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 ` imagine living 24/7 with the sickening stench of sewage. - It's horrible. It gets into your house, even with the house shut up. It's bad, man. Real bad. - Since a fire destroyed silos at the Bromley Wastewater Treatment Centre, locals say they've been living with the haunga. - It sort of can gag you, really, to where what you want to do is come back inside. - We check out the issue causing a stink in Otautahi. Then it's the meme that sparked a roaring debate amongst Maori. - Some of the stuff that surprised me the most was, you know, that it kind of split the room. There were people that were having a good old laugh, and then there were others, I think, that kind of found it funny, but they also may think that it was targeted at them. - We delve into the issue over reo revitalisation versus elitism. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2022 Tahuti mai. For the past nine months, residents in the eastern suburbs of Otautahi have been living with a stomach-churning stench after fire ripped through Christchurch's wastewater treatment plant, and odour described as rotting sewage has been wafting in the air and into homes. Although work is are underway to fix the issue, whanau there say living with the stench is making them sick, and they're worried about the long-term impacts. Anei te purongo a John Boynton. - The putrid stench of sewage is suffocating the eastern suburbs of Otautahi. - You ever been to the toilet and not flushed it and gone back a week later? It's bad, man. - Caused by a fire which ripped through the city's wastewater treatment plant. - We do indeed have those foul odours going well beyond the boundary of the plant. - But eight months on, whanau here are sick and tired of living in the stench. - I'm going to be gambling on my children's life due to living amongst this and breathing this in. - TODDLER: (GASPS) Oooh! - South Brighton mum Karena Tui loves nothing more than taking a walk around the block with her whanau. - This is the first time I feel like in my life of living in a place where... we love where we're living. It's a beautiful place to live. - But for the last eight months, her community has been under siege by the putrid smell of sewage. - It smells like... a mix between... a chemical smell. Rotten, like if you went into a 400-year-old long drop toilet. - A smell caused by a major fire at the Christchurch Wastewater Treatment Plant in November 2021. - REPORTER: Poisonous black smoke in Christchurch skies ` the result of a huge fire yesterday at the city's wastewater treatment plant in Bromley. - On the day of the fire, Karena remembers the pungent and acrid chemical smell. - That chemical toxic smoke that thousands were exposed to, and even put up with, from the moment that it happened in the afternoon, all night, for the weeks coming after that, where it was smouldering away ` that will be seen in the years to come. - The fires caused major damage to trickling filters and silos, which treat all of Christchurch's sewage. - REPORTER: The equivalent of ten Olympic-sized swimming pools of organic matter is trapped in the filters. - Initially, the stench came from the burnt trickling filters themselves, and the burnt remains of the organic material inside. But with the trickling filters not fully operational, there is now an increase in solids and biological material entering oxidation ponds. This is resulting in more hydrogen sulphate being produced, which is known at low levels to cause headaches and nausea. Karena Tui says living with the stench is unbearable, and it's making her whanau sick. - It's depressing. My wife, who has chronic respiratory issues and asthma, has just continuously been in a state of not feeling like she can breathe. Feeling sick. Me ` I've had headaches. I'm not prone to getting unwell. - And the side effects of the stench are being felt right across the eastern suburbs in Otautahi. - It's horrible. It gets into your house, even with the house shut up. It wakes you up in the night, you know? It's just wicked. Really is. - You know, having to wash at the laundromat all the time, cos no point putting clothes out. They just end up smelling just as bad. - Kaumatua Meri and Charlie Crofts live right behind the treatment plant in a kaumatua flat at Nga Hau e Wha Marae in Bromley. - We've got a son and family living over in Port Levy, and they're always complaining, 'Oh, Mum, I don't know how the hell you can live there because of the smell. - Meri and Charlie remember the fears their old people had of having their marae relocated next to the treatment centre. - I remember when they first built this marae here. The old people were saying, 'No, we don't want to be...' - CHARLIE: In my language, in the shit pond. And that's what it's turned out to be with the