Whakahokia mai te reo i te mata o te pene ki te mata o te arero. Kei nga papa hou o te kupu, nau mai ki te whare korero o Te Hui. Ko Mihingarangi tenei e mihi atu nei, ki a koutou katoa. Welcome to The Hui, Maori current affairs for all New Zealanders. E taro ake nei. A mother's heartbreaking decision. So I rang the detective and I drove my son to the police station. And he handed himself in. And he's been in there ever since. Her teenage son now locked up in a notorious Australian juvenile detention centre. I didn't know children's prisons existed. I just didn't know. Now in a fight with the Australian Justice Department over allegations her son has been held in an isolation unit for more than 300 days. Solitary confinement is more than 22 hours a day in a cell without meaningful human contact. Where that confinement is prolonged for 15 or more consecutive days, it's considered to be torture. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018 Karahuihui mai. Later in the programme we chew the political fat with our political panel. Engari matua ra I tenei ata. Australia is one of the few Western developed countries in the world where juveniles can be incarcerated. Ngati Maniapoto mum Kylee Douglas moved her whanau across the Tasman in search of a brighter future. But the reality has been anything but. Douglas is accusing staff at a Western Australian youth detention centre of inflicting inhumane punishment on her teenage son, and she wants justice. Anei te purongo a Ruwani Perera. It's described by some as a living hell. Nightmares aren't just when you're sleeping. They can happen right in front of your eyes. Within these walls ` allegations of mistreatment and cruelty to children. I didn't know children's prisons existed. I just didn't know. 18-year-old Jason Rewiti has been locked up here for his part in an aggravated robbery. He's one of six Maori kids doing time at Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre in Western Australia. It's quite sad to see our people ` to see whanau ` in there going through the same thing, knowing that their children probably just lost their way much like Jason. Every couple of weeks, Kylee Douglas drives 600km across the scorching Western Australian desert to see her son Jason. He's been incarcerated there since he was 15. It takes six hours to drive here, six hours to drive home. It's a massive trip for just an hour-long visit, but to Kylee, it's all that she has. I get to give him a hug, I get to tell him everything we've been doing for the last three weeks, and we get to tell him that we love him. Yeah, look him in the eye and tell him that we love him. In between her face-to-face visits, Kylee has to be content with video calls like this. Jason's grown from a boy to a man in Banksia Hill. She'd never imagined this for her son. Walking into a child's prison to visit your baby is not something you ever get used to. I don't know how many times I've said to people ` if you'd asked me back then, I would've said, 'No, no way. That's not my son. That's not us.' But here we are. Kylee, her husband and four kids moved from Tauranga to Western Australia in 2012. Kalgoorlie is now home. Six hours out of Perth, the small mining town is set deep in the lucky country's Red Desert. Like many whanau, they came here in pursuit of a better life ` to work hard and make good money in the mining industry. I suppose much like anybody, the financial prospects were better, and as a family, we wanted more for the kids, more opportunities for the kids. Her two other boys and 10-year-old daughter Ashlee have soaked up the opportunities in their adopted home, but Jason struggled with the move. He wasn't the same smiley kid. He was always the fun-loving one. He was the one that didn't take things too seriously. Everything was always very happy-go-lucky. Jason tried living with his father in Sydney, but started going off the rails. He was just starting to scratch on the border of coming into contact with police in Sydney, and that's what we were trying to avoid. It didn't quite work out like that. Not at all. In November 2014, Jason and two other teenage boys were charged with aggravated robbery after ransacking an elderly man's home here in Perth. Jason was 15 years old and his involvement in that burglary would be the turning point for him and his whanau. There'd be no going back. He hung his head and he said, 'Mum, I` some of my friends robbed a house 'and I was there.' So I was... devastated. I rang the detective and I drove my son to the police station and he handed himself in. And he's been in there ever since. Guilty by association, Jason was sentenced to 30 months at Banksia Hill Detention Centre ` Western Australia's only youth jail. To have my 15-year-old handed down two and a half years was devastating. Jason committed a very serious crime. Do you not think he should be punished? I've never disputed that. Neither has Jason. I don't condone anything he did. Jason's served his sentence and he's always shown remorse for that. But Kylee believes that Jason has been demonised. She alleges he's been mistreated at Banksia Hill and now he's hit rock bottom. He cannot mentally deal with the discrimination, the mistreatment and the isolation anymore. He's done. He's given up. She claims Jason has been in solitary confinement for more than 300 days. And for three months, he's spent 22 hours a day locked up in a similar-sized cell to this in another Australian detention centre, and this ongoing segregation has broken her boy. As a mum, I will spend the rest of my life knowing