Tonight ` I was shocked and, um, gutted. Is KiwiRail guilty of un-Kiwi-like behaviour... If you wanna be Kiwis, come and see us. ...and railroading people off the land? Shocking. We've got no backyard. Plus ` Yeah, so that means that there's meth in the house. Cleaning up the clean-up industry. BANG! BANG! Does P stand for problem or paranoia? And ` toll roads save you time and money,... $2 each way. So for one day, it costs you $4. ...unless you forget to pay! So welcome to Tauranga, where it costs $2 to drive the road, and $4.90 to get a bill to drive the road! Welcome to the show. Is KiwiRail railroading its neighbours? The state-owned enterprise manages 18,000ha of land in NZ. But ` and it's a big but ` it's on a collision course with some of its neighbours in Napier for what, well, we're gonna call, 'un-Kiwi-like' behaviour. Here's Hannah. HIP GARDENING MUSIC An idyllic domestic scene. She's relaxing by the pool. He's relaxing by the pool. Warren and Brenda have a backyard to boast about, but five years ago ` It was a jungle. You couldn't see the fence cos of overgrowth. Everything was just so overgrown ` not just our side of the fence, but the other side of the fence as well. I dug all the bamboo out by hand. 7, 8-hour days out in the back doing it all. Yeah. Five years of hard graft have left them with paradise. I love my gardening. So I like getting out there, tootling around in the garden. We have barbecues. We've got friends, family that come round. But their paradise is under threat from their own neighbour! I can't believe that. I` I'm not very happy about it at all, you know? I was shocked and, um, gutted. The problem lies behind their back fence. And about now, to show you what is beyond the fence, we'd have a drone shot, wouldn't we? But I'm afraid this is as high as we're gong to get, because over there also is the airport, so airport, no drones allowed. I'm afraid we're gonna have to go old school and go up on the balcony, where we can see the main road from Napier to Gisborne. It's busy, but it's not the problem. And the railway line. It's not busy ` it's not even being used right now ` but it is the problem. When we first bought the place, we` hoped` we thought that that was it, the fence line that's out the back was our boundary. And then a couple of weeks ago. We received a letter from KiwiRail saying that, um, we are occupying their section and that we should be paying a lease. Council records show the red line is their actual boundary, and this yellow chunk of land, that's inside their fence line but belongs to KiwiRail. Absolutely dumbfounded. I couldn't believe that this was the case, cos I've never heard of it. Um, my neighbours that we know of didn't tell us anything about it, our lawyer never told us about it, the real estate agent who sold us property never told us that that was railway land. And then the shock was, sort of, like, we've got no backyard. We've got no backyard. (LAUGHS) The boundary line runs very close to the outside edge of the pool. If we had to put a boundary fence up, it would make vacuuming and maintaining the pool pretty awkward down that side. Even though the KiwiRail lease is only $350 a year, these two are worried. The lease is only for five years. What happens after that? Are they gonna quadruple the amount they're wanting to charge us? And my biggest fear is at the end of five years are they going to suddenly say, 'Oh, we want our land back'? Down the road a bit, Kyra Garrity's showing us her actual boundary line. Her land's on the left. KiwiRail's land on the right. They own her amazing vege garden, orchard and washing line. I don't feel very happy about it at all. She says residents here have maintained and beautified this land for years, so why are KiwiRail suddenly wanting to charge for it? To me this is all a nonsense. The letter arrived out of nowhere. Nobody was warned about it. Kyra says for decades there's been a fair deal with railways. In the early '80s, maybe late '70s, that there was a peppercorn agreement with the rails and the people, and they said, 'You care for the land, and there will be no charge.' Oh, I think it's a nonsense. What it says to me is people don't matter. In her 7 years here, Kyra's created this garden from a rubbish heap, spent $3000 on replacing the shoddy fence, and she reckons if the land's returned to KiwiRail's care... It's going to become a danger zone yes, and we'll end up with grass up like this, a fire hazard, ugly, shocking. But if she does agree pay the lease, what's in the future? They hold the cards, they hold the trump card that they can just double it if they want, or whatever. It's` It's quite unnerving, really. I rang KiwiRail, and I said, 'What are my options?' And she said, 'You have none.' And I said, 'Do you mean we can't purchase the land?' And she said, 'No, you've got no options.' Two doors down, this is how much land Ivan's going to lose. Quite a surprise to us, a big surprise. Like Kyra, he knew the land was KiwiRail's, but says for 20 years, he's heard nothing from them. He thinks this lease business is a bit on the snorer. And we've mowed the lawns for last 20 years for the railways, no-no-no charges. (LAUGHS) What do you think about KiwiRail wanting you to pay money for a lease after all this time? Doesn't sound right to me. Ivan's wife, Margaret, agrees. Bit of a cheek, I think. (LAUGHS) We've cared for it, looked after it, and mowed the lawns, regularly. So there's hours and hours of your labour in that piece of land? Over the years, yes, there would be. Maybe you should send them a bill, Ivan, for all the lawn mowing you've done for them