- He muka no te taura o te whare kaupapa Maori. He here no nga iwi katoa o te motu. He putanga no nga topuranga korero o te wa. Ko te Hui tenei. Haumi e, hui e, taiki e. This week on The Hui... Many whanau in Te Karaka lost everything when Cyclone Gabrielle hit, and almost half the devastated homes were uninsured. We returned to see what progress has been made in the last six months. - I didn't realise it would be this difficult. It's not good enough. - Plus, there's a new era of Playboy bunnies ` more diverse and accessible. - I got the email at mahi one day, and, like, I just couldn't stop screaming. They were like, 'You're officially a Playboy bunny.' www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - Kua hunga kua tomo ki a Rangiaio, takoto mai ra ki roto o Wharepapa o Huakipouri. Haramai, haere. Tatou e pupuru nei ki te akaaka o te whenua, tihewa mauriora and welcome back to The Hui. Locals described it as a tsunami going through Te Karaka, and when Cyclone Gabrielle hit this small community, many lost everything. To make matters worse, almost half of the households were uninsured. Six months after the devastation, our reporter John Boynton travelled back and found a community that left no one behind in their goal to get all whanau in homes again. And the surprising disruption to the insurance industry it brought about. - REPORTER: In February, Te Karaka was a community left reeling from the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle. - Holy (BLEEP!) - It was likened to a tsunami going through Te Karaka. - With almost half the community having no insurance. - Every time I come home, it breaks my heart. - Once the clean-up crews had gone, the streets sat in silence. (BLEAK MUSIC) 110 homes were impacted by the cyclone in this rohe. 66 homes were insured, while 44 were uninsured. - For a lot of whanau here, insurance is a luxury. Yep. You drive around here ` these people have been through hard times. - So local iwi Te Aitanga a Mahaki quickly stepped up... setting an ambitious date to have repairs and rebuilds done on the 110 impacted homes by the 31st of August. - Whilst it's a challenge that we're more than capable and ready to take on, we need everyone else to keep up with us. - So what progress has been made for the last six months? First, this once-empty paddock is now a temporary housing village. - We ended up moving out 106 temporary pods. - So what about the uninsured? - We were successful in securing central government funding for repairs. - This uninsured whare was one of the worst damaged. But now it's almost ready for whanau to move back. - So I've tried to make sure that you do a repair, you look to do it once and only once, and it's properly warranted and then finished, and then families go in. - Although support has been put in place for whanau who are uninsured, it's not the same story for those whanau who are insured. They're still facing a lengthy wait to have their claims processed. - We're still very much at the beginning of the process, engaging with insurance companies. Yeah ` still there six months later. I didn't realise it would be this difficult with having, on average, nine different individuals for every single one of my claims. - Robyn is currently managing 39 insurance claims. - Eight of them didn't even have email cos they're elderly. My oldest client is 90 with dementia. - But she's managed to secure two dedicated insurance assessors for families in Te Karaka. - We as an iwi ` we're trying to disrupt the whole industry. I hope that it will transpire into rebuilds that will allow our families to move quickly. Insurance companies need to be far more helpful than probably what they have been to date. - How long have you lived in this whare for? - Well, I was born here. I grew up here. - Te Karaka local Matatuhi Ruru's home is just outside his marae, Takipu. But during the cyclone, he and his wife barely escaped from this home with their lives. - Early hours of the morning ` still dark ` my wife woke me up. She said, 'Someone's knocking on the door.' When I opened the door, the water just come... (IMITATES WHOOSH) - Matatuhi didn't have house insurance. - I thought, 'That's it. Our house will be pulled down. 'I've got to start it all over again somehow.' - But the iwi stepped in to carry out repairs. - Well, it's a whole new beginning for the whare. - He did have contents insurance, which Robyn secured to pay for the cost of raising his home. - And everything they have done has been amazing for our people. - Robyn says this makes all her hard mahi worth it. - They could have been left waiting for years possibly, so I'm really pleased that we did decide to take the pathway that we took. - And she's starting to make major progress. - I've been a part of just under $3 million worth of payments. - So $3 million ` that must feel like a bit of an accomplishment. You're getting somewhere. - No, it's not good enough. - Because there's still an estimated $15 million of insurance claims still to go, and the iwi is not leaving anyone behind. Claimants Mike