SIMON SHEPHERD: Today on Newshub Nation ` terrorism expert Dr Chris Wilson and Islamic community leader Aliya Danzeisen on the power of letters sent from prison. Then ` with profits down and jobs on the line, we ask Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones why he hasn't planned a pipeline of big-ticket projects. And Backstory ` MP Chloe Swarbrick explains what it's like working in Parliament while living with clinical depression. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 Kia ora. Good morning. I'm Simon Shepherd, and welcome to Newshub Nation. Following a damning review into last year's census, Statistics New Zealand Chief Executive Liz MacPherson resigned this week. Only 90% of New Zealanders and only two-thirds of Maori filled out the census. State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes says he will start recruiting shortly. Paula Bennett will not seek re-election as MP for Upper Harbour in next year's election. She will instead be National's campaign chair for the 2020 election. The last campaign chair was Steven Joyce, who resigned from Parliament in 2018. And there was nowhere to hide for Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis this week. He was forced to admit that the man accused of the Christchurch mosque attacks has successfully posted seven letters from prison. Two of the letters went to his mother and five to unknown recipients, including an apparent supporter. Tarrant has also received letters from supporters. The Prime Minister has promised to consider changes to the system as soon as next week. Well, welcome to Newshub Nation. Now, prisoners have a right to send mail, but not if it endangers safety or encourages violence. So where does the balance lie? We're going to talk about this this morning. Joining me now is Aliya Danzeisen, a leader in the New Zealand Muslim community, and Dr Chris Wilson, a senior lecturer in conflict and terrorism at Auckland University. Thank you very much for your time this morning. It's been a big story this week. Aliyah, first to you. This letter seemed to contain a call to action from the alleged Christchurch gunman. It came from prison. How impacted has this been on the Muslim community? Well, the first thing was shock, and it reverberated throughout our community; fear for our safety; fear for the safety of people around the world ` not just Muslims, but... all communities targeted by the alt-right and white supremacists. And it shook us, to be honest. So you're fearful that it could be an inspiration to somebody else out there? Well, we've got to get it right. There's no room for mistakes, and this was a mistake to allow it to go out. Chris, I mean, this is what you study. How dangerous` I mean, you've actually read the letter? I have, mm. How dangerous is it? It's very dangerous. It touches on all the key points of the white nationalist agenda and ideology. There's misogyny in it; there's talking about the threat to Europe, and he's very concerned about Europe; and then, most importantly, talking about 'a great conflict is coming, and you need to prepare to protect your people'. These are the key mobilising emotional points of the white nationalist agenda. So for that to go out to a supporter is incredibly dangerous. OK. Let's talk about the broader chain here. There was the Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik, who was cited as an inspiration by the alleged Christchurch attacker, and then the El Paso attacker in the US did the same thing. So, really, is the genie out of the bottle, or is this just how it works ` for them? There certainly has been a series of copycat attacks since Breivik. I mean, one thing to note, really, is there were quite a few copycat attacks after Breivik's attack, and attempted foiled plots. And that was when he had communications from prison. And when the communications were shut down, those copycat attacks started to die off. And then recently, they've started to` with the migration,... the crisis in the Middle East and Syria and elsewhere, there seems to have become an issue again, and these sort of attacks ` people are being inspired by Breivik, and now the Christchurch attacker and others, so it's very dangerous. Right. So, Aliya, Corrections has admitted that a second unsuitable letter has gone out from the alleged Christchurch shooter and could pop up at any time. So are you concerned about that? We're concerned about all correspondence not having been adequately reviewed and vetted. That's been raised with Corrections and with the chief executive. I spoke with her yesterday, and we raised the concerns about that. And the fact that the first letter even got out, knowing it was headed to Russia, without extra vetting and reading, was shocking. However, we're talking about 'let's get it right now'. Let's make sure the processes are in place. We need experts who know what they're talking about. This isn't a place that people should be learning on the job about it. You need experts; get them in ` and experts across the board, for all government agencies, to make sure that they know what people are out... So this is what you're putting to the chief executive, and her response was...? That they're going to be doing it and that they have started. And the first thing is, if it's going to incite violence, whether it's here in New Zealand or around the world, it needs to be shut down. Chris, is it relevant? I mean, you say that the content is dangerous, but the mere fact that he could get these letters out ` is that also important? I think any letters from him out to his supporters, no matter the content, are dangerous, because I would imagine if you monitored the websites like Gab and 4chan and so on, you'd see a spike of discussion around him. And not many people are going to focus on the content of the letter; they're quickly going to turn their attention to what he did, his manifesto and so on. So any letter is giving him oxygen, if you like, in the public sphere. So, to my mind, it's dangerous, no matter the content. What do we say to the argument that prisoners have a right to be able to send out mail? Is it a human right to be able to do that, Aliya? He lost his rights when he acted in a way` He lost his rights to freedom of movement; he can lose his rights to freedom of communication. And the fact that he denied 51 people the ability to communicate means that he can be shut down. Human right ` obviously we believe in people having rights and fair due process, but in this case, he wants to inspire other people to do something wrong, and we need to stop it. And the law does say that correspondence is allowed unless it endangers safety or encourages violence. So would you be happy` are you happy that the law is there? It's just not being applied. Right, and we need people inside of Corrections, inside of the police, across the board in whatever agency, making sure that they are getting it right regarding the alt-right. They have focused on the Muslim community for years, and they know us well, but they haven't focused on the alt-right. They need to be