Mate i te tamariki he takari waka i haea. Kei te potiki te tau o Hikurangi, te au o Waiapu, te ure o Parau. I tangi nei te iwi whanui. E kore i mutu te aroha. Ko Mihingarangi tenei. E mihi atu nei, e tangi atu nei. Welcome to The Hui, Maori current affairs for all New Zealanders. Coming up this morning ` They've raised their own kids, now they're raising their grandkids. I'm changing nappies! (LAUGHS) The number of kaumatua caring for their moko is on the rise. Today they speak out about the challenges they're facing raising young ones in their twilight years. It's been a long, scary road for me. And ` Metiria Turei has admitted misleading WINZ when she was on the benefit. Now there are calls for her to be prosecuted. Benefit fraud is a crime. So, how does the state deal with benefit fraud compared to tax evasion? And which is costing the taxpayer the most? The results may surprise you. Copyright Able 2017 Karahuihui mai. Taking up a hobby, getting stuck into the garden, or an overseas holiday are what many dream of for their retirement. But changing nappies, school lunches and homework aren't usually on the list. However, it's something we're seeing more of as the number of grandparents raising their moko grows, and many are enduring financial and emotional challenges, all because they don't want to see their grandkids end up in care. Anei te purongo a Rewani Perera. (RELAXED GUITAR MUSIC) They're in the twilight of their lives, but instead of putting their feet, they're being run off them. Orange girl! (LAUGHS) If I was 20 years younger, I'd be out there running full-time, but unfortunately I can't do that. Their kids might all be grown up, but now these koros and nannies are bringing up their children's babies. What's going to happen to our mokopuna when we go? It's maemae to think about. All right. Woop! Kaumatua stepping in to raise their moko when their own children are no longer in the picture. Ko te tamariki, ko te mokopuna te mea tuatahi. Grandparents take on the responsibility of looking after their grandkids, sacrificing their golden years for these children whose parents can no longer look after them. Often these children come into their lives under difficult or tragic circumstances, involving family violence, drugs or alcohol. It's been more than 30 years between babies for 68-year-old Rima Herbert, who's now raising his moko. I'm changing nappies! (LAUGH) You know? Did you think at 68 you'd still be changing nappies? No. No, not at all. Not at all. Rima took in his daughter's four kids after he found out that she and her partner were using methamphetamine. They range in age from 2 years old to 9 years old. We were only going to have them for one year in 2013. Well, four years later, we still got them. I won't give them back ` my wife won't give them back ` until the parents are at a level where they can care for their children and definitely off the drugs. Keeping them safe is his number one priority, giving his grandkids a stable and loving whanau environment. I think you'll find that everybody who knows that indulges in that terrible drugs, there's going to be violence, and it overflowed onto the children and that's one thing that I didn't want, is that they be exposed to that, because it's no good for anybody. One of the biggest struggles for kaumatua is navigating their way through the complex social welfare system. Work and Income would definitely be one of the main issues that our kaumatua and kuia face in terms of paperwork. Victoria King is a kaiarahi, or social worker, with Manukau Urban Maori Authority and sees the challenges these grandparents face. What's plan B? She and her team have seen an increase in kaumatua seeking their help when caring for their mokopuna. Being able to comprehend and understand the processes, and that's why we feel as kaiarahi it's really important that we can advocate and also explain that process to them. Victoria says often what they need is help getting a bigger home. A lot of our kaumatua and kuia are living in small whares, and so they're having to expand so that they accommodate to their mokopuna. Let's go. Come on. Once they've got them housed, they need to get them fed. There is some government support. Kaumatua can get up to $200 per child, per week. But this help, for many, doesn't stretch far enough to cover food costs. Auckland City Mission has noticed an increased demand for elderly people accessing their food bank services. One of the things that we hear constantly is that food becomes the discretionary item, so that on a limited budget that, at the end of the day, food is the last thing that is bought, so it becomes truly discretionary, where rent might not be or transport or medical care. I just can't believe that food's becoming a discretionary item. And I share that un-belief, to