Today on Newshub Nation ` expensive, unsafe and bad for kids. Minister Carmel Sepuloni fronts on emergency housing. A special report on eating disorder services at breaking point. And the MP who gave us marriage equality shares her backstory. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2021 Kia ora. Good morning. I'm Ryan Bridge and welcome to Newshub Nation. In political news this week ` ACT leader David Seymour has fessed up to what he calls 'an honest mistake', belatedly declaring his interest in three properties. Seymour has previously said he's a renter, but the Herald has revealed he is a beneficiary of family trusts that own property. Police have referred their investigation into $320,000 of undeclared donations to the Maori Party to the Serious Fraud Office. The Maori Party has acknowledged a mistake was made. And the Waitangi Tribunal has issued a scathing report into Oranga Tamariki, finding the organisation guilty of significant prejudice. The Tribunal has recommended a separate by Maori, for Maori agency. And another portfolio under pressure ` social development. $1 million a day is getting us motels as emergency homes which critics say are expensive, unsafe and bad for children. Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni joins me this morning. Tena koe, Minister. - Tena koe. - 750 kids living long-term in these motel rooms. 8000 New Zealanders living in them. Your very own Minister in your government, Marama Davidson, says it's inhumane. Is it? - Well, you know, we have to reflect back and think about what got us here; and it is the lack of investment in housing over generations that's led to a lack of supply and a situation where we have families who do not have homes to go to. So we're in the position where we do need to provide emergency housing options for families whilst we undertake the build that we have committed to. - Totally understand that. And even the National Party has admitted they didn't do enough on housing, but I'm talking about right now ` here, your responsibility. Is the conditions that these children are living in inhumane? - Look, I have gone and looked at emergency accommodation myself in Rotorua just last week and spoken to our MSD housing team about the different options that are used. Some are very good, some are of adequate standard, and there are a few that, actually, I said to MSD, 'Stop using'. That is something that can be done in a place like Rotorua, where there are a number of motel accommodation options. In some parts of the country it is a lot harder because we don't necessarily have the multitude of options, with regards to placing families who are in desperate need. - So some providers, some of these conditions are inhumane. - I would say, you know, in Rotorua and talking to MSD housing team, there are a handful that I said, 'Let's stop using altogether'. - How would you characterise them? Because language is important because language spurs action, as we saw when you forced National to call it a housing crisis. Is this inhumane? - Well, when I went and looked at the ones that MSD said, 'Actually, we will stop using', they were untidy from the outside. There certainly did look to be cleanliness issues from the outside. They were incredibly rundown. But on top of that, talking to the MSD housing staff, the relationship with the moteliers in those instances are not the best. They are not responsive. And so I have said to MSD in that particular area, 'Don't use them then. You don't need to 'because there are other options.' - OK. There are bigger problems here, though, Minister, and I don't know if you have been reading the news, but it's looking pretty dire. Have a listen to this. This is a mother of four spoken to by Radio New Zealand. She was living in a motel with her four children for eight months. Have a listen to how she describes life. - Sure. - In the place that I was, there was alcoholics, drug addicts, gang affiliations, drug deals going on. My kids witnessed a few domestic violent relationships that were two doors down from us. Not a safe environment for kids. - That's not inhumane to you? - Oh, I think that that is totally unsuitable. And` Oh, totally unsuitable. - Unsuitable? Minister, we've got a woman being punched unconscious by another motel resident, putting her in hospital. We've got families and kids mixed in with gang members. Fears of sexual abuse happening here. - That is not appropriate. - Let's call it what it is. - That is not appropriate, but what I do need to say, too, on top of that, Ryan, is that MSD emergency accommodation is the last port of call for some New Zealanders with very complex needs. Yes, it is our families with children, and we do need to make sure that we put them into appropriate accommodation, but we're also working with people with high-level mental health issues, some New Zealanders with drug and addiction issues; and the alternative to not putting them in emergency accommodation as well is them being on the streets. So we are in a bit of an unenviable position here. - Agreed. - However, we do need to work hard to make sure... - No one's arguing... - ...that people are in appropriate accommodation. - OK, because this is interesting because no one disagrees with you. We'd rather they were in motels, safe motels, than on the streets. But if you listen to what the people on the coalface ` the charities are telling us at the moment, LifeWise told the AM Show that some motels are so dangerous some young people felt safer on the streets. And the Island Child Charitable Trust's Danielle Bergin wonders if families would actually be safer back in their cars, parked together as a community at a Council reserve. This is how bad it's got. Do you take responsibility for the fact that there are children living right next to fresh-out-of-prison ex-cons? - Well, you know, I think that from what I see, the vast majority are in appropriate and safe conditions. And so there may be some` And if they are feeling unsafe, they do need to let MSD know so that we can move them. And I will say, Ryan, I spoke to the Waitemata police just the other day, and I asked them whether or not they'd seen any spike in behavioural issues or illegal activities in accommodation options that are used for emergency housing. They said, 'By and large, no.' They did say there are a couple of hot spots on the north shore in their policing district that they are working with the moteliers on. So it's important to recognise, too, that there are a range of agencies that need to be involved here, but that was the observation of the Waitemata police. - Can you` Because you clearly sound like you care about this issue deeply. - I do care about this issue. - OK, so can we have some commitments from you this morning? Will you commit that no child will be placed in a motel anywhere near someone who is fresh out of prison? Because that's what's happening right now. Will you commit to that this morning so that we know change will happen? - What I'm committed to is making sure that people are in suitable accommodation. What I do need to also say, Ryan, is that there has been some instances` - But that's what they're in now. They're calling this suitable accommodation right now. - This is important to note too ` what I've been told by frontline