focusing on them; they need to upskill really quickly; and they need to get experts, who already know what they're doing, in now. I want to ask you about that, because the Muslim community has been saying, 'Treat it all the same; treat every form of terrorism the same,' and yet, this has now happened. You must be gutted. Well, we're gutted` Yeah, of course. We've been saying all along, 'Everybody needs to be treated equally.' And if this had been a Muslim sending out something like this, you know it would have been shut down before it had even got out. The fact` saying 'we didn't know' isn't an excuse. OK, now, this is not the end of the matter, though, because the... alleged Christchurch gunman has received 48 letters in prison ` 14 have been blocked, 16 still under scrutiny, 18 delivered. So, Chris, as an expert on terrorism, what do you think is in those letters that are going to him? I would imagine that they would be support letters. They'll be from people who see him as some sort of... leader for the movement and a martyr for the movement. So this is... this is part of him developing a cult following, as awful and horrendous as it is, in the same way that Breivik did. So him receiving letters is all part of building this following, but the main thing is to stop him corresponding with people, particularly in ways that are going to incite violence. And yet they haven't. Aliya, there were, like, five letters sent out ` one's been deemed as unsuitable ` what about the other four? What do we know about the other four letters? Well, my understanding with my conversation with the chief executive is that they do know where they went and they do know the content. However, I haven't seen those, so I don't know. In what the purpose is for them going out, I'm not sure. You know, if the content's inappropriate, then they should not have gone out. So you're telling me that they actually know what is in the other letters that have gone out and where they have gone? That's my understanding, yes. The Corrections Minister said this week that they've known about the letters being sent for five months, Chris, and the fact that they know where they've gone and what's in them ` what does that say to you? I'm confused. I heard the Corrections Minister say that they didn't know where they'd gone, which would be surprising to me, and I find it more believable that they` and I hope that the security services have` were monitoring all the communications that he had since he's been incarcerated, but I'm still confused about why they would allow the letters to go out rather than just find out who they were intended to go to and pass that on to security services in that country rather than allow the communications to continue. So I'm a little bit confused about the process, and I think there needs to be a lot more reflection on it and more experts involved. Yeah. If you've got letters that are being sent out and you know where they're going, you know what the content is and you've had this kind of thing` this current letter with its call to action, as it were, what does that say to you, Aliya, about what they're doing with this kind of monitoring? Are they using it? Well, they clearly` The chief executive has apologised and said they got it wrong and that they are working to get it right in the sense of going forward in future communications, and I do believe... in New Zealand working to get it right. We have something to protect, which is a good reputation as a nation, and we have to get it right. This has been a safe country; we are going to get it back to a safe country, and so people need to make sure that those who are handling this gentleman, who are handling all communications ` not just of this white supremacist, but a variety of others ` need to make sure that their communications are not inappropriate. So, Chris, should the GCSB and the SIS` should they have been involved from the start for this? I mean, because it seems Corrections have now called them in to help them out. Absolutely, they should be involved. It's astounding to me if they weren't, but I can't imagine that they weren't, to be honest. Right. I mean, if that's not at the key of, you know` the core of their role, then what is? I'd like higher and more expert people than our GCSB. (CHUCKLES) You don't have confidence in the GCSB? Well, they got it wrong in Christchurch. I want people who are in the know, who have been getting it right, to be advising. And they've already admitted that they weren't focusing on them, so they weren't prepared, so we want people prepared. Well, Chris, where are we gonna find the expertise? If our own spy agencies don't have the expertise, where are we going to find this expertise? I mean, there's expertise in civil society and academia. There's expertise overseas. There's` A lot of countries overseas have a lot more experience with this type of movement than we do ` in the United States, in Australia ` so it's, you know` there are experts` Canada. The UK. Canada. Everywhere. Yeah. Right. OK, so, if we're talking about monitoring all terrorism or suspected terrorism or levels of threats equally ` I mean, Chris, what would you`? Is this where we should be focusing our attention, or should it be possible Islamic terrorism? Or are there other forms of terrorism in New Zealand that we should be looking at? I think those are the two main forms of terrorism, and there has been too much focus on Islamist terrorism, that is clear. There needs to be a recalibration and balance, but that's not to say that Islamist terrorism has gone away. That's... In terms of other forms of terrorism, I don't` I'm not` There is eco terrorism. There are a lot of different terrorisms, and people need to be focusing on them, but we need to upskill regarding the alt-right and the supremacists out there, and they haven't upskilled, and therefore, they're behind the eight ball, and they need to be investing in it and doing it well and doing it right. And you're right ` going to academia is one area that they should be going to, and Kiwis have been doing things right, and we need to have a Kiwi approach. But we've got to bring in people who are in the know. OK. All right, Aliya Danzeisen from the Muslim community and Chris Wilson, thank you very much for your time this morning. Thanks. OK. Well, if you've got something to say about what you see on our show, please let us know. We're on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram ` NewshubNationNZ. Our Twitter panellists this week are lawyer Graeme Edgeler and social commentator Bevan Chuang. They're using the hashtag #NationNZ. Or you can email us at nation@mediaworks.co.nz. And if you wanna take this show on the road, we're now available on podcasts, iTunes, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. But still to come ` we dissect the week's politics, news and current affairs with our panel. Plus ` ahead of the annual infrastructure conference starting Wednesday, we ask Shane Jones whether he's really got a grip on his infrastructure portfolio. Welcome back. Roads, schools, hospitals, prisons ` the building blocks that keep society functioning. We don't have enough. It's called the infrastructure deficit and will be the focus of a major conference this coming week. The man charged with fixing it is minister Shane Jones, so I asked him how he's going to do it. Yeah. Look, I was in agreement with quite a few things that did come from the Prime Minister's advisory group. That one thing that we need to fix up is a long-term pipeline, give some certainty. The Infrastructure Commission which will be announced this week with some very senior New Zealand identities is going to have to confirm and give greater certainty to what projects are in the pipeline out of local government, out of central government. I wouldn't deprecate what we're doing, though, Simon. I mean, there's 1.