- Whakataka te hau ki te uru, whakataka te hau ki te tonga. Kia makinakina ki uta, kia mataratara ki tai. Kia huihui tahi ra tatou ki ta tatou hui i tenei wiki. Tihewa Mauriora. This week on The Hui ` we speak to former addicts who are helping others break the cycle of drugs, crime and desperation. - I came to the Hub broken. I guess I had given up on myself. Everyone had. - Slash has impacted Te Tairawhiti for years. Will the findings of the ministerial inquiry into woody debris make a difference? Plus, we meet the Maori brothers who prefer a kilt to a piupiu. - When you start getting better, you can appreciate the sound. You can just hear the different parts of the pipes. - LAUGHS: When they first started, it was pretty awful. (CHUCKLES) Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - Te hunga kua riro i a Aitua, Aituere, Aitukikini, Aitumate, haere mai, haere. Tatou kei te pito ora. Tihewa Mauriora. And welcome back to The Hui. It's a vicious cycle keeping many of our wahine behind bars ` drug habits from childhood leading to a life of crime to pay for the habit. But a group of former addicts are trying to change that. Out of their own pockets, they're providing housing and drug counselling to those fresh from behind bars, all guided by kaupapa Maori to help them build a new life on the outside. Kei a Meriana Johnston tenei purongo. (MOODY MUSIC) - Lesley Allen never had the chance to live a normal childhood. - I've been an IV drug user since I was like, 12, 13. It was that long ago and I was that young. I don't actually remember starting. - Growing up on K Road in the '90s, meth was becoming rife. - Cooking meth, selling meth, using meth. Violence, gangs. All of that was just normalised for me, and it was like living in a movie. - Her father was supplying all of Auckland Central. - So my dad was a drug dealer, and the whole city calls him Pa because he fed a whole city. So I had to share my dad with everybody. Like, no one would ever sleep. (LAUGHS) OK? So, everything was just always going. I was fresh to drugs, so taking meth meant that it hit me really, really hard. I found it quite exciting. - To pay for her habit, she was faced with two options ` prostitution or crime. She chose crime. - Gangs, robberies. It was just a daily thing. So I was always caught up on a robbery charge. - At just 34 years old, Lesley has had 152 convictions. Caught in the cycle of drugs and offending, she spent the better part of a decade in prison. This became her home. - We as Maori people are now whakapapa-ing back to jails now. Like, it's the only place that I would feel safe, I would get fed. That was my home and all my whanau was there. So the land that I feel that I used to belong to is Wiri. - The turning point was her father overdosing. - My dad died with a needle hanging out of his arm, and that's when I decided that I needed to change, cos I have a 20 year old, and the last thing I want to do is give her that enormous weight to carry. And I was going down that road. I was an absent mother, I put addiction first, in and out of prison, involved with gangs. The last bit of the puzzle was for me to die with a needle hanging out of my arm. (MOODY MUSIC) - In the small Northland town of Kaikohe, there's a glimmer of hope for those trying to get clean. - I came to the Hub broken. I guess I had given up on myself. Everyone had. - He Whakaoranga Whanau Recovery Hub is a community space with services for recovering addicts. - At the edge of that, I kept coming back to this thing to make me feel better... and it was called alcohol in a bottle. That made me feel valid for the day. - Stu Eiao and Bessina Pehi are former addicts turned counsellors. Since 2015, they've been running community-based programs. They've also worked on the inside, so they've seen how prison is a revolving door for many addicts. - Everyone that's come across, from my experiences, they go back in because they haven't dealt with that addiction issue. Addiction plays a big part of escaping reality. It's a solution and an answer to just keep doing what they're doing until the point of some intervention. - And that intervention needed to happen in a new environment. - The thing that was missing was the accommodation. That was the piece that was missing between prison and being integrated into a community group out here. Where do they stay? And the only thing is that they went back into their old environments. - Stu and Bess set up this nine bedroom whare in South Auckland to provide accommodation for those getting ready for intensive drug rehabilitation. Most of them have come from the prison system. House host Noreen Johns knows the struggle. - Jail was my rock bottom. It woke me up. I thought, 'Wow. 