Tuhia te ha o te reo Maori ki te rangi. Kei nga waewae kai kapua, kei nga waewae kaipakiaka o te motu rarau 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 ` he's Chinese by whakapapa, Ngati by nature, and he's Aotearoa's new race relations commissioner. # ...ake tonu e. # We speak to Meng Foon about his new role and his plans to protect te reo Maori. And we check out how the team from children's charity KidsCan is making te reo me ona tikanga a part of their culture. This isn't a token gesture that we're trying to do here. This is something we want to permeate though our organisation. (ALL SING WAIATA) www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 Karahuihui mai. Ko te ra whakamutunga tenei o Te Wiki o te Reo Maori. Heoi ano ina-tata-nei i korero ahau ki te komihana whakawhanaunga-a-iwi hou ` ki a Meng Foon mo ona wawata mo te reo rangatira ` me tona turanga hou. Kia tahuri ake tatou. (SPEAKS MAORI) (SPEAKS MAORI) Do you remember the time that you realised, 'Kei te korero Maori au. Ka marama ki te reo'? Ae. Kei te ka marama au. Ae. Koira... I... I don't know if I... What do I speak in? Kei aku te tikanga? (BOTH LAUGH) Kua te painga o te reorua. Do you remember the moment that you thought, 'I understand what they're talking about?' Or was it just something that you learnt so early that it didn't matter? Yeah, no, we learnt. But otira i nga... (SPEAKS MAORI) E kia nei koe, you once said, 'You can't understand a people until you learn their language.' What did you mean by that? Well, look, to understand a people, you need to actually understand the language, because the language carries the whakapapa, and it carries the stories, it carries their wairua. And so to understand it better, obviously, one has to learn. But I learnt it because I was interested. What has te reo Maori meant for you in your career and your ability to move around the Coast? Well, I can tell you quite frankly, if I wasn't interested in te reo Maori or didn't learn te reo Maori, I would not be sitting here with you in the first place. And I wouldn't have been as successful in our business on the council, as my role as mayor, or I wouldn't even actually have achieved this job as the race relations commissioner, I can tell you that. Mehemea ka whakaako nga tamariki katoa i te kura ki te reo Maori, if we taught every child te reo Maori, what do you think our communities would look like in 10 years' time? Oh, he hapori angitu. He motuhake tatou i Aoteroa i te reo me ona tikanga. It would be beautiful that we could teach all of our children, especially at the primary school stage, because they soak them up like sponges. And I go to many countries around the world, and they learn many dialects, many languages all at once. And I think it's time to actually start that. Let's talk about your new role in race relations. Recently you've commented on a young waitress ` Mia, I think her name was ` who was pronouncing te reo Maori correctly, and she had been abused for that. How are you, in your new role, going to help create safe spaces for reo Maori speakers? Well, it's a continuous education. I've just had a call from the Director's Institute. And they're keen to actually have more diversity, more tikanga in the workplace. And so we will be working with a number of organisations to do that. But having a safe place` And I hope that te reo Maori actually becomes normalised, rather than being special. It's very important that, as time goes on, we're actually learning more. And by default, we are learning more. You've said also that you think that there's pockets of racism in New Zealand, then there's some casual racism and structural racism too. I guess the million-dollar question is, how do you change it? Through continuous advocacy, through continuous education, by celebrating success, and telling our stories, place-based stories. And Tai Rawhiti is one of areas that they're telling their stories now. And people get to understand and say, 'Oh, is that what happens?' So they... (SPEAKS MAORI) I think if you consider someone like Taika Waititi, when he came out and said that New Zealand was racist AF, is that the kind of... is that another way of being able to address the racism in our society? Or do you think that puts people off? Oh, no. The campaign for Give Nothing to Racism is very important. And we've got to be front-footing all of those campaigns, all of those strategies. And my key role is actually being an advocate, going face to face with people and telling it as` Do we have to be more honest, though? Yeah, we have to be more honest. And I think the latest Radio New Zealand programme, which asks whether some people were racist themselves, and they acknowledge that. Just this week, I heard the former prime minister Helen Clark saying that she didn't want to use the word 'racist' because it was unhelpful. Is it not unhelpful to actually not use that word? I think we need to be straight up. And I'm not quite sure whether there's another word for it ` discrimination. But this is about racial discrimination, and it needs to be said as it is, and we need to actually draw those aspects out, so that we can actually address them. So call it out for what it is. But I guess, how do you bring those people alongside you? Well, it's constantly relationship building, more people joining the team against racism, Give Nothing to Racism, and hopefully we will continue with this journey that we actually educate our children, because I have great hope for our children. I went to Wellington High School, I went to Waterloo in my first two