Ko mihi nga rangi tenei e mihi atu nei ki a koutou katoa. Welcome to The Hui ` Maori current affairs for all New Zealanders. E taro ake nei ` It's the town where the water leaves a bad taste in your mouth. - Kaore inu. - Oh, nah. Not good, I'm afraid. - Just what is going on with Te Kao's drinking water? - E.coli is present in the guts of people, animals and birds, and it indicates faecal pollution. It's very serious, from a public health perspective. - It is completely unacceptable for us that you either have to boil it or buy it. - Then, we meet the Ngati Ruanui golfer with driving ambition. - I'm going to be a lawyer. I'm going to go to university in America, and that's always been my plan. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2022 - Tahuti mai. Later in the program, we'll be speaking to National Party Deputy Leader Nicola Willis. Engari, matua ra he taki wai Maori. As debate rages about the Government's proposed Three Waters policy, there's growing frustration about the state of drinking water in the Far North community of Te Kao. Residents say for decades now, the drinking water, which comes from a local lake, tastes bad and may not be safe to drink. Now the local iwi is stepping in to try and improve the water quality. Kei a D'Angelo Martin te rongo kei o nga korero. (POIGNANT MUSIC) - Lake Wahakare in Te Kao, the Far North. It looks idyllic, but for whanau, this stretch of water has been a nightmare. For decades it's been their main source of drinking water, but it tastes awful. - You need to boil it at least three times before I drink that water. - Grace Nathan and her husband, Robert Kaka, have lived in Te Kao for more than 30 years. They say water has always been an issue. Because of safety concerns, since 2005, the District Health Board has told locals if they want to drink the water, they must boil it first. - Oh, nah. Not good, I'm afraid. (CHUCKLES) - For 17 years, the tap water has been undrinkable. A community survey found families instead spend $1500 a year on bottled water. To save money, Robert and Grace ration how much they drink. - Yeah, we have to, kind of, live with it, but, you know, we shouldn't, really. - Has it been tested? - It hasn't been tested. - May have been tested, quite a while back. - What did they find? - You can see a bit of stuff down the bottom. - So just how bad is this drinking water? I went and collected some samples. One from Lake Wahakare and the other from Grace and Robert's whare. We took them to a water testing laboratory in Whangarei. - It is a two-stage test. So the first part we're looking for is for total coliforms, and they show up yellow on these trays that we've done, and then, the lake sample, and they show up yellow on these trays that we've done, and then, the total coliforms was quite high. - Laboratory manager Lois Howe. - OK, so, Lake Wahakare sample has got total coliforms present in there and also E. coli is present in that sample. - From a public health perspective, is that a concern? - E. coli is present in the guts of people, animals and birds, and it indicates faecal pollution. It's very serious from a public health perspective. It's very serious from So, yes, E. coli present in water implies that the water is not safe to drink. - But what about the water from the whare? Is that safe to drink? - The residence one, we did not detect E coli in that sample. We did detect total coliforms, which does indicate that there is some bacterial pollution in that water. - The Lake's water infrastructure was originally built by the Far North District Council, but a private company took over the water supply in 1975. Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, CEO of local trust Te Runanga Nui o Te Aupouri, says the situation has not been good enough. - Whanau in Te Kao are still having to purchase drinking water from a grocery store. Ehara tera e te tika. - It's` It's totally inhumane. It is completely unacceptable for us that you either have to boil it or buy it, you know, or truck it in or go down to the store and buy a whole` plastic bottles of water. It's simply not right. - This year, the iwi was given control of the lake and the district's water supply. They're determined to deliver clean water, something no one else has been able to do in decades. - Well, our original report done in 2017 was around 2.5 mil to get it cleaned and sorted and drinkable. Right? That's nothing, in my view. - The iwi has joined a pilot program to clean up the lake, financed through the Crown Infrastructure rural fund. - They will assess and analyse, so, this is the water as it exists now, how come it's that way? How come it's that colour? How can we make it more drinkable and palatable for whanau? Once that report is done and out, then we'll know exactly what it's going to take to actually clean it up. - It's not just Te Kao facing this issue. Poor quality drinking water can be found across Aotearoa. - There are many Maori communities that had to contend with this issue, but I can't imagine other communities, and I won't name which communities, but there are communities that won't even` they're just like, 'I don't even know what you mean. 