- Kei nga taniwha hikuroa o te motu, kapunipuni mai. Ko Mihingarangi tenei e mihi atu nei ki a koutou katoa. Welcome to The Hui, Maori current affairs for all Aotearoa. E taro ake nei ` why are so many whanau struggling to keep their kids in school? - At the end of the day, you can have 60 referrals on your dashboard and not one of them is an easy fix. - We're on the road with Waipareira truancy officers. - A lot of our whanaus won't even engage with the school. I'm going in because I'm not the school. - And the reasons may surprise you. - VOICE BREAKS: I'm just sick of being miserable. (SNIFFLES) - Mm. - There's so much more happening for these families. It's not one group that's going to support them to be re-engaged again, it's` schools have to come together. - Then we speak to the Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2022 - Tahuti mai. The National Party leader, Christopher Luxon, claims up to 55% of school students are chronically truant. That's about 100,000 children. Mr Luxon also alleges these figures are a major contributor to ram raids, and has sent a message to parents to lay down boundaries, get up in the morning and get their kids to school. So just how many students are missing from school? Are their parents really just sleeping in? We wanted to find out, so The Hui went door to door with the Waipareira Trust truancy officer to see for ourselves. And a note ` we've chosen not to identify the whanau involved in this story to protect their privacy. Anei te purongo. This is how Te Whanau o Waipareira starts each day. - GROUP: # O Waipareira e... # - On a wing, a waiata and a prayer. We've got mental health mentors, whanau ora navigators, Kainga Ora specialists and truancy officers. It's a team approach to community solutions. Today we're riding with Kimi from the truancy team. - I've got parents on my referrals that are illiterate, that finished school when they were 12. School wasn't a big deal for them, so why should it be for their kids? - Kimi is a special kind of wahine. - He says to me, 'Can I call you auntie?' He's this 13, blonde, blue eyed, Pakeha boy, (LAUGHS) asking if I can let him call me auntie for his birthday. And I says to him, 'You know, on a professional scale, that would be a no.' I says, 'But between you and me, thumbs up.' (CHUCKLES) So he gave me a big hug and ran to class. - Every day, she's working on Auckland's North Shore, trying to get kids back into school. - The whole idea is to find out what could be causing the truancy. It's always assumed that it is the child or it's the parent, when in actual fact it can be` there could be a lot of underlying reasons why... truancy happens, or there's attendance issues. - Those reasons are often complex, and there's no quick fix. - At the end of the day, you can have 60 referrals on your dashboard, and not one of them is an easy fix. Our whole goal is to keep it out of OT and the police's hands. That is our whole goal. - But time, or government contracts, are not on her side. - As a attendance adviser, I only have 20 days on a referral. I've never done it in 20 days. When you look at it, it can take 10 days to engage. - You mean 20 days paid? - Yes. - So, are there really 100,000 truants in Aotearoa? The short answer is no. In 2020, Stats New Zealand found that it's just under 20,000 New Zealand students had been excluded, suspended, expelled or stood down. And in all of those areas, Maori are overrepresented. For example, in suspensions alone, Maori make up 52%. - I've gone to homes that are, you know, three, four storeys with five-car garages and very nice cars sitting outside, and dealt with them just as I've gone into a home where the struggles are very real. Today is what we call home visit cold call days. - We are meeting a former Long Bay College student. - He's feeling like a bit of a failure and he wants to support Mum, cos he's the older brother and Mum's a single mum. - We're calling him Master Jay. - He had a scuffle with another student. There were no fists thrown, it was just pushing here and there. He was disrespectful in class, being noisy, and he had lied to the principal. The thing to remember is Master Jay has ADHD. The school were aware of this. He was unmedicated. All of these things should have been taken into account. - But instead, the school referred him directly to alternative school, and how did he go there? - Not well. Terrible. - So what did he do? What got him into trouble at alternative school, and what was the reason? - Well, it happened from day one. He arrived at school with a knife, a weapon in his bag, and it sort of went downhill from there. - Why did he do that? What did he say to you? - He was scared. He was scared. - But today, he has one last chance. Another school