staff is that sometimes, too, families are told this might be a better option for you, but for whatever reason, they want to go to a particular accommodation because perhaps it's closer to their kid's school, perhaps it's closer to their workplace, for those that are working; and so in some instances, it's not MSD that's deciding where they need to go, it's actually the families or the individuals identifying what they deem to be most appropriate or convenient for them in terms of location as well. - Will you look, then, with the providers ` why not look at cohorting, where you say only` Some providers can only take women and children, for example. - We are looking at that. - OK. - And so keep in mind that there are a range of ministers involved here. I have some of the leavers ` Minister Woods does as Minister of Housing. - You've got the money, you've got the purse strings here. - I don't actually have the contracting power, but that's something that we're working with the Minister of Housing on. - You appoint the providers, though, don't you? - Well, they are` You pay the emergency housing grant, you're not actually contracting in the way that you're talking about, Ryan. However,` - Money talks, Minister. Money talks. - However, we don't want to confuse it by 'This is her responsibil`' or 'This is someone else's responsibility.' - It is confusing. - This is something we're working together on, but that's certainly something she's indicated and I've indicated that we are looking at. - All right. That's good. And what about security guards? Would MSD put security guards` If the moteliers want them, will you commit to ` and the residents there want them ` will you commit to having security guards, if that's what the people want? - I think it's a more likely scenario if we can get to that place where we have dedicated facilities. - OK. All right. Let's move on ` talk about the cost, Minister, because it is very, very expensive. We've already spoken about $1 million a day. Why not look at private landlords putting these people` some of these families into private homes? Because you don't do that anymore. - Remember, we've been there before, and the issues that arose, and this came up, I think, early last` - But aren't these issues worse? - This came up last year. It actually drove up the cost of private rentals at private rentals. It took private rentals off the market for families in general. And that's not the track that we want to go down. What we have to do is just continue to build, and build at pace. That is what we're doing. We've committed to 18,000 public houses in transitional places within four years. We're on track to deliver on that. - All right. - But as I said, we're playing this catch-up kind of game on house building because the previous government did not build houses. - Yeah, totally. We all` Even they get that. Everyone understands that. So, let's` Because I want to finish on this now ` but I want a commitment from you ` an exit strategy. When will we stop using motels in the numbers that we're seeing? - When we've built sufficient housing. - When is that? Have you asked your officials ` have you said, 'Look, my people, the people that I'm responsible for, 'are in dire straits. Give me a date here.' - I wish it was going to be tomorrow, Ryan, but that's not the case. - Do you have any idea ` a month? Five years? - I can't put a date on it. I know what our building programme looks like, and I know what's in place there. And so, you know, the more we can build, the faster we can build, the more quickly we can get on top of this issue. - Can we say within two years we won't be seeing people in these numbers living in motels? - I would like to see that we have a decline within the next two years. - OK. All right. It's all very vague, isn't it? I mean, I'd love for you to be more specific. - I would love to be able to be more specific, Ryan. - All right. So the cost obviously is huge. Let's move on and talk about jobs, and the Jobseeker benefit in particular. How important to you, because your Maori caucus has spoken a lot about this when it comes to unemployment, is Maori unemployment? How important to you, personally, is getting that down? - Very important. And, you know, Maori unemployment, Pacific unemployment, unemployment for the country, and we have seen some improvement since mid-January. We've seen a reduction in those on benefit week-on-week to the point where we've gone from 390,000 people, I think, at its peak post-COVID on benefit to now ` my most recent numbers are 361,000. - But Maori unemployment ` has it gone up or down? - Well, so, pre-COVID, I think Maori unemployment was 8.7%. It is now 9%. Yeah. - Yeah. It's gone up... - It has. - ...the last year. - Yeah. - It's disappointing. - It is disappointing. The reality is that over the course of time, if we look back, every time there's some sort of crisis, every time the labour market is tight, who is most impacted? It is Maori, it is Pacific. And in this instance, too, it is women. - Women. All right. So what we need is government programmes to address that, right? - Yeah. - The Maori Employment Action Plan which was recommended in 2019 ` where is it? - And so that will be completed at the end of this year. That doesn't mean that there's not action taking place to get Maori in` - Sorry, sorry. I just want to clarify ` you were told to get together a Maori Employment Action Plan in 2019, and it's not ready until midway through 2021? - That doesn't mean that there's not work underway, Ryan, with regards to supporting Maori into employment. We've got a Maori advisory group that will provide the government with advice over the course of the year, and consult widely with regards to what needs to happen in this space. But that doesn't mean that we don't already have in place the targeted upskilling and training opportunities for Maori` - Mana in Mahi. - Mana in Mahi,` - Let's talk Mana in Mahi. Is it a success? Would you call Mana in Mahi a success? - Yes, I would. - OK. How many job placements have been created? - So, out of 2800 people who have taken up Mana in Mahi, I think it's up to 89% have either completed, gone into employment upskilling and training or left early ` their placement ` but not gone back on benefit. - How much does that cost? - Overall, I can't remember the cost for Mana in Mahi off the top of my head, but it has been successful. - $80 million dollars in the last two budgets. No indication yet on how that is tracking in terms of the spend. What I'm getting at here is that is an incredibly high cost for a relatively small number of placements ` 25% of whom didn't last three months. So is that value for money or not? - Well, I think 2800 people going through Mana in Mahi ` 11% of them ending up back on benefit, the rest either completing, still on the programme or having left and found something else where they're not back on benefit, which happens sometimes, is actually a really good result. But it's not just Mana in Mahi that we've got in place. - Yeah, you've spoken about` - The apprenticeship boost ` over 20,000 accounts made already for new apprentices. - All right. No, I understand that. Let's move on to benefits. Well, actually, the cost of living, because I'm keen to get a sense from you