Kei aku piki kotuku, kei aku huia kaimanawa, rarau mai ki Te Hui. Ko Mihingarangi tenei e mihi atu nei, nau mai, tahuti mai ra. Welcome to The Hui, Maori current affairs for all New Zealanders. E taro ake nei. A King Country town struggling under the weight of two hefty power bills. Most of our money goes on power. But the answer to their prayers could be sent from above. Solar is the solution to the whole problem. Economic-wise, it's brilliant, good for the town, good for the planet. Kia ora, whanau. Lidu Gong reckons te reo Maori is the best thing since sliced bread. GONG: We meet the man proving you're never too old to start your reo Maori journey. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018 Karahuihui mai. Many whanau struggle to pay one monthly power bill. Just imagine having two to pay. Unlike the rest of the country, residents of the King Country pay two separate energy bills ` one for the power consumed and the other for the lines that deliver electricity to their homes. Locals say they've been held to ransom by the region's one-and-only lines company, and they've called for government intervention. But now a Taumarunui councillor has taken matters in his own hands, giving power to the people. Kei a Billie Jo Ropiha te roanga ake o nga korero. It's only autumn. Morning. But in Taumarunui, in the King Country, the mercury's already dropped to freezing. How harsh are your winters? It's bad. It's cold. Pixie Hepi-Te Huia is bound to a life in a wheelchair, but she says the biggest disability in her life are her crippling power bills, which average over $500 a month. All last year, I paid $263 a month. That's without the power. That will be close to $200 to $300 extra. It's shocking. Pixie and her mokopuna are sacrificing basic necessities to try and get their power bill down. You can see she's taken most of the light bulbs out of her home. At night, her mokos walk around in darkness. She does this to try and offset the cost of her lines bill, which is separate to her power bill. I get a high power bill cos I have children. That's what it is. Most of it comes from the hot water ` keeping them clean all the time. You can't limit the amount of times you're going to shower them a day, because they're kids. In the King Country, whanau here pay two power bills ` one for the use of electricity and the other for the lines that run the electricity to their homes, and it's this lines bill that has people like Pixie fuming. Because most of our money goes on power, and what's left over, that is food, and there's not much left over. TLC is the only lines provider here. It's a big region with few customers, and that can mean big bills. To calculate the lines bill for the year, TLC uses the six highest two-hour periods of power usage by a consumer in any year. Well, at the moment, our vulnerable, our elderly, and our children are really suffering under this lines company oppression, because that's really what it is. Jacques Windell is a Ruapehu councillor based in Taumarunui. He says the extra power bill from The Lines Company ` TLC ` who have a monopoly in the area, is crippling residents and the local economy. Is there any other place in New Zealand that has a situation like this? No, no. Not for residential. And this is the big thing. Nobody can afford this ridiculous TLC pricing that they keep on just ramping up, ramping up, ramping up. But it wasn't always that way. It was 13 years ago when the lines charge became a separate bill. So what needs to happen in terms of TLC? We've got 29 lines companies. It's the most of every country that I know of by an absolute country mile. So amalgamation of lines companies, I believe, is the way forward with regard to the lines. I run my TV set and stereo. The fridge runs. Meanwhile, just down the road, Ray Thurtell has found his own way to deal with pricey power bills ` by going totally off the grid. To me, solar is the solution to the whole problem, because the amount of money that the lines company and the power companies are actually sucking out of this town is what's killing it. Ray bought this old bungalow five years ago. When I bought this house, it was derelict. People wanted to pull it down. And it was disconnected from the lines. When Ray enquired about reconnecting the power, he got the biggest shock. It was going to cost me $10,000 to get the house rewired, and the lines company wanted $2500 to connect it back to the grid. And the system I put in cost me less than that. Wow. Come in, Jaques. OK. Ray Thurtell is showing Councillor Jaques his money-saving solar set-up for the first time. I've only got 10 150-watt panels at 12 volts at the moment, and that goes through the controller, through the inverter, and it runs all the electrical appliances in the house. The only thing it doesn't power is his hot water, which runs on gas. And as it stands now, I have 13 hours of power. 