` there's the thick end of $1.5 billion for KiwiRail. There's about $3 billion. Yeah, you're talking about that pipeline` $3 billion for housing, $3 billion in education and health. Let's not forget about that as well. No, but it is $6.1 billion over the next few years. In the pipeline ` 174 projects, and yet Treasury says in the next 10 years we're going to need to spend about $129 billion. Well, without a doubt. We need to derive better approaches to funding. I personally feel that the NZTA $45 billion over the next 10 years is inadequate. I'm working with Mr Twyford, and obviously he's the senior minister. I really think we've got to come up with better funding mechanisms that blend both private and public capital or even that capital which is publically-owned, and start to fund our infrastructure in a far more innovative way. Sure. You said a year ago that New Zealand is open for business, in terms of those kinds of innovative funding models. What has actually happened since you said that? That's a good cop. Things have been concealed in treacle, but we are actually waiting now to hear how do we actually move ahead with the Penlink project, which is a significant project. It's very ready, in terms of ` could be shovel-ready in a small period of time. That could be a blend of private and public capital. I can't drive the project myself. It also involves Auckland Transport, and they occasionally occupy a part of the planetary universe I have no control over. But that's an example of a project that could be up and running in a short order. You talk about the pipeline as if there is a pipeline there, but the construction industry itself feels that in a couple of years the projects are just going to fall off a cliff. There's nothing to replace the ones that you've scrapped like the Roads of National Significance. Well, there has been a big change in terms of NZTA funding. The money is still there, it's just going into smaller projects with an accent on safety. But look, fair cop. We've got to give greater levels of reassurance to the civil construction sector because they themselves have said, 'Look, we want to work with you. 'We don't want to be your enemy.' They now see that there is substantial amounts of money that is going to KiwiRail. I mean, $1.5 billion should not be sneezed at over a two-year period. But they are, in particular, worried about the spending on state highways. The spending on that is totally being reallocated towards other kinds of projects, and yet that just means we're just going to get congestion and maybe more safety concerns on an area of transport that is crucial. There's two areas in Auckland, in terms of roading projects, that I think ought to enjoy higher priority ` is Mill Road, out toward the Drury, Ardmore area and Penlink up in the Hibiscus Coast. I'm disappointed that we haven't been able to make as much progress as we could on those two, but let's face it, there's an accent on public sector transport in Auckland. There's additional work happening to see if we can stack up the light rail project. That's a very complex project. The Cullen fund, they've poked their nose into that. They're bringing us back a proposal and the NZTA as well. You know what I really think is a key problem, that we've lost our way here in New Zealand ` our infrastructure projects take longer than they should. We have put too many barriers unnecessarily, as a country, in front of infrastructure projects. That's a view I campaigned on. It's a view that my leader has, and we're going to have to tidy up some of that through David Parker's RMA changes. A lot of the NZTA funding has been diverted off to those other kinds of projects I was talking about. You talk about KiwiRail and there's bikes, walking tracks, public transport. Do you believe that the Greens have hijacked the purse-strings on this? No, but, hey ` there's three people in this waka. There's the kakarikis, there's ourselves, New Zealand First, and our colleagues from Labour. When you have an MMP government, you have to have a balance. I do believe we have to place` You said in the House that it's a pro-road government. Well, I believe that in the regions we are a pro-road government. We are fixing up those areas of local roads and regional roads that have long-since been neglected. Admittedly, they are not the uber four-lane highways from Wellington to Kaitaia, but that was a pipe dream anyway. None of that was ever funded. All that was funded north of Auckland was Warkworth, and that's taken 12 years. The only way we're going to fund those sorts of developments is work out how we can make up the revenue shortage, and that's why Phil Twyford and I are bringing back proposals with Sir Brian Roche, as to what level of sophistication and change do we need to bring to the current $45 billion amount of money over 10 years that NZTA represents because it's not enough. You're going to have to find more innovative funding models. You've been talking about that for over a year and a half, but it's a crucial time right now. There's talk of an American recession. We've got interest rates at record lows. It's up to the government to step in and keep this economy going, and a crucial part of that is infrastructure. Yes, I've heard and I've listened very carefully to what the governor of the Reserve Bank has had to say, and he's challenging us to be more creative and help him inject some more velocity into the economy. The difficulty with infrastructure projects is we don't have multiple projects sitting on the shelf, ready to go, and there's such a long lead-in time. That's the problem, isn't it? You haven't planned for multiple projects ready to go when the other ones finish. Well, the reality is that NZTA themselves had not finished their planning. They were on a trajectory to continue to lay out more four-lane highways, but they had no way of funding them. But look, I don't want to get into a fight with NZTA and the people that want more roads. We've just got to find a new way to fund those roads. Well, it sounds like National had a plan` National seems to have had a plan, and you've come into government, and you don't have a plan for when the project's finished. Is that fair? Yeah, but the political creed that I bought in is a greater accent with my leader on