smell. - It sort of can gag you, really, to where what you want to do is come back inside. We got double-glazed windows, but it can come through as well, even if you close the curtains. - Charlie is currently receiving dialysis treatment and is often at the hospital. They say apart from marae staff, no one from the council or local district health board have come to visit him. - I'll be blunt ` I think it's damn disgusting that the council and/or their rep hasn't been to see if everything is... OK or not. - Not an email? Not a phone call? - No. - Nothing. - Everyone puts up with it. Because we know the council's not gonna... they're not gonna do anything. - We hear people's anger. But certainly face to face and interacting with people, they really understand the fact that this will take some time. - Gary Watson has been managing the community response to the Bromley Fire for the Christchurch City Council. - I think we have to admit that we've been slow, but I think in the last two, two and a half months, I think the communication and the feedback we've had is that that's a lot better. I've spent a lot of time driving around and going to elderly people and standing in backyards and reassuring people that, you know, the process of the smell. So on a real personal level, I've been trying to offer that as much as I can. - What the council has offered is a $200 Prezzy Card to help with the inconvenience and cost of living with the stench. But it's not all they have planned. - So, we're looking at some well-being workshops for the community about how to live, you know, after this, around ventilation and all sorts of things. In terms of the community` - But is it fair that they should have to go to workshops and be told this is how you need to live with this` with this stench? - Well, the fact is that we do have to live with it. It is one of those things that we cannot just scoop up and take away. So the best thing we can do is help with that. I mean, there is no magic bullet to this. - Last month the Christchurch chief medical officer, Dr Cheryl Brunton, reported back to the Christchurch City Council about the health impacts of the odour, saying... - Highly unlikely means... we don't know. From what we've got in the information that we can gather, we've come to the conclusion... that maybe... most of you will be OK. It's all a wordplay, isn't it? Highly unlikely does not mean safe. - I think the fire is just a really unfortunate accident and is taking a while for us to recover. We're talking about the second-largest wastewater treatment plant in the country here. - REPORTER: Christchurch City Council has turned on eight new aerators as part of a mid-term recovery plan, which should help reduce odour in the coming months. - These don't smell. These are beautiful. No smell here. - Helen Beaumont, the head of Three Waters for Christchurch City Council, is leading the clean-up effort. - We've spent the last six months putting in place this interim treatment process to replace what was happening in the trickling filters. Unfortunately, until we've done 100% of that work, connected up all of the pipes, started all of the pumps and establish that new process, we won't see a change in the effluent quality, or in the ponds, or in the odour. - The Council is on track to address the high level of odours coming off the oxidation ponds by early September. But much of the community here is quickly losing patience, disappointed by the response they've seen so far. - Any which way you look at it, this community is having a problem with that smell. Something's gotta be done. - I think we all have put up with it too long. - Kia mau tonu mai ra. After the break, we discuss the reo meme that broke the internet. Statistics New Zealand's latest figures say more than one in six Maori adults can speak te reo Maori, and just under half of Maori have some ability with te reo. Those who can speak it well or fairly well are more likely to be under 24, our kura kaupapa generation, or older than 55. For some of those who fall in the middle and who are not as comfortable with te reo, it can be a source of deep mamae. So when comedian Kajun Brooking posted this meme on Facebook, it provoked a range of emotions from a smile to pain. I talked to him about what was behind his post. Tell me why that meme? What was behind it for you? - So what happened is I was out one day and somebody waved me over, asked me for help. And so I went over there and went to help, and the lady actually, she spoke to me in te reo. And I was quite surprised. It was actually quite beautiful, you know, when she spoke to me in te reo. I thought, 'Man, this is cool.' But I had to let her know that I didn't speak the reo. And when I did that, she actually looked quite disappointed in me. And for me, it was a little bit startling cos I think for