'I realise what I've done to my family.' - Although she's been clean for five years now, working with addicts can be challenging. - Yeah, I get triggered a lot. You know, with other people's behaviours, it reminds me about the things that I did in the past. - How do you navigate that? - Cognitive behaviour therapy. I think because I've been in recovery so long, I've learned to use the tools of recovery every day, sometimes minute by minute. - Maintaining routines is key for all of those in the whare. - In addiction, a lot of us don't do that. We can't even get out of bed some days, can't even get into the shower to, you know, wash our tinana. And having a program, having a routine gets you motivated. - Part of her daily routine is making her bed the same way she did in prison. - Yeah, and the sugar. Want a hot drink, bro? - Raiha has been at the whare for a month and a half. And how's it been? - It's been all good, yeah. It's good being around people that are, like` want the same as you, eh, and... But yeah, I do miss home. - This whare is a lifeline for those here, but Bess and Stu are clear it isn't just a place to crash. - Everyone that comes into our house, you have to do treatment. There's no ifs or buts, hums or haws about it. No hoha in this` You've gotta go do treatment. - It's been a beautiful journey. It was really rough and raw. But yeah, I'm slowly finding myself again. - The home is run without any government funding. Those who come into the home chip in for expenses, and it currently has a wait list of 12. - There's a need for pre- and post-treatment. - Yeah. - And safe houses. - Safe housing. - There's a need for that out there. We would like to develop more houses. - Yeah. - Back in Kaikohe, it's a similar story. Upstairs of He Whakaoranga Hub is Freedom Whare, a boarding house with 13 beds. - We don't have many beds. We have a waiting list that are long and sometimes we don't know how we're going to get the next week done. (LAUGHS) But we do. We get it done. - Lesley has been clean for about a year now. She has her first job leading a pilot program in the north, testing methamphetamine users for hepatitis C. - You know, employment is? It's the key to breaking the cycle. And you've got to do something that you love. Like, I love testing people for hepatitis C because I'm an IV user. So that's how you keep clean and that's how you break the cycle, is by giving someone an opportunity to use their bad habits and their past experience to help others. - Today, she's speaking to a group of final year nursing students about her recovery. - Coming to the Hub and coming to Kaikohe, it changed my life. (PERFORMS HAKA) - Lesley has not only found a new whanau, but she's finally in touch with her whakapapa. With wraparound support and services, she's been given a second chance at life and she wants others to have that too. - Now, Corrections says all prisoners who complete an alcohol and drug program in jail are offered ongoing recovery support for up to a year. 105 people took up the offer in the past year. Corrections has contracts with 12 community residential drug and alcohol care programs, but not He Waka Taiora. E haere ake nei i ta tatou Hui, coming up next ` our panellists Eastland Wood Council chief executive Philip Hope and Mana Taiao Tairawhiti representative Manu Caddie join us to discuss the Ministerial Inquiry's damning forestry slash report. - Kia ora mai ano. Pine trees were touted as a lifeline for Te Tairawhiti in the wake of Cyclone Bola. Stabilising the whenua and providing employment was part of its appeal. But the environmental cost has been too high, compounded by severe weather events. We'll look at what's next with our panel shortly, but first, let's recap how we got here. - For years, Te Tairawhiti has felt the impacts of forestry slash. Millions of tons of it blanket beaches up and down the East coast. - Every time we get heavy rain now, more slash is deposited on the beach. - As a community, our resources have been impacted upon, as well as our wahi tapu. So too is the wairua of our people. - And for years, the forestry industry has made promises to clean up its act. - Forestry companies are changing their practices around rotational harvesting, no clear-fell harvesting. They are retiring some of the areas of steep hill country. - I don't think they care about the communities. I think they care about their balance sheets. - But it's taken almost three years for the government to finally hold a full-scale inquiry into slash in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle, and the findings released last week were damning. The report points to a number of failures from successive governments, the forestry sector and the Gisborne District Council. - And the potential for wide-scale land collapse becomes real, and then the potential for Ngati Parau to be rendered homeless and refugees in their own land could become a reality. - To discuss the slash report now, I'm joined ` from Whakatane ` by Mana Taiao Tairawhiti representative Manu Caddie, and here in our studio by Eastland Wood Council chief executive Philip Hope. Tena ra korua. Thank you both very much for