be honest. I'm so proud of this country that we belong to and at times deeply ashamed of the reality that I see. And one of the realities I see constantly day in, day out is the need of many people for food. What is going on in the reality of families lives that grandparents are needing to step in in this way? 63-year-old Kathleen Samuels' two grandkids turned up on her doorstep with a police officer last October. They uplifted the children and brought them here. Do I want the children? Or they'll take them into custody to CYFS. So I took them. Mm. Kathleen's son and daughter-in-law went their separate ways, leaving their kids in limbo. It's been a long, scary road for me. I really cried when I had to have the kids, because I wasn't well myself. Not just battling ill health, but also government departments. We do struggle with WINZ. Maybe because we don't know what to ask for or how to, you know, in a proper way. We're not there to use and abuse them, you know? We're really genuine. We're going in there to get things for the children. It's not for us. Many grandparents are retired on fixed incomes. They're faced with extra demands on their finances when they take their grandchildren in. Most of our mokopuna that do come into the care of our grandparents generally come with either the clothes on their back or a bag of clothes, and that's pretty much it. So our grandparents are having to find, obviously, how to clothe them, how to feed them, where do they sleep. And all of those things can impact on not just the children, but also the grandparents, and where do they go to find all those things? It's a steep learning curve for these kaumatua, back in the parenting game decades after their own kids left home. Is it different being a grandparent to a parent? I think so. If you're a parent, you've got more energy than I will ever have. That's it. But for some, parenting the second time around has given them a whole new lease on life. Kakama ake au i nga rangatahi nei. Ko oku tau inaianei 75. He kotiro tonu. Ki ahau nei 21. (LAUGHS) She keeps you young. (LAUGHS) 75-year-old Wai Kaihe needs all that youthful energy, legally adopting her 10-year-old granddaughter, stepping up as her full-time carer. Nesha wasn't even a year old when her nan came to her rescue. As she always says, child comes first. Just wish I could repay her back for what she done for me. Wai's son died of a heart attack when he was just 30 years old, but he was clear about who should take care of his baby if anything happened to him. That was your son's wish, that you would have Nesha? Penei tana korero, kotahi ano te wahi pai mo taku kotiro ki te taha o taku whaea. Nesha's mother left when she was just a baby, and she hasn't seen her since. Engari e mohio ana au, etahi wa ka whakaaro taku mokopuna, kei whea ra taku mama. Tino aroha au ki tera ahua. Tena pea ka puta mai, ko wai ka mohio, kaore maua e mohio ana? Mehemea kei te ora, kei whea, kaore maua e mohio ana. Generations might separate the pair, but there's no denying the special bond they both share. Paia mai awhi. He pai maua ko taku mokopuna. Ko nga takaro, ko nga korero rukahu, nga korero harihari, waiata, ko maua tena. (LAUGHS) Kia a au nei waimaire te kotiro nei. Nga mokopuna e tipu ana i te taha o o ratou tipuna, tino waimaire. Your nan's pretty special to you, Nesha? I love her because she took me in when I was only 9-and-a-half months. It's like she saved me from a bad thing. These kaumatua have given their moko a second chance, providing a loving and stable family home, but they know they'll never take the place of their mum and dad. BOTH: I aue, hi! (LAUGHS) Nga tau tekau kua pahemo ake nei, karekau. He` Ki taku titiro, kua oti i ahau te patai o tana matua. Etahi wa ka titiro au ki te whakaahua o tana matua ka korero atu au mehemea i konei koe, ka kite koe i te ahua o to kotiro. Do they miss their parents? Oh, yes. Course they do. You know, you can see that sadness in their eyes. I do. I see it all the time. Just got to give them a lot of love. Where possible, they live in the hope that their moko will one day be reunited with their parents. While they never saw themselves raising kids again, they're making the best of their situation, doing their very best for their moko. I have a job to do now, and it's taking care of those mokos, and so I have to be prepared to be sure I'm thinking right, my body's strong enough to do that that. If you don't do that, you're going to go down. And I didn't wanna do that, for the mokos' sake. You know, if I get sick and something happens to me, who's going to have my mokos after I go? And are they going to get the same love and caring that they're getting now? Ko ia taku topito o te ao. Aw, rawe. Na Rewani Perera tera purongo. Kia mau tonu mai ra i te iwi. After the break, Green co-leader