KiwiRail. We're not prepared to start KiwiRail. So when the Infrastructure Commission is in place, can you give us reassurance that projects are going to happen more quickly? Yeah, that's part of the reason why we are breathing life into them. It's not to be in competition with NZTA. In fact, one of the first meetings that is going to take place is going to be between Sir Brian Roche and the new chair who will be announced later in the week. So who is that going to be? Who is the new chair, did you say? I said the new chair will be announced later in the week. We'll just have to taihoa for that. All right. Let's talk employment now. You've been making announcements in the Far North ` $7 million in skills training in Northland. Does that mean you're finally getting your nephews off the couch up there? Well, the NEETS figure` Don't ask me to explain what the term NEETs means. I just call them 'nephs off the couch'. We are dramatically improving that figure. I know personally where they're going. They're going into entry-level jobs in rural New Zealand, in forestry and in agriculture. But have we done enough? No, we haven't done enough. Why haven't we done enough? Because we're turning around long-term inter-generational challenges. I'm finding, however, there's a new generation who want to work in this space. They're a lot more imaginative, innovative, and we've provided them the putea, and they're starting to deliver on the results. You mention jobs ` how many jobs, then, has the provincial growth fund actually created now? Right. So originally you may recall, I came on your programme, and I said over time I was confident there would be 10,000 jobs. That's right. And I think over the full life, when you look at where the money's gone into forestry, into infrastructure, into rail, into roads, and unfortunately they take a long time to have life breathed into them. But we're well over the thousand-mark, and soon I'll be releasing some more figures. So well over the thousand mark. Is that actual jobs? And where are you sourcing those figures from? We're not making those figures up. They are actual jobs? No, although I'm a politician, this afternoon I'm not making them up. 2000 people have enjoyed the fiscal attention of the provincial growth fund. My colleague, Mr Jackson, through the Mana in Mahi. Are these full time jobs or just contractors, short-term jobs? Well, the reality is some of the projects, for example building the gondola in Ruapehu, there's both the full-time jobs, but there's the service providers and the contractors who get in there and build the stuff together. So they're full-time equivalent jobs? Full-time equivalent jobs? Well, over time, yeah, they are. The point that I'm making to you is that once the infrastructure is up and running, once the businesses are up and running, then they will attract more people over time. All right. Also the provincial growth fund, last year you told is that you were hard line on drugs, and there was no guarantee you would commit the fund to a cannabis company. Medicinal cannabis is now heading towards legal status and the regulations are being drawn out. Will you change your position on that? If the government and my colleagues want to receive and approve those sorts of proposals, I'm not going to stand in their way, but` I don't know, call me a bit old-fashioned and a bit hard line, but I grew up near Kaitaia, and I've just seen the damage that drugs have done to my community. I don't want to sound too moralistic about it,` This is medicinal` ...but I don't want anything to do with funding any project. This is medicinal cannabis. (SIGHS) Yeah, look, the law has provided for the development of those businesses and medicinal cannabis, and I'm not going to encourage anyone to undermine that law. But of all the things I'm focused on, cannabis in any form is not one of them. All right. Let's just talk about a couple of other issues here ` one billion trees. There's been 110 million planted. The government has funded 24 million. Are you satisfied with that so far, 20 months into it? Well, we've got a horrendous impasse coming our way in 2030, and that's really the long-term challenge in terms of the trees. If I can explain it to you, Simon, like this ` the National Party put us on the hook for 2030 impasse through the Paris Agreement, and the trees that I plant will hopefully sequester the nasties out of the atmosphere so we lessen that bill. That's going to be a major challenge for us. Our party are doubting Thomases on importing credits from overseas. We want to see more trees planted, and I believe we'll get to 100 million at the end ` per year ` at the end of next year. At the end of next year. OK. Those trees being planted are, well, majority is exotics, pines. It's only 12% natives. The critics are saying that's not good enough, in terms of sequestering carbon. The native trees do take some time to grow and fulfil the full potential for sequestering carbon, you're right. But, hey, a lot of these trees are being planted by the private sector market. And if the private sector wants to put their own money at risk and plant exotics, I'm not going to get in their way. The $120 million dollars that the Crown has allocated for grants to grow trees ` two thirds of that grant money must go towards natives. OK. I've just got one more question. Willie Jackson has come out in support of Kelvin Davis over the Corrections mistake over the letters. Do you agree with that? Do you support Kelvin Davis over this? Well, look, it's been a debacle. Naturally, I support Kelvin as a fellow minister. He's as honest as the day is long, but I just wonder whether or not in the bureaucracy, the Department of Corrections, the people looking at those letters are related to Theo Spierings because their performance is inversely related to a quality result. Yeah, but overall perception ` it feels a bit loose, doesn't it? Yeah. It's astounding to me. We've got the worst possible human being who has ever inhaled oxygen in Aotearoa in a jail, and somehow he's set up a pen pal club. I don't get that at all. All right. Infrastructure Minister, Shane Jones. Thank you very much for your time. All right. Coming up ` our panel Jenna Lynch, Sue Bradford, and Chris Simpson on the week in politics. Plus ` Backstory. MP Chloe Swarbrick explains what it's like working in Parliament while living with clinical depression. And welcome back to Backstory, where we ask how well do we really know our MPs? Chloe Charlotte Swarbrick is a Green Party spokesperson for drug law reform, broadcasting, youth and arts among other things, but she also ran a cafe, lived in Papua New Guinea, has three parents and lives with clinical depression. We went to her apartment in inner-city Auckland to hear her backstory. I was a weird kid. (CHUCKLES) Yeah. I was a really weird kid. I was quite a loner. I used to read a lot. I think that simply by virtue of being alone, I then turned to video gaming. I was also quite a bit of a nerd, so used to love debating with my teachers. And I was adopted by the guy who I call my dad, who