I couldn't protect him from this. I feel helpless, and I feel that I'm at a dead end. Nobody cares what happened to Jason. After the break ` a nation's shame. Horrific abuses to children inside Australian detention centres are exposed. Meanwhile, at Banksia Hill ` riots, assaults and attempted suicides. Now if that's not saying there is something deeply wrong at Banksia, I don't know what is. Serious questions are raised about the treatment of Jason Reweti and other kids at the corrections centre. I want Banksia Hill to be held accountable for their crimes, because what they've done to Jason and other children in there are crimes. After the break, we hear the allegations of ill treatment at Banksia Hill. Noreira kia mau tonu mai ra. Hoki mai ano. Before the break, the United Nations calls isolation a form of abuse when it's used on a child for one day. Tokoroa-born Kylee Douglas alleges Banksia Hill Detention Centre has kept her teenage son in an isolation unit for more than 300 days. In recent years, youth jails have come under fire for their treatment of children, like Kylee's son Jason Rewiti. She's fighting for her boy and other indigenous youth currently imprisoned in an institution she describes as 'a living hell'. These are some of the shocking images inside Don Dale Detention Centre in Australia's Northern Territory that came to light in 2016. They show a 13-year-old boy held in isolation, being grabbed by officers around his neck and thrown onto a mattress before being stripped naked. This disturbing footage prompted calls to shut the place down and civil lawsuits against the Australian government. Meanwhile, across the country, fresh allegations surround Western Australia's only juvenile detention centre, dogged by scathing reports and labelled an 'abject failure'. Banksia has been plagued by problems for many, many years and it's been swept under the carpet for far too long. Lawyer Tammy Solonec is the Indigenous Rights Manager for Amnesty International. The human rights group were made aware of Kylee Douglas' claims concerning her son in December last year. There are blanket prohibitions at international law on the solitary confinement of children. It just should not be happening, and it should not be happening in Australia. But it's alleged that 18-year-old Jason Reweti has been held in isolation for the best part of a year. Solitary confinement is more than 22 hours a day in a cell without meaningful human contact. Where that confinement is prolonged for 15 or more consecutive days, it's considered to be torture. Jason has been inside Banksia Hill since he was 15. Has Rhys come to visit you or nah? Nah. The last time he came was Thursday. His video links to his whanau are one of the few opportunities he gets to talk to another person, spending most of his days in a cell that's reportedly just five square metres. The size of the cells that these boys have been held in is tiny. Kylee says what Jason has endured has pushed her son to the limit. What he is today, he would never have been, if he hadn't been at Banksia Hill. In 2016, after serving half of his sentence, Jason was released on parole, but was back inside Banksia within three months after breaking his parole conditions. Nearly a year after his return, his mother alleges he was placed into isolation. Kylee claims he's been there ever since. That's over 300 consecutive days in isolation unit. I feel like my son has been trapped in a nightmare for over 300 days. Last May, while in isolation, Jason and a number of other detainees were involved in a stand-off with staff at the centre. REPORTER: It sparked a massive emergency response with dozens of Police called in. I found out about the 5th of May riot on the news, so I rang Banksia Hill to find out of everything was OK, to find out if my son was OK, if he had or hadn't been involved, and that's when they confirmed, yeah, that he had been involved. For his role in the riot, Jason faces another 12 additional charges ` more time inside even though he's served his original sentence. Kylee believes his involvement in the riot is the reason for his prolonged punishment in isolation. They're denying Jason everything. He's the only one of all the boys that were involved in that riot that is still down there. And he has been down there for over 100 days more than any other child that was involved in that riot. There is a lot of evidence ` medical evidence ` to show that solitary confinement and separation from others is not good for any human being, but it's particularly bad for children, and particularly bad for teenagers. Their brains are still developing. It's very damaging. And Kylee says being in isolation has had a huge impact on Jason's mental health. Did staff at Banksia Hill ever tell you that Jason was self-harming? No. I found out through a letter that Jason wrote that he had self-harmed, and that he was classed as a continuous self-harmer. Jason has self-harmed more than 100 times and Tammy has seen the evidence. I know that Jason is Maori, but I feel that a lot of the treatment that he received is similar to the treatment that Aboriginal children here in Australia receive. When I interviewed him, I did ask if I could see his arms, and he did show me the scars on his arms. So this is a child that has been crying out for help. He felt like it was his last straw and that sometimes he wanted to die. (SNIFFLES, CRIES) And it's not just Jason. It's been revealed that over the past 16 months, an unprecedented 272 incidents of self-harming and six attempted suicides have occurred