

[Adam Dudding]

Barry was learning to roar. Bert bit back.

[Barry]

Well, then I just got the whole tirade of what was wrong with me and what was dysfunctional about me.

[Adam Dudding]

But Barry stood her ground. In the end, Bert blurted, alright, then, do it. Never believing she actually would. So she took this new financial structure to one of the community meetings, told everyone Bert wanted it, even though she knew he didn't really, and got it passed. Now, when Barry told us about this, it helped me get my head around something I hadn't quite understood before. The very strange version of democracy that operated at Centrepoint. So in general, what Bert wanted, Bert got. He was the guru. As Robert put it, if Bert said

[Nate]

that car was white, that car would be white.

[Adam Dudding]

In fact, if you wanted to get your way at Centrepoint, all you had to do was say the magic words, Bert says, and people would suddenly agree with you. But at the same time, community decisions were made by full consensus in long meetings that sometimes only ended because the last person disagreeing had literally fallen asleep on their cushion. Generally, Bert didn't attend those meetings. Instead, he'd send a stooge, make sure one of his trusted cronies was there to veto anything he didn't want. But Barry reckons this time Bert hadn't sent a stooge because he hadn't taken her threats about setting up a new finance seriously. But, and this is the bit that I find so curious, given how much power Bert had, once Barry's plan had passed at the meeting, Bert actually couldn't reverse it. He had a small tantrum about it.

[Barry]

He just really ripped into me. What a bad community person, what a bad lover, what a bad mother, what a bad everything.

[Adam Dudding]

And then had an even bigger, more public tantrum about him.

[Barry]

The next thing he did was call the whole community together for the next meeting. Then he just delivered this tirade to the community. How could we have voted for this? None of us were spiritual enough for him. And he was.

[Adam Dudding]

He was disappointed in everyone. And he was going to move up to a separate house up the hill on an adjoining property owned by Centrepoint.

[Barry]

Anyone spiritual enough could come and visit him there. He would come down for the Monday night meetings, but otherwise, Bert's new pad

[Adam Dudding]

was known as the Gills Road House. Not long after he moved there, Bert's son John and John's partner Felicity moved into a house truck parked next to the Gills Road house. What happened next is a matter of interpretation. Bert later claimed that the move to the Gilles Road house was stage three of a four phase strategy, which was all about the commune members achieving a greater sense of their own responsibility. Barry says it was much simpler than that. Bert's financial screw up on the stock market had undermined his authority. He was losing control and losing respect. So he retreated to lick his wounds. Barry reckons this was a moment when the whole community could have fallen apart because the guru was off having a sulk. So now he was casting about, looking for new ways to put himself back at the centre of things. And as we'll see, he would find a way anyway, whichever version of events you buy, the power balance at Centrepoint was shifting. The stock market disaster and Bert's freakout. It's all pretty dramatic, but for most of the commune, life carries on in much the same way as ever. And not long after Bert's move to the Gills Road House, a new person arrives at the community. A single man rather than a part of a family, which wasn't all that uncommon. We're going to call this guy Benji. And remember I said there are a couple of big moments that Nate can describe. Well, this is the first of them. During this interview with Nate, we were still using the guy's real name, which is why you'll hear a bleep. So there's this guy who turned up in centrepoint in late 1989. So what was he like? At first he was weird.

[Nate]

I never really liked the dude, but he was there and he did a lot of cool stuff with us

[Adam Dudding]

after Space Invaders. And I know this is a big call. The most significant cultural product of the the 1980s was arguably teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And when Benji turned up in 1989,

[Nate]

this guy came in, he painted the turtles on the side of a container and put cushions and all sorts of stuff inside it.

[Adam Dudding]

Logically enough, this cool new hangout for kids was known as the Turtle Hut. Benji also took kids on trips outside the community.

[Nate]

He took us out to Davenport Tunnels and we would have egg ant paint walls through the tunnels.

[Adam Dudding]

Renee, a few years older than Nate, also has vivid memories of those trips to Devonport with Benji.

[Renee]

We'd do things like take two carloads and every red light or giveaway sign we'd stop and we'd swap cars. Even drivers. It was the coolest game.

[Barry]

And we'd all run.

[Renee]

Quick run, jump, and you'd swap seats and you swap cars and it was so fun.

[Nate]

He must have been mid-20s, close to 30, covered in tattoos. So he was this dude who turned up and he was a lot of fun, but. But yeah, there was something off with him.