a lot of us that can't speak the reo, it's actually quite shameful, in ways, you know? There's a shame or a stigma attached to it too. I made the meme and put it up, not thinking that, you know, I thought that it'd get a few hits, people would like it, but I didn't think it would blow up like it did. Some of the stuff that surprised me the most was, you know, that it kind of split the room. You know, there were people that were having a good old laugh, and then there were others, I think, that kind of found it funny, but they also may think that it was targeted at them and may have taken it a little bit personally. So the stuff that I have seen, it's been a split right down the middle, and I think it was a good talking point for Maori. Like, when that came up, I think it sparked a lot of conversation and a lot of debate, which is really interesting. And as a comedian, that's kind of what you want to do. For those that can speak the reo, be kind to those that can't. Be nice. We're trying. And I think in today's busy lifestyles, with the mahi and everybody being so busy, it's actually hard to find the time too. So those that have grown up around the language are really fortunate. Very fortunate. - Well, joining me now to discuss the debate over this meme are Dr Kiri Waititi-Tamihere, a former clinical psychologist and kura kaupapa graduate. Bernie O'Donnell, co-chair of Te Matawai which is charged with Maori language revitalisation, and broadcaster and Te Panekiretanga o Te Reo graduate, Matai Rangi Smith. Tena koutou. - Tena koe, Mihi. - Let's go to you first, Kiri. What was your reaction to this meme? - Well, tuatahi e mihi ana ki a Kajun. I te mea hoki, I thought it was a great meme. Very provocative, and as we all know, as he said, he's a comedian. So what we do know of a lot of our comedian whanau that a lot of their stories come from pain and things like that. So I thought it was awesome. I think it definitely triggered people on all sides of the fence. It was really validating for some and it offended others. And I think a lot of that comes down to what he talked about, the shame that lies with an inability to talk our mother tongue. And I think importantly, it's` me titiro atu tatou ki te kura huna, eh? We need to look beyond the meme and the words that were in there. What are the messages that are coming from there? What are the messages we need to take heed of? Are we providing a safe space for our own people to reconnect with their reo? With te ao Maori? And are we cultivating an environment that they will thrive in? So those are the things that I think we need to look at beyond the picture and the graphic. - Kia ora. Pehea koe, Bernie? Like, you and I are a generation that are in the middle bit, but have gone and learnt our reo. We were not lucky enough to be native speakers of te reo. Can you relate to this meme? - Yes, I can. When I saw it too, I went, 'Yeah, I get it.' And felt it's humour. I thought was a bit blunt, but also understood that when some of the other contributions, some people that were pushing back, I think that whole meme is a sign of progress in terms of where the language is going, in terms of revitalisation. You know, five years ago, we were having a conversation about how do we engage non-Maori in our language? If it was going to grow, how we were going to do that. Now we're still trying to sort that out, but... we need to have, at quite times, difficult discussions amongst ourselves about some of our language journeys. If we don't have that discussion and say, 'Well, no, there is a language divide, 'and this is why,' then people will just think that our language was always here and there wasn't a struggle or a journey that took place, not just in our generation, but in the generation of our parents and our grandparents. And that's a legacy that we have to sort of acknowledge. I know it's cliche, but if we want to move forward, we got to make sure that we remember what was done before us to be able to do that. So I thought it was a good sign of progress. Looking forward to the difficult conversations that we have to have. - Yeah. You were slightly younger than this generation over here. - Tena koe, Mihi. - You've spent your whole career, you know, actually speaking to both ` reo speakers and non-reo speakers, and to a Pakeha audience as well. And actually trying to revitalise the language through that. When you saw this meme, did you have sympathy for him or did you think, actually, you know, haere ki te ako i to reo? - Ta Matai i matai atu ai ki te meme nei, so when I first saw it, I may have rolled my eyes at first, but at the same time, I got thinking about this thing we call language trauma. And I'm glad that Kiri has joined us today, cos she can kind of elaborate more on what I'm talking about. But a lot of our people do have language