because, you know, you're the Minister of Social Development. You've got an idea of what the cost of living is. What is a decent amount that one person needs to have in their pocket each week to have the basics? - A decent amount, Ryan ` you know, that that would vary. It would depend on the situation. Are you living at home with your parents? Do you have children? - No, one person in a flat. No kids. - How much are you paying for accommodation? Where are you living? And so I'm not going to put an absolute amount on that. What I will say is that` - For your average person. - What I will say is that we are committed to responding to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group's recommendations around income adequacy, and we did say we would do that this term. - OK. - OK, so, this budget? - This Term. - OK. Does that mean you've asked and they've said no? Cos that's $315 for a single person on the jobseeker. We're currently at $258. - So I'm not going to rule in or out what may be in the upcoming budget. - Will you be transformational? This is your last chance, potentially. - I'm as I said, we will be addressing income adequacy this term, but I'm not going to rule in what will be` rule in or out what will be in the budget. - If I'm a single person right now living at home on $258 a week, I'm going to be saying, 'Please, Minister, if you know right now that this is going to change for me at the budget next month, let us know.' - Ryan, you know that I cannot talk about what might be in or out of the budget before the 20th of May. And so we just have to wait until then. - Worth a try, though, isn't it? - It is. - All right. Let's talk about this. This your fourth year in the job, isn't it? - Yes. - What's your legacy going to be as minister? - You know, I would hope that it is going to be a transformation of the welfare system. We've already made significant changes. And despite the fact that we know there needs to be more, I think that the changes that have been made have been significant. You know, the culture change programme I think has been effective. The welfare system is not perfect, but it's a lot better than what it was when we took over, uh, Ryan. And the other thing will be also making sure that we are investing in those upskilling and training opportunities for people on benefit, Because I do believe and I do know, actually, that the vast majority of people who find themselves on benefit want to work, want to get ahead for their families, and want an opportunity to do so. - Yeah, I agree with that. So the working group, you'll get to that $315 by the by the end of the term, that's the commitment today? - I'm confident that we will. - Alright, the final thing I had to ask was about Marama Davidson, who's the Minister responsible for homelessness. Have you spoken to her lately? - Yes. Yes. - What` Is she effective? - She is effective. And she cares a great deal about the people that we're working with together, and we're working constructively. - What's the biggest contribution so far? What's the one piece of work you can point to and say, that's Marama's. - We're working together even on addressing the emergency housing issue. This is not one Minister's responsibility, there are a few of us. - What's she actually done? - She's out there scoping what is going on and feeding back and giving insights with regards to operational changes that need to occur, and some other changes that we might see on the horizon as well. OK, thank you very much for your time this morning, Minister. Great to have you on. - Thank you. - That is the Social Development Minister, Carmel Sepuloni. If you've got something to say about what you have seen on the show this morning, please let us know. We're on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @newshubnationnz. Or you can email us, nation@tv3.co.nz Still to come, we dissect the week's political news with our panel, plus, which MP is a former Silver Fern, Black Fern and rugby world champion? Stay tuned. - Hoki mai ano. Welcome back. I'm joined now by our panel, Child Poverty Action Group's Janet McAllister, former National staffer turned PR man Ben Thomas, and Dr Lara Greaves from Auckland University Politics. Welcome to the show, guys. - (ALL MURMUR GREETINGS) - Just before we start, I know a couple of you work in poverty. Any of you got in a relationship with the emergency grants or MSD or anything like that? OK, good. Let's get straight into it then, because you've just heard from the minister. What did you make of that, Janet? - I was disappointed to hear that families are having to choose to either be in a place close to where their school` their children might be going to school or in a place where they feel safe. No family should be expected or forced to make such a choice. The conditions for some families, for some tamariki, are inhumane. They sound inhumane. And we have reports that, you know, this is in crisis. I think what we need to do ` there are reports in 2019 that the government was like, we're going to wind this up. Now, two years on, that hasn't happened. I think we have to acknowledge that there will be people being housed in motels and therefore have wraparound support and actually make sure that they're getting what they would be getting if they were in transitional housing. We can no longer pretend that there won't be people in motels. We've got to make sure that they are properly supported for their well-being and safety. - Because that's the thing, Ben, is, you know, of course, we would rather them be there than on the streets, but we need a better plan. Should there have been a better plan for how this would actually work in practise? - Well, this large scale programme came directly out of COVID-19. That's where we managed to basically eliminate rough sleeping in New Zealand, which was a pretty amazing achievement over such a short time. But then, of course, obviously the problems started coming up, which is that you're getting a lot of people with very, you know, high and complex needs, which is basically code for addictions, mental illness, anti-social behaviour in some cases. And, you know, obviously that's an inappropriate place for children to be, and families. You know, in an ideal world, there would have been better planning for this. There would have been, you know, separate motels for families, separate motels, you know, for, you know, the risk factors. - The other ones, yeah. - And yeah. But look, you know, it is something that's going to take a while to work through. Janet's right. They need the care in there to actually look after the, you know, quote unquote high and complex needs, to actually make this work. - Lara, are you disappointed that the government, this government which ran on a ticket of being the more kind, compassionate, caring government, hasn't addressed this issue so far? I mean, it's been four years that we, as you said, we've had a huge increase recently. But, you know, the problem's been around for a while. - Yeah. I mean, I'm personally disappointed and disappointed on behalf of people. But I think that for Labour, right at the moment, they've tried to` in this last election, they've managed to move into the centre quite a bit and sort of capture those voters. So they're only going to be able