[Renee]

Always really good with kids, but my creep radar was well and truly on.

[Nate]

And then I just remember waking up in the morning with this dude's hand between my legs.

[Adam Dudding]

Nate wakes up and there's Benji with his hand between Nate's legs.

[Nate]

Not right. And he'd turn up in the mornings with early, early morning waking you up like that and then giving you fruit bread.

[Adam Dudding]

Fruit bread was a bit of a treat. You had to be up early to get any before the kitchen ran out.

[Nate]

But he would get us up out of bed that way.

[Adam Dudding]

Nate said that Benji did this to him just once. But from then on, Nate was keeping an eye out and he saw that Benji was doing things to other kids. Remember the turtle hut?

[Nate]

It was the turtle hut, right inside which he played games with children, one of which is called Milk the Cow. You only need to imagine what that means.

[Adam Dudding]

Nate would try to stop him.

[Nate]

I would do as much as I possibly could to disrupt that. I would slam on the side of the hut, I would call him a pedo fuck. I would yell at him, my voice and disrupt it as much as I possibly could, yet no one listened to me.

[Adam Dudding]

And what sort of ages are the kids that he'd taken to the turtle hut?

[Nate]

I was seeing children as young as seven, maybe younger, up until other kids my age.

[Adam Dudding]

Was it always boys that he'd take to the hut?

[Nate]

Yeah, I never saw any girls. It was always boys. Yeah, I saw things. I saw what he did to people. It stopped between me and him, thank God, but it carried on right in front of me. And that was really hard to handle and I didn't know what to do with that at all.

[Adam Dudding]

Did you feel there was anyone you could tell?

[Nate]

Hell, no.

[Adam Dudding]

Nate didn't feel he could tell anyone. But eventually Benji sexually assaulted a boy who did tell.

[Nate]

I know that he tried it on the wrong boy and that boy made a noise and he was taken away and he was never seen there again. When they found out and they got rid of him, I was so happy. I was so goddamn happy. And I thought they'd taken away and killed him.

[Adam Dudding]

Okay, they didn't kill Benji. But everything else Nate has just said stacks up. We know because one day we were talking with Barry and she started talking about the same thing. Yeah, Benji arrives and, yeah, he was

[Barry]

just absolutely brilliant in playing with the children. Setting up involved games, going into the bush, building huts.

[Adam Dudding]

And then stories start coming in about sexual interference. And one parent, whose boy has been assaulted by Benji, brings the issue to a community meeting. This parent is furious.

[Barry]

Wanted him gone.

[Adam Dudding]

Right now, at this point, some places might have called the police, but that wasn't the Centrepoint way. All the same, Benji was dealt with. A specialised course for people like Benji was found and he was moved out

[Barry]

to stay with friends and he agreed to do that quite lengthy course with them who were professionally trained people.

[Adam Dudding]

We're not going to identify the parent who raised the alarm and got Benji ejected, as that would identify the son, but we've been in touch with the parent and they confirmed the story. We asked the parent if they had any idea about what happened to Benjy after that and they said they didn't. We've made efforts of our own to track down Benji. We've found an image of him and a few other details. But like I said, Centrepoint never involved the police and we've not found any media coverage of these allegations. Also, the name he used at Centrepoint, not Benji, obviously, is extremely common and we've got nowhere. Even though the story of the alleged paedophile who predated on boys at Centrepoint around 1989 hasn't been reported before, we've gradually realised that it's common knowledge among people who were at Centrepoint at the time. Also, this. About halfway through reporting this podcast, I got a call out of the blue from someone. I don't know his name, and he didn't want to be recorded. But the reason he was calling was that he'd heard we were researching Centrepoint and figured I might know something that he wanted to know. Is Benji still alive because Benji abused him? And if Benji's still alive, this guy's been thinking recently that he'd like to see him go to jail. I said, I didn't know if Benji was alive or not. It was something I'd been wanting to know myself. And the caller said, well, if you do find out, let me know. Nate believes Benjy was fresh out of jail when he arrived at Centrepoint, and he knows that he told us. Ah.

[Nate]

And it was clear the tattoo's all over him with jail tax.

[Adam Dudding]

This is curious. When Benji arrived at Centrepoint, he told other adults that he'd recently been in a seminary. So maybe saying he. He'd been studying to be a priest was a sort of COVID story for actually having been in jail. Or maybe he'd been to jail and in a seminary. Producer Eugene and I float the idea with Nate.

[Nate]

Who gives a shit who and where he was and where he came from? He was wrong.