trauma. They are whakama. This taniwha that we call whakama is still ever much prevalent, even though I'm ever much the optimist when it comes to te reo Maori. And as you say, I've been broadcasting in both languages for some 26 years now, and I've seen a growth spurt in both Maori and non-Maori coming into our reo and being a part of our reo world. And we see it everywhere ` on the rugby field now, you know, on our television sets, online. So as I say, I'm the optimist, but I know that there are so many people, like Kajun, that have language trauma. - Yeah. Well, let's come to you now, Kiri, because Kajun did talk about that. You know, the meme has come from an interaction with a kuia who spoke Maori to him, and he felt the sense of whakama. What is it? What's language trauma? - Yeah, I think the reo trauma that we speak of is really borne of a deep-seated feeling of shame and humiliation. It's very, very real, and is shared by so, so many of our people. And I think just this meme on its own, how polarising it was, I think we really need to acknowledge the experiences that everybody has. We have whanau, like you, Mihi, like you, Bernie, who have had your own journey through the reo, and who have really pushed past a lot of the barriers of that shame and humiliation. And there has been a struggle in being able to do that as well. There is also a struggle for our whanau who just, for whatever reason, can't find it in themselves to learn the reo. You know, when you cannot speak the language of your own ancestors, you naturally feel a sense of loss and shame. That, coupled with the residual narrative that's still hanging around about te reo Maori not being worthy and that it won't get you anywhere, so this brings out all sorts of feelings around worthiness, around connectedness and belonging. And, you know, te reo, anybody's native language is connected with identity. So I feel so much aroha for our whanau who haven't been able to connect that way. They must feel, at times, so very alone in their world. And so, for those of us who are in positions to do so, we need to go turbo on the aroha and the compassion for each other, wherever we are on our reo journey, but especially for those who don't have their reo, because their natural-born right to be raised in their mother tongue was taken away from them. So there's been a lot of korero around choice. It's your choice to choose to learn or not. Well, in actual fact, that choice was taken away from us through colonisation, and we're still reeling from the impacts of that. But the other thing too is I think we also need to be very grateful for and acknowledge those, like you both, who have really pushed past all those barriers to reclaim their reo, because we can learn a lot from those experiences. But I think understanding is key. The meme, the reactions to the meme, I think, initially, was all about people preserving their own ego. Nobody wants to be the person that has offended somebody else. But e mihi ana ki a ia and his experience, cos it's very, very real. And the generations above us, like, I really thank my parents for giving me the gift of the opportunity to go to kura kaupapa Maori, because they never had that. And so, in their own world, they're still very basic in their reo, but will always give it a go. But I always know that there's still an underlying shame there for them, and we should not be making them feel worse. - Kia ora. It is, it's a legacy of those who have provided te reo. But you were talking earlier about not feeling like you live up to the expectation of those who, you know, who've taught you. And do you still have that now? - Well, that's the trauma we have to face every day. One will never, ever be good enough in the language space. And most of those` so the language divide talks about first language speakers and the rest of us that are trying to be first language speakers a tona wa. And even though first language speakers aren't quite open about` you know, there's just an implication that you and I will never be good enough, even though that doesn't come from them. So... for many years, we didn't know how to have the conversation. And if we liken that to say something like unconscious bias, which is this thing that sort of lingered and sort of oppressed us, and then someone called it racism. As soon as someone put a name on it, we were able to push back and have a proper conversation. And it's the same with language trauma. As soon as we start to identify and own language trauma in terms of what it means in its full sense. We didn't grow up with the language. That's traumatic enough, trying to reclaim that which has been lost to our generations, multiple generations before us, is a huge journey. So that's our trauma and that's our story. If we look at the kind of trauma that's happening now, if we