13 hours of power. OK. Are your batteries charged now? Getting close to it. Getting close to it, and it's not a very good day. No, it's not a very good day. It's been terrible. It's been raining, and it's been all over the show. So what you're saying to me is solar doesn't work on heat. No, solar doesn't work on heat. Solar works on the UV rays that come from the sun. But even on a horrible day, even in the fog, you still make power. And it was solar that saw the light bulb turn on for Councillor Jacques. You don't need heat for solar. You just need light. So in cloudy days, on rainy days, solar panels are making power for you all the time. So he met up with solar and power supplier Richard Homewood from Supercharged Energy. Now he's rolling into town in the hope of getting low-income customers, like Pixie, on to a starting solar package worth $3000 ` for free. PIXIE: Look at how big they are! MAN: Look at that, hey? This is going to save me money. That's gonna save you a lot of money. Cool. So, are you excited? Yeah. Cool, eh? Very cool. The deal includes two free solar panels that will feed power during the day when the sun is out. The power rates here are much higher than a lot of other developed countries. We have very, very high power rates, and meanwhile, hardly anyone has solar here. And it is a real shame. So why are you offering this deal? We primarily have done commercial in the past, and Jaques said to us, 'There's all these people who have this awful power bill. 'They don't have the money to buy a system. Is there nothing you can do to help them?' And he said to me, 'Well, sorry. There's nothing much we can do about that 'because they are high risk for finance,' and I said, 'Well, that's not good enough.' And he looked at me as if I was crazy. We sat down for a while and just crunched the numbers and thought how to make it viable to give people panels for free. And lo and behold, in January, he phoned me up and said, 'I've thought about it. 'I've come up with a solution, and I tell you, it is revolutionary.' It's a fantastic business model, but it's a win-win for our people and for his company. Most people are saying, 'Oh, it must be a scam, it must be this, it must be that' but it's not. The deal is any customer who signs up will have to commit to the solar provider's power company for the next 10 years. Is that a concern for you? I've been paying lines companies for 20 years. No, it's not a concern. I'm living proof, and this house is actual proof, that not only does it work like this, but you can start off very small and build your system up, up, up until you can get to a point where you can turn around and say, 'I want to go off-grid,' and just turn everything off and run off your solar. Which Ray's been doing for the last five years ` living off the grid. Economic-wise, it's brilliant ` good for the town, good for the planet. Good for everything. So if you were to go to solar, these big, fat cats won't be big, fat cats for very long. While Pixie will still have to pay her line bill, she could save up to $100 a month on her power bill. With all my money I paid to lines companies, I could have had heaps of panels. Goh! 20 years. (LAUGHS) Could have had my whole house in solar system. Na Billie Jo Ropiha tera purongo. TLC, The Lines Company, will transition to a new charging system on the 1st of October. In a statement to The Hui, it says, 'What needs to be remembered with any alternative power option ` solar or otherwise ` 'is that a customer would still incur lines charges if they remain connected to the network. 'Your usage would determine what those charges will be. 'The Lines Company is indeed unique in that our customers have a direct relationship with us. 'A separate invoice means their lines charges are completely transparent to them, 'rather than being part of a combined electricity invoice, 'as is common practice in other parts of New Zealand.' Hei muri i nga whakatairanga ka korero ahau ki te Minita Kunenga Papori, ki a Shane Jones. Economic-wise, it's brilliant, good for the town, good for the planet. Hoki mai ano. He's described as the billion-dollar man. Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has a pocket full of cash, and he's not afraid to spend it. If the press releases are anything to go by, the environment, trees, rail, road, and ports have done well in the first round, but there is plenty more on the regions wish list. Joining us now is Minister Shane Jones. Tena koe. Kia ora. Just if we go back to that first story on power in Taumarunui. Last year, your leader, Winston Peters, described that whole situation as 'the ugly face of irresponsible capitalism', and he reassured the good people of the King Country that there would be some changes on the horizon. Yeah. What are they? Well, that particular issue is not isolated to just the Rohe Potae, the King Country. The deeper problem is that a lot of the supply energy companies ` and they came out of the National Party's reforms of the '90s ` have similar challenges. So the council has said, 'Maybe we should look at amalgamation.' Mm. Is that an option? Well, I think the lawyer who's leading the energy review that Minister Megan Woods announced two weeks ago, that, amongst other things, is what they'll look at, because my rohe is in a similar situation; Tairawhiti's in a similar situation, and the value of those assets, those lines companies, depends on, really, what sort of revenue, and if they don't have a lot of revenue, they're not gonna be able to upgrade. So I would encourage both the councillor ` not our tuahine; she got the councillor to do the barking for her ` to engage not only with myself but with the actual review, cos that review's gotta look at those robustly, those issues. Is there...? You know what they say is, 'Big rohe, low population.' Is that true? Does that determine the cost of the`? Yeah. It's a challenge for, like, the Tairawhiti, Hicks Bay, Tauraroa. They've all got power up there. Not very many of them have gone off the grid. My rohe; Te Kao; Houhora; Whatuwhiwhi ` all those areas, you've got small little populations, and maybe the time has come for us to look at some type of amalgamation. But that's why we're holding an energy review. But the problem with the solar panels is you're still paying, as that kuia is, for the lines charges. Yeah. So something has to happen here. Yeah, but I think` Yeah, that's a good challenge ` whether or not there's a case for some sort of state subsidy. Look, I'd prefer, to be honest with you, to wait for the energy review group. And it's being led by a fairly formidable chair, a lady who cut her teeth on a lot of the Christchurch stuff, Mrs Dean. We'll wait. Ka aroha ki taua kuia whaea Pixie me ana mokopuna... (CONTINUES IN MAORI) (CHUCKLES) (CHUCKLES) (SPEAKS MAORI) Well, yeah, the billion-dollar fund is up and running. Yeah. So what we're hearing from our people is that food and petrol and power, as we saw in that story, are more expensive in the regions. You've had a crack at the supermarkets before. Are you looking at...? I think when you were last in Parliament, you called for an inquiry. Would that be something that, now that you are in Parliament as a minister, you'd commit to? Well, let's just quickly deal with them. Number one, this is a genuine review in terms of electricity and energy. It was pushed forward by our leader during the coalition agreement and development, and we're happy that, Minister Megan, she's driving that forward. On the question of food prices, one of my colleagues does have a private member's bill, but it's still gotta go through our processes before it can be introduced to Parliament. Just quickly, what would it mean? Well, basically, empowering the` If we can get it over the line, we need to empower the Commerce Commission to not only intervene but to robustly show up and, where there are egregious cases of ridiculous prices, then intervene, cos I can't as a` I can use my rhetoric; that doesn't work most of the time. So we need something like the Commerce Commission with bigger teeth. So you'd support that private member's bill? Well, as I say, it's doing the rounds in our little party, in New Zealand First, and before it can come into Parliament, we've gotta go into our own processes. Let's talk about pene hinu, because one of our The Hui commentators said this week that she filled up in Onehunga and then she filled up in Omapere, and there was more than 30c a litre difference there. So last year, the former Energy Minister in September, Judith Collins, called for an inquiry into the price of petrol. Will you commit to that? Well, she actually had an inquiry, Judith, and it was, like, a sort of form of Mongolian ` no one could quite understand how significant the problem was. But we're being challenged that we've got too many inquiries at one level, and then we've got another set of supplicants who are saying, 'Hold some more inquiries.' What about just legislating, then? I think that the cost of gas, the cost of banks fees, insurance, food, energy are the essential costs that confront all families, and our party is constantly vigilant against them, but you can only sustain so many inquiries at a given point in time that turn into something real. So Judith Collins had that inquiry and probably found that there was a difference between the regions and the urban centres. How about just legislating so that