'What do you mean, bottled water? We only have bottled water when we go to a flash meeting, 'and there's a` (LAUGHS) there's a bottle of water on the table. 'and there's a` (LAUGHS) there's 'You mean that bottled water?' - With the clean up of Te Kao lake expected to take years, the iwi has begun providing water tanks for some whanau. - Through some huge efforts by Te Hiku iwi development, actually, through the leadership of that team, bought through this project, which is the tanks, the water tanks, which is a significant number, for the whole of Te Hiku. which is a significant number, So it's` It's a big piece of work. And we've had the fortune of` to make that happen. - We need water tanks and water pumps - We need water tanks and and fix our spoutings. That's all we need. - But water tanks are only one part of the equation. The standard of housing is another. - You need a decent roof, and if you - You need a decent roof, and if you ain't got that, you've got a really nice, pretty tank, but you haven't got a roof that will enable that, to catch that. So that's an issue. And then as you look at what's` what` how the roof is looking, you inevitably will see what's going on under the roof, in the home, and the bigger context of issues for whanau. So, we're talking about tanks, but we're talking also about all the other things that come with a tank in a roof, in a home and the state of our health and wealth for our families. - It will take another two years to deliver water tanks to the people of Te Kao, but the iwi says it can't stop there. With the Far North expected to be hit by regular droughts, due to climate change, the only long term solution is to clean up Lake Wahakare, to give the people reliable drinking water. - That would be a game changer for whanau, to be able to have the water that just comes from their lake, you know, it's the Te Kao lake, and be able to pull it off, drink it away, use it for other means, but have drinkable water, not just for their gardens and the stock to drink, but for whanau to drink. - Na D'Angelo Martin tera purongo. He paku whakatai haere ake nei katahi ka korero au ki a Nicola Willis, kaiarahi tuarua o Nahinara. Next, I speak to National Party Deputy, Nicola Willis. delivered a searing speech to the party faithful at its AGM in Otautahi. In it, she vowed to scrap the 39% top tax rate, rein in government spending, reduce bureaucracy and put a halt to some of Labour's key projects. But by the end of the week, the successful AGM had been eclipsed by historical allegations of bullying against new MP Sam of bullying against new MP Sam Uffindell, raising questions about the party's culture of bullying against new MP Sam Uffindell, raising questions and candidate selection process. So, here to discuss her economic vision for Aotearoa and share her whakari` whakaaro about National's culture, I'm joined by Nicolle Willis via zoom from Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Tena koe. - Tena koe. - Kia ora. Hey, so, talk to me. National will remove the fuel tax, drop the top tax bracket and remove the bright line test changes. Can you explain to us, how does your tax policy benefit whanau Maori? - Well, National starts from the position that, wherever possible, people should be able to hold on to their own money so they can make choices for it within their own lives and their own whanau. Of course, we need to take in enough taxation to provide quality public services, health, education, to provide a social safety net for those in need. But over the past few years, inflation has pushed people into higher tax brackets and it's meant the government is, on an annual basis, taking in around $41 billion more in tax than it was when Labour came to office. And we believe it will benefit whanau Maori and all whanau in New Zealand if they're able to hold on to just a bit more of what they earn, to make choices about it that suit them and their circumstances. - Yeah, I know you've had this debate before, so when you talk about that, currently anything over $180,000 is considered in the top 39% tax bracket, but when you look at who's earning the 180,000+, it's about 60,000 New Zealanders. Um... you know, so who is really benefiting? When you talk about whanau Maori, there's not a lot of whanau Maori included in that. - Well, I think it's important to acknowledge, Mihi, that a large part of our tax plan, the bulk of our tax plan, is not about that top rate. It's about inflation adjusting It's about inflation adjusting tax brackets for people on lower incomes. And it comes with the biggest price ticket, around $1.7 billion a year. And it's a matter