[Eugene Bingham]

Yeah. Do you know what he was. Did he tell you what he was in jail for?

[Nate]

I don't know. We don't know. And the tattoos were clearly jail. Tapes. There's no denying that.

[Adam Dudding]

Do you remember any of the tattoos?

[Nate]

Like this, way up on his cock. How's that? Okay, as clear as fuck is that he had lots of tattoos, but that one was pretty obvious.

[Adam Dudding]

Yeah, there were other tats, but Nate knows about that one because this was

[Nate]

a guy who hung around with little kids and he was naked in his bar pool while we all had shorts on, you know, and no one thought there was anything wrong with that.

[Adam Dudding]

So for Nate, the shocking thing about the Benji saga is that this man had the opportunity to molest boys in the first place.

[Nate]

They just no one seemed to notice. This dude turned up. Everyone thought, oh, he's a really cool guy, he's looking after the kids. What parent does that? Who lets this strange guy take a bunch of children off to Devonport? Here's the van and the caves. Off you go, mate. It's almost like saying, you know, hey, shark, come here, I've got some fresh meat for you. Off you go and have a nice time.

[Adam Dudding]

But for me, the shock here is a slightly different one. This is a situation where an adult at Centrepoint sexually assaults a child and the community agrees it's a very bad thing and swiftly solves the problem by booting the offender out. I can't help thinking, why Benji? It's not like he was the only adult who sexually assaulted children at Centrepoint. Why did he get the boot? And more importantly, why didn't that happen more often? Because if it had, the story of Centrepoint might have turned out very, very differently

[Philip Alpiss]

and started showing up and doing the same things. There'd be a similar sort of reaction. Go.

[Adam Dudding]

Barry's relationship with her husband John, the ceramic artist, was always complicated. The strains of open relationships didn't help. Eventually the marriage ended.

[Barry]

There came a point where we were at the breaking up point. But he said, well, you know, I've arranged this with this 20 year old down in the pottery. A threesome. Come and join us. I suppose John was trying something, so I sort of was in this threesome, just, I don't want to be here. And I just. I just left my husband with this young thing in her 20s and I went down to the swimming pool and I was just swimming up and down, looking at their scarp in the bush and just going, I feel absolutely nothing. I wasn't traumatised with all the jealousy. And then I went, maybe I'm enlightened now. And I was swimming backwards and forwards and I went, actually, no, this is not enlightenment. I am just numbing and I'm over it. I just can't do this anymore. And so, yeah, we kind of split up after that.

[Adam Dudding]

John wrote about the end of the marriage in an article for the CentrePoint magazine in February 1988. John described his own sense of loss and his pain at seeing Barry move on. And just so you know, Barry had quit editing that magazine six months earlier. She passed the job on to another member. The edition after that, issue 32, was devoted to articles about Centrepoint's 10th anniversary. There are articles by pioneer members reflecting on the commune's wonderful decade. Former GP and one time missionary Keith reckons the commune as a quote, living, growing organism. A piece by Margie, Burt's wife, is illustrated with an old friend photo of her holding the wooden cross, which notoriously, Burt once asked her to carry around the commune back in the early years as one of his therapeutic tasks. And Barry contributes a piece of memoir that ends with her saying, I am gradually owning my own wisdom and power. Which kind of sounds like a bog standard Centrepoint cliche, but which, with the benefit of hindsight, is rather more interesting than it probably seemed at the time because change was coming to centrepoint in that 10th anniversary magazine. There's also a piece about Bert moving up to the Gills Road house. The magazine piece is brief. It describes Bert as the guru on the hill and says he's been planning the move for some time. But Barry, remember, says there was much more to it than that. She says that after Bert's embarrassing financial stumbles and loss of face, he was desperately looking for something that would pull the community back into his orbit. And as luck would have it, something came along at just the right time. 3, 4. Methylenedioxymethamphetamine. You might know it by the name MDMA or Ecstasy or E or even I've started so I'll finish Caps, Ekies, pingers, bickies, flippers or Molly. We'll just call it Ecstasy from here. Anyway. Ecstasy was developed in 1912 by the Drug company Merck. But for some reason it took a good 70 years to become a seriously popular and illegal dance drug, usually consumed alongside. Sounds vaguely resembling what you're hearing now. And in the late 1980s, ecstasy reached new Zealand. Burt Potter had always been a bit interested in drugs. The hallucinogenic LSD especially was a good fit with the mind expanding ethos of the Human Potential movement and the Esalen Institute that he'd visited all those years earlier. But from the beginning of Centrepoint, people repeatedly claimed that the commune actually wasn't all that druggy. Burt said it during that open day. We heard back in episode one, we

[Philip Alpiss]

have no drugs in the community at all. Very few people drink. Only one person smokes fairly regularly and then fairly lightly.