at the detention centre. Children self-harm when they can't take out their frustrations on anyone else, and it's easier to do it on themselves. So the fact that children at Banksia have been self-harming over such a prolonged period, including Jason, shows that there's something seriously wrong at Banksia. I don't understand that you would tell me that there is no footage left in a prison. Kylee has been challenging the detention centre to release their CCTV footage under the Freedom of Information Act to prove how long children like Jason are locked in their cells. Banksia Hill's footage and camera system runs on a 28-day loop, so after 28 days all their footage is then recorded over, so we have been told that we will never get the footage to be able to prove what they did to Jason and the rest of the kids. Down here are the observational cells. They call that the 'Fish Bowl.' Amnesty International are also concerned with the revolving door of senior staff at the youth jail ` staff who've come from working in adult maximum security prisons. I don't think that anybody who is used to the regime of a maximum men's security prison should be in charge of a regime for children. Not having the expertise to deal with these young people's complex needs could explain the centre's woeful rehabilitation rates. Recent figures show more than half of the juveniles released from detention here are back in the youth justice system within a year. If they believe treating boys like animals is rehabilitation, they shouldn't be working there. Banksia Hill refused to be interviewed or show us around their facilities. They say no detainees have been isolated in cells without access to essentials like education and medical support. What are your biggest fears for Jason right now? My greatest fear has been that a child at Banksia will die. Six attempted suicides between January 2016 and July 2017. We are so lucky we didn't lose a child. Kylee's allegations have now resulted in a full inquiry. I really struggle to understand how a government can allow a child to be separated for so long and for it to continue on after such public allegations. It's like, get that young man out of there. He's been in there far too long. I'm still shocked that he's still in there. Kylee hopes justice for her son doesn't come too late. I'm worried I will get a phone call to say that Jason died in his cell the night before. At this point, that is my biggest fear, and that I'll have to take my baby home and bury him. Na Ruwani Perera tera korero. The Department of Justice in Western Australia say allegations regarding the mistreatment of any young people at Banksia Hill are taken seriously and addressed, but they say they can't comment on Jason Rewiti's case as it's currently under review. However they do say that... The claims made by Amnesty International are subject to a directed review by OICS, and it is expected the results of this review will be available in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Jason has asked to be transferred to an adult men's prison to serve the rest of his sentence. He's been served his deportation papers and in August, on his 19th birthday, will be sent back to New Zealand. His whanau in Aotearoa are rallying to support him. Next on The Hui our political paepae discuss nga take torangapu o te wiki, including the politics around Obama's visit. Now in a fight with the Australian Justice Department Auraki mai ano. Well, it's been a busy old week on the political front. President Obama flew into town, but it was less about hope and change and more about holes in one ` spending much of his time on the golf course with the Keys. Meanwhile, Maori voters hoping to change from the General role to the Maori role could see the addition of a new Maori seat, come the next election. To discuss it all this and more, I'm joined by former Labour exec Shane Te Pou and former Maori Party candidate Carrie Stoddart-Smith. Tena korua. Kia ora. Kia ora. The man who represented diversity when he was elected president, do you think he's living up to that legacy? I would say he is, but I think when we look at, in terms of his visit, like, I noticed in the credits you were talking about visiting the golf course and I think one thing we have to remember is to be clear that the differences between the Black community and indigenous communities, I guess we don't conflate those two things together, that he doesn't have to come over here to visit Maori communities. He is friends with John Key. He was invited by the New Zealand United States Business Council. So he was here on a different kind of kaupapa. He did engage with Maori there. He engaged with Wahine Toa, he engaged with Maori business leaders as well as iwi leaders. I think sometimes we have these big hopes that because he represents people of colour, he's also gonna represent all the communities of colour, and it's just making sure that we're not putting unrealistic expectations on those people all the time for that. Yes, and it was` He came over at the request of Air New Zealand and Westpac and ANZ ` one of the other banks as well. At the same time he arrived here, Shane Jones, our Regional Development Minister, was slamming Air New Zealand for pulling out of regional airports. Was he right? Oh, absolutely right. Air New Zealand, I think, has a moral and a social responsibility as our carrier. They say they champion New Zealand, and they can't just give and take to the tax payer. I think Shane Jones was absolutely right. It may not have gotten a lot of the outage here in