to do so many sort of transformational or more radical type things, in that middle New Zealand view. The kind of` it's almost like the separate pot of political capital on leaning left or going left and with the Maori Health Authority and moves along those lines, they have to be really careful to kind of still try to keep that middle, and this space really needs some kind of transformational change. And they can only do so many transformational things before everyone goes, 'Ooh, that's way too left wing.' And they don't kind of keep that voter base. - But you're really butting up against the` you know, the elephant in the room that everyone is talking about, which is housing. You know, the ultimate problem is that there are not enough rooms and houses for people to live in. And that's not something that they can fix overnight, no matter how much they want to. - Which is why we couldn't get a date out of the minister when all this would be over, right? - What about` Did you think, listening to that, Janet, that there was an indication of increases to benefits? Sounded like it. - Um... Look, reading the tea leaves, who knows? I can tell you that they need to be increasing benefits substantially in this round of Budget. And the reason is that they are unlikely to meet their child poverty targets, which will be reported next year, and if you've got an inaugural government target that they themselves have set, that they have not got, then it's just a free for all for all subsequent governments to go, well, we don't need to worry about that. So that's a huge risk. We're deeply concerned about that. On the other hand, if they can say, 'Look, but we have all these substantial and significant things that we have put in place, 'so next year will look much, much better,' then, you know, that alleviates some of that concern. So we need to see higher benefits. We know that actually the community is behind high benefit increases. I would suggest that actually a large number of even those centre voters are not wanting poor children to be poor anymore. - Ben, is this right? Do you think they will lose votes by hiking benefits? And, drastically, as the working group suggests they do? - No, the public mood has changed. In the 90s, the early 2000s, it was pretty popular to 'bene-bash', as they used to call it. That's not the mood of the public now. I think it's important to acknowledge as well that Labour has made some movements on benefit levels. When you put in` When you take into account the $25 increase last year in the Budget, the $15` It works out at $15 a week with the winter energy payment, that's about a 20% rise. So, you know, it's not as if they've done nothing in this space, but I think there is definitely headroom, both politically and fiscally, to move to higher benefit levels. - And room still for the Green Party to come in and kind of` They've been doing this a lot lately, right? Coming in and having a few whacks at the side and getting a bit of a coverage for it, not only with emergency housing, but with benefits, too. - Yeah, and the Maori Party there, of course. But I would kind of pick up on that as, like, you know, we think that sometimes that the public or rhetoric has passed something. And then like, for example, this week we've seen Judith Collins push the Maori separatism card. So I think for now, like people might support an increase in benefits when you poll them. But if we kind of hit that point in the political cycle where Labour is looking a little bit stale and we do kind of get some kind of more populist or more popular National Party leader, they would have that opportunity, especially if middle New Zealand feels like they're missing out on something. - Is the working group at risk of being out of date? The amounts? Because the cost of housing is going up so quickly for some, are we at risk here of actually having our goalpost too far... too close? - Yes, absolutely. For example, the 20%, that's on the lowest benefit rate, and that's on 2017 levels. And so we know that, actually, incomes, even before housing costs are taken into account, need to be much higher than they are currently, and we also have to acknowledge that benefits are only one plank of core entitlements. So if you're a family, you're also getting family assistance as well, which isn't indexed to wages and also needs to rise, as well as the accommodation supplement for many of our families. So just to point out how massive this is, we are spending, in hardship grants and assistance in loans, 860 million dollars this year, and that's about 250 million per quarter. And that has continued even post the lockdown. There's a lot of money that would possib` would be reduced if we were actually giving people liveable incomes without making them beg for loans. We're making them too poor and then we're telling them they need to borrow. I mean, that's` that's outrageous and insane. - All right. Thank you very much for that analysis. Great to have your` all of your comments, actually, Janet, Ben and Lara. Coming up, a matter of life and death. Our special report on eating disorder services. Plus, the MP who gave us marriage equality shares her life story. Hoki mai ano, welcome back. She's a former Silver Fern, Black Fern and Rugby World champion, she'll also go down in history as the politician who gave us marriage equality in 2013. We joined Labour MP Louisa Wall at Auckland Museum, where the jacket that she wore that day as the act passed in parliament is now displayed. And after some impromptu selfies with members of the rainbow community, she told us her Backstory. - I'm incredibly proud for this jacket to be here. I'm proud that it's part of Tamaki Herenga Waka our Auckland Museum's acknowledgement of the history. I feel it's important, actually, for our rainbow, our takatapui, our LGBT community. - I'm really sorry! - How are you? - I was like, really weird, and saying, 'Oh, my gosh.' - Can I get a picture with you? - Oh, of course. My first time in, seeing my jacket. - Yeah, I know. - We were talking about this before. - (LAUGHS) Yeah, we were just talking about it. - The sign says it all, 'We're here, we're queer, and we're proud.' And I think that that's what it's all about. Well, I grew up in a little settlement called Waitahanui. I was adventurous, I think, my father and mother would call me, which means I did a lot of climbing of trees and a lot of swimming right through the year, almost. My dad would get up every morning and we'd have fresh trout for breakfast. Really hardworking parents. Dad worked six days a week for a construction company, helped build a lot of the roads around Taupo. He was also a registered drain-layer. And my mum always worked incredibly hard. She worked a lot in the hospitality area. So growing up, yeah, two parents at work. I'm the eldest of four children. The values my parents gifted me mostly was about hard work, but fundamentally I have always known who I was. My father essentially said to me, You can do and be whatever you want. So being the eldest child didn't deter him from taking me everywhere, in spite of me being a girl. So I've never had that, 'Oh, you're a girl. You're not as valued or you're not as important.' And so my passion and love of rugby absolutely came from my father, so a