is an amazing man, Paul. So I'm quite fortunate to have, I guess, two dads and a mum. (CHUCKLES) I was born, and my biological father at the time was living in the UK. Yeah, so I met him, finally, at the age of about 21 when he was living in Spain. I never necessarily had any big, looming questions about who I was from the make-up of myself, but more so who I was in relation to the rest of society and how I could be useful. So, yeah,... meeting my biological dad was just a cool and nice thing to do. Yeah, I don't think that it necessarily changed me all too much. I get along really well with everyone now. I definitely had a bit of a tumultuous teenage period. Born and raised in Auckland, primarily, and Whangarei is where my little sister was born. And then when Mum and Dad split up, we went with Mum to London for about six months. Dad moved to Papua New Guinea in that time. Then Grace, my little sister, and I moved to Papua New Guinea with Dad. We` My grandma moved over to look after us, and then we were there in Port Moresby for about a year, and I turned 7 there, and then we moved back to Auckland and kinda stayed in Hillsborough, which is where I largely grew up. So, this is the gig poster. It's basically about trying to get people engaged in local body elections. We hosted it at Neck of the Woods, which is on K Road, which is where I used to work. (LAUGHS) We wanted it to be something that was not super in-your-face, vote-for-me, cos I was still very weird and tentative about the personalisation of politics at that point in time. Yeah, there's definitely some sense of history to it. (CHUCKLES) See? Embarrassing. (LAUGHS) My big head. But, yeah, this branding here, that 'Chloe for Auckland' and the 'This is your city' stuff is Roydon designed, and he's a really good mate and did it for next to no money and what we could scrape together on the campaigns. So, yeah, this is what you manage to do with friends. Also, my mate Dexter took the photo. That coat now belongs to my little sister, cos I just could not wear it after this campaign. (LAUGHS) This was a gift from my campaign team. So, after I was elected on September 23rd. Just such an amazing, special group of people. I am quite sentimental, yeah. I don't have much stuff in here, but everything that I do choose to collect or have, I like it to have some sense of story or purpose. Funnily enough, I think that one of the more difficult things that I've done is probably a really deeply personal one, and it comes from the kind of mental health perspective. I have clinical depression. I... have struggled with that since I was a teenager, but we didn't necessarily have words for it, and that manifest quite a lot of times in really destructive behaviour. And it also meant that I sought external validation for who I was, particularly in certain social circles or otherwise, and I think I've been really fortunate to find friends and support people who have helped me focus on me sometimes, when that's necessary. So, if I get home on a Thursday night, I will typically just actually go to bed, if I'm perfectly honest with you. So just drop my suitcase and walk straight through that door and go to bed. If I am fortunate enough to have a friend come over to cook me dinner ` this happens regularly, because I'm a shocking cook. A lot of my friends know that, you know, one of the things that is the best way to look after Chloe's mental health is to feed her. And, you know, sometimes, we'll just sit here and have a yarn. I've got a good whisky lineup. But, yeah, I'm a big fan of basically just taking time to reflect on things and unpacking them in meaningful conversation, cos I'm a nerd. (CHUCKLES) So, when I was on bFM, I think that there was a major reason that I was pointed in the direction of doing the news is cos whenever I was doing a music show, people would be quite derogatory about my taste (LAUGHS) on the text and calls, primarily because I have quite a hip-hop-heavy, rap love. I never went to parliament on a school trip or anything like that growing up. The first time that I saw it in real life is when I was down there to be inductioned after I was elected. I get a lot of mean letters, which are important as well, because they obviously tell you that, you know, you need to buck up your ideas or, you know, give you some insight into people's fears or concerns, particularly about change. But some of the positive stuff kinda makes you quite emotional, because you realise that someone has had their life impacted by the work that you've done, and that's quite an odd feeling to reconcile with how I will frequently, frankly, complain about how awful politics is. My landlords are awesome, so I've told them not to rush with getting this fixed cos of insurance, but, you know, this is the flashest place that I have ever lived in, in the past few years, in particular, since I moved out of home at 17. But, yeah, you know, a lot of people have things a lot worse. Chloe Swarbrick there. So, up next ` our panel on the highs and lows of the political week. Plus, should this be allowed ` the mechanical harvesting of Northland's other green gold. Welcome back. I'm joined now by our panel ` political reporter Jenna Lynch, academic and former Green MP Sue Bradford and Waikato Chamber of Commerce CEO and former National Party General Manger, Chris Simpson. Thank you very much for your time. Jenna, I just want to come to you first. The Muslim community is really fearful of a further attack post-this letter incident. Politically, what should be done? Well, they're saying that Cabinet's going to take a look at the law this week. I don't know if that's overly necessary. It seems that the law` The law seems fit for purpose. It's just that it wasn't overly used properly. The Minister this week saying, 'We've never had a prisoner like this before.' In that case, I think we should've been treating him that much more differently. We should've been on the lookout for things like this, especially when we know that he wants that massive megaphone to spread his hatred throughout the world. One of the thing, I think, that Aliya pointed out is getting in experts. I think politically we need to look at whether we know enough about white supremacy, whether people are picking up on those subtleties in language and whether we need to put more of those people into the public service so we can identify when things are going wrong. How does this make us look, both in terms of Corrections, Chris, and in terms of our spy agencies that this kind of letter gets out? Oh, amateur hour. Totally amateur hour because having someone like that ` an absolute scumbag ` locked up, to have letters out there` An alleged scumbag. Sorry, alleged scumbag` ...is crazy. Surely they would've put a lot more effort into that, they'd monitor every single thing, so, yeah. Sue, I mean, Aliya revealed in that interview this morning that there were other letters out there, and they know what's in them and they know where they've gone. What does that mean? Does that mean that they're using them to track these networks? I don't