Auckland amongst us bungalow-dwellers, but I can tell you what, the provinces are hot on this issue. The regions liked it. They're hot on this issue, and they're very supportive, and this is a political tactic from Shane to up the New Zealand First profile, and I think he hit the subject absolutely spot-on. What do you think about the Obama visit? I was disappointed. I went to the dinner ` me and 99-100 other people. I thought that it was a visit largely to the high-end of town. I was very pleased that he did meet Wahine Toa. I think Obama is better than that and I think he was let down by the people who organised this trip, and I think he needs to take a good, long look at their soul. Ka pai. Let's look at the Maori electoral option, because what is the reality of that extra seat, do you think? I think, for me, when I look at the Maori Party now out of Parliament, is there an opportunity now if everyone gets on the Maori role, is there more of an opportunity for them to, if there's another seat that gets added from it, for an uncontested seat ` a new seat will be ` so, it gives maybe grounds for more people to be represented across New Zealand from different parties in the seats. And so there's some talk that it's based on population, so it would be a Auckland seat? I think an extra Maori seat is a given. I think it would be based around Manurewa-South Auckland, which I think would be naturally Labour's hunting ground. Where we live. Yeah, and I think it will be Labour's seat, to be honest. The whole argument about extra representation` You don't even know who's standing yet. You can't say that. Oh, no, no` It's possibly an extra seat. No, I think` It will be based around that South Auckland area, which is Labour heartland. That's just the reality, if you have a look at the numbers E9s at the last election. But I think the whole argument is dissipated as a result of MMP. Because there's other channels in terms of getting Maori in. I quickly wanna go to National's Maori Development spokesperson Nuk Korako, who's voiced a couple of opinions this week. One on bringing back the Te Ture Whenua Maori ` he wants to breathe some life into that. Is it possible, because Meka Whaitiri wants it thrown out? It's dead weka. It's a dead duck. It's not gonna get any yardage. He's wrong in that issue. I don't know why he's going there. If I was him, I would focus on the economic management of those type of issues, but I think that in terms of Maori-dom, National just needs to hold off a little while, because there's a lot of water under the bridge before they're forgiven. Millions spent already on that bill, though. Is it sensible to try and get it back up or throw it out? I think it probably is sensible from a National perspective, I mean, it was started through them ` the process for Ture Whenua, and it was picked up by Turiroa in the last government. There was a lot of changes and things that went through Cabinet, so they're probably quite committed to what was going on. There are issues for Maori landowners, so they're probably looking at them and more from the economic view. It's just unusual to try and to broaden their appeal to Maori, they choose like a` Korako is just trying to be heard cos he's taken on this new position. Yeah, cos it's quite distinctly Maori and there will be a lot of Whenua Maori talk throughout this government as well, so he's positioning himself well to be part of the conversation, at least. Second issue that he brought up is the Maori Broadcasting Panel, which minister for Broadcasting Clare Curran has announced a Public Broadcasting Panel, not Maori Broadcasting Panel. Your thoughts around that? He's slammed the government, actually said there's no Maori representation, in fact, there's no diversity at all. Nope. He's absolutely spot-on in this issue. I couldn't think of another sector of New Zealand business society or society where we had the level of expertise and input that we could create around that. The fact that there aren't any Maori on that particular board or panel is frankly appalling, and I think that we've been let down by the Maori caucus. Why didn't they recognise this and why didn't they say something? Just quickly, Carrie, cos we're running out of time, but iwi radio, you know, the poor cousins of state broadcasting, what do you think about what he's saying? Yeah, I mean, I agree with Shane. I think he's absolutely right. They needed to have Maori representation. I think it's quite ironic that the minister actually used Parliamentary privilege to criticise Maori TV about their appointment process, but then didn't this time around include the voice in her panel. Tena korua, we're out of time. Tena arua tu korua. Well, coming up next week on The Hui ` He's the son of the North ` a local hero. For nearly 20 years, Ricky Helton has been helping the most vulnerable whanau in his community. We want to provide a beacon of hope ` an oasis of opportunity, right here ` way up here in the far North. We meet the man giving hope to the people of Kaitaia. I love these families. I love these families. I'm a living example of what can happen when hopelessness is turned into hope. Don't miss that next week. Kua hikina te hui mo tenei ra. We'll post links to the show on our Facebook page and on Twitter at The Hui NZ, and you'll find all our stories on the Newshub website. You can also catch our replay on Monday nights straight after Newshub Late. Newshub Nation's next. Pai marire ki a tatou katoa. Captions by Starsha Samarasinghe. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018