[Adam Dudding]

Of course, we don't need to believe Bert, but here's TV journalist Philip Alpiss talking about what he was seeing. In 1984, drugs were completely prohibited, alcohol was prohibited.

[Nate]

There was almost certainly some dope being

[Adam Dudding]

smoked in the back paddock, but it wasn't done publicly. And here's Peter Calder, the retired journalist we met in the previous episode, talking about how things looked during his time living there. That's 1985.

[Bert Potter]

Back then, my sense is that drugs were pretty much frowned on.

[Adam Dudding]

But now, as the decade storms to an end, all that is changing and fast. Remember Barbara, the member who loved therapy and joined Centrepoint as a single mum? It's possible that she played a part in the arrival of ecstasy at the commune.

[Barbara]

I think I introduced ecstasy to the

[Adam Dudding]

community in that for legal reasons we've beeped this person, but suffice to say they were from outside the community, gave

[Barbara]

me two capsules, told me that it had been used for couples therapy in the States, that it was really good, and he also gave some to Bert. So I think that's how the ecstasy arrived.

[Adam Dudding]

Whatever the trigger, Barry says that very soon after, Bert packed a sulk and headed up the hill to the Gills Road house.

[Barry]

Next thing we were hearing there was ecstasy being taken and special people up at the house were trialling eggs. Then he came down and said he had enough of this to gift a loving experience to the community for everyone to be part of it.

[Adam Dudding]

For most users, ecstasy is basically a party drug. Pop a pill, get all touchy feely and emotionally engaged with the people around you, and maybe dance to bass heavy music till way past your usual bedtime. But Bert was saying it could be a sort of adjunct to the group therapy they were already doing. The loved up feeling you got from the drug was a shortcut to all that getting in touch with your loving that the community had been banging on about for a decade. But that wasn't all. Bert also rediscovered his enthusiasm for lsd. And as luck would have it, Centrepoint's goat farm turned out to be a great place to collect ergot. That's a mould that grows wild on grasses and which can be used to make lsd. So all of a sudden, Centrepoint became a hive of drug experimentation, mostly E and lsd, with Bert handing out the goodies. Barry vividly remembers the first mass ecstasy taking event up at Bert's house.

[Barry]

It was only for members, so visitors were to mind the children. We all went up the hill in the dark. Sort of visually quite classic, walking up the hill, through the nursery, past the water tanks, and this house was way up on the hill with all the lights blazing and people walking in groups on the way up. And then he went round, he gave everybody and watched everybody swallow their pill. So that all took a while and then sat back. And then I was one of the last ones to get my pills.

[Adam Dudding]

Barry's recent squabbles with Bert had left her feeling slightly isolated from some members.

[Barry]

I'd often been a bit on the edge in the community, observing, but I wasn't under attack. So this was pretty uncomfortable place to be.

[Adam Dudding]

And while the other people who'd taken a pill seemed to be having fun, she was just sitting there grinding her teeth from the early effects of the drug and wondering when the good feelings would start.

[Barry]

The ones that got it early were starting to go, oh, Bert, I think you're wonderful. And one guy got up on his feet, Bert, I love you. But I was one of the last ones, so it hadn't taken hold on me. So I thought, oh, my God, you know, I'm going to be the only one out on the edge again. But then. It sort of took over. And so I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't got ecstasy, because that was how he pulled all the community in again. Ecstasy is very euphoric but very mindless. And so all the critique and questionings just went. And just as, oh, we love everybody.

[Adam Dudding]

Bert's generosity with the drugs took various forms. Pills were given to couples with the intention of helping them resolve a relationship problem. Families, adults and teens were encouraged to take ecstasy together as therapy. None of this illegal activity was getting mentioned in the Centrepoint magazine, of course, but if you look closely, you can find the occasional clue. One adult member writes a short piece about losing his fear of loving and accepting other people's loving. But then he adds that he's made huge progress ever since, quote, an ecstatic family meeting about three months ago. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Yeah, we get it. Barbara has fond memories of communal LSD trips from around this time. It would start with a list on the notes of who'd been invited up to Bert's house.