know. It's hard to read what that means. Yes, well, I don't know any more than you do. It's really striking, as others have said, that they've allowed this to happen. I'm thinking it's not just the alleged killer up here, but also about Philip Alp and other far-right white supremacists and alt-right people who are in jail as well. That they haven't long ago trained people` They've got so much control inside of prison. It's almost unbelievable that they've allowed this to happen because prisoner's have so few rights. Yes, they do` All their mail can be opened, read and tracked, and why they weren't applying it in this case, and why they didn't have` It feels to me as though the Corrections staff involved` They're not trained to deal with` ...had no idea about the language. No understanding of the kind of messages and what it might mean. And why they're allowing ` I mean, one can't assume this from outside ` maybe just a regular Corrections staffer, who's opening everybody's mail and reading it, to make judgements that are on issues of such significance, internationally as well as locally. So the Muslim community, as Aliya said, has been calling for equal treatment, equal surveillance of all possible forms of terrorism, Jenna, and yet, this happens again. You would imagine that they would be feeling` Well, I don't know what they'd be feeling ` a bit betrayed or gutted? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, and I think it again comes back to getting that expertise in. We've been focused so long on Islamic terrorism. We've put all of the expertise in there, and so people know what they're looking for. If we don't know what we're looking for, then it's going to be bloody hard for a layman to find out what that language of white supremacists looks like as well. I think the other thing to look at here is ` if you look at this in context of the Christchurch call, so the Prime Minister is out there saying, 'Look, we want to remove every single piece of damaging, 'extremist, hateful, terrorist content from the entire internet.' And we can't even stop it spreading from inside our maximum security prison. It puts in perspective how difficult a task this is going to be if we don't have those people that identify the language and what people are doing inside, and working on it. One other quick question. I mean, there has been some talk about ` a prisoner has the human right to be able to correspond and to be able to send out mail. Chris, what do you say to that? Well, of course a prisoner should have the absolute right to correspond ` if they want to correspond with their lawyer, with other legal counsel, with their parents, but anything that incites hate definitely has to be censored. As Sue rightly said, they've lost their rights. And for that not to have been monitored is appalling. Well, let's move on to infrastructure and our lack of it. Shane Jones is tasked with getting it all up to speed, but he was` You know, last year he was talking about how New Zealand is open for business, but no deals have been done, have they? I mean, are they really falling down on this? Oh, I think they're very much falling down. What this government should be doing is setting up the equivalent of the old Ministry of Works, which Labour got rid of in the 1980s. It sounds pretty old-fashioned, but it's what we need, and what I think the Infrastructure Council and business and government and local government would love to have a ministry that actually did look after the pipeline, did look at priorities with government and local government of housing, rail, roads ` where are the priorities? Ensure the stream of finance, government-backed, so you don't have the contractors and subbies falling over and people losing huge amounts of money that way, including many low-wage workers. If you had a Ministry of Works, you could also be having apprenticeships on a much wider scale, the sort of thing Shane Jones loves to talk about, rightly. Really encouraging training and apprenticeships. This would be the way forward. But he's saying there's not enough money within government coffers to be able to do all this, so they'll need innovative funding models, Chris, like bringing in the private industry. Is it OK to agree with Sue on this? (ALL LAUGH) You're the right wing amongst us! I know. The thing is that bringing the Infrastructure Ministry, which they're wanting to fast-track through the legislation, we put a submission in on that, absolutely need that. However, they've got caught between the rock and the hard place right now, where there's going to be a big gap. By the time they get up and grunting again ` because Shane's absolutely right, what is in the pipeline is coming, but you're looking three, four years away, and so there's a big, big issue right here, right now. And there's a political opportunity here, isn't there, Jenna, for National? And they've seized it. They're saying, 'You scrapped our projects, and the industry's going to cut jobs.' Yeah, yeah. A huge opportunity for National to seize on that when it is everyday Kiwis going around on those roads or... whatever ` seeing that infrastructure deficit. I think Shane Jones even in that interview, he didn't really offer up that many answers. All he had to say for himself was 'fair cop'. Yeah, fair cop. (ALL LAUGH) And the other thing is, so you've had the Wellbeing Budget this year, next year in election it's going to be really tough, and it's probably going to be coming off the boil for the economy, so why not have the Infrastructure Budget? (LAUGHS) The Infrastructure Budget. How are they going to afford that? Sue, there's all this talk about America maybe going towards a recession, and we need infrastructure to prop up our economy, don't we? Yeah, and we need income coming in at the bottom. So, yes, we should be lifting benefits as a priority. Where's the money coming from? Always the question. Well, very simply, they can just break the budget responsibility rules that they signed up to before the last election, Labour and the Green, and Shane should be delighted if they do so. Free-up money to put into the economy, into housing, into rail, into infrastructure, and into places like benefits ` lifting benefits to liveable levels. And this will really help the economy in all sorts of ways. In all sorts of ways. I'm going to move on to another topic. Jenna, one that you're familiar with. You've just been in Tuvalu with the Prime Minister, talking about climate change over there. The Aussies didn't want to talk about climate change, is that right? Oh, boy. No, they didn't. The small island leaders over in Tuvalu had had a meeting earlier in the week, and they wanted a pretty strong statement from Australia for a phase-out of coal. Australia put a line in the sand and said, 'Look, we're not going to do it.' We kind of got stuck in the middle of that fight quite a bit. So either we had to side with the Pacific leaders on Tuvalu, looking at, you know` Sea rising, yeah. ...looking each way and see both coastlines. It's so dramatic over there. Ardern basically sat on the fence a