for the past 20 years. I wouldn't do that. I do it for love. BOTH LAUGH And although this extra 200 square meters has come in handy, this couple have made up their minds not to pay the lease. I'd be quite happy to put up a boundary fence, and they can have the land back. It would be less work for me mowing it. But they are worried for neighbours who decide to accept the lease... What happens for the next 20 years? ...and those who may have no choice. But some of the neighbours, they've built over the boundary lines, they can't object, because the buildings, they've put them in the wrong place. Finally, there's no option to buy the KiwiRail land, so what if anyone wants to sell? We've got to say to the people, 'Well, there's a backyard, but it's not yours. It belongs to KiwiRail!' What these to want now is a face to face with KiwiRail to get some answers. They say that should have happened in the first place instead of a letter in the mail out of the blue. They really need to get off arses, come and see us. Don't expect to do things over the phone or over emails. It doesn't happen. It's not the Kiwi way. if you want to be kiwis, come and see us. Simple. Mm, a few very worried residents there, needing answers ` and we've got some. First, this is not just something that's going to happen to Napier residents. Uh-uh. This is part of a 3-4-year-long audit by KiwiRail of at least 1000 properties on the sides of railway tracks right around the country. So Hannah's been banging on the door of KiwiRail, and they finally opened it. BELLS RING KiwiRail's audit aims to discover who its tenants are, what they're using the land for, and yes, to set lease fees and conditions. This is just doing stuff that should've been done 20 years ago. We're getting round to it, we're managing the estate properly, and this is a consequence of that. In Warren and Brenda's street, with around 100 properties paying $350 a year, that's an extra $35,000. Isn't this a moneymaking exercise? No, this isn't a moneymaking exercise. This is about understanding what's on your land, uh, for both safety and operational purposes, and, I think, charging a modest sum for people to occupy the land if they choose to do so. Kyra was right to say that in the past there was a looser arrangement. There'll be people who have got an agreement that, provided they mow it and keep it tidy, all the rest of that, then they get to occupy. And it's just` Some of those were done in documents. Some of those were probably done over a cup of tea in a` in a kitchen, or something of that nature, and we've just got to get that sorted out. But as Ivan and Margaret say, people have worked hard on this land. Shouldn't that count? They have looked after the land. There's no question. They've also enjoyed the fact that they've had use land. I don't think it's really fair to say you should occupy someone's land for nothing. These two were worried that after five years the lease is re-assessed at market rates. Couldn't it double, triple? And if it drops, do they` they'll get it cheaper. Uh, and so, yeah, there's a little bit of uncertainty there. That's no different from anyone else renting land from anyone else. KiwiRail can also terminate the leases with just six months' notice. They say that's to able to reclaim that land, for instance, for extra rail lines. I would think, a pretty rare event that we would trigger that six-month clause, but its there, just in case. That's also why KiwiRail won't offer the option to buy the land ` the rail corridors. We hang onto these things for dear life. They're` They're the life blood of our business. We want them in another 100 years' time, so we just don't sell corridors. If you don't want to lease KiwiRail's land, you'll have to remove any improvements ` gardens, sheds, clotheslines, etc ` and who pays for a new boundary fence? There's a` no requirement for people to have a fence on a rail boundary, so it is their choice again. If they choose to fence, they have to pay for the fence. We actually don't have to pay half. So let me get this straight. If you don't take the lease, you've gotta pull down your fence, and that means your backyard is open up to a railway track? Now, even as a free-range parent, I'd suggest backyard, train, not ideal. Not safe. And for its part, KiwiRail says it is up for a face to face meeting with those Napier residents like Warren and Brenda. Well, that's great news. We'll help get that organised and keep an eye on developments. After the break ` the legacy of NZ's P epidemic is once again under the spotlight. Yeah, it's going up. It's a multi-million-dollar problem,... It means that there's meth in the house. ...but are we guilty of an overzealous clean-up? The lowest levels where you can get any effect at all inside a person are` are a lot lot higher. And ` toll roads save us time and, money,... It's nice. It's long. ...but beware of the penalty fees. So welcome to Tauranga, where it costs $2 to drive the road, and $4.90 to get a bill to drive the road. Welcome back. It's been around for years, but P, or methamphetamine, is still a major problem. It sure it, and it's fuelled a lucrative testing and clean-up industry that some say is out of control. Now, we began raising concerns four months ago, and now the Ministry of Health has released new guidelines around P decontamination. But have they gone far enough? Here's Garth. Listen to the P clean-up industry, and the drug seems to turn up everywhere. Got any drugs on you? No. Got some` maybe some aspirin or something. No, I don't, actually. No, nothing. Fair Go found, when we had banknotes tested, that meth or P