Metiria Turei has admitted she misled WINZ while on the benefit. We look at how the state deals with benefit fraud compared to tax evasion. That's next. I'm changing nappies! Hoki mai ano. Greens co-leader Metiria Turei has caused an uproar, revealing that she misled WINZ while receiving the DPB as a student. Turei admitted she didn't tell WINZ she had flatmates, because she couldn't afford to care for her daughter Piupiu on a reduced benefit. The admission was made during the launch of the Green party's welfare policy called 'Mending the Safety Net'. Turei has offered to pay WINZ back, but there's now cause for her to be investigated. Let's take a look. In a few words, what do you think of Metiria Turei? Disgraceful. That's just one word. Absolutely disgraceful. It's the confession that's got everyone talking. Green co-leader Metiria Turei comes clean over committing welfare fraud 25 years ago while on the DPB. I had extra flatmates that I didn't dare tell WINZ about. Politicians were quick to pass judgement. Being a single mum made good does not excuse you using law-breaking as a political stunt. She has to take responsibility for her actions. I think a lot of people will be disappointed. Twitter immediately went into overdrive, many calling out other MPs for their own taxpayer-funded blunders, including Prime Minister Bill English, who in 2009 paid back $32,000 after claiming a housing allowance while he was living in his family home. #IAmMetiria trended for days. Well, Turei has offered to pay the money back, but should she be investigated or prosecuted? The Taxpayers Union's Jordan Williams has sent her an invoice requesting the payment. But how do we treat welfare fraud compared to tax evasion? Associate professor Dr Lisa Marriott teaches taxation at Victoria University, and says New Zealand is far more lenient on tax evaders. Her research shows tax discrepancies or evasion costs the New Zealand taxpayer around $1.2 billion a year. Welfare fraud is less than $40 million. But when it comes to investigating these crimes, while 5% of welfare recipients will be investigated, just 0.01% of taxpayers will be. So, who's held accountable? There will be 800 criminal prosecutions to 1000 criminal prosecutions a year for welfare fraud, but just 60 to 80 for tax fraud. And when it comes to doing time, of the tax dodgers, with offending around $270,000, 18% will go to prison. For welfare fraudsters with $70,000 of offending, 67% will go to jail. Well, to discuss this, I'm joined now by the executive director of the Taxpayer Union Jordan Williams; associate professor of taxation Dr Lisa Marriott; and Maori community advocate Boyd Broughton. Tena koutou. Thank you for joining us this morning. Kia ora. Kia ora. Let's start with you, Lisa. When you talk to people about these numbers, are they surprised? Always. Yeah. Well, they're pretty astonishing, aren't they? I think all the numbers, it doesn't matter what you look at. As your graphics showed, whether it's investigations; whether it's sentencing; whether it's prosecution; we're clearly treating people on welfare quite differently from taxpayers and taxpayers who aren't paying their tax. Right. Boyd, in that piece that we saw there, Christine Rankin called Metiria Turei 'disgraceful'. Do you think that's a bit harsh? I think it's funny for Christine Rankin to get on her high horse about anyone, to be honest. I think it's more than harsh. I think it's hypocritical. She's lived a life of luxury paid for by the taxpayer. Remember, Metiria did all this 15 years ago, a year after the Mother of All Budgets, where people were struggling. Not just Metiria, but thousands of people. I just find it incredible that she's labelled anyone. I just wanna be able to draw on the first story that we had there, and I'm going to come to you, Jordan, because we saw grandparents raising their grandchildren. It was difficult for them. They were getting around about $200 a week to be able to pay for some food. When we're seeing situations like that and we've got a tax debt of $1.2 billion, do you find that hard to believe? That we're fighting over a couple of hundred bucks for grandparents who are raising their kids? Well, firstly, the numbers are simply extraordinary, and there's no excuse for it. From an ethical and ` it should be ` from a legal perspective, tax evasion is no different and certainly just a morally wrong as any sort of other fraud, and benefit fraud is clearly being enforced a lot more vis-a-vis tax evasion, and that's wrong. What we're seeing is MSD taking a very different approach to enforcing their area of the law around benefit fraud than say the IRD, which are much less enforcement, as Lisa's shown. And what they do do is apply enormous penalties because those penalties apply not just to fraud but also