has offered to meet him. - The hope is that we can engage with these whanau today and get a plan put in place. - It's been five months since he's been in school, so the stakes are high, but Mum still has hope. - He's got so much catching up to do, but I'm really proud that he's actually doing it. Really proud. (CHUCKLES) - How is it having a child that you're having to find a school for? That must be really tough. - Yes, it is tough. He's a good kid, underneath it all. He struggles with his learning, and unfortunately hasn't had enough support with it. Not enough things put in place to help him with his anxiety as well. So we're hoping to get it right this time. - The issue of truancy has become a hot political topic, with the leader of the National Party weighing in. - The responsibility of a parent is to make sure that your kid has opportunities that you didn't have, and education is the way in which you get from bad circumstances to better circumstances. And so we're asking for` just enforce some consequences and actually make sure you know where your young person is and that you're actually getting them to school. You know, that's a responsibility as a parent. You chose to have the children, you need to be able to make sure that you get them to school. - But for some parents, it's not that simple. Down the road we visit Miss G's house, and Mum invites us into a cold, damp Kainga Ora home. - Look up here, love. This is cos the roof leaks. - Oh, that's shocking. - VOICE BREAKS: I'm just sick of being miserable. (SNIFFLES) - Mm. We're going to get through this. It's like I said, we've got the right person. All right? So now, you know, Te Whanau o Waipareira is going to follow it up. So I've, you know` I did that referral. - Yup. - And they're just going to follow it through now. I'll take some pictures to show them that there's been no change. - Today, it's not just Miss G that's absent from school ` all four siblings have been home sick for two weeks. - It's heartbreaking to see the kids still having to stay home, and you guys still living in your lounge. - Yeah, and we're getting frustrated, love, cos we're so squashed in here, we're feeling claustrophobic. - I know. - You know, we're using our dining room as a bedroom. - Like many of Kimi's families, truancy is a by-product of the challenges they face. - They live in a Kainga Ora home, and I've been trying so hard to get help for the state it's in. And so they're finally going to go in and inspect it, so hopefully the kids can stop getting sick. - It's the constant sore throats, love, which I think` When I spoke to the asbestos specialist, they said to me, she said, 'Your least worry, actually, is the asbestos.' She said, 'Your main concern is that black mould.' She said if that gets into your throat and that, it'll be causing spores in your throat and all sorts, and I wondered, well, maybe that's why we're always waking` we've always got sore throats. - Yeah. - They hardly sleep at night cos it's so cold. - Tell me about what's happened with Miss G. - So, Miss G has finally come to embrace who she is, that she's gay. And rather than the school call me, she was put in a room for about three hours because she dyed her hair red. And there are rules, firm rules, in place in regards to uniform, but there are ways that you can deal with it knowing Mum's unwell. - Waipareira program director Jacqui Harema oversees the truancy team. - There's so much more happening for these families. You know, the impacts of COVID, the socioeconomic, and it's not one group that's going to support them to be re-engaged again, it's` schools have to come together. - She says greater collaboration across ministries is what's required. - Different ministries have to come together. - Ministry of Social Development needs to be able to identify who these young people are to support them. We actually need a whole government approach to this, because and the next 5 to 10 years, these young people will really be disengaged from` and will be then creating havoc. - It takes special people to deal with truancy, a role Kimi believes needs to be approached with empathy and patience. - A lot of our whanaus won't even engage with the school. So in this case, they won't answer any calls from the school, any emails from the school. So my hope is that I'm going in because I'm not the school, and see that` use me to help you for a better path forward, so yeah. - And the response from these families is positive. - She's fantastic. She talks to them as if` as if they matter, which after all he went through with his last school, he was really given the impression he doesn't matter. And she really` yeah, she's amazing. Absolutely amazing. - But Kimi and her team might be out of a job next