your time. Let's start with you, Manu. What's your initial reaction? - I think we're pretty pleased with the report recommendations. The findings addressed a number of the suggestions that we'd put in our submission and that were in the original petition that launched the inquiry. So overall, very impressed with some of the bold suggestions, a few things that we didn't agree with, but sort of two thirds we're very supportive of. - OK. I want to get into the things you didn't agree with soon, but let's come to you, Philip. Your reaction? - In principle, the Eastland Wood Council supports the recommendations. I think there is some finer detail that's needed on some of the recommendations. For example, restrictions on clear-fell harvesting. We certainly agree with that in principle. What we've wanted members to do is to go away and do some modelling and just see what that looks like, because we need the industry to be viable. We` The trees need to be harvested, and we certainly agree in principle with the report, which is really robust. - Because absolutely, trees keep growing, no matter what happens. At some point, those trees have to come down. - Yes. And we have a wall of wood coming. The trees, which are due for harvest over the next sort of five to eight years, were planted post Cyclone Bola. If they're left in the ground, they just get bigger and heavier. The risk of slope failure is much greater. So I think we need to think about that as we determine what are the best practices, how much harvesting can be done at one time. And we certainly agree around a risk assessment by catchment, because each catchment is different and I think that's the basis on which we need to go forward. - I will come to that as well. Let's come back to you, Manu. The parts that were missed or the areas that you think haven't been covered or that you wanted to discuss, what were those? - I think they covered most of the issues that we were concerned about. There were just some aspects that we felt probably let central government off the hook. And there were some strange suggestions around sort of appointing individuals basically to run the region, taking away the democratically elected council. And I think what we would like to see is more participation rather than concentrating power in a smaller group or, you know, an individual. So that was some of the stuff that we were concerned about, but overall pretty pleased, and it did address a number of those issues. And as Philip said, there's some work to be done. - The Gisborne District Council, Manu, did come in for some response and for some criticism. Quote, 'Capitulation to the permissiveness of the regulatory regime 'and its under resourced monitoring and compliance.' Why not then do something a little bit more independent with the responsibilities that the council has? - Yeah, I thought that really missed the mark and was quite a ridiculous suggestion in many ways that, you know, what they were really looking at was the council behaviour when Heke was a cabinet minister in a government which let the industry essentially write their own rules. And so we had a council that since then, and particularly since 2017, 2018, prosecuted more companies successfully than any other council in the country, who've really beefed up their compliance and monitoring team. So instead of the industry self-regulating, which was the mantra under the previous governments and where the rules were set at central government, councils stepped up and expanded their monitoring and compliance team. Before, they had two people in that period and now they've got something like 12 or 13. And the other thing is council opposed those national rules that the previous National government set, and allowed the industry to set, right from when they were proposed. You know, I was a councillor back in 2010. We sent letters to government at that time. It got taken off Ministry for the Environment, given to MPI, who appointed industry people on to the working group to write the rules for themselves. And councillors all the way through opposed, as have hapu around the coast, saying actually, those national rules aren't fit for purpose in a place like this with massive erosion issues. We need to be able to have stricter rules in this region, and I think that's what the report has come out and found in a broader sense, but it's really overlooked the good work that council has done in the recent years. So I don't think there's any need for a commissioner to be appointed. And the other point is hearings, commissioners, none of these consents were getting to hearings because they're all permitted under the national rules. So it's a bit of a 'Yeah, they missed the mark on that one,' I think. - OK. The catchment by catchment basis approach that you mentioned earlier, Philip, how will that work? Why would that work in this case, do you think? - Because there was a very broad brush to plantation, post