of fairness. It's saying, well, since inflation's pushed people into those higher tax brackets, let's adjust them for inflation. And that would mean, for your average earning household, on around a collective income of $120,000 a year, people would be around $30 a week better off. So our tax plan does benefit people on typical incomes. And what we've said is, beyond that inflation adjustment, we see a case for reversing that 39 cent increase in the tax rate, bearing in mind, that tax rate didn't exist for Labour's first term in office, either. And we've said that, over time that's something we'd aspire to remove. - So, 30` about 30 bucks a week for the average whanau. Whanau Maori earn less than that. Their households are bringing in less than that. You know, for example, if you earning over 180,000, how much are you bringing in a week extra? - Well, I just want to go directly` - Just the number. So, if it's 30 for the average, what would someone who's earning over 180,000 be bringing in under your tax regime? - Well, that will depend on how much they are earning. - Just 180. Just 180,000. - So if they're earning 180,000, it'll be a few hundred dollars a week, and I acknowledge that that's a lot more, but I want to get to the direct point of your question, which is this ` when we're looking at whanau Maori, what are the things that we can do to assist with both income and living costs? And one of the biggest driver of living costs for Maori has been increasing cost of rent. And I say that, because we know a larger proportion of Maori households rent their housing and that, for Maori, a larger proportion of their income goes on rent. And when we look at rents over the past few years, they've gone up, on average, under Labour, $140 a week. $40 a week increase in just the past year alone. So, that's something` - So, would` So, would your party be interested, then, in putting a cap on rent increases? - No, for the simple reason that studies around the world have shown that, when governments try and cap rent, what happens is, people stop building rental houses, people become reluctant to be landlords, and you tend to get both a shortage of rental accommodation on the one hand, and on the other hand` - So what's your solution to that? - a black market develops. - What is your solution` - Sorry? - What's your solution to that? Because you're saying what you do is you're acknowledging that whanau Maori are more likely to rent and rents have gone up and these are households that are not going to get an extra couple of hundred a week, like the $180,000 people. So what's the solution that your party is going to offer them? - Three key solutions, Mihi. The first is that we want to remove the tenant taxes that the government introduced last year, which have changed the way that rental properties are taxed. And we've seen a direct result from that, that rates have gone up a lot per week in the past year, which is what officials advised would happen if those extra taxes were imposed. So we want to remove those. The second thing that we want to do is incentivise people to build purpose-built rental property, that is professionally managed. I've put forward a build to rent housing bill because I want to see that kind of secure tenure in rental property that we see in other parts of the world. The third bit is, we've just got to encourage more housing to be built and National's track record and National's track record on that is that we did work with the government last year to put forward and pass a bill that removes some of those restrictions in our laws which have made it hard to build housing in recent years. - So, when I hear that strategy of yours, I think that` I consider that there's 10% of New Zealanders - So, when I hear that strategy of that own between seven and 20 properties, and there's this a sliding group of New Zealanders who don't own any properties. So when I hear about this strategy that you've got, what` what it feels like to me is that you're going to be putting more resource and more in capacity into people who can borrow more and rent more houses and less` you know, how about actually helping first home buyers buy a house? - I totally share your concern. I want to see rates of home ownership increase. I think that home ownership is a I think that home ownership is a really important tool for giving people roots in their community, for giving them a sense of stability. And I think it's shocking the way home ownership rights have declined. So, National introduced the loans for first home buyers and the grant scheme that Labour has built on. That is a scheme we remain committed to. But we also acknowledge that But we also acknowledge that you actually have to have housing affordable to begin with. But we also acknowledge that You know, the average house price is now nine times the average income. When National left office, it was only