weeks, and I look at the children, and they are already doing haka, Maori, diversity. And it's just beautiful colours at our schools. We've just got only a little bit more time left, but if you come back in a year's time, what do you want to have achieved? Look, I'm hopeful that we have provided safe places for us to have debates, that we're honest with each other, and that we actually have less racism, or less discriminatory comments in our communities. Tena koe e te rangatira. Tena koe, Mihingarangi. Ko Meng Foon tera ` komihana whakawhanaunga o Aotearoa. After the break, our political panel is in the studio. Well, the Labour Party is in crisis after complaints emerged that party officials botched an inquiry into serious allegations against a staffer that included bullying and sexual assault. Labour Party President Nigel Haworth has since resigned, as too has the staffer, although he denies any wrong-doing. So what does the controversy tell us about the culture of Parliament? And will there be more heads to roll down Molesworth St? To discuss this, I'm joined by former Green Party candidate and staffer Jack McDonald and Action Station's Laura O'Connell Rapira. Tena korua. Tena koe. Kia ora. Well, the Prime Minister is asking everyone to pause and wait for the QC's review of the review. Is she asking too much? Do people deserve to know more now? Well, I'd like to believe the Prime Minister when she says that she didn't know about the accusations before they were made public in the media, but it seems to me highly implausible that those around her, her inner circle, didn't. I mean, Nigel Haworth has resigned, which is good, but I think more questions need to be asked about those close to her. Grant Robertson is refusing to confirm or deny whether he knew about it. And there are serious questions about whether her senior staff did, as well, including the perpetrator's line manager. So I think Jacinda Ardern really needs to actually step up and get those answers from those people. And if they were aware of it and didn't inform the Prime Minister, then I think the only thing to do, from a position of integrity, is to offer their resignations. So you think` Cos what she's saying now is, 'I'm not gonna get involved in it. 'I'm gonna leave it for an independent QC to review it.' You think that's the wrong thing to do? Well, I think that's a good first step. But I also think that if those staffers or MPs knew about it, then they should come forward now and say so, both to the Prime Minister and to the public. Rather than wait to see what the QC's review has got to do with it? That's right. Her leadership has been based around kindness. She's often said that she's there to listen to everybody. Do you think it's in stark contrast to what's happened now? Has it damaged that style of leadership? Well, first of all, I've got a lot of aroha for survivors, because I think that we have horrific rates of sexual abuse in our country. And it doesn't just happen in political parties. It happens in too many homes, in too many communities, in too many whanau. But yeah, it's... We're dealing with what I consider a systemic issue, which means that it can't just fall on one individual. Yes, she has gone out on to the world stage and said that she is very much about kindness and compassion. But the truth is, our systems aren't kind or compassionate. And so I think` I understand` I think resignations are good, but what I would like to see is reforms. What I would like to see is collective accountability. I think every workplace, every school, ever marae, every church, every tertiary provider should have robust policies in place around sexual harassment and abuse. They should have prevention strategies in place. What would that look like? Well, I think` It looks like bringing a sexual abuse prevention network into your workplace to run workshops; it looks like having point people in your workplace who you can go to to disclose if sexual harm has happened ` and more than one person. Would they have been trained? They would have been trained, yeah. And so those workshops exist. And they're pretty affordable. Action Station have done them, and if we can afford to do it, government ministries and political parties can certainly afford to do it. But it also looks like putting more funding into things like, on a national and community level, things like behavioural change and public awareness campaigns. Because what we have is a culture in which we have prevailing attitudes in which we view people's bodies as objects, and we cultivate attitudes in which there is entitlement to other people's bodies. And what we need to be doing is we need to be funding campaigns to change those attitudes, change those values, because every single act of sexual harm is preventable. But we need to work to make that happen. Coming back to that idea about the systemic issues, if we consider president Nigel Haworth has gone now, replacing that president is the vice president, because apparently that's what you have to do ` that's in the rule books. And she is Tracey McClellan, who also sat on that review panel and also found that there was no disciplinary action needed. If you were a complainant, how would you view that? I mean, I think it's unacceptable. But at the same time, as Laura so eloquently said, it's not really about the individuals. It is about the culture and about the systemic issues. And as someone who used to work at Parliament, I know just how toxic the parliamentary environment is, and how political parties are as well. And so I think we've