But off-screen, it’s not widely known there’s one country that’s significant in Lomas’ life for his own family reasons – Fiji.
It was where he called home for eight of his first 16 years, when David’s father worked as an air traffic controller at Nadi Airport. And it’s where his older brother and mentor, Peter, is buried after sadly dying from Covid complications, aged 74, last year.
Peter, also a veteran journalist, was the publisher and editor of the Fiji Sun, ensuring the paper was relevant to all Fijians rather than just the educated and the expatriates.
Along with his late wife Venina, he was a key member of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), which helped with the training of almost every journalist in the region for many years.
Receiving the news in mid-2021 that his older brother had been admitted to the Covid ward in Suva’s Colonial War Memorial Hospital was terrible, David tells the Weekly.
David Lomas, Peter Lomas and his wife Venina. Photo / Woman's Weekly
“We were worried. After initially being in the Covid ward, he was in a coma in ICU and just never recovered. He passed away in March 2022,” explains the TV presenter, who had to view his brother’s funeral online due to lockdown restrictions in Fiji.
“Thankfully in February 2020, just as Covid started to appear in the world, I had some time off, so went to visit him. We went on a fun five-day road trip together – it was his decision – where we took the office car and I travelled with him around Fiji as he visited his paper’s branch offices.
“We went over to Labasa and Savusavu, and then we came back across to Rakiraki. Of course, I didn’t realise it at the time, but it turned out to be our farewell trip.”
Asked what he misses most about his brother, David pauses thoughtfully before answering that it’s being able to text each other when their beloved Highlanders or Fiji rugby teams are winning.
“I miss our chats. It’s that funny thing that when your parents are gone and then all of a sudden your older brother is gone, it’s a bit of a mortality check.”
“We went over to Labasa and Savusavu, and then we came back across to Rakiraki. Of course, I didn’t realise it at the time, but it turned out to be our farewell trip.” Photo / Woman's Weekly
In his early journalism life, Peter worked in New Zealand on the Evening Star in Dunedin. At 20, while reporting for the Sunday News, he went to Fiji to visit his parents and never left.
So did his brother’s career in journalism then spark David’s interest as well?
“Well, it has to have, I suppose. Or there’s something in the family gene pool where we’re just very curious,” he muses.
“I had worked on the Fiji Sun when Peter was there and he got me to cover the Fiji rugby team. Way back then, I also infamously made the billboard of the Fiji Sun in the mid-1990s, which said, ‘Lomas Deported’.”
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According to the Government at the time, but unknown to David who had visited Fiji just months earlier without trouble, he had been banned from entering the country.
The ban had been imposed after David had gone to Fiji and produced an investigative piece on the Fiji military for the TVNZ current affairs programme Assignment, which had upset the Government.
“A couple of years before, I’d done this story on [Fijian military commander and former Prime Minister] Sitiveni Rabuka,” recalls David. “This was when he wasn’t in government. He’d already had his 1987 coup, but there was a suggestion he was going to have another one, so we went up to do a story.
“We played a round of golf with Rabuka and he agreed to do a story with us. But the Government at the time was upset that we’d done this, so when they heard I was back up in Fiji, they kicked me out. Two policemen marched me down the plane and sat me in the back row. I felt like a criminal!”
“Sometimes I feel like a priest during confession time!" Photo / Woman's Weekly
These days, Lomas has his work cut out for him, helping reunite Kiwis to their families around the world in emotional television moments. His popular programme, David Lomas Investigates, is back on our screens for a third series, where Fiji also happens to provide the backdrop for one of the stories he says he is most proud of.
The 70-year-old presenter even “roped in” a little help with research and language interpreting from his niece Losalini (Peter’s daughter).
“It’s just the most magic story,” smiles David. “It’s truly beautiful and is about a Fijian Indian chap, Dinesh, who now lives in Christchurch.
“In 1999, Dinesh was living with his family, who were cane farmers in Nadi. And each year when it was cutting season, Fijian highland villagers would travel to Nadi to do their seasonal work and cut the cane.
“Dinesh got to know one of the women, called Salome, from the highland villages, and they started going out. Things got serious and then she got pregnant. But it didn’t work out, so Salome disappeared.
“Dinesh, being the poor son of a cane farmer, didn’t have the money to do anything about it. He ended up in New Zealand but has always wanted to find this child of his. All he had to go on was her first name and that she came from a village called Naimasimasi in the Fijian hinterland.
“So I rang my niece and asked, ‘Can you solve this case for me?’” he says, laughing. “And she managed to fit me in.”
Even though church youth worker Losalini isn’t a trained journalist, she was raised in a household with journalists, David points out. Photo / Woman's Weekly
Even though church youth worker Losalini isn’t a trained journalist, she was raised in a household with journalists, David points out.
She and her husband Josua Mateiwai took it upon themselves to ask people who might be able to help. The mystery of what happened to Dinesh’s lost love child will be revealed later in the series.
“Catching up with Losalini over this story was really great, especially as I hadn’t been able to attend her wedding because it was during the Covid lockdown and I hadn’t seen her since her father died … two big events, which in normal circumstances, I should have been there for.”
Reuniting families since 2007 – with around 1500 applications requesting his help each year – David says there is nothing better than trying to crack a complicated story.
“You don’t get many jobs in the world where you can literally change people’s lives and not just one person, but lots of people.” Photo / Woman's Weekly
And yes, people often come up to him in public and pour out their often heart-rending adoption stories with him.
“Sometimes I feel like a priest during confession time! There was a lady I met in Nelson Airport who bailed me up and started telling me her story, and we found her family for the show. There’s a few like that over the years.
“You don’t get many jobs in the world where you can literally change people’s lives and not just one person, but lots of people.”
Watch David Lomas Investigates, Wednesdays, 7.30pm on Three or stream on ThreeNow.