non-compliance, when someone's late, for example. There's no penalties with WINZ, though, because they just take it directly out of your benefit. That's true. But you don't have the enormous` Perhaps we should do that at IRD. Well, they do. Certainly with their new computer system, that's what this modernisation project, that's preci` Lisa, you'd know. Yeah, how do fraudsters pay back? You know, people who evade the tax system? How is the payback method? Because in your research it shows that they're not getting the same percentage, if you like, back. I think even if you take out the fraud component, and just focus on the debt, because you can have legitimate debt. So, for example, people who get welfare benefits, they can get legitimate loans, and the same thing applies with taxpayers. You can file your tax return but, for whatever reason, not be able to pay your tax. But even then, even when there's no crime and you've just got debts, we're still a lot more punitive on people who are on welfare. So for example, what has come up this week, which is the deduction notices. So, when the deduction notices go either directly to banks or to employers, and the money doesn't go to the person where it would normally go to, and it goes straight to the government department, at the moment, 12% of beneficiaries have deduction notices and 1% of taxpayers with debt have deduction notices. Now, those figures are quite extraordinary on their own, but then if you take into account the fact that people are on welfare are much less likely to have the means to be repaying that debt, it becomes even more prevalent. And it's actually worse than that, cos IRD are stripping staff this week. They announced 1300 staff they're reducing. There is very clearly a problem here. I think from the Taxpayers Union perspective, this is he first time we've commented we've commented on an instance of welfare fraud. It's the equality before the law, because` Good, I'm glad you've talked about equality because I'm going to come to Boyd very shortly, but I'm going to ask you, you sent out an invoice to Metiria Turei. How many other invoices do you send out to New Zealanders who are ripping off the system? Did you send one to Joanne Harrison, for example? Uh, well, the` Not familiar wit` Did you? With that case. $700,000, she misled the ministry of transport, I think it was. Oh, yes. Well, that ones been very well handled by the Labour party. But we, for example` But did you send her one? No we didn't, but we've been all over the Todd Barclay story. Some people say we do too many releases at the taxpayers Union. We can't chase every bus. do you try to have some kind of equality when it comes to tax evaders versus welfare fraudsters? Well actually, it's the other way round. We operate a tip line for people to report government waste, and we can't recall an instance of benefit fraud coming through it. But for tax evasion, when we pass that information on to the IRD, we certainly do. In relation to this invoice that our mascot Porky was having delivered to Metiria, there's been` There's some debate around` Cos that's quite a good little distraction. We worked it out in today's dollars, just shy of $57,000 of benefits over that three years. Some people have said, 'No, no, no. I would only be the accommodation supplement. 'That's probably only about 15.' But this actually illustrates the point quite well. Because if that was a tax debt, the penalties on that would take that to probably be a lot higher. OK, I get your point there. I want to come to Boyd because IAmMetiria as grown out of this whole issue this week. If an MP came up 15, 24 years later, after they'd lied to IRD about tax evasion, do you think there'd be as much sympathy with them, a hashtag where people start to share their tax evasion stories? Yeah, I don't think it's about sharing tax evasion stories, the IamMetiria. What do you think that's about? I think it's about sharing the resilience of people who have really struggled for a number of years with a welfare system that doesn't help, and where a lot of shame is built into it and, as we've said, a lot of prosecution. And I think discussions about an invoice sent to Metiria Turei are an attempt to side-track that discussion. And they're a stunt, and I don't think there's any benefit to them, but what it does is it gives other right-wing thinkers licence to then go and slur the IamMetiria hashtag and misconstrue it. No, we're` Hang on. And they're claiming that people who are commenting on IamMetiria are condoning breaking the law, and that's absolutely not what's happening. To be fair, every politician from National and other parties in that piece were condemning Metiria for her actions. What we've said is that, putting aside the moral question of back in the '90s, this is a member