Sheriff and his wife, Ngaire, are not Maori, but the iwi is working alongside them too. - Where did the water come up? - Oh, about there. - Yeah. - Their house still lies in ruins. - I don't think that any insurance company would be doing quite what we're doing in terms of following families. - They've been given a portable cabin, and Robyn is fighting to have their claim settled. - Into our living room. - Where it's beautiful and warm. - (CHUCKLES) Yeah, at least it's warm. - Yeah. I actually had to share video footage to prove it. - To have them believe you? - To have them believe me, especially when I've shared that it was likened to a tsunami going through Te Karaka. I came out here in June in my gumboots, and he goes, 'Keep going, girl. See how high it is.' (BOTH CHUCKLE) - She stopped when it got up to about there. - When it got up to my top of my Red Bands. It always feels like they have to prove that they're being honest, that they're being truthful. - If they just come out and said, 'No, you can't live here,' or, 'We can do this,' or 'We'll do that,' you'd know where you stood. And how long do we have to wait? - Yeah, that's right. Yeah, being 85 years young. - They haven't heard back from Mike's insurance company in months. - I think that insurance companies need to be far more empathetic. Years of insurance premiums have been paid for by people here. Hopefully make a difference. - Well... - We hope so. - ...I hope it helps others too. - Another major challenge is finding out what council regulations may be put in place to stop this happening again. - They too are trying to understand how they can go about, you know, getting stopbanks raised here. If it takes three years, will insurance companies continue to ensure our homes? - There's also the issue of finding enough tradespeople. - I think we may possibly have three groups of builders from Whakatane that will come across. We've still got to work through the discussions. - But despite the barriers, Robyn is forging ahead for her community. - I know these families, and I'm fortunate that they trust me, but I don't take that trust for granted. I won't be happy until I see them back in their homes. - Te Aitanga a Mahaki, kia kaha ra. Kia mau tonu mai e nga iwi ` after the break, Zoe Hawke joins us to discuss inequities in the health system and the impacts on our rangatahi with pepi. (DEVICE CLICKS AND BEEPS) (SIREN WAILS) Heya. Oh, no, the goose is getting me! MAN OVER RADIO: Car 51. Yeah, CMH One Alpha receiving. Hey, look, reason I pulled you over is you've been speeding. MAN: I was only a few k's over. WOMAN: Same speed as everyone else. Come on, bro! I wasn't going that fast. How about you catch some real criminals? A few k's over. I'm not hurting anyone. (HORN BLARES) Hey, look, reason I pulled you over is you've been speeding. (GENTLE MUSIC) - Hoki mai ano e nga iwi ki ta tatou hui e whakanui ana e whakaaro nui ana ki te ao hauora Maori. With me now in studio is the CEO of E Tipu E Rea Whanau Services, Zoe Hawke. The organisation has a focus on rangatahi with pepi or those rangatahi who are hapu. Zoe, tena koe. - Kia ora. - Thank you for your time. You have said that the changes to the health sector with the introduction of Te Aka Whai Ora isn't the full and complete answer to reducing inequalities in the health sector. What more is required now in your view? - So I certainly think that Te Aka Whai Ora is a step in the right direction, and we are all really hoping that Te Aka Whai Ora continues its journey, because it's only been around for a very short time. We want to see the vision that Te Aka Whai Ora has set about carry on and be able to, I guess, reach its aspirations, but don't think it's the only thing that needs to happen to really support our hapu, iwi and whanau who are really struggling at the moment. I think we need to look across sectors, because Te Aka Whai Ora has all these amazing goals, but if you switch to the Ministry of Social Development, let's say, and our whanau work across, they live and operate across sectors, then there are some barriers that sit there. So I guess what we would like to see is certainly a coordinated effort between all our systems to work together, to plan together, so that we have these barriers removed instead of one goal here, barrier in the next system that actually prevents that goal from happening. - How achievable is that, though, Zoe? How realistic is that goal? - I actually think it's really realistic. I don't think it's particularly hard to sit down and plan together. If we... I guess, sit down, have a korero, actually plan and talk about all these barriers and be really committed to the change across systems... Look, we've got a Te Aka Whai Ora ` that's proof that we can do this, so why not think about it in other sectors and plan together so that together ` not in isolation, because our whanau don't operate in isolation ` we are making those changes? - OK. Let's talk with specificity, then, to those that you support. And we know this is Mental Health Week this week. How does