Kei nga ihoiho o nga maunga whakahi, kei nga wai whakatere taniwha, nau mai, tahuti mai ki 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 ` Her desperate calls for help fell on deaf ears, all because of a debt that wasn't hers. So you're refusing to let me and my five children have power because of my deceased grandmother's account? That is the policy here at the company, yes. Lorna Rakena and her tamariki were forced to live without power for five long months ` TLC, the lines company, refusing to connect them. Ended up me bawling my eyes out and begging, pretty much, for them to connect the power for me and the kids. No sympathy, no empathy, anything. Are TLC providing power or abusing it? Is it profit over people? Would you call it that? Definitely not, no. Definitely not. Yet for five months they denied her power because they wanted the bill to be paid. The process that we put in place denied Lorna access to power. And I've said that's wrong. We need to fix that. It shouldn't have happened. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 Karahuihui mai. TLC, The Lines Company, is a community-owned power distribution company based in the King Country. They claim their business is 'about building strong communities 'and improving the lives of the people they serve'. But when a mother of five contacted them to have her power connected, it became the start of a five-month ordeal that saw her whanau seriously disadvantaged. She says TLC ignored her desperate calls for help ` calls she recorded on her cell phone. Billie Jo Ropiha with this report. Imagine living without electricity for five months all because of a bill that was left behind by your deceased grandmother. Getting to work every morning was a struggle. We had no hot water. Yeah, it was hard to function. Lorna Rakena moved into her late grandmother's house with her partner and five children in October last year. They were forced to move in when the house they were renting was put on the market. We had our names down for other rentals and stuff. Nothing was coming through. With no other options, they moved in despite the house not being connected to power. What was it like living in a house with no power with five kids? Depressing. It was... Yeah, like, every day me and my partner were just so... broken. This was the beginning of a five-month battle to get connected. Our neighbour let us run a line just so that we could boil the jug or a light at night. You had an extension cord, and that's how desperate you were to even just have a little bit of power. Just, yeah, one light at night and enough to turn on the frying pan just to cook the kids something to eat. There was an outstanding bill of around $2500 from her grandmother's account, whose estate was still being settled. But despite Lorna moving into the home as a new tenant, TLC The Lines Company refused to connect her until Lorna or someone had paid the outstanding estate bill. Every week calling them, trying to sort it out. I was just desperate, and I just ended up breaking down in my office at work. Felt like they just didn't care. Like, didn't care, yeah. Didn't care about my children. I think one phone call they said, 'Oh, lots of people are living like that these days.' And said it like that, and I was like, 'Wow, so that means me and my children have to live that way.' And over the five months, Lorna never gave up, calling regularly from her office where she worked as an administrator and recording her conversations with TLC. Welcome to The Lines Company. You're speaking with (BLEEP). Hi, you're speaking with (BLEEP). How can I help? Good afternoon you're speaking with (BLEEP). (MUZAK PLAYS ON PHONE) Thanks for holding, Lorna. I'm going to pop you through to (BLEEP). (MUZAK PLAYS ON PHONE) Hello, (BLEEP) speaking. I was determined to get it sorted. I didn't know how it was going to happen, but I didn't think that it would take that long. And while she waited, her family suffered. Washing them, my 4-year-old, he has had real bad hospitalisation kind of eczema since he was 2 months old. We were going to the doctors quite frequently when we moved back here. Not only was Lorna's power disconnected, her phone calls were too. But her desperate calls for help fell on deaf ears. During that time did you feel powerless? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's a really good word to use. Yeah, fully hopeless and just lost faith in everything, everyone. As the time went on, it changed to just cold and, 'Sorry, can't help ya'. And it ended up me bawling my eyes out and begging pretty much for them to connect the power for me and the kids. No sympathy, no empathy, anything. Just, yeah, 'We'd really like to help you, but we can't.' And that's all the while while we were living here with no power. What would your nana be thinking of this whole situation? She'd be devastated. Especially she was all about her moko. All about her moko, yeah. Coming up ` a community law advocate weighs in. It feels like they were just trying to get the money off her because she was the easier target. Auraki mai ano. When Lorna Rakena's beloved grandmother passed away, she had no idea it would be just the beginning of her heartbreak. In fact, it turned out to be the start of a five-month ordeal that saw her and her five children left traumatised. Lorna believes her whanau were held to ransom by