seen in this case, but we've also seen in relation to the Jami-Lee Ross stuff, that National was also not well placed to deal with these sorts of issues. I mean, coming from the Greens, they probably also wouldn't be well placed to deal with these issues. So I think all parties need to look` Because of the structure? Because of the structure, because of the policies and processes that they have in place, but also because of the inherent way that Parliament is set up. It's set up as a colonial structure, it's patriarchal from head to toe. And so we need a complete overhaul of that system, as the Debbie Francis review highlighted. Because that actually highlighted that there are systemic issues of bullying and harassment at Parliament. They overlooked Tane Phillips, who was the Vice President Maori. Would that have been a better solution than someone who sat on that panel? Yeah, absolutely. And I think, when we're talking about overhaul, it's putting more Maori into positions of power. It's also underpinning everything that Parliament does with Maori values, manaakitanga, aroha, kaitiakitanga, care, those sorts of things. And if we truly lived into those values and didn't just adopt the words and put them on plaques, but actually lived into it, I think that we would see radically different things happen at Parliament. What a nice place to move into the good news of the week ` history in schools. What did you make of that announcement? He tino miharo tera karere ki ahau. I thought it was brilliant news. And, you know, when I was at high school, I really wanted to study New Zealand history and wasn't able to. I remember I lobbied hard at Year 13 to be able to learn it instead of Early Modern England, but failed. So I think that this will actually be remembered as one of the most significant announcements of Jacinda Ardern's government, certainly to date. And I think that it has the potential to actually such a profound impact on our cultural and national identity. But I think it's really, really important that the announcement is followed up with some solid action, so I was pleased to see the Ministry of Education intend to work with mana whenua on the design of the curriculum. And it's really important, in my view, that that curriculum prioritises place-based learning so that actually students are learning the history of their own local area and actually being taught by the mana whenua of that area. We were discussing where you are from earlier. You're from Waitara. I guess, growing up, what did you learn about that through schools? Very little. And I really feel that if I had have learnt about the maunga, our awa, it both helps strengthen communities and national and cultural identity, as you say, but it also helps to cultivate attitudes of kaitiakitanga towards our awa and towards our ngahere and all of these sorts of things. I think it's really great. I think the announcement is wonderful. I think it's long fought for and hard won by many, many people over many, many generations. What I would also like to see is for the government to work alongside hapu and iwi and kaupapa Maori education providers to ensure that all adults and communities have access to these opportunities to learn about our history as well. So the adults who are teaching the children know what they're talking about. Absolutely. And that can look like... That doesn't necessarily have to be courses or workshops. It could also be museums. It can be local murals, it can be art projects, it can be any myriad of things. Local body councils. Exactly. And I really fell that that would go a long way towards building more harmonious relationships among our communities. Well, ko te Wiki o te Reo Maori, it's the end. Was there anything that you... any word, any phrase, a person, any event that you saw this week that made your heart warm? I've basically just been thrashing the Waiata Anthems album all weekend. I keep hearing it` Favourite one? Soaked by... I don't actually know the te reo word for it, but the one by Benee. Because I thrashed that song in English, and now I'm thrashing it in te reo. But I keep walking down the streets and hearing cars playing it. It's really wonderful to see and hear. Aw. And you, Jack? Well, I attended the Te Wiki o te reo Maori hikoi in Wellington on Monday, which was awesome. And I always just love so much seeing the hundreds of tamariki that come to that hikoi and just using our reo as though it's so natural and normal, which is such an improvement on even 10 years ago. So I think the challenge from that is for the government to actually really commit to te reo Maori in all schools, so that all tamariki have that opportunity. Tena korua. Tena koe. Tena koutou katoa i korero Maori mo te wiki kua pahure. Kia mau tonu mai ra te titiro ` after the break we're with the team from KidsCan, as they take the first steps in te reo Maori. Auraki mai ano. Every day the team at KidsCan try to bridge the poverty divide by feeding and clothing kids across the country. Their goal is simple ` to give tamariki a fighting chance at a better education and future. But as Billie Jo Ropiha found, the good people at KidsCan are also educating themselves. They want to understand te ao Maori so they can connect with whanau on a cultural level. And what better place to start than with a waiata? (GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC) (PUTATARA TRUMPETS BLARE) The sound of the putatara signalling a special welcome. A powhiri for the team from children's charity KidsCan, who help thousands of tamariki Maori across