bit of transference. So this is my cool Black Ferns cap, and I'm number 59. And this really speaks to the legacy of the Black Ferns. '97 was a long time ago, but as you can see, the generic nature of the statues back then meant when I was named Women's Rugby Player of the year I had this beautiful male statue. But to be honest I am proud of it. Incredibly proud. It was me and Dad who would get up in the middle of the night and watch the All Blacks. Dad, he passed away going on 13 years now, uh... had a heart attack. (SNIFFS) Yeah, I guess, a Maori male that had all of the chronic conditions, basically. Mm. Yeah, but I do miss him because we all need that person who keeps us on track and critiques what we do. It was funny, when I played, it was only ever my dad I sought guidance or reassurance from, and if I played well, I usually didn't get anything, which was a good sign. If I played terribly, then he would be my biggest critic. But I trusted him. I think it's you know, it's quite pure when you have someone in your life that you trust to give you feedback because you know that it comes from a place of love. Yeah, I really miss my Dad. When I realised that I was takatapui, I was attracted to women, it didn't take long before somebody had alerted my father, but he basically said to me, you're choosing a life of discrimination, that there are a lot of people who don't understand, who don't support it. And I was able to say to my father, 'I'm not choosing it, Dad. This is who I am.' And I've never not been proud of who I am from when I realised, and my father, fundamentally, or both my parents, they loved me. But all they were worried about was this crazy world that might not love me and might not value me and might not respect me, and how would I deal with that? But I deal with it like I deal with most things, straight up front and honest, transparent. And I've always been really clear, I've never tried to hide. That's my beautiful wife. This is Prudence Jane Tamati Kapua, and she's Te Arawa and Kahungunu, and a smart woman, passionate, very competent, and my best friend, and my biggest champion and hero. I'm incredibly fortunate, because she has assisted me in so many ways. She actually wrote the marriage equality legislation. Not a lot of people know, but it's nice having your own lawyer to be able to help you write, or draft bills to then sell to the public. This award was in recognition of the work that I've done on behalf of our LGBTIQ+, rainbow, takatapui community. Look, I'm always really humbled to be a spokesperson for our community. And so we have to continue our struggle in our fight for equal rights, because it's not going to be gifted to us. And I do think we still have to create those safe environments, those inclusive environments. And I do worry about younger people who are rejected by their families, by their schools, and the messages that they receive about something fundamentally being wrong with them. And the reality is we're not broken, and we all have a responsibility to make sure our kids are loved, valued and nurtured and able to be who they are. And I do think it's a fundamental principle as a human being that we all have the right to be who we are. - How cool? And the jacket is just fabulous. Coming up, we're back with our panel, Janet McAllister, Ben Thomas and Dr. Lara Greaves. But first, vital eating disorder services are at breaking point. We've got more on that next. - Hoki mai ano, welcome back. Eating disorder services are under pressure with children as young as eight on waitlists up to six months long. With some disorders having a mortality rate of 10%, advocates say more funding will save lives. Finn Hogan has this report. - Meal time in the Grey household. To some, it's a daily ritual, but no meal here is taken for granted by 17 year old Cassie or her mum, Bridget. Since 2020, Cassie has been battling anorexia nervosa, and while she's on the road to recovery, it hasn't been easy. - There were times I don't think she'd wake up in the morning. Going to bed at night and... worried, what were we going to find in the morning? - Worried and with good reason. Anorexia nervosa is the deadliest mental illness known, with an estimated mortality rate of 10%. - Hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. Don't wish upon my worst enemy. - And even getting basic help was hard. - When I finally got a referral done by a private psychologist and we were told it was going to be a five to six month waiting list... what am I going to do? We had seen a rapid decline and she didn't have five to six months. - Cassie visited a GP multiple times to try and get help faster, but was told she was fine. - It was just like, 'Just try go home and eat this week,' and I'm like, I've been trying to do that for quite a while now and it's not working. It's not that easy. Um, I just` I felt very helpless. I was so ready to just let go. And because I thought there's no way that this is ever going to change and I didn't want to live my life in such a miserable state. - It took Cassie being admitted to hospital, dangerously underweight, before her case was fast tracked to Tupu Ora, Auckland's specialist eating disorder service. - It was great for us, but it meant that it bumped someone off the list. - And that list keeps growing. - Think we need twice the number of clinical psychologists in this country, if not more, to be able to try and step up to the need that we're seeing. - Marion Roberts runs Nurture Psychology in Auckland, a specialist eating disorder clinic where waiting times are over four months. - Services are forced into a position where we're having to prioritise and treat those people that are incredibly unwell. Our services have become that, you know, ambulance at the bottom of the cliff scenario. - Advocates say it's a matter of life and death. - It's completely killing people and it's going to continue to kill people. And if you're telling people to come back when they're sicker or you're putting them on a wait list for six months, it's very likely they will get sicker in those six months. When you reach out for help at such a hard step, and if you're turned away once, twice, three times, are you going to reach out for help again? I don't know. It's going to be much more difficult. - Genevieve Mora had her own battle with anorexia, but has since recovered, cofounding Voices of Hope with mental health advocate Jazz Thornton. She says the problem is likely worse than we know. - We don't know how many people are struggling. You know, we only have numbers from the people that get into services or reach out for help. We don't have a number of people who are struggling in silence, which is a huge majority of people. - Meaning, we don't know exactly how many people die from anorexia alone each year. One reason being, sufferers are much more likely to attempt suicide. The place many are turning for help is EDANZ, the Eating Disorder Association of New Zealand. They, too, are overwhelmed. - We have had twice the number of people contacting us since the beginning of 2020 compared to 2019. Eating disorders affect people of all ages, genders, socioeconomic groups and nationalities. They are occurring all around New Zealand and EDANZ are supporting families with children as young as eight