look at our mokopuna. So our generation, my generation said, 'Well, I don't have the language, 'but I'm gonna make sure my mokopuna do.' So we sent them to kohanga reo and to kura. And then they become the leaders of our language strategy within the whanau. What we forget, they're only 4 years old, so we put that responsibility of leadership on them. And they had to deal with that all their lives. And one of the bad thing is` - Can I bring Matai in? - Sure. Sorry. - I feel like you are that generation that we actually put everything on you and said, 'Yep. Now we've got this reanga of reo speakers.' How important is it that we do have Panekiretanga o Te Reo, so we lift the bar? Like Mason Durie used to say, 'Don't be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff,' in hauora, obviously. But, you know, push it up. - Noku te whiwhi whai wahi atu au. Ko au tetahi o nga tauira tuatahi i puta mai i Te Panekiretanga o Te Reo. So, The Institute of Excellence in Maori Language was set up some years ago by Ta Timoti Karetu, by Ta Pou Temara and the late great Wharehuia Milroy. Now those three names in itself scares the bajingers out of me. And so when I got a letter saying please come and bring your reo skills to the Yodas of te reo. Here's this little young Jedi, at the time, trying to better my reo, but the whole focus around` and there is a perception around Te Panekiretanga o Te Reo ` that it is elitist. Well, actually, it's about par excellence. And why shouldn't we go for excellence in the Maori Language? And so that was ` noku te whiwhi ` I was fortunate enough to be there at the ankles of those koroua to grab those skills, grab that knowledge and take it back to my iwi and my tribes back in Turanga. So, yeah. Koira oku whakaaro. - Because it's that kind of learning that allows us to learn as second language speakers. - So the only thing I'd say about how we perpetuate trauma without knowing it is that we put this responsibility on our mokopuna. And one of the things that come out of it is that, you know, mai i te 9 karaka ki te 3 karaka, mai i te Mane ki te Paraire, korero Maori ratou i roto i nga kura. Ka oti te kura, huri ke atu ki te reo Pakeha. - Koia. - And it drives us all sort of, you know, we go, 'Well, hold on. Me pehea to reo Maori?' 'Oh, Koro, kua oti ke te kura. Inaianei, korero au i te reo Pakeha.' For me that's a symptom of how to sort of take that pressure off them so that they can interact in a way that they choose to. - The other thing is the reo journey is not an easy one. Let's not sugarcoat it. It's like any other language. You're gonna have some obstacles, some speed bumps along the way. But as long as you've got, whatever level you are at, as long as you have some like-minded people around you. You are gonna fail, but you know, the three Ps ` perspiration, well, that's probably... - Perseverance? - Perseverance and patience. - Ka pai. - In that order. - We haven't got much time left, but I want to go to you just quickly, Kiri. Are you still there? To ask you, you know, what about the implication of Pakeha learning alongside Maori, and the stress and the pain of Maori who still can't speak Maori, but their Pakeha whanaunga can. - Yeah, well I just wanted to` te reo Pakeha. I think we have to be really cautious about applying Pakeha terms and labels to Maori experiences. So, you know, when we hear this term 'elitist', like, as far as I'm concerned, there are only two elite Maori in this country, and that's Kingi Tuheitia and Ariki Tumu Te Heuheu. So I think we have to be very careful about all this new language and all this labelling happening. We're hearing this new white-passing korero being bandied about and it only really serves to divide us and it becomes a coloniser in itself. So I think we have to be very careful about the language of oppression that we're using to revitalise our reo, because all we're gonna do is put barriers up. But in terms of` I actually think, my personal opinion is that I imagine it probably makes our reo-kore whanau feel worse and more diminished when they see Pakeha learning their reo at a faster rate. But I think that's incumbent on us, eh? I think there's, personally, I think there's probably too much Maori energy going into Pakeha full stop, and this isn't a slight on them. For me, it just comes down to numbers and ratios. - Kia ora, e te tuakana. Kua pau te wa ki a tatou. Aroha mai. We need a whole documentary for this, or a series. Kiri, Matai, Bernie, tena koutou katoa. E mihi ana te ngakau ki a koutou kua whai wa ki tenei kaupapa hohonu, whakahirahira hoki. - Tena koe, e te tuahine. - Nga mihi. - Kia mau tonu mai ra. Ka hui ano tatou akuanei. Noho ora mai ra. Captions by Jordan Waetford Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2022 - Ko te reo te take. - Na Te Puna Whakatongarewa Te Hui i tautoko.