[Barbara]

And you'd go in the morning, there's a big space and one whole wall was a mirror. Take the lsd. There'd be bits of Nice fruit to nibble on. This is adults. So you'd see someone you were drawn to talking with or sitting with or being with or having sex with or whatever. It's very hard to describe an LSD trip with shape, which you'll know if you've ever had one, but I found it absolutely fascinating. I would be sitting with someone watching their face turn into the face of a witch or an eagle or a monster or something.

[Adam Dudding]

And then as you came down from the trip, someone would always put opera on the sound system.

[Barbara]

I have retained an absolute love of the opera that I heard. And then people down in the community would bring some very, very good food up in the early evening. There'd be a van would arrive and food would be put out and people

[Barry]

would be ready for it.

[Barbara]

And then the aftermath was dancing. Usually, you know, just danced and danced and eventually toddled off back and went to bed.

[Adam Dudding]

So that was Sally's D. Another big moment was a large scale gathering at the Glade, that beautiful grassy clearing in the middle of the Centrepoint bush. This was in late 1988. About 130 people, adults and teenagers alike, took ecstasy together. And then there was ketamine. Centrepoint had access to the drug because of the goat farm. Ketamine can be used as a goat anaesthetic and it's given as an injection. It's also a powerful psychedelic. Some members experimented with mixing things up. Ketamine with ecstasy, ketamine with lsd. It was a time of high excitement in the community.

[Barbara]

I had lived outside the law by being somebody who took LSD before I ever went there. I was happy to be outside the law in that way.

[Adam Dudding]

And these drug adventures weren't exactly top secret. Peter, who had lived at Centrepoint in 1985, when it seemed pretty drug free, returned for a therapy session in the late 80s and was given ecstasy by Bert as part of that session.

[Bert Potter]

And that was up in that house.

[Adam Dudding]

Yeah.

[Bert Potter]

Whether or not we went there with an expectation of taking drugs, I don't know, but I was perfectly open to the idea. I mean, I'd used hallucinogenic drugs before that, you know, so I didn't really have a problem with it.

[Adam Dudding]

But some people did have a problem with Centrepoint's sudden enthusiasm for drugs. Across the Harbour Bridge at Auckland Central, the police drug squad had a new sergeant, Ray VanBainen. You'll remember, he was one of those cops. Dean Thomas was the other one who'd been looking into Centrepoint years earlier. The cops who were gutted when Burt Potter had a cosy tea in bickies with their superior and their investigations were suddenly shut down. For a while it had gone quiet, but since then, over the years, Ray had started hearing things again from people at Centrepoint and people who left Centrepoint, people who really had a problem with what was going on at Centrepoint. And now there was no one above Frey in the ranks who liked to take tea with Bert. Also, the drug squad had a lot more independence.

[Bert Potter]

They worked across the whole region. And as a detective sergeant, I had the authority to decide what cases we would investigate.

[Adam Dudding]

So investigate he did, and we. And what he found made him think it might be time to get back over to Albany and pay a visit to Herbert Thomas Potter.

[Barry]

I looked into the living room and I saw one of my flatmates smash

[Adam Dudding]

a bottle and shove it into the face of someone.

[Barry]

When I come home, I want a big extravaganza of drugs. And then we could get LSD out to the gangs.

[Barbara]

I didn't know what was going to be said. I really hoped I could lie without lying.

[Adam Dudding]

That was episode seven of the Commune, a Stuff production. It was researched, written and produced by Eugene Bingham and me, Adam Dudding. Mixing by Andrew McDowell at digicake. Music by Audio Network for more information about the show, head to Stuff. Co NZ thecommune. The year is 2020. The outbreak centers on the City of War. A deadly pandemic is raging and in Aotearoa, New Zealand cabinet meet this afternoon, our government slams the border shut. I'm Adam Dudding.

[Eugene Bingham]

I'm Eugene Bingham. And in our new series, Quarantine Nation, we are looking back at New Zealand's experience of a global catastrophe.

[Barry]

You're holding in your hand this sample and it's like, this could just change New Zealand.

[Bert Potter]

I can recall pacing around the room thinking, we've just got to move quickly.

[Adam Dudding]

Living through Covid was deeply weird.

[Nate]

Big surge in New Zealand. So, you know, it's terrible.

[Eugene Bingham]

So in Quarantine Nation, we take a minute to figure out just what happened.

[Nate]

What were they thinking?

[Adam Dudding]

What was the world thinking? Made with the support of Nzonair out now.