month. The Ministry of Education is looking to redesign truancy and put resourcing back into schools. In the meantime, she'll keep knocking on doors and trying to give whanau the help they need. - The majority of the parents that myself and my colleagues deal with genuinely want their children at school. But they're battling so many different things. Let's not forget that survival, putting the next lot of kai on their table, putting shoes and expensive uniforms on their children, if they can't do it, they're not going to send their children to school. When a house is happy, a home is happy, and our tamariki feel safe, there's room for hope. - After the break, I speak to the Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. - Auraki mai ano. Here now to discuss the latest in the social development portfolio, including emergency housing, I'm joined by its minister, Carmel Sepuloni. Tena koe. - Tena koe. - Just after the weekend, what's your take on the local government election results? - Some surprises, some disappointments. It is what it is. And now, you know, I'm sure that they're all going to be focussed on getting on and doing the job. - Do you think the party got behind the likes of Efeso Collins and the other Labour endorsed candidates enough? - Oh, we certainly did. And I think we saw some really good results, but obviously some really disappointing ones, including Efeso not winning the mayoralty. - Mm. We just watched the story on truancy, and I wondered if we could just pause on it. So, we heard from the Waipareira truancy officers that they're dealing with multiple issues, not just getting the kids to school, there's housing and there's addictions and mental health, and I and I know that it's not your portfolio, but they did talk about, you know, a whole government approach. How is MSD working with the other providers, you know, to deal with truants and their families? - In a range of different ways. It is cross-agency, because as you said, many of the kids that are truant from school are faced with other social issues within the home. And so there are often a range of government agencies and social service providers that are working with the whanau to try and resolve some of those issues. - Yeah. It doesn't make sense, you know, for your agency to know which families are dealing with these issues as well. - Oh, it doesn't, and many of the times they do know. But I also need to acknowledge the schools, many of them working hard with these whanau too. They often know their families better than anyone else because they've got an intimate understanding of what is going on with the whanau, and they're working hard with the truancy services and others to get in there and try and support the whanau. What we know is that there has been an attendance decline since 2015, so it's not new. Probably exacerbated a bit because of COVID, but there certainly is work underway; a $20 million announcement from the government recently to support schools, to help children to catch up where they've got behind because of COVID and for other reasons, and to help with re-engagement. - Let's move on to emergency housing. We currently have` well, we had a immunisation program a little while ago, and we had some community providers there who told us that, you know, there were 10,000 people living in emergency housing, 4500 of them are tamariki. How much is it costing the taxpayer a year? - It's costing a lot. And I mean, the reality is that we inherited a housing crisis and there's not enough houses to meet the demand. In the interim, it's important that we provide some form of housing to people that are homeless, which is why we have emergency accommodation. As a government, we've stepped up the case management and stepped up the intensive wraparound support for those that are in emergency accommodation. The ultimate is to not need it, but we're not in that place yet. - So 1 News obtained some figures for five of the highest earning motels, and found last year that those five received $26 million in taxpayer funding. You know, this government, as you say, inherited a housing crisis. No one's denying that. But is spending $26 million on just five motels the best use of money? - We wish we didn't have to do that, but we're still in a situation where we're working hard to build the houses. We're seeing results in some areas like Hastings, where we've had a decline in the use of emergency housing because we have invested in the houses that are needed. We've seen a decline in other areas as well, and we just need to keep our eye on the ball, and that is building houses. 