(21 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wellington, New Zealand – 20 March 2025
1. Various exteriors of the New Zealand Parliament Library building
++AUDIO OF TOUR GUIDE’S SCREAM++
2. Tour guide standing on stairs, UPSOUND (English): "It’s your last chance to back out"
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Lisa Brand, tour leader:
++STARTS AT SHOT 2, PARTIALLY COVERED BY SHOT 4++
"Just a different side of parliament, we mainly just wanted it to be fun, but an embellishment of the truth, so the stories that we tell are mostly factual."
4. Mid of tour guide walking into hallway
5. Tour guide walking down stairs and singing
6. Tour guide standing on stairs and reading from book
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Sally Giles, tour participant:
++STARTS ON 6, PARTIALLY COVERED BY SHOTS 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 & 12++
"I didn’t know quite what to expect, but yeah, so staff members from the library all dressed up in Victorian garb and, kind of scared us and, you know, jumped out of corners and it was really fun and yeah, and I learned a lot about the history of the parliamentary library and some nefarious characters from the past. It was a lot of fun. I thought they did a great job."
8. Tour guide dressed as ghost, sitting on table
9. Tour guide sitting in the library archives room and reading from book
10. Tour guide standing against wall
11. Various of tour guide reading from book
12. Exterior of the New Zealand Parliament complex
STORYLINE:
A veiled woman burst screaming from an elevator. A small crowd gathered in a basement corridor of New Zealand ’s parliament drew back nervously.
Their tour guide, wearing a trailing, white gown, smiled sweetly. “You’re welcome to take the elevator,” she said. Nobody did.
Mysterious deaths, unexplained noises and late-night apparitions are not the usual fodder of daily tours offered at the parliament buildings in Wellington.
After hours on Thursday, however, tour guides donned Victorian-era garb to tell visitors of the precinct’s less savory history — “mostly factual” tales of real-world tragedy and paranormal lore established among political staffers through decades of colorful retelling.
The history of parliament’s stately gothic library is rich in woe. It was constructed in the late 19th century and is feared by some of parliament’s night shift security guards and cleaners. It has survived two fires, a flood and being overrun by feral cats.
“This is your last chance to back out,” Lisa Brand, her face dripping with fake blood, told the group who had arrived for Thursday’s tour. The spooky tour was a recent initiative embraced by the visitors’ center staff with gusto.
The guide let out a hair-raising scream that echoed up to the open windows of lawmakers’ offices. The tours are reserved for weeks when parliament is not in session.
Parliament’s library is a gloomy and ornate building where stained-glass windows and crystal chandeliers dimly reveal wrought iron bannisters and Venetian décor.
Designed by Thomas Turnbull and completed in 1899, it remains in use by staff seeking information or some slightly eerie peace and quiet.
Tour guides told a hushed audience that the library was imperiled by a storm that struck Wellington in 1968 — sinking a passenger ferry in the harbor and killing 53 people.
The tempest lashed parliament too, tearing out skylights and prompting librarians to climb onto the roof as they tried to protect the books, according to a guide who sported Victorian garb and dark shadows under her eyes.
The guide added, with relish: “I haven’t even started on the politicians.”
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