at the moment. and family members as old as 75. Male and female. Eating disorders do not discriminate. - The prevalence of eating disorders has almost doubled globally between 2000 and 2018. Marion says COVID lockdowns have exacerbated the problem, but there is no single cause. - Eating disorders are complex. There's not just one factor that is going to make somebody have an eating disorder or develop an eating disorder. Genes load the gun or biology loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger. - And for many, even after lockdowns lift, triggers can be found on every screen and street corner. - When you think about the diet culture that we live and, you know, the thin bodies are valued going on a diet is valued. There's a lot of these positive beliefs about manipulating our body and manipulating what food we put in our bodies. So we live in this culture that fosters an eating disorder mindset, which is incredibly harmful. - But while social media may act as a trigger for some, for others, it's a way of challenging stigmas and stereotypes. - You can be any size and have an eating disorder. - Timaru woman Claire Bert battles anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder, chronicling her struggles to win thousands of social media followers on blog Life of a Binge Eater. - When I started my Instagram page, I decided there would be no filters, there'll be no editing, it's just complete 100% raw me, which helped me learn to love and accept myself. - Advocates have taken some relief from the government's recent announcement of more mental health support in schools. - This time it must be different. - But of the 1.9 billion mental health spend in 2019 wellbeing budget, only 15 million went to specialist eating disorder services in the past year, and Nicki says it's just not enough. - Please provide funding that is commensurate with the size and nature of the problem. Eating disorders are devastating and life threatening, and currently the resourcing, the treatment provision does not meet the need at all. - More funding, so Kiwis like Cassie can go back to doing what they love. - Food is supposed to be something to enjoy. We eat to live, not live to eat. The amount of times that I was so ready to just... just leave it all behind. And now I'm in this position where I'm back at school and I'm doing things that make me happy, you know, hanging out with friends and stuff. You know, I never thought I'd be back in that position, and I am. If you put your mind to it and you really do want to get better, then you can do anything. - That was Finn Hogan with that report. We're back now with our panel, Janet McAllister, Ben Thomas and Dr Lara Greaves. Welcome back. God, it's heartbreaking watching that, wasn't it? And one of the things that kind of stood out is it looks like eating disorders, anorexia, are kind of like the forgotten child of mental health more generally. Is that fair? You've looked into this area, you've studied in this area, Lara, what do you think? - Yeah, I think it's a particularly complex condition, as they were saying on the piece, but also like it's so fatal and it can cause such long term physical damage to these people. So I think it is something that needs very specialist and specific training and clinicians to have that background, and it's kind of one of those areas that has been forgotten and underfunded for quite some time. A lot of people in that area are working like above and beyond the call of duty, like some great people in mental health services, but they're burnt out and they're stressed. I've had a lot of` I did a PhD in psychology and a lot of my colleagues went into clinical psychology ` politics ` but, you know, they went into clinical psychology and they're going in now, into the field, and they're already burnt out and stressed. They're not even able to sustain a full caseloads as trainee clinical psychologists. So I think that whole area, it's just been chronically underfunded, but specifically it seems like the eating disorder health services need more help. - Well it does, and it seems, you know, but you can throw as much money at a problem as you like, but you need to have people who actually want to do the work, don't you? I mean, do we have enough people who are interested in this area? Because the huge underspend that we talked about in the piece, the 1.9 billion dollars promised in Budget 2019 for mental health, only 220 million of that has actually been spent. I mean, is the problem that we're not putting enough money in or is the problem that we don't actually have the people willing and ready to do the jobs? - Th` - No, we have hundreds of people going into psychology. There's only like, say, 13 places at the University of Auckland in clinical psychology. So I think that kind of area needs more funding. - The university itself? - Well, just basically having enough sort of staff and resources there to be able to train more than 13 people would be quite helpful, you know? - (LAUGHS) Yeah. - If we've got a chronic shortage... - A great place to start. Ben? - Yeah, look, this is actually across the mental health sector. You know, there are huge wait times, you know, in order to even get a government funded appointment, in some cases, you actually have to have been sort of near suicide. You know, you have to be at a crisis point in a mental health situation. And then you might be waiting a period of months before your first appointment. You might not gel with that counsellor or psychologist and then you're back to square one. You know, this is a problem across the sector. Capacity building was part of that wellbeing budget. But it really it really concentrated on sort of, you know, one day courses and sort of really triage kind of stuff rather than, you know, building a highly skilled workforce, which, you know, in the modern age, there was only going to be more and more demand for. - Yeah, and, Janet, that's a worrying trend, isn't it, that we don't have the workforce yet, but the demand is increasing. - Absolutely. So those waiting lists are getting longer and we know that, actually, who does this affect the most, in terms of wider mental health? It's poorer families and whanau, so it's poorer children who don't even have the option of looking at the private sector, who have no options and are left at that bottom of the cliff without even the ambulance. - Ben, David Seymour this morning, just to change gear, the Herald ran a piece on him because David's team has always said he doesn't own a home, right? And The Herald ran a piece today saying, oops, he'd forgotten to declare three properties, but it was` I don't think it was quite as bad as it sounded because it was his interest as a beneficiary in three sort of family properties. - Yes, so some family-owned in trust basically by his father and by his grandmother. And, you know, the beneficiaries are named as the children. I don't think he` I think he said he visits his grandmother's house and stays there and plays` romps around in the large backyard. Look, this sort of thing happens with pecuniary interests. You know, every year there is a pecuniary interests register for pecuniary and other interests register for MPs that is released, and there's also an update to the previous year. And