little bit. She got reported by the Aussie media as having a crack at Australia. I think that was probably not quite right. Maybe they don't understand, sort of, Ardern-nese, if you like ` the way she speaks. Because of that you see the commentators, the shock-jocks like Alan Jones jumping in, telling SCOMO, the Aussie prime minister, to shove a sock down Ardern's throat. What do you make of that, Sue? Absolutely disgraceful, and I think it just shows ` why do media in places like Australia and New Zealand continue to employ these toxic and ill-informed older white men? We could have a much better quality of public media input if these people were just excluded from having their microphone to say really misogynistic and objectionable things like this. And yet` It's time we stopped being so tolerant of these types. But the money talked, didn't it, Chris? Because advertisers were threatening to withdraw, and so suddenly Alan Jones is apologising. Totally apologised. Yeah, he backed down really quickly, yeah. Obviously, I am excepted from that older, white male comment. (ALL LAUGH) I'm not too sure about myself. (CHUCKLES) It's the shock-jocks. I won't name any New Zealand examples, but I'm not talking about you. Do you think that controversy overshadowed the actual substance of the Pacific Islands Forum? Yeah, because they did actually come up with quite a strong statement on climate change. Aside from the official communique that that comes out of every single forum, there was a statement on climate change, labelled it a crisis, there was a commitment in there for a drawdown on fossil fuels, which includes coal. Australia did manage to water-down that a little bit, but I think the whole conference this year was pretty well focused on climate change, and it had to be because we were in Tuvalu. What is it about the Australians that they don't want to have the word coal put into a climate change communique, Sue? Well, they're passionate` This government of Australia right now is passionate about defending coal. I think coal has heavily funded that party, and other resource extraction is seen as so much at the core of their economy. They fight and fight for it. They're in love with coal. Are fossil fuels, sort of, backing the SCOMO government over there? What do you think, Chris? It's a big part of the Australian economy, especially the exports to China, so, yeah. One of the things that the prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, said was, 'Look, you guys are fighting for the survival of your economy, 'but I'm fighting for the survival of my people.' That's a really strong line that he put out over there as well. OK. Thank you very much to the panel this morning. We'll come back to you a bit later on. Stay with us, and we'll be back after the break. Welcome back, and we are back with our panel, Jenna Lynch, Sue Bradford and Chris Simpson. Chris Simpson, first to you ` Paula Bennett's National's new campaign chair for election 2020, how's she going to fill Steven Joyce's shoes? Oh, it's a good choice by National to put somebody in like that, because what you don't see in the public is that it's just a lot of work that goes in behind the scenes at a party level. The machinations that make the party aspects work is really important, so it's a really good choice, cos she's liked by the party. She's liked by the party, but she's going to give up her seat soon, so, I mean, you know, that's a safe seat to give up for this. Well, she'll be very safe on the party list as deputy leader and chair of the campaign committee. In fact, it frees up heaps of time. She'll be sitting pretty in the next election and will only need to worry` only need to worry about the National campaign. (LAUGHS) That's a small thing (!) (ALL LAUGH) And it opens the way for one of their favourite new candidates to come on through. Oh, right. And who is that? That whole question of Vernon Tava or... Yeah. Or Chris Luxon. Or Christopher Luxon. Though there's another seat there on the line in Selwyn that's also going. Amy Adams. Yeah, there's a few. So National will be rubbing its hands at that. Yeah. I'll just go back quickly to Chris. So, who's it going to be in Upper Harbour, do you think? Is Christopher Luxon really a possible candidate for National? Or is it just a whole lot of media talk? Well, again, it depends on if he starts putting the work into the party, and you just have to look at what John Key did in Helensville when he rolled Brian Neeson ` came out of the blue, rolled a sitting MP. So you just don't know what the electorate wants at the committee level. Do you think Christopher Luxon is a viable candidate for them? Oh, I think he certainly thinks he is. (ALL LAUGH) When he... The day that he stepped down as Air New Zealand chair, he had already, like, pinned his colour well and truly to the mast and said, 'I'm the National guy, and I'm thinking about a political career.' I don't know whether a clearer message could've been sent. Been sent. OK. All right. Winston Peters came out when Bennett was appointed and said, 'Oh, it's amateur hour.' But she's been in parliament 14 years. What do you make of that? Yeah, I don't think he's got it right there. As you were saying, she is very much liked by the party and has been through many campaigns and has got that smile and that ability to pull people will her, which is what you need in a campaign committee leader, really, is to meld the people round you, whatever the party is. And again, I can't believe that Sue and I are agreeing, but... (LAUGHS) You should join National. (GROANS) (ALL LAUGH) The reality is it is` the leader's role is to be out there being the face of the party, not the campaign manager, so... Yeah, will she make, like, a different kind of campaign? Will she be different, do you think? I spent a bit of time on the National Party backing bill bus at the last election. (ALL LAUGH) Basically an Energizer bunny for the volunteers, so she was up the front, she was singing karaoke on the bus, she was first off the bus, energising the troops and getting them rallying around Bill English. So I think she's definitely got that side of the campaign down. What'll be interesting is to see whether she has that same political mind as we saw from the likes of Steven Joyce and whether she'll run a traditional sort of National Party-style campaign with all of the attack ads and things like that. I think with the Winston thing, you've got to remember that these two have got a pretty rocky relationship. He still blames the leak of superannuation expen` the superannuation details on her as well. Oh yes. So that's... I think that's an interesting move from National, putting her in in that perspective, because it limits them in terms of if they're going to negotiate with Winston after the next election as well. OK. All right, let's move on to another topic this week ` the census. So the least-filled-in census in decades; two-thirds of Maori engaged. Sue, how big a mess is this? Oh, it's appalling, and what really gets me about the census is there are a lot of people out in community