Cyclone Bola. We now know that a lot of steep faces should never have been planted in pine. The reality is they were. What Cyclone Gabrielle showed, really, was unprecedented failure of entire slopes with standing trees. And that's really what increased the impact on infrastructure over and above just traditional forestry slash as the result of harvesting. So you had failure of trees as a result of land failure. And, you know, the impact was devastating. So I think we've got to take that same approach on a catchment by catchment basis, and that would not only determine how that block would be harvested, but also what parts of it would be retired, what sort of vegetation would be planted there. And what we're now reflecting back to, I guess the wisdom of Cyclone Bola, is we're going back to what probably should have been planted subsequent to Cyclone Bola. - What does that mean for timeline? - This is going to take time. It's, you know, there's no magic wand here. If we, I guess, introduce the restrictions on the size of harvesting blocks, what we're saying is we're going to leave these trees in the ground longer, and these vulnerable slopes, they're going to get bigger, they're going to get heavier. So there are no easy answers, but I think a catchment by catchment risk assessment is what's needed. What I do know from the forestry industry, and not every forestry company is a member of the Eastland Wood Council, but the leaders, the environmental planners are really happy with the report. Obviously there's some detail that they want to have input into, and I think this is the stage that we're at. We're not seeing the appendices until Friday this week, and I think that's going to provide context to the report that we saw on Friday. - Manu, I think the report says 5 to 10 years to act. How realistic is that, do you think? - As Philip said, you know, these are long term issues. It's taken a while to get to this point. The trees aren't going to go anywhere quickly. But what some of the suggestions that we had were, let's not plant any more pine. We don't need any more. What we need are incentives, particularly through the ETS, to favour natives. And let's get those permanent, diverse native forests back on the land as quickly as possible. So rather than replanting in pine, we can do better than that. There's a move to talk about transition forests. You know, sort of some magic science that will allow pines to become natives. What everybody agrees, I think, around that is it's going to be expensive and we need to set aside money for that process. So these trees aren't going to go away quickly, they're going to be part of our community for a long time, but there's a lot we can do in the interim, particularly when they've been harvested. And also on pasture, you know, I think the report missed the issue of farming and what we do with the erosion that's caused on farmland and steep erosion-prone pastures. So that's another area that can you can see some real transition quickly. - Tena koe, Manu. I think you mentioned the issue about cost. There's also a cost in doing nothing, right? Nga mihi nui, kia korua. Thank you, Manu Caddie, joining us from Whakatane; Philip for joining us in the studio. - Kia ora. - Tena ra kourua tahi. Kia ita tonu mai ra, e nga iwi. Stay with us on ta tatou hotaka, ara i ta tatou hui. He korero pungawi te haere ake nei. Mixing Scottish and Maori whakapapa, the Armstrong brothers are taking on the world. I'm the other Louis Hamilton, from Rotorua. Skinny hired me to tell you about their low-cost broadband. Get Skinny Unlimited Broadband for just 45 bucks a month when on a $27 or above mobile plan, plus get 2 months free broadband. - Whakarongo ki te tangi a te reo korero, me te reo pu ngawi e haere ake nei. For the Armstrong brothers from Rotorua, bagpipes and pipe bands have become a way of life. Now the trio of brothers will compete against the world's best pipe bands at the World Pipe Band Championships in Scotland. Anei te purongo a John Boynton. (BAGPIPES PLAY 'POKAREKARE ANA') - There's no mistaking the haunting sound of bagpipes. - When you first hear it, you just know it's got a presence to it. - The Armstrong brothers, bringing the sound of their Scottish tupuna to their turangawaewae at Whakarewarewa village. - If you hear it played really well, it can really stir you up, I guess. (CHUCKLES) (BAGPIPES CONTINUE PLAYING 'POKAREKARE ANA') (GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC) The pipes are all sort of the same. It's the sound they produce. - Rotorua Twins Maneo and Ngatai Armstrong know their way around a set of bagpipes. It looks a little bit scary when you look at this. I guess for someone like me who doesn't know bagpipes. - Oh, yeah, yeah. - There's a few parts to it. This one's the bass reed. - The 20-year-olds first started playing as teenagers after their parents, Leslie and Roger, signed them up. - I sort of say to