usually that will have, you know, from half a dozen to a dozen MPs saying, I forgot about this gift or I missed this, you know, this is a very important instrument for transparency, but there's certainly nothing wrong with what's happened here. You know, if he sort of said, oh, I failed to declare five million dollars from a tobacco company that I was given as a Christmas present, we'd have a bit of a moment for concern. - Yeah. - You know, this is just a bit of bookkeeping. - Yeah, right. Well, now all we can think about is David Seymour romping around his grandma's backyard. Lara, let's talk about the National Party this week. And Judith Collins, the Maori Health Authority, she came out and said it's a pathway to segregation. Is it? - Yeah, so like, I was OK with Judith Collins existing` or, like, being the National Party leader, I was thinking, OK, who would want to be National Party leader? Leave it with Judith Collins. But now she's going after Maori I'm like, can you not? I mean, just can someone just take the leadership from her, please? It's just kind of hit that point where you really, rather than looking internally, looking inward, you're going to target outward. - Is she` is she targeting Maori? Because Shane Reti, I had him on my show this week, he backs her up. He says that health should always be first and foremost about need, not equality or anything else. What do you think, Janet? - So, Child Poverty Action Group really welcomes the Maori Health Authority. We think this is potentially really exciting and could really improve the health of New Zealand children across the board. So for us, look at the life expectancy. So, Maori on average live seven years less than non-Maori do in this country. And that starts from when people are babies. So we've got higher rates for sudden infant death syndrome. We've got higher rates of respiratory diseases, of hospitalisations overall for Maori children compared to non-Maori children. So the monocultural, Pakeha-led, racist system that we have now is not working for our tamariki. So let's give autonomy` - You're welcoming` - and resources` The authority` - welcoming anything` A change. - Yeah. - All right. OK, we have to leave it there, guys, unfortunately. But thank you very much for all of your analysis today. It's been great to have you on the panel, that is Janet, Ben, and Lara. Stay with us. We're back right after the break on Newshub Nation. Welcome back to Newshub Nation. It's time for The Pitch. This is where we give us five minutes to sell you on their ideas. Chloe Swarbrick wears many hats for the Green Party, including as spokesperson for drug reform and mental health. Finn Hogan started by asking her what her first action would be if she was Mental Health Minister. - We know that there is some really important work underway right now with regard to the DHB reform that is going to remove some of the really big impediments that we're hearing from those kind of community organisations and those on the front lines. right now, the funding being caught up in the DHBS and that kind of administration, but also the lack of transparency. And the feeling is, though, there has to be systems and institutions created in order to even distribute that funding in the first place is a real barrier. So that is kind of one of the key things. But I also think, you know, at this point in time, there's a real need to recognise also the public health elements, as outlined He Ara Oranga, in the mental health and addiction enquiry. This is where it starts to get controversial, and we have to realise the likes of poverty, insecurity, a lack a sense of hope and identity and otherwise in people's lives all contribute to poor mental health. So that's where housing comes into the picture. That's we're ensuring that we do things like increase benefits for New Zealanders who need that income support so that they have it. - But if we want to zoom in on maybe one case study, for example, we're looking at six month waiting lists for people with eating disorders right now. Anorexia is the deadliest mental health illness that we know of. - Well, I mean, when it comes to eating disorders in particular, there is an acute need for focus on those eating disorders, because as many people who have been starting to break the silence of this in a mainstream way, with regard to mainstream media reporting and otherwise have identified, there hasn't been that specialised funding stream. And you almost have to be in so much danger that you are at that edge and breaking point in order to get help in the first place. - Let's switch to a different portfolio, now. Just on drug reform. Are you pursuing a cross-party paper on the decriminalisation of candidates? - There ere are always conversations about how we can ultimately move to a harm reduction model when it comes to drug law reform. - So you are investigating that option? Absolutely. In a broader sense, I think it's really important for folks to realise that the only pathway meaningfully for this forward is to have that cross-party consensus. And when it comes to the cannabis referendum, that was, of course, on a very specific proposed piece of legislation, the cannabis legalisation and control bill. That was voted down by a margin of, you know, 34,000 people who voted in a different way. But anyway, dead in the water, and we're not pursuing that anymore. That does not write off further conversations about how we reduce harm as a country. - Andrew Little calls decriminalisation a fool's paradise and says it doesn't solve the issues it seeks to. What do you say to that? - I say that I've been very clear about the fact that legalisation and regulation, and particularly the supply side of things, is the best way to reduce harm. But if you can reduce that harm of the criminal justice system for those who are potentially using and make sure that they're able to get access to help if they need it, then you do reduce a bit of that harm. - And have you had conversations with Shane Reti about this? - I have tried. I think what you'll find is that the current National Party administration is not particularly keen on constructive dialogue when it comes to drug harm reduction in this country. And that's really unfortunate, given that I have had multiple conversations over around 3 and a half years, now, with National Party MPs who expressed very different opinions in private to what they do in public. And I just call on them to... (SIGHS) You know, I'd ask them why they're in politics, because at the end of the day, what is the point, if not to pursue the things that you believe in, let alone the evidence that will reduce harm in this country? - So you're calling out National to say the same thing in public as they do in private? - Uh, certain MPs. I mean, they're able to break rank to do things like leaking, I guess. So why not do it for something that they believe in and that'll make this country a better place? - Which MP in particular? - I'm not gonna name names. And I'd say that it's not just one. - How many? - (LAUGHS) There's a handful, mate. - I want to touch on digital economy because` - Mm. - So could you just tell me, specifically, one sector that you would focus on, what action you would take to future-proof it? - Oh, Well, I think, you