six times the average income. So we've got to` we've got to deal with that, as well. We've also got to look at how people access loans. So Labour introduced the Consumer Credit Finance Act, which has made it really hard which has made it really hard for a lot of first time buyers to access a loan. And I know that that has affected whanau Maori as well. So we've got to look at that. - Yep. - But when it comes to home ownership, what I know is this ` if we have greater housing supply, - But when it comes to home we have more options for people to buy from, across the full scale, you know, apartments, townhouses, smaller homes. Then, over time, we can put housing affordability in reach of more people. - We'll keep an eye on that. Sam Uffindell admitted to beating a younger boy while at school. He escaped charges and convictions. He argues he's been rehabilitated, and he may well have. So, looking at Maori, young Maori men, young boys, they make up 30% of expulsion rates. How do you create the same opportunity for them who don't have, you know, the extra $30,000 in their back pocket to re-enrol in another private school? - Well, I think all of us would - Well, I think all of us would share a view that when people make mistakes as young people, that, as far as possible, we want to ensure that they are given an opportunity to change. And, you know, when people are expelled from school, that is something that we really want to take as many steps as we can to avoid in the first place. And where it does happen, we want to ensure that they have opportunities to re-enrol` - But what it does tell you` what it does tell you is that there is inequity, when it comes to statistics. When young Maori boys make up 16% of the population, but they're being expelled at the rate of 30%, there's something wrong there. - Well, I think if we look across the spectrum of statistics in our schooling system, we can see inequity for Maori, because it's not only about expulsion rates, it's about engagement rates, in it's about engagement rates, in terms of regular attendance, and it's in terms of achievement rates, in terms of literacy and numeracy and school qualifications. And that's something that we in the And that's something that we in the National Party do worry about, because, philosophically, we believe in equal opportunity, and education is that really golden ticket. If people get a good education that allows them to develop and fulfil their own potential` - Nicola, do you` do you back Sam Uffindell coming back? - Well, we have an independent investigation` - Just you, personally. No, I realise that. You, personally, as a woman, as a deputy leader of the party. - Well, I'm not going to prejudice the independent investigation that's occurring. It will look in to the allegations made in recent days and it will come out with findings. - Kia ora. - And then, Christopher Luxon will make a decision about what's next. - Kia ora. Ko Nicola Willis tera. Kia mai tonu mai ra ` te titiro akuanei, ka tutaki ki tetehi hau tipua o te hahau paoro. E taro ake nei ` 18-year-old Mia Scrimgeour is a young woman on a mission. Unlike many of her peers, she doesn't spend time on social media. The top rangatahi golf amateur has The top rangatahi golf amateur has always had her feet firmly on the green and her eyes on the prize. All that focus and determination is now paying off as she embarks on a four year scholarship at an American university. Ruwani Perera caught up with the Ngati Ruanui rising star before she left. (UPBEAT MUSIC) - RUWANI: Aotearoa's wahine Maori golf champ knows that hahau paoro isn't for everyone. - I understand that golf is boring sometimes. - But that hasn't dampened Mia Scrimgeour's drive to succeed in the perfect game. - She's had a dream for such a long time. - I'm going to be a lawyer. I'm going to go to university in America, and that's always been my plan. - Mia's made the cut, and set to take off on the opportunity of a lifetime. - Oh, I tell you what, she sets her mind to anything, she'll achieve it. - Oh, I tell you what, she sets her Absolutely anything. - 100%. Like, if someone tells me - 100%. Like, if someone tells me I can't do it, I'm like, 'Well, I'm going to show you that I can.' - 100%. Like, if someone tells me I can't do it, I'm like, 'Well, Yeah. - Despite the grim forecast, - Despite the grim forecast, it's full steam ahead for a charity golf fundraiser at Manor Park in Lower Hutt. 20 teams have ignored the conditions for a fun day out on the green. - The fairways are pretty wet. The greens are pretty wet, but we're out there squeegee-ing, making sure that people can still par, which is awesome. So there's going to be a final, OK? - The event has been months in the planning for 18-year-old Mia Scrimgeour. - The event has been months - I'm just going to go drop Mum out, and then I'll come back. - Yeah, cool. - Is that OK? Cool. - A fun