lines company TLC, who refused to connect her power until she paid off the deceased grandmother's outstanding account. Here's part two of her story. Lorna Rakena and her five tamariki were denied electricity by TLC because of an outstanding lines debt under her late grandmother's account ` debt that did not belong to Lorna. What do you think of TLC as a business? Um, yeah, I really, really don't like them. I really think that they are... horrible. Tom Harris is the CEO of the Waitemata Community Law Centre. He's appalled at TLC's treatment of Lorna and her tamariki. You've heard the audio tapes. How would you sum up TLC's handling of the situation? I believe that a lot of people have neglected their duty of care. If you can see on the file that she was about five months without power, you know, you would hope that within a month without power they'd say we really need to help this family. They're struggling. But it just seemed that duty of care was put to the side. Lorna worked at a kura kaupapa as an administrator, a job she loved. But after months of calling from her workplace to beg for a connection, the stress of the ordeal forced her to quit her job. I just couldn't take it. Cos I was barely hanging on. Like, barely managing to do my job. She had earlier asked for WINZ assistance, but was denied. Then, after weeks of being off work, Lorna was finally eligible for help. They straight away just were like, 'yeah'. Boom, done. Wrote it out, faxed it through to TLC. And then that day, about 5 o'clock that day ` power. We had power. So that quick? Yeah. Within one day we had power just after that payment. What was that night like? Oh my gosh, I actually cried. I cried. (LAUGHS) Yeah. But Tom says this raises an important question ` why is WINZ providing loans to pay off third-party debt instead of advocating for vulnerable families? I applaud WINZ for their attempt. You know, they really tried to help once they realised what was going on. But should this debt be created in her name when she should never have been denied in the first place? Now Lorna makes weekly payments to pay off the WINZ loan for a debt she never incurred. To prove to WINZ she had paid the TLC debt, she requested a receipt with her name on it. But if you thought this would be an easy task, think again. (FUNKY GUITAR MUSIC) MAN: Power. It's something we all take for granted ` until we don't have it, Then it's the most important thing there is. Lorna certainly never took power for granted. But Tom thinks TLC has abused theirs. So should she have ever been denied a power connection? No, not at all, not from what we've seen. They definitely should have connected power straight away because she did have her own account. So they had an account to connect to, they did have an avenue to pursue the debt, so I don't see why they denied her access. It feels like they were just trying to get the money off her because she was the easier target. How traumatising would this be for Lorna and her tamariki? Very. And it's also traumatising in the effect that you're trying to do the right thing, you keep calling back. You make contact, and at every turn you get denied. It's frustrating and it traumatises you because you're watching your children get sick. And you're not sure exactly what you can do because there is no process for you to follow. With all the stress this has caused, Tom thinks compensation is the least they can do for what Lorna has been through. So definitely that will be a conversation with her and the CEO. And then I do hope that he looks at this poor whanau and sees the amount of harm and disadvantage they've been exposed to and responds appropriately. Lorna hopes by sharing her ordeal TLC will change the way they treat their customers in the future. Just cos I feel, and I always have felt, it was wrong, and wouldn't wish this on anyone. And I mean, there's way more stories out there and people have experience with TLC with the lines. Na Billie Jo Ropiha tera purongo. After the break, I speak to the CEO of The Lines Company. No reira, kia mau tonu mai ra te titiro. Auraki mai ano. Well, before the break we broadcast the story of Taumarunui resident Lorna Rakena, whose whanau had to live without power for five months because of an outstanding estate bill that wasn't hers. Since that story was filmed, the CEO of The Lines Company, Sean Horgen, has been to see Lorna at her home to apologise on behalf of his company. The pair have reached a confidential agreement. Earlier this week, I spoke to Mr Horgen about Lorna's situation and the culture at The Lines Company. You have a challenging district. I think in your report you talked about a tornado, five or so ex-tropical cyclones, and some of the coldest temperatures for a long time last year. Mm. So it is difficult in this district. I guess while that was all happening though, we had five children and their mother with no power for five months. Mm. Is that good enough? No. No, fundamentally not. We've made a huge mistake with Lorna. You know, I've been down there. As soon as I found out, I went down there and apologised, met with Lorna, Daniel and her whanau. And, yeah, we need to make this right. What did you apologise for? I apologised for what she went through. I explained to her that we made a mistake. We have a process in place, and the process failed. What was the mistake? The mistake