is everywhere. If someone said you might have tiny traces of meth on you... Oh yeah, it will be on me for sure, yeah. Trace amounts that can't hurt you, but can lead to people spending tens of thousands of dollars on unnecessary P remediation. BANG! BANG! We found an industry built on a flimsy foundation. No standards for how to collect samples for P testing. Voluntary guidelines for how much P residue is a health risk. Even that only applied to places where the drug had been made, not just smoked there. Yeah, so that means that there's meth in the house. That's given operators a wide margin to advise on a scary issue that's always in the news. Yeah, it's going up. At the end of the day, in the absence of standards, in the absence of some formalised approach that people can go through, the risk is that we are perceived as beating up on issue, OK, and` which can be seen as being self-serving. Now, that's not the attitude we bring to what we do and how we do it, but that's the perception that people can have. To give you some idea of how small the current clean-up guide for methamphetamine is in absolute terms, consider this. Here is some ordinary table salt. Let's take one grain. Cut that one grain into 1000 pieces, Then dissolve that 1000th of a grain of salt into a drop of water. Now spread the water over this much wall and let it dry. Any more than that much meth triggers the clean-up guideline. That's if it's in a P lab. That's a toxic hell hole of other hazardous and long-lasting chemical residues. They are guidelines for a meth lab clean-up. The guidelines are specifically for meth lab clean-up, but they have become the de facto guideline for any meth-related behaviour. Everyone's been relying on a tiny number that triggers a costly clean-up and sees people thrown out of their homes ` half a microgram of meth per 100 square centimetres of surface. But it's always been just a voluntary guideline published by the Health Ministry, and then only ever meant to apply if the place was a lab. Despite that, it's been used by ` which has spent millions in taxpayer funds on clean-ups. Our story's clearly put some pressure on officials. The Health Ministry has now issued new guidance. It's still voluntary. It proposes a new standard for how much P residue is a health risk if the property hasn't been used as a P lab. If the home is carpeted, that's ` That's just as much as we found on the most contaminated banknote we sampled. The limit is higher still ` two micrograms ` if the home has no carpet. Immediately, Housing NZ has adopted the new guidelines and flagged 50 state houses as now fit to occupy. But Fair Go has learned that Housing NZ received independent expert advice that says the same thing as the Ministry of Health does now, but four months ago. Our biggest landlord could've acted a lot sooner. Why didn't they? Well, Housing NZ says it would've been highly inappropriate to do so. They say they wanted the Ministry of Health to change the guidelines first, and they say they were pushing for that as well. Most insurers are using the new guidelines. Some place a limit on how much they'll pay for a clean-up. Some only cover manufacture and not smoking, meaning insurers will argue the contamination from smoking is gradual damage, not sudden and accidental, so it's excluded. As for councils, Local Government NZ says a consistent approach is important and ` Yes, I think the guidelines are appropriate. The expert who helped Fair Go push for these changes says now we need rules for how to apply the new higher limits. Where it's been cooked, manufactured, there are generally a lot of other chemicals around, and P is partly used to represent other chemicals that are on the walls that you wouldn't otherwise test for or couldn't test for. In the case of someone that's smoked it, though, um, where` where residues do end up on walls, um, they are only methamphetamine, and, in fact, the toxic levels, or even he lowest levels where you could get any effect at all inside a person are a lot lot higher than these guidelines still. So the guidelines still are quite` quite precautionary. So you should still be cautious about how anyone explains a P test result. Mandatory rules should come early next year, when a committee of officials, experts and members of the clean-up industry sets a standard for P testing and remediation. We say it's about time. These changes should have been made six years ago. That would have saved millions and untold heartache. So, good to see some change, but I think those limits could go further. And I'm never gonna look at my wallet the same way again. After the break ` we hit the road to try and navigate our way around hidden fees. Toll roads. They save you time. They save you money,... It is fast. ...unless, of course, you forget to pay. I didn't know that they gave you a bill for every single day. And ` PLAYFUL MUSIC Have you taken the plunge and voted for the best and worst ads? Zovirax fights cold sores and cuts healing time by half compared with no treatment. So you can too. 1 Welcome back. We all hate hidden charges. Can I just shout from the rooftops that I cannot stand them! Well, me neither, but it's almost impossible to navigate your way around them if you use one of NZ's three toll roads. So if you pay at a service station, it's a $1.20 service fee. And if you pay at the NZ Transport Agency's contact centre, there's a $3.70 service fee. That goes up pretty quickly. Mm. And you can avoid charges if you pay online, but if you forget or you're late, you're gonna get a reminder notice that comes with a hefty price tag of its own. RELAXED MUSIC