10,000 new public houses built under our government, and more to come. - Yes. Would it be an option to just buy these places? Would it be cheaper to just purchase the motels? - We have done that in some instances, we've also` - How many? - I can't remember the number of motels that have been purchased off the top of my head` - When you're paying five 26 million bucks, wouldn't you just want to buy them? - Oh, it's not just about buying them. In some instances, we have contracted the motels so that we can make sure that when we put people into accommodation that we're very purposeful about who is going in there, whanau with whanau. And so there's a range of things that are underway. - Rotorua has a new mayor in Tania Tapsell. She fronted the media yesterday and she's got a message for the government. She makes a very fair point. She says that while the government is demanding healthy home standards from landlords, it's not providing healthy or safe homes for people living in emergency housing. Has she got a point? - Oh, well, you know, for instance, MSD doesn't have responsibility for the quality of motel accommodation. That's a regulation that happens at the council level. But whilst we have people` - Is that a cop out, though? Cos you are going to landlords saying you must bring your houses up to this certain standard, but then on the other hand, you're putting people into accommodation that's unsafe and not healthy. - I think this is why it's important that we've taken the approach that we have taken, where government is working with the council there, has been working with iwi, with the social services and housing providers to be able to try and resolve the situation there. We've seen a decline in the number of people who have been going into emergency accommodation in Rotorua, and we want to see that decline continue. - Yet 400 families have now been living in motels for between 1 to 2 years, so this is not a short term solution. It's growing, and as Mayor Tapsell points out, that` motels are consented to provide accommodation for just 20 days, and that's probably because you can't really live in a motel for longer than a month, because it's not fit for purpose. - And no one wants it, Mihi. - So if you were to purchase some of those motels, just say purchasing some of those ones down on Fenton Street, couldn't you repurpose them? Couldn't you put in the kitchen units, knock out one of the walls, make it a bit bigger, so the mums and the kids aren't` - The actual better plan is to build the public housing that we need. - Obviously. Obviously. No one disagrees with you, but we've only built 10,000 houses and the promise was 100,000. So 10,000` - We've got houses underway in Rotorua as well. As I said` - But in the meantime` in the meantime, because we saw in that Sunday investigation the crisis that's happening for some of these mamas. One of the mamas said she had her baby in the car. - Oh, look, and no one wants to see that, Mihi, and we continue to focus on building the houses, need to continue to work with the council, and we look forward to working with the new mayor on this too, and continue working with iwi. The fact that we've seen a decline is promising, and that shows that some of the efforts that we're putting in are working and we just need to continue on that track. - Some of Rotorua has also said that they want their city back and they're talking about, you know, the strip that used to be the Golden Mile they talk about, but it's now MSD strip, they call it. Is there a, you know` is it better to space out emergency housing so that it's not just centred in one place? - I think that's a good point and that's one of the conversations that's being had with council and with others. Are there other motels that would be more suitable, that perhaps aren't on that strip? And that's one of the discussions that's been had. - Because in Rotorua you've got 1.5% of the population, and yet they have 10% of emergency housing, and it feels a bit unfair. I wondered, is there an opportunity to put some emergency housing into the motels in St Heliers or Oriental Bay or...? - I think if we look at Rotorua we do need to keep in mind this too, Mihi, is that the houses haven't been built. The population has increased by about 9000 people, I think, since 2013. When we came into government, there were 100 or` 144 or 44 fewer public houses than what there was when they had started out. - Absolutely. - And so we've got to focus on building. I've seen the build that's going on around the country, even in West Auckland, you know. I've been to openings recently where whanau will actually have secure, stable housing, and that's a work in progress, and that's what we need to do. - Yep. The key is building houses. Let's talk about your portfolio and benefits, cos when` I think you came on here and you announced the first sanction that was to be dropped and that's when