ABSTRACT
In July 2006, while I was working on this project, Bob Geldof visited New Zealand. The Live Aid founder and ‘rock star’, as the lead singer and main songwriter with Irish post-punk group the Boomtown Rats, then as a solo act, was widely reported when he described the country’s foreign aid as ‘shameful and pathetic’. Geldof’s criticisms received prominent newspaper coverage, they were the subject of magazine cover stories, and he appeared on leading television and radio current affairs shows. He used these opportunities to explain the goals and progress of his Make Poverty History campaign, which is also supported by Bono. The surrounding public debate saw the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister both anxious to defend New Zealand’s aid record, while welfare groups and letter writers rallied to support Geldof. To the public, Geldof is the rock star forever linked to Live Aid, who used his musical celebrity as a platform for social activism.