of parliament who earns north of 200,000 a year. Sure. Now. Now. She's been an MP for, what, 15 years? Yes, but this is the point, she should pay the money back. And that's what we're hearing from our members and supporters. What about Todd Barclay, then? Likewise, we got some media prior to the story breaking saying exactly that. In fact, we were going to, on Thursday, go on to Lambton Quay, our staff and volunteers, to hand out missing persons leaflets` You're a bit slow, though. Well, we had been` The thing is` Very slow with Todd Barclay. What do you`? No, that's-! Well, actually, no, to the poin` Sorry. What are you`? We were on it within 24 hours. We led back in 2013, we were complaining that politicians are using money` Hey, Jordan. To silence former staff. OK. You cannot say that we've any way unbalanced there. OK. I have to wind you back in there. What do you make of Steven Joyce's comments then, when he's got Todd Barclay not turning up`? Oh, it's disgraceful. Totally disgraceful. And MPs should not be above the law. They should be have the same enforcement. OK. Can I come to Dr Marriott here? In your research, have you come up with any ideas for solutions? Because I think everyone's in agreeance that it's not OK to evade the tax system. Yeah. Can you see any ways of fixing it? Or making it better? I think the issue has already come up here, which is just equivalence, isn't it? Treaty equivalent crimes in equivalent ways, and I think that is the real issue of fairness. The one thing that I think you could possibly point to as a way of making these things look more transparent is having something like guideline judgments. SO for example, a guideline judgment is not exactly where there's a bright line test, but a guideline that can be given for a certain amount of offending, it is expected to result in a certain level of punishment. And what happens then is you avoid situations like we saw in the media this week where we had a case of ` I think it was ` a million dollars. A gentleman had hidden a million dollars, however you do that, to avoid paying 400-and-something-thousand dollars worth of tax, and he's got seven months home detention. And if you had had the equivalent for welfare fraud, I can fairly confidently say that that would have been a quite different sentence attached to that. Whereas if you have a guideline judgment, which is for a million dollars worth of offending, here's the starting point, you have aggravating and mitigating factors, which our Sentencing Act has now, and that means your process is a lot more transparent. Do you like that idea? Yeah, I really do. That's really clever. (CHUCKLES) Vote for Lisa Marriott! (CHUCKLES) What about you? (CHUCKLES) Would you buy into something like that? Well, I think there's actually a broader problem around white collar crime in New Zealand and sentencing and leniency of sentencing. The solution` Is there a vice in our court systems? Uh, there is a huge inconsistency, and what I'm really interested to know is to what extent does that relate to previous offending? Or how much is` It depends on your priority, because is your criminal justice system about punishment, in which case, and arguably white collar crime, the sentences should be a lot higher because they're people in positions of trust and confidence. And able to pay pack. I have to wrap up. We have run out of time. Its been a great discussion. Thank you so much for sharing all your points of views. Kia ora. Kia mau tonu mai ra I te iwi, ka au raki mai Te Hui akuanei. I'm changing nappies! Kei te matakitaki koutou i a Te Hui. Hei tera wiki i runga i a Te Hui ` Coming up next week ` From a childhood on the wrong side of the law... MAN: Dad, he was a drug dealer I look back and I'm like, 'Man, that was a tough life.' I mean, I didn't have my first pair of shoes until I was, like, 8. ...to raising four kids on his own,... I always wanted to be a really good dad. ...nothing gets in the way of Gizzie counsellor Josh Wharehinga. I had a lot of resentment for how we grew up and a lot of resentment for the old man. You know, I wanna be better than that. He's always dedicated his life to giving back to Kaiti, the Gisborne suburb his mother raised him in. There was this little Maori boy who came past with his scooter. He looked at me, he looked up at the billboard, and he looked back at me and then he goes, 'Is that you?' And I go, 'Yeah, man, that's me, and when you get older, it could be you.' And he was like, 'Far!' Thanks for joining us today, Hui Hoppers. we'll post links to the show on our Facebook page and on twitter @thehuinz. And you'll find all our stories on the Newshub website. The Nation is next. Nga manaakitanga o te wahi ngaro ki a tatou katoa. Captions by Tom Pedlar. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017