mums had to name the fathers of their children, and that went under you, and you committed to dropping many more sanctions, so where are you at now? How many? - So we did repeal section 192. We also then went on to get rid of the subsequent child policy. But section 192 affected like 24,000 children, I think over 40,000 for the subsequent child policy. And so those are two of the sanctions that have gone under us. And then there's other work underway. There's been benefit increases, we're in the process of child support pass-on to people that are on the sole parent benefit. There's the Working for Families Review, there's the child care assistance review. There's a lot happening and there's a lot that's been done, but we'll never resile from the fact that there's more to do. - There was a slight` there was some optimism on Friday when you announced` you and the Prime Minister announced the... I think it was the poverty report, and there was less people living in hardship. Do you think that's, you know, to do with the sanctions and the benefits? - That's certainly part of it, but at the same time, it is things like lifting the minimum wage, as well. It also is things like food in schools, period products, all of those things make a difference to child poverty numbers and hardship realities for people in Aotearoa. - I just want to touch on your portfolio, arts, culture and heritage. I want to understand why funding for Te Matatini, the Maori performing arts, hasn't changed drastically under your government, despite the overwhelming evidence? So, 2.9 million goes to Matatini, compared with 8.1 for the ballet and 19.7 million for the orchestra. Why is that? - I certainly think there's more discussions to be had here, and I know that they're ongoing with the lead minister, Kiritapu Allan. But what I will point to too is that we've almost doubled the amount of funding that's going from Creative New Zealand Toi Maori. With the COVID response, we had a particular focus on matauranga Maori. We've seen them` - How come they haven't got any more money, then, if you're pouring all of this money into Creative New Zealand and the rest of it, why is Te Matatini, who contributes $15 million to the regional economy, has 2000 performers and 40,000 spectators, not getting what they deserve? - I think, as I said, those are discussions that we're certainly in the midst of having. - You guys aren't first term. - No, but in our first term I will say I had responsibility for Matatini as the Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. And during those conversations, it wasn't that the leaders within the organisation wanted more funding from government. Now that has changed, and so we're responding to that and in discussions with them on that. - It's estimated` There was a report done. It's estimated that the unpaid hours of training and the rest of it is 24 million. Do you think you'll get there? - I don't know if we'll get there, but we certainly do value what Matatini has to offer Aotearoa, and including the wellbeing of those that participate and get to be part of the audience because of Matatini, and so we certainly are in discussions. - Tena koe. Tena koe mo to haere mai. Thank you so much. Kia ora. - Kia ora. - Ka hui ano tatou akuanei. - Auraki mai ano. Hei whakakapi i ta tatou hui, anei tetahi waiata hei kinaki i nga kaupapa. We leave you tonight with the remake of the classic Moana Maniapoto & The Tribe anthem AEIOU remix by Tiki Taane, and featuring Ria Hall, Chey Milne, Mazbou Q and Georgia Lines. Nohoro mai ra. (STATIC CRACKLES) - # A-a-a-kona te reo. - # It's time to... - # A-a-a-kona te reo. - # It's time to... (BEAT SLOWS) - # A-a-a-kona te reo. - # He wa kia. - # A-a-a-kona te reo. # A, A, # A, A. # E, E, # E, E. # I, I, # I, I. # O, O, # O, O. # A, E, I, O, U. # A, E, I, O, U. - # Tangi kau noa, # mo nga tau maha, # kaimomotu ana. # Koinei te wa, # maranga ake ra # ki te karanga. # Ki te ako korero # mohou ano, # ko to Hawaiki, ko to apopo. # Huri noa i te ao, # kua penei te katoa # he ako i a tatou korero. - # A-a-a-kona te reo. - # He wa kia. - # A-a-a-kona te reo. # A-a-a-kona te reo. # A-a-a-kona te reo. - # Manuka takoto, # koia te wero. # Hikina ake ra. # Nui nga mahi # hei whakatutuki # kia tu tangata. # Kei raro nei to tatou kainga, # tenei whenua, o Aotearoa. # Huri noa i te ao, kua # penei te katoa, # he ako i a tatou korero. - # A-a-a-kona te reo. - # He wa kia. - # A-a-a-kona te reo. # A-a-a-kona te reo. # A-a-a-kona te reo. - # Kia tu toa, kia tu maia, # ko o kupu ko to mana. # Kia hono atu koe ki to iwi, # akohia tenei mea, ko to hitori. - (RAPS IN TE REO) - # A, E, I, O, U. # A, E, I, O, U. # A, E, I, O, U. # A, E, I, O, U. # Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2022