doesn't happen ` so that the people of Omapere don't have to pay $2.30 a litre? Yeah, no, I can assure you` I live not very far from Omapere ` just across the other side of the island in Kerikeri, and our people further north do pay a heck of a lot more, but... what I'll do is, um... And I hear what the kuia is saying. I will take this up with Minister Woods. I'm not entirely sure whether or not an immediate leap to legislating daylight into the oil industry is going to come to pass. We've had a few stabs at them over the last week or three. Best Maori initiative for the regions that you've heard of? Look, I can talk about one. We've got 20 seconds. Just tell me` A small one, just at Minginui. I picked something up that they'd been labouring with for a long, long period of time, and it was quite emotional to go back to Minginui. They've made some of their own modest treaty settlement money, and they're gonna lead the way in new technology to drive for the forestry kaupapa and teach the mokopunas as they go forward. Look, I was very privileged to have a small part to play on that one. Ka pai Ngati Whare. Tena koe` Kia ora Ngati Whare. (CHUCKLES) Next we meet a man who proves you're never too old to learn te reo. Economic-wise, it's brilliant, good for the town, good for the planet. There's a school of thought that our ability to learn a second language diminishes over time, but that hasn't hindered Lidu Gong's te reo Maori journey. The Chinese immigrant was a few years off retiring when he started learning te reo Maori. For him, it's much more than just a language; it's a whole new lease on life. Anei a Ruwani Perera. GONG: Hokia ki toku maunga kia purea ai au e nga hau o Tawhirimatea. Kimihia iti kahurangi; ki te piko to matenga, me he maunga teitei. Learning te reo Maori has transformed Lidu Gong's life. It's lifted him from the depths of depression and taught him to be a better man. We invited eight Kiwis to breakfast... You might have seen 64-year-old Lidu Gong feature in this recent TV commercial. 'Speaks fluent te reo.' I know who this is. Ooh! Kia ora, whanau. Kia ora. (SPEAKS MAORI) Tena koutou katoa. But his story begins as a child growing up during the 1960s cultural revolution in China ` a bloody, decade-long period of political and social upheaval created by Mao Zedong to strengthen his communist agenda. REPORTER: People are chanting, 'We want to see Chairman Mao.' Mao believed that children could learn more by working and made drastic changes to education. You couldn't even go to school? Fluent in Mandarin, the first words of English Lidu ever uttered were political slogans. Despite the obstacles, Lidu became a language professor and moved to New Zealand in 1996 on a student visa. Once deprived of educational opportunities in China, he's now surrounded by books, working as a librarian for Te Wananga o Aotearoa. While he says he struggled to learn English, seven years of studying te reo was painless. Hei nako he wananga te matauranga kia puta ai te aroha te maramatanga. (SINGS IN MAORI) Lidu's daughter, Debra Gong, says it's not just another language that her Dad's picked up. Like the time he gets to spend with his family. Lidu and his wife, Susan, are grandparents to 3-year-old Chloe. For Lidu, whanau and aroha have taken on a whole new meaning. Aroha atu, aroha mai. Kia ora. While he's modest about his ability, Lidu's determined to improve. He's currently in total immersion as part of his Rumaki course to get his conversational reo up to speed. How did you learn hundreds of karakia and whakatauki? How do you memorise that? Lidu's even discovered the healing properties of whakatauki that worked wonders for the depression he was suffering from. And now his two worlds have come together. We are all inherently connected. That is what we call kotahitanga ` unity. Since the ad, Lidu says others have been inspired by his story and are also giving te reo a go. I never would have expected that a Chinese man would be fluent in te reo when I'm Maori and I don't even know te reo. But it's his grand-daughter, a first-generation New Zealander, who he's most influenced. What do you think this will mean for your daughter? Is Chloe going to learn te reo as well? Lidu's proof that passion can drive you to learn something new at any age and that enlightenment can come from the most unlikely places. Ahakoa he iti, he pounamu. Ka mau te wehi Lidu. Na Ruwani Perera tera purongo. Hei tera wiki i runga i a Te Hui. (MAN SINGS OPERA) (SINGS OPERA) Kua hikina te hui mo tenei ra. Newshub Nation's next. Pai marire ki a tatou katoa. Captions by Madison Batten and Imogen Staines. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018 ALL: He mea tautoko na Te Mangai Paho. The Hui is made with support from New Zealand On Air.