them, right, you need a sport and an arty for the year, and they hadn't chosen anything. I says, 'If you don't choose, I'm going to put you into bagpipes.' - But they quickly found their groove, and they've been playing for seven years. - LAUGHS: When they first started it was pretty awful. (LAUGHS) - And that's like, you know, most people that are in those bands, once they get hooked they're in it (LAUGHS) for life, really. (BAGPIPES SKIRL) - And the twins are hooked on bagpipes. - I guess when you when you start getting better, you can appreciate the sound. You can just hear the different parts of the pipes. - Have you had any noise complaints? - (LAUGHS SOFTLY) - No. We're lucky. Our neighbours,... - They all love it. - ...many of them seem to love it. - The bagpipes are taking them around the country. Today the boys are in Wellington, practising with the National Youth Pipe Band. (BAGPIPES SKIRL LOUDLY) What did your mates at high school think when you told them you played the bagpipes? - I never told them. I thought it was kind of embarrassing. (BAGPIPES CONTINUE SKIRLING) - I think embarrassed is the right word because you're walking around in kilts ` skirts ` playing a noisy instrument. - Stuart McHale is a board member for the Royal New Zealand Pipe Band Association. - Now those times have changed. I think people like being a bit different and like being involved in more unusual things. - We just thought it was just an instrument for old people to play at Anzac, and it's a lot bigger than that. - Stuart, like the Armstrong brothers, grew up in Rotorua, an area known for its kapa haka prowess. But he says not all kids fit into that space. - If you've got a stink voice and you can't find your space in music, because kapa haka is largely up on stage and singing. So for quiet people, this is their way to be loud without sort of using the vocal chords. - Did the boys prefer wearing a kilt or a piupiu? - They're still part of a group. They're still wearing a type of dress. Yeah, they would prefer to wear a kilt to a piupiu. - I did kapa haka until, like, Year Eight, and then this sort of just took over. - Their younger brother Kairau also plays in the pipe band as a drummer. - yeah, just meet lots of new people from, like, all over the country and all over the world. - And he sees the appreciation his whanau have for the music. - Whenever we go to events, we always have like aunties and uncles saying like, 'Oh, can you play for us?' Oh, they just think it's cool. Yeah, it's kind of like merging two cultures, I guess. - I can tell that they are really proud of being Maori and, you know, Armstrong, I'm sure you can't get too much more Scottish than an Armstrong surname, I think. - Today, the brothers are representing their whanau at the National Anzac Day Service. It's being held at the Pukeahu National War Memorial in Wellington. (BAGPIPES SKIRL, DRUM BEATS RHYTHMICALLY) It's a sight which always makes their parents proud. - I just love it. Yeah. Just watching them and... - Mm. Handsome. - Yeah. - This event is leading up to the biggest competition on the pipe band calendar ` the World Pipe Band Championships in Scotland. - It's like Matatini in New Zealand. It's, uh... - Prestigious. - It's a prestigious contest. (FOLK MUSIC) - The Armstrong brothers will compete in Glasgow with the Auckland District's pipe band. - We're pretty excited to go. We're the only ones in our band who haven't been to Scotland, and it looks like it's going to be quite an exciting trip. - They watch a lot of pipe bands on TV, especially the ones in Scotland that have been taking out, you know, the championships. - 150 top bands will be competing. There'll be tens of thousands of spectators,... - COMMENTATOR: Great emotional impact. - ...and it's broadcast on the BBC. - Even if we place top 10, it would be a huge achievement. - Stuart hopes other young Maori follow suit and can be inspired by the Armstrong brothers. - It's about soaking up the experience. It's about representing your family. Representing your mum and dad back at home and being up on TV and enjoying it. - And they'll be taking a piece of home with them. - LESLIE: You're always proud of your children, aren't you? And you always there, hopefully, to encourage them. We've sort of got to the stage now where we have to back off (LAUGHS) because they're getting older, and they're finding their own path with their music, but we'll always` We're always, number one supporters. Always. - Yeah. - Too much. Go the Armstrongs! Kua hikina ta tatou hui mo tenei ra. You can view all of today's stories on our social media platforms, including Facebook and YouTube, as well as on newshub.co.nz. Kia hoki ake ano ki ta tatou whakatauaki e ki nei ` kia mau ki te turanga o Taputapuatea. Haumi e, hui e, taiki e. Captions by Emma Bartoszewicz Poole. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - Ko te reo te take. - Na Te Puna Whakatongarewa Te Hui i tautoko.