know, videogames is a really great example of that. If you look at it as a sector inside of Aotearoa New Zealand, it is far outpacing what we're doing in film and TV. And that's not to say that we don't need to invest in film and TV, but it is to say that there's an awesome opportunity there for what we call weightless exports, a great piece of political rhetoric. But we need to actually, as you say, interrogate what that means in terms of intellectual property, what that means in terms of training for those who are getting into the sector. - All right. Finally, Chloe, you're settling in as Auckland Central MP now. Can you just give me one thing that you will deliver for Auckland Central in the next three years? - One thing that I will deliver in the next three years for Auckland Central? Well we've already done a huge amount for local constituents when it comes to casework. We have begun to establish a number of community entities which in and of themselves have developed political power to work with ministries and departments to essentially facilitate outcomes that they want in terms of the likes of, Social housing, in terms of likes of solutions to homelessness. I mean, I would like to continue doing things like advocating for access for everyone. I also` I mean, to give you a tangible one, Hauraki Gulf protection. - What's one specific policy you fight for in that area? - 30% protection of the Hauraki Gulf. - That was Chloe Swarbrick and Finn Hogan. We're back now with our panel, Janet McAllister, Ben Thomas and Dr. Laura Greaves, Welcome back, everybody. So let's start with the National Party, because Judith Collins, some have said it was a bit of a shocker this week. She came out against segregation over the Maori Health Authority, but then bizarrely, in the same week, we have this review of their election campaign, which recommends, basically, race-based appointments on the board of the National Party. How does this all add up, Ben? - Well, these are obviously two very different streams. These recommendations that came out of the National Party Review were a result of reviewers that I suspect are probably not particularly in tune with the National Party grassroots and were part of a whole slew of recommendations. You know, you see this in a lot of organisations. You see with government departments adopting te reo names. You know, a lot of organisations will, you know, sort of do a bit of a makeover, put te tiriti or the treaty at the heart of their constitution, and then not really think about it that much afterwards. And I suspect that that's probably where National would go with this, if they were to incorporate those recommendations. In terms of Judith Collins and her segregationist press release about about the proposed Maori Health Authority, that was just a bit of opposition desperation. I think at this stage it looks like she's kind of throwing everything at the wall, hoping to see what sticks. It certainly didn't look as well-organised, as well planned, loaded with plausible deniability as Don Brash in 2004. I think this is the sort of thing that, you know, ideally she will just kind of pretend never happened next week. - Lara does it does it make the National Party look like dinosaurs in the modern political sphere when you hear Judith Collins saying things like this? - I mean, I was kind of laughing, just talking to my students the other day because a lot of them weren't even really` Well, they were toddlers during the Don Brash Orewa speech, or quite small, and I personally don't remember that speech because I was busy being a 13-year-old. But we kind of we think how rhetoric's move past it a lot of the time, like we think our rhetoric's move past this Maori separatism thing, that's kind of been relegated to talkback radio. So, I mean, to have that empowered by a political party leader and for her to be saying that, that is quite, kind of, risky, and it risks polarising New Zealanders. So I think that's where the concern is. I think as a party, they need to sort of reinvent their identity. We always see this when a party loses big, that they need to go back to the drawing board and see, like, what are they going to be like going forward? Who are their leadership going to be? Like, all that kind of thing, they need to go back to those basics and figure out what that is. I don't know if this report is necessarily the best way to have done that, because I personally wouldn't have framed it just kind of as being this thing. I wouldn't necessarily have framed those sort of Maori inclusion policies in that way. You know, I would have said, run in the Maori seats. That gives you a good opportunity to kind of have exposure to a broader range of Maori. It's potential for the Maori vote, but also bring people onto the board that have the expertise in the Maori seats. - That's how you kind of sell it. - Rather than on race, yeah. - Janet, you look particularly bored listening to all this. Do you care about any of this stuff? The` Kind of the politics of it all? - Look, I care that there` that this potentially could empower the government to do what they've promised to do in the absence of any particular opposition that looks attractive to their centre voter. that they're so scared about losing at the moment. But I'd also pick up on Lara's point about the public narrative and say, 'Yes, words actually do matter.' The rhetoric matters and we need to ensure that all our public figures are informed before they try to have cheap points when people's lives and well-being are at stake, which they are in this particular case. - Then very quickly, the police referred the Maori Party to the Serious Fraud Office over the donations. What's your read on this? - It's an interesting one because the police were also considering a late declared donation to the National Party the same time that they were considering these late declared donations to the Maori Party. They only referred the Maori Party donation to the Serious Fraud Office. Now, that suggests the possibility that when they were looking at the facts around this donation, they found something that might, you know, potentially meet the Serious Fraud Office's sort of mission statement of serious or complex fraud. A late donation by itself wouldn't meet that threshold. You wouldn't have thought so. That suggests there might be a little bit more to this. You know, we saw, for instance, when Jamie Lee Ross went to the police over, you know, National Party donations a couple of years ago, it emerged from the Serious Fraud Office with actually quite different charges. We can't say that charges will be laid, obviously, it's just in an investigation. You know, the Serious Fraud Office will be considering whether there is an investigation. - But one to watch? - It sounds it sounds like there could be more to come. - Yeah. All right. We will be watching. Thank you very much for that. And thank you so much for our panel this morning. Great to have you on. That is it from us for now. Hope you enjoyed the programme today. Hei kona mai, I'll see you again next weekend. Captions by Lillie Balfour, Sally Harper and John Gibbs Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2021 This programme was made with the assistance of the New Zealand on Air Platinum Fund.