Robyn Watson doesn't mind her 178KM daily work commute from Whakatane to Tauranga. It's nice. It's quite relaxing. She doesn't mind that her stereo doesn't go. (LAUGHS) It's just thinking time. She's even okay with paying to use the toll road. It's nice. It's long. It is fast. After all, it takes 20 minutes off her journey only costs a gold coin. $2 each way. So for one day, it costs you $4. But Robyn's demeanour drooped a couple of months ago when she plucked this from her letterbox. Just surprised, and then got a wee bit mad. (LAUGHS) It was a bill for one return trip along the toll road. Well, I wondered why it was. Like, it said it was for one day, and it's $8.90 The toll was $4. The other $4.90 was admin fees. It's just moneymaking for them, I think. So welcome to Tauranga, where it costs $2 to drive the road and $4.90 to get a bill to drive the road. So the bill is twice the price as the drive. How's that fair? There are three toll roads in NZ, and they all charge a $4.90 admin fee if you don't pay for your trip within five days. We made 11 million trips last year and paid $2.4 million dollars in admin fees. Now, the fee does not pay for the road, it pays for the bill, like the ones that kept arriving in Robyn's letterbox. As soon as we saw land` um, NZ Transport Agency, it was, like, 'Oh, not another one.' She got eight bills all up. They automatically generate five days after she drove the road and didn't pay. It was starting to add up. I didn't know that they gave you a bill for every single day. So her partner Murray got on the phone. Yes, I just want to query these bills that I've got. Uh, yeah, we rung the toll, um, helpline, and they weren't very helpful. There's $39.20 worth of admin fees out of the $73 worth of tolls. Uh, yeah, that's a lot of admin fees. There is no where to pay on the toll road. The kiosks were taken out in 2015. You can pay at selected petrol stations, but the NZ Transport Agency who run the road prefer you pay online. And that's where Robyn went wrong. Their account, whom a friend set up, ran out of credit, and they didn't realise till the bills started coming. They could pay over the phone, but there's an admin fee to do that too, and they say they aren't computer savvy enough to top up their account. I actually had to go to our bank and get the lady to show me how to pay this bill. Robyn readily admits she was wrong not to pay within five days but wonders why the bill can cost twice as much as the debt? Although we live in different city's, Andy Knackstedt from the NZ Transport Agency agreed to answer my questions. Andy, it costs $2 to down the road. Why does it cost twice as much to get the bill for driving down the road? Well, look, nobody likes getting pinged for an extra fee when they, uh, forget to pay for something. It's annoying, and we get that. Now, that admin fee is` is really the` recovering the extra costs, all of the costs associated, not just with the postage, but with printing off the notice, with, you know, sending the notice out and with administering the payment of the toll, and that's whether the customer chooses to ring the contact centre, uh, or to pay the, um` the toll another way. So it is cost recovery. There's no profit. There's no money made. Uh, it's just, really, you know, uh, recovering that cost directly, uh, for the unpaid toll. Can you make it any cheaper? Well, we've looked at that, and it is, you know` it is an actual reflection of the actual average cost of, uh, you know` of the whole process. Can you think of any other retailing situation where the cost of the bill is twice as much as the service you are receiving? Well, I guess that's a reflection of, you know, keeping the cost of actually using the toll road down, you know, which is one of the reasons why the` you know, the cost of, uh, recovering an unpaid toll is recovered directly from the person who hasn't paid it, rather than spreading that cost, um, you know, across everyone who is using the road, which would mean we'd have to charge, you know, a higher toll. The NZTA run the roads. It's their rules. And their advice is if you get an invoice, ring straight away and hope it can stop more bills and more admin fees landing in your letterbox. And as for Robyn, she's paid her bills and topped up her online account. She's moving on. Who cares what's gonna happen tomorrow? Live today. After all, life is too short to get angry about admin. That's why I'm always smiling. (CHUCKLES) So, as my nana would say, there's a moral to every story, and Nana was never wrong, and the moral of this story is find someone at home who can operate a computer, and then you'll dodge those extra charges. Changing times, changing technology, eh? Yeah. Well, that's almost the show, but, before we go, a quick reminder about the ad awards. So, you've got less than a week to get your entries in, and if it is motivation you need, here's a look back at what made you smile in 1993. BIRDS CHIRP PLAYFUL MUSIC PLOP! MUSIC RISES PLOP! MUSIC RISES SPLASH! Oh, I love that ad! Send us your picks for the best and worst ads of 2016. We've got a special email address for this. It's ` Yeah, well, remember, entries close this Friday at 5pm. The winners and losers will be announced in a fortnight. That's the show, but we're gonna be on Facebook for the next half hour to answer your questions. Our programme is always about your problems, your thoughts, and we know you've got some, so please don't be shy. Contact us. Yeah, well, we're also on Facebook, or you can email us ` fairgo@tvnz.co.nz Or write to us ` Private Bag 92038, Auckland 1142. Until next week,... BOTH: ...goodnight.