tournament to help boost her coffers before she starts her studies at an American university. - I have a scholarship, but it costs a lot to still even get over there. My flights and my accommodation trying to get there. Um, I didn't have a passport. - So, for her to make that achievement and, you know, get herself through this, all we can do is support her. So, that's what we wanna do. - It's very much a whanau affair, as Mia prepares to embark on her first trip out of the country. (ALL WHOOP IN EXCITEMENT) - Really big move going from Lower Hutt to ` (INHALES DEEPLY) America. But I think it will be the best step and the best option for me. But I think it will be the best step and the best option for me. - Mia started playing golf before she could reach the pin. It was on a weekend away with her father, Rob, that she would discover the sport. Family friend Danny Herewini was also there. - It was just a day out in Tauranga. The weather was like this, actually. And her father and I thought it was a great idea. We had never touched golf clubs before. Mia wanted to come along for the ride. And, uh, yeah. This is her, now, I guess. - Armed with good grades and a low handicap, Maya has scored herself a four-year scholarship at Missouri State University, where she'll play for their ladies golf team. - Like, I decided a little while ago that maybe being a professional golfer isn't something that I truly want to do. Just because I, you know, might not want to be a professional, I can still use it for academic purposes and open up other doors. - And what she's chasing is a childhood dream of becoming a lawyer. - I decided when I was seven that I wanted to be a lawyer. I just always stuck with that. - She's always been very motivated and determined. We've tried to help her to understand how to break down a dream into smaller portions and then work towards it. And, because of her hard work and dedication, she's obviously achieving those now. - Mia's has spent countless hours at the driving range, whilst juggling her school commitments. But although she's slogged and sacrificed for her sport, she feels she hasn't missed out on a normal life. - I think it was a really good balance. I played netball because I had I played netball because I had always loved it. I coached it through high school. I played netball because I had I had friends, you know. Like, I had a boyfriend at one point and I still wanted to be a teenager and experience everything as everyone else, and I still wanted to be a teenager and experience but still be an elite sportsperson. - But after 13 years on the amateur circuit, Mia says her passion for the sport waned, partly because of the pressure and lack of whanaungatanga. - Golf is an individual sport, of course. But it doesn't have to be, you know? Like, you play team events. But yeah, it never really felt like team enough for me. So I think going to America, where they're all about team, like, yes, you're playing as an individual, but you help the team to win. Um, I think being in that type of environment, where you are supporting each other all the time, yeah, will have a big, big effect and yeah, hopefully, I can love it again, and... yeah. - And the competition where Mia really feels the love is the National Maori Golf Tournament. - It was a big part of what grew my love for the game and I think people don't know what happens throughout that week, how fun it is, the format and stuff like that. I absolutely love it. - She's won the tournament two years in a row but wasn't able to make it a third - She's won the tournament two years after this year's competition was cancelled because of COVID. - She's won the tournament two years after this year's competition was - Yeah, it was pretty disappointing. Not just because I wanted to win it again, but this is the last time I might be able to do it for, you know, at least four years, while I'm going to be in America. - Who knows what will happen in the States? - Exactly. I'm hoping that I do love it again. And maybe professional golf is something that I want to do, but, at the moment, it's not. - Yeah. - Go closest to the` See the` the little thing on the ground. - Even though she's planning to study overseas for most of her life, Mia is under no illusion ` she's going to miss hanging out with her whanau. (BOTH CHUCKLE) - Like I think a home is, you know, where the people that you love are. - But for now, she's focussed on her American adventure and enjoying everything she has worked towards. - Being over there, meeting new people, having opportunities that I would never get here, and playing courses that you cannot play in New Zealand and... you know. - With plans to hit the big time. - Kia kaha ra e hine. Na Ruwani Perera tera puronga. - Kia kaha ra e hine. Ka tiko hikana Te Hui mo tenei ra. No horo mai ra. Captions by Sally Harper. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2022