was that she was without power for five months. So we were dealing with the administrator of the estate, not her. So this shouldn't have happened. In the story, as you've watched, layer upon layer of your staff told her that this was a policy. Was it? The process that we have in place is that our customer is the person who owns the property. And that's where we failed Lorna and her family. She wanted` We were communicating with the administrator of the estate, and she wanted power. So the process didn't work, and we need to fix that. So technically, are you saying that your staff were right to use that policy? We employ good people, people that live and work in the community. The process let them down. They were following the process that we put in place, and I need to accept responsibility for that as the CEO. I want to read from your company's policies online. There's rule 11.17, and it states that you, the customer, cannot transfer your responsibilities to anyone else. Why do you think your staff couldn't understand that? It's pretty simple. Because the customer who owned the property, administrator of the estate, didn't transfer the responsibility. So Grandma, who's now passed away, there's just no way` What your own rules say is that she couldn't transfer the responsibilities to Lorna Rakena, her granddaughter. Yet layers and layers of your staff denied her a new contract. The policy that we have in place, the process, is that we deal with the person who's responsible for the account. So in this case, it was the administrator for Lorna's grandmother's estate. Yeah, but your own rule says that the responsibility can't be transferred to anyone else. So the responsibility of the debt can't be transferred to someone else. Yet for five months your staff held her to that debt. So what we should've done in the situation, and this is the process that we need to fix moving forward, is to change that. You've pointed out that's wrong. What's happened to Lorna and her family, thankfully, doesn't happen often. But it has happened, it's serious, and we need to sort that out. How would you describe the culture at TLC? How would I describe our culture at TLC? The culture at TLC... when people are making decisions like that for five months to one woman who's crying on the phone, has got no power for five months. How do you describe the culture within your staff? So the culture that we've got within our staff ` our staff do actually care about the people that they're dealing with, the customers. I mean, if you're talking about our line staff, our line staff are out in all sorts of weather ` you mention tornados and so forth before ` to keep the power on. We employ good people. And they were following a process. The process is broken. I've said to Lorna, I've committed to Lorna that we'll fix this. And we do, we need to fix this moving forward. Yeah, but you also need to fix the culture in which those staff members acted for five months when they denied her power. Is it profit over people? Would you call it that? Definitely not. No, definitely not. Yet for five months they denied her power because they wanted the bill to be paid. The process that we put in place denied Lorna access to power. And I've said that's wrong. We need to fix that. It shouldn't have happened and we need to fix that. So what do you say to your staff now? First of all, apologise. It's hard to explain. We've got people that live in a small community, and these guys want to do well by the customer because often they're living amongst the people that we deal with on the other end of the phone. The process has let them down as much as they have Lorna and other people. So we need to fix that. It's such a power imbalance, though. So Lorna's telling your people that that's not the rules, yet no one listens. So when I talk about the culture within TLC, how do you change that? Because no one was listening. Well, we need to change it obviously with the staff. And the process, as I've explained, is broken. So we've got the staff involved to assess what's happened to Lorna so that we can make some changes, but we're also gonna work with social agencies as well. And all credit to Lorna and her partner, they want to be part of this process as well. So what will you implement? Just give us some of the ideas. What's your strategy to change the culture? To put people first before profit. It was a poor situation that we made` A poor decision, rather, that we made with Lorna. I guess the thing here is it's not one mistake. It was a series of phone calls where she was at her wits' end over a five-month period. Did you know about her case before The Hui investigated? No. Why not? Yeah, look, as soon as I found out ` and I found out a couple of weeks ago when it was raised to me, it shouldn't have happened. I acknowledge that ` I gave Lorna a call, went down and saw her. I apologised. And Lorna explained her situation to me. Yeah, it was heartbreaking. You must be disappointed, though, because you had a series of people take her calls, transferring her,... Yeah. ...cutting her off. You even had one senior member of your leadership team speak to her. Why do you think you weren't informed of this? I don't know. I can't change what's happened in the past. But you have to deal with it, as a CEO. Yeah, you do, but` So what do you do? You make the changes moving forward. And