in groups I've worked with everywhere that know` the people in Wellington had no idea what they were doing, either the politicians or the bureaucrats, and this started under National, I have to say, not under this government. What were they thinking to do an online census when so many people are living in poverty and homelessness, substandard housing, can't be easily tracked, so many people who don't have access to the internet, to the devices, to any regular means of electronic communication, and it just, to me, and to anyone working at community level, in urban or rural New Zealand, to understand how hard it is to contact and connect with people who are in these very fractured and fragile situations. And so Wellington was sitting there, thinking everybody's, like, living in Brooklyn or Khandallah or Remuera or Parnell or wherever, but actually a huge part of the population lives in a very different situation. What over ramifications, I guess, Chris, for actual government expenditure? And that's the bit. Like, it was a total cock-up, and with the likes of Shane Jones talking about infrastructure spend when we actually don't have a very clear view on where the demography is and where the investment needs to happen. It is a complete nightmare with what's happened here, so I'm pleased that she's stepped down. OK, just really quickly, Jenna, Simon Bridges was putting the boot into James Shaw and saying it was his fault ` that's a bit... expedient, isn't it? (LAUGHS) Pretty convenient being in Opposition when this one fell over. (LAUGHS) Seeing as it started under National in the first place. Thank you very much to the panel ` Jenna Lynch, Sue Bradford and Chris Simpson. All right. It's known as the other green gold of the north ` baby mussels, known as spat ` only wash up on Ninety Mile Beach when conditions are perfect, and they sell for up to $8000 a ton. But a recent video showing heavy machinery ploughing through the surface, raising questions about whether mechanical harvesting is right for our most sensitive beaches. Here's John-Michael Swannix with this report. This is Te Oneroa-a-Tohe, or Ninety Mile Beach. For centuries, it's been a food basket for iwi as well as Te Ara Wairua, a spiritual pathway between the living and the dead. Kia ora, whanau. I was just driving up foreshore, and I looked back towards Ninety Mile, and I seen all these big clouds of black smoke and all these machinery driving into the beach. So I thought I'll come have a nosy, and I pretty much guessed it was the spat pickers. Rawhiti Waiti captured this video right here last week. It went viral, with many Northlanders worried about how the collection of baby mussels is impacting on this beach. I'm not out here trying to call anyone out. I'm not trying to lose jobs or anything, but it's for the whanau; it's for all of us in the far north. This is our beach. For a lot of people, it's actually a lifeline. These are actually fully formed baby mussels. Spat is even smaller than what you see here. Now, two-thirds of the spat harvested in New Zealand comes from Ninety Mile Beach, where there are massive mussel beds off the coast. Once harvested, it's actually taken away to mussel farms all around the country ` an industry worth $350 million. MPI says harvesting with heavy machinery has been happening for at least a decade and there's nothing in the video that breaches the rules. They've got a form of harvesting that's a modified tractor. On the front of it, it has a scoop, and they run that through the top layer of the surf zone and pick up the floating seaweed. And if it wasn't harvested, it would die, so there's no real sustainability concern there. But Rawhiti and many others are concerned about the impact on tuatua and toheroa. Right now, it's getting even harder and harder to pick tuatua and find it, especially for us down this end. And right now's the time to make a difference and save what we can. Research has been done on whether tuatua and toheroa are impacted by mechanical harvesting. In 2007, NIWA concluded that it was unlikely. However, more recent research has found that tuatua and junior toheroa are more likely to be crushed, because they live at shallower depths in the sand. They are taonga; they are treasures. You know, they feed our families and have done for centuries. And this kind of commercial harvesting isn't suited to that, and I don't think it ever will be. Patau Te Pania is a local kaitiaki, or guardian, from Ahipara and leads Takutai Moana, a group that cares for marine life in the area. He's also a commercial fisherman and says his problem isn't with the spat pickers, some of whom are locals; it's with the rules. At the end of the day, those guys are trying to do an honest day's work. Many locals say the permits should only allow people to collect spat when it has naturally washed ashore. It's quite clear they're not getting it off the beach. They're getting it in the sea. They're getting it in the surf, and that's the problem. The machinery going round and round is not good for the beach; it's not good for the people. Local iwi want to return to hand harvesting, which is more in line with cultural tikanga. Our iwi and all the iwi who are associated with the beach have an aversion to this form of mechanical harvesting. MPI says it's prepared to listen. A hui between stakeholders is planned for later this month. What we're interested in now in working with the working groups on is really digging down and the concerns around those activities and trying to work out a pathway forward. It might lead to some changes in how it operates. So, what is being proposed? Aquaculture New Zealand says it's really keen to find a solution. It says electronic monitoring could be in place by the end of the year to make sure spat pickers are staying away from known shellfish beds. But locals like Rawhiti want greater government oversight. It's all fine and dandy having electronic ways of monitoring it, but MPI and Fisheries, they need people on the ground policing this stuff. Some iwi members are calling for a rahui, or customary ban, to be put in place. Te Rarawa has previously brought in a rahui on nearby coastline to help paua recover from over-fishing. It tells us that the methodology of using a rahui is appropriate and useful. But it's also a thing that we have to use sparingly, knowing when and where we can apply it, and I think it would be quite difficult to apply it in this situation, because people have legal quota. Piripi is also leading the work to create a beach-management plan, which will shape how Ninety Mile can be used going forward. For locals like Rawhiti, they just want to see action to protect their taonga. You know, even 50, 60 years ago, it was a good beach, and we just want to see our beach improve again, and I can say that on behalf of everyone up here. And that's all from us for now. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you again next weekend. Captions by Able. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 This programme was made with the assistance of the NZ On Air Platinum Fund.