Aotearoa. We feel that, as an organisation, we want to be able to give back and demonstrate that we are committed to understanding culture and also taking that journey. Today their leader, Julie Chapman, has brought them to Te Taua Moana Marae in Devonport for a special kaupapa. A huge thank you to you for welcoming us here. That was very emotional. We're here today to create a waiata for KidsCan. We've been doing some work on that this morning, and I think this is the perfect place to finish that work, to learn it and then for us to take it back out into the communities that we serve and look after. It's an idea that came from their cultural consultant Breviss Wolfgram. I said to Jules, 'Do you want to be involved with more Maori schools?' And she said yes. I said, 'Well, best you have your own waiata.' # Ko tenei i te wa... Julie agreed, and so the team from KidsCan started out on their cultural journey. So what we did is we bought in te reo Maori classes on site for their business And after that business, we then said, 'OK, let's do our waiata tautoko for them.' I brought in people like Wharepaora Nepe. And group one, you are the thoughts of why... Their reo tutor Wharepaora Nepe is holding a wananga with the team to help create a waiata that reflects what they do. This is what will guide me, OK? This is our vehicle that guides the song. We are an organisation that values the culture and the children that we support within that. So I'm excited about this. Yeah, I think it's a really cool opportunity for us. For 14 years KidsCan has provided food, clothing and basic healthcare to help disadvantaged kids reach their full potential. The work is rewarding but unrelenting. 30,000 children a day receive KidsCan food across 740 schools throughout New Zealand. And we're in 25 early childhood centres in Auckland, Northland and the Hawke's Bay. So we're feeding around a thousand children a day under 5 on top of the 30,000 school kids a day. One organisation can't do it all, so we've got to actually all play a part ` business, community and government ` in addressing the needs of children. In August the Government announced it would begin a pilot programme to feed kids at school. But Julie says the problem is greater than kai. Over the 14 years, we've seen this kind of slow erosion of what whanau can afford. And I can tell you the number-one reason is housing. There just isn't the supply of warm, dry, safe, secure housing for families, and that put huge pressure on budgets. Many of the children KidsCan supports are Maori. But for a number of the kaimahi here today, this wananga is the first time they've been to a marae. What I didn't expect was that I would be able to connect to a language that I can't even speak. It's my first time on a Marae. It made me really emotional. After their brain-storming session, Wharepaora talks Julie through the lyrics of their new waiata. So, kia ha ki te ora. Kei hikoi te hikoi. Kei mua i te aroaro. He ao, he ao, he ao turoa. So, kia ha ki te ora ` it's healthiness, keeping them healthy. And that's the big thing, at the end of it, empowering them. Kei hikoi te hiko, so they'll walk the walk, talk the talk. Kei mua i te aroaro ` what is right in front of them, eh? The world, the world, the world in its greatness. That's awesome. Ka pai. And it's so true. (CHUCKLES) The world is their oyster, and we want to make sure that they have every opportunity. So that's really cool. Ka pai. Love it. And a bit of this. A bit of this. (ALL SING WAIATA) Julie says this waiata is an expression of KidsCan's commitment to te ao Maori. This isn't a token gesture that we're trying to do here. Like, this is something we want to permeate through our organisation. Knowing that we can go out and sing our waiata when we go to schools or early childhood is incredibly special, just so beautiful, and kind of brings tears to your eyes. It's also the first steps of their te reo journey. It's quite emotional. The language is so beautiful, and then when it's sung, it's just even more so. For Julie, this is much more than just a song. Developing the waiata with Whare has been an amazing experience for us as an organisation. Not only do we end up with this amazing, beautiful song with amazing words, but it's actually brought us closer together as a team as well. So I would recommend it to anyone, actually. Ka pai. Ma te waiata e paihere te tangata. Tena koutou. Very good. He rawe tera waiata. Hei tera wiki ` he kaupapa hauora. To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, a special episode on Maori in the mental health system. They sent me to Mt Eden Prison. And while I was there, they put me in a place called the round room, which is actually right at the bottom of the prison. So you were in seclusion. It was worse than being in seclusion. Former patient and now mental health advocate Tui Taurua Peihopa immersed herself in matauranga Maori to aid her recovery. I threw all my medication away, and I decided I needed to find a pathway if I was wanting to live. And a Maori psychiatrist who's been working to change the system from the inside. Feeling like I had to follow this system of going in after hours and secluding young Maori men broke my heart. A special report on our mental health system through the eyes of Maori. Hei tera wiki. Kua hikina te Hui mo tenei ra. You'll find links to our stories on our Facebook and Twitter accounts or at newshub.co.nz. Newshub Nation is next. Pai marire ki a tatou katoa. Captions by Able Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 He mea tautoko na Te Mangai Paho.