do you talk to those people who made those decisions? Yeah, of course. How do they feel about it? They're disappointed as well. We've got a moral obligation to our customers. And again, our staff live and work in these communities. They also don't want to put people through what Lorna went through. They followed a process; they were following the company line, if you like, and the company line didn't work. In the story, Lorna talks about how she was told by one of the staff members at TLC that there are heaps of people living in this situation, without power. Given you know that and given you say that you've got a moral obligation, how do you serve your community? We... I mean, we are. We've got a number of community initiatives that we've kicked off. The challenges that we have in the wider King Country area is housing stock, for example. We've got old, cold houses. So with the community we've set up the Maru trust, which is involved in home insulation and so forth to help people in these situations. And we are, we're looking at ways that we can help. I'm well aware that we've got 60% of our residential customers that live in areas of high deprivation. When you say you are going to work with social agencies, what might that relationship look like? We work with them today. So if somebody has difficulty paying a bill, then we'll work with social agencies around payment. But it's the social agencies that are actively involved in the community, and I'm hoping that they'll share their ideas in terms of how we can put a policy process in place that works. We've worked with them before in terms of our pricing structure, and incorporated some of the ideas that they've put forward. The chair of your board, he is also a board member with Counties Manukau DHB. He'd be well aware of the health issues that are associated with living with no power. Is this an issue you've discussed at a board level? Yeah, sure, the board are aware of the situation with Lorna, and I've got their full support to go through and change the processes. What were the discussions at the board level? Well, the discussions at the board level, they also, like I did, questioned how this could happen. Mm. I understand you've apologised to Lorna. But what do you think your obligation to her is now? Do you take full responsibility, and what does that mean? So, yeah, sure, as CEO I take full responsibility for what Lorna went through. And I've got a responsibility to fix this to ensure that it doesn't happen again. I went down and visited her family a number of times, and when she explained to me what she went through, it was really hard to listen to. Do you think you were well received? I've got a tremendous amount of respect for Lorna and her partner. After what they went through, they had every right to be angry with me, but they invited me into their whare, we sat down, had a reasonable conversation. And as I said, all credibility to them ` they're happy to work with us moving forward to make sure that this doesn't happen. If, following this interview, any other whanau or families out there in your district that you serve come to us and say this happened to them too, would you give me your word that you'll work with us to resolve those cases too? Mm-hm, yeah, definitely. Definitely. And look, we get cases all the time where people have challenging situations, and we work with them. Community groups as well. So whether it's The Hui or another group, yeah. I've got a commitment to make this right. We're a community-owned organisation, our staff live and work in the community. They need to be proud of the organisation that they're a part of. They want to help people and do the right thing, and it's my obligation to make sure we get there. Kia ora. Thank you so much for sitting down with us today. Kia ora. Thank you. Ko Sean Horgen tera. Now, if you have been asked to pay a debt that you didn't incur, we'd love to hear from you. Send us a private message via our Facebook page or on Twitter. Hei tera wiki ` Oranga Tamariki under fire and under scrutiny over the uplift of Maori babies. I said, 'Why? Why are you taking my baby? Why are you taking my baby?' And then they just left the room, and that's the last time I saw her. How have you been since then? Um... I'll never forget that ever. We meet a first-time mum fighting to have her newborn baby returned. And the minister for Oranga Tamariki, Tracey Martin, joins me in studio. Before we leave today, The Hui can report that The Kohanga Reo National Trust has been ordered to pay over half a million dollars in costs to a former board member who was unlawfully removed. The trust has spent $1.8 million defending its decision to sack Toni Waho for alerting the responsible government ministers about allegations of inappropriate spending at the trust. But the High Court found Waho acted with a sense of personal integrity and in conformity with his obligations. In a statement, Mr Waho thanked his supporters and said he did all he could to avoid these costs and is glad the five-year ordeal is finally over. He wishes the Kohanga Reo movement all the best for the future. No reira, kua hikina Te Hui mo tenei ra. Pai marire ki a tatou katoa. Captions by Tracey Dawson. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 ALL: He mea tautoko na Te Mangai Paho. The Hui is made with support from New Zealand On Air.