Barbara Dreaver

Dreaver was born on Banaba, a coral atoll in Kiribati. Her mother, Lavinia, was from Banaba and her father, Peter, was a schoolteacher from New Zealand, stationed on the atoll as an adult education officer under the Volunteer Service Abroad scheme.^[2][3] The family moved to the main island of Tarawa when she was young, and when she was 10 years old, moved to New Zealand.^[4]

Dreaver studied education at the University of Auckland, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She then completed a Pacific Island journalism course at Manukau Institute of Technology, but struggled to find work in journalism in New Zealand.^[4] In 1990, she moved to Rarotonga and began her career in journalism as a reporter with the Cook Islands News. She later co-owned and edited a weekly newspaper, Cook Islands Press. In 1998, she returned to New Zealand and worked as a business columnist and freelance feature writer for the New Zealand Listener, National Business Review and Radio New Zealand.^[5] In 2002, she started working for TVNZ and in 2003 became the network's Pacific correspondent.^[6]

In December 2008, Dreaver was detained and deported from Fiji after her reporting offended the regime of dictator Frank Bainimarama.^[7][8] Journalists were subsequently required to seek permission to enter Fiji.^[9] The ban was lifted in October 2016.^[10]

In September 2018, Dreaver was arrested in Nauru and stripped of her media accreditation for the Pacific Islands Forum meeting after interviewing refugees held at the Nauru Regional Processing Centre.^[11][12][13]

In 2020, Dreaver created a two-year training programme through the Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Ltd to support new Pacific journalists across the Pacific region. In 2022, she was appointed a member of the Establishment Board for the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media body.^[14]

Dreaver published her memoir Be Brave in 2026.^[15][16]