Te Aka Whai Ora directly support those that you support through the services of E Tipu E Rea Whanau? - I can actually talk to a little bit of a research paper that we did last night` last, sorry... last year` Last night, no! - I was gonna say, 'Last night's good!' (LAUGHS) - ...last year, with the support of National Hauora Coalition, actually, and we gathered insights from our young mama who have either used our service previously or were currently in our service, and we looked at how they had been treated by the health system and other systems. And sadly, it came` some of the feedback that we gathered, the insights that we gathered, were really heartbreaking. - Wow. - Things like racism, discrimination, being judged because they were young and hapu, threats of Oranga Tamariki uplifts because they were actually suffering from postnatal depression. And when they talked about it, there were people coming in, saying, 'You're not well enough to look after your baby.' So we know that all these things are happening throughout the system, and Te Aka Whai Ora is actually allowing us to, I guess, give direct support and even start a maternity and early years service at E Tipu E Rea Whanau Services so that we can avoid all those barriers and all that treatment and give what our whanau need, which is non-judgmental, supportive, tailored to their needs, where we know that anything they are dealing with, even if it's their mental health, we can wrap around that tautoko. - You are probably aware that there are a lot of political people at play at the moment and parties who are saying that if they form a new government, Te Aka Whai Ora is gone, the disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora will occur. What will the impacts of that be, say, on the whanau that you support? - Yeah. Yeah, we do have some fears that that might happen, and we would encourage all political parties to reconsider that and to actually get behind Te Aka Whai Ora and let that vision continue. - But we know that probably is not gonna occur, though. - Yeah, well, the reality is if it doesn't, then the whanau that we are seeing that are celebrating the tautoko that we are giving them and the fact that their voices were listened to and we could design a service specific to them... if that ends, then I tell you what, I wonder about their mental health. I wonder about the journey of our young whanau in the future. I don't think it's looking good. - How, as a CEO of a front-facing whanau-support service, right, you're dealing... the people that you support, you're dealing with every day, and it is direct service as well that you are supplying and supporting them with, so what's your advice, then, to those people with levers of responsibility ` and in particular political parties, because we are getting to an election ` what's your advice to them? What would you say to them now, particularly as we talk about Te Aka Whai Ora and the proposed disestablishment? - Yeah. I would like to say that, you know, our Ministry of Health, they've had` which is now Whatu Ora, have been around for a very long time, so they have had years and years and years of being able to fine-tune a system, and they still didn't get it right. Give Te Aka Whai Ora a chance, because I think you will find that we will be able to, as providers, really tailor our services to the whanau most in need, and if you want really good outcomes next election, I would say it's time to get behind Te Aka Whai Ora, give it a go, trust our ability to deliver something good for our whanau so that you see them thriving on your political three-year cycle. - Do you see that as being one of the main issues that you don't think that the dises` disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora, sorry, is an issue of trust, that the whanau that you support and the services that you provide are at risk because there isn't trust that you're delivering the service that's required? Is that the way that you see the political rationale that's at play? - Yeah, I certainly think that at a whanau level, there's discrimination that happens a) against our young Maori hapu mama in particular, and then I think if you lift that up a bit, there's certainly some discrimination and potentially some racism in regards to our ability as Maori providers and iwi providers to deliver our services. - Yeah, there is gonna be an audience here... - Yes. Yes. - ...that is watching this at the moment... - Yes, I'm sure. - ...when they hear things like racism and discrimination, they simply don't buy that line. Actually, they see the whole way in which the system has now been crafted as racism in itself. What's your response to that? - I would say that if you look at our stats around, I guess, our health, our mental health, even our maternal mental health, if you look at our stats, you will see that Maori wahine are the ones suffering from maternal suicide, maternal... ongoing depression, avoiding the system because they're worried about how they will be judged ` therefore, they're not getting cervical screening, they're not getting a whole range of services that they need. And if you don't do something different and we continue to carry on on an old model where we're not tailoring our funding and our specific services designed for our whanau, then you're gonna see more inequity, which says to me this is racism, because if you trusted us to just tailor things for our whanau that we know that will work, then you will see a different outcome, so why not let us do that? - Which also ties in to Mental Health Week this week. - Yes, absolutely. - E hoa Zoe, tena koe. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for the service you're providing as well to our whanau. Nga mihi nui ki a koe. That, of course, is Zoe Hawke. E nga iwi, hei muri i nga whakatairanga... the first ever Playboy drag queen bunny is a Kiwi. Their story is up next on The Hui. 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. - Hoki mai ra e nga iwi ki nga ringa atawhai o te Hui, e tuwhera atu nei. An iconic brand for 70 years, Playboy has kept up with the times, moving from print to online. Now there's a new era of Playboy bunnies ` more diverse, more accessible. And the first ever drag queen bunny is a Kiwi. Here's Kayne Ngatokowha Peters with more. (UPBEAT MUSIC) - REPORTER: Playboy bunnies have been a prominent part of the Playboy brand for 70 years. They were made popular as waitresses at Playboy nightclubs across the USA and England in the '60s. But what does this 28-year-old Wellington government worker have in common with Playboy bunnies? - I think the first blonde bombshell that I was obsessed with was Britney Spears. I used to love waking up on Saturday mornings and it was, like, Coca-Cola Top 40. - # Baby, can't you see... - I remember loving it. Because we had a VCR, we'd record them, and then I would play them back over and over, and I'd learn the Britney Spears choreography. - # I'm falling. # - Everything that I liked was pink, pretty and gentle. As a child, I wanted nothing to do with anything that was masculine. I've been gay for my whole life, obviously, but I think what's different about me is that I've kind of always known, even from a very young, young age. I connected with women more than I did with men. My only friends at school were girls. I'm a mummy's boy. - With such admiration for wahine, it's no surprise that Raife May is most inspired by his mother. - Credit to my mum. Yeah, she is strong. She raised me by herself. She is funny. She's confident. She's really tough. She's lived a whole-ass life, which is inspiring in itself, really. Well, I used to dress up when I was a kid. I'd make my cousins sit at the end of the hallway, and I would come up and down the hallway in my mum's shoes... I guess giving them a runway moment. Mum said that she would always pick me up from kindie, and I'd be in a dress. There was, like, a particular wedding dress there that I really liked. Mum thought I wanted to be a girl before she thought I was gay cos apparently I came home from school one day, like, crying my eyes out, like, 'Why can't I be a girl? Why? Why aren't I a girl?' I think a lot of the time, Mum was just worried about how other people thought or how they would treat me. 'Oh, why are you hanging out with the girls? Like, hang out with the boys at lunch.' 'Cos I want to play Mum and Dads. I don't want to play rugby.' Like, (LAUGHS) - Raife May grew up on the east side of Porirua. - The men that I grew up around were rough. It was toxic masculinity at 100%. I never felt aligned with that. I think as I've, like, gotten older, I've kind of been more open to my own masculinity in a way. I think my brain has tried to save me from a lot of trauma, and I can't actually remember a lot of specific details with my father. None of the violence was ever directly at me. I was never hurt or anything like that. I mean, I got hidings when I acted up or anything like that, but it wasn't.. I mean, I guess that counts, right? There was also gang violence around me. I have a memory of being in the car with my dad, and there was a patched Black Power member on the cement, and he literally just drove his car up, floored it and hit this guy. And then we just, like, drove away. Every time I got in the car with my dad, it was either full of mobsters or he was speeding. Then I decided at, like, 12 or 13 that I wanted to go no contact because I just wasn't getting anything out of the relationship. - The first time I met Raife would've been probably in Year 9. We were first starting at Aotea College. - Tayi Tibble is one of Raife's best friends from high school. Tayi is also an internationally recognised author and poet who has just been published in The New Yorker. - I think Raife definitely stood out at school. He was definitely the only openly gay student at our school at the time. He was just very confident and not afraid to be himself, and I really appreciate that about him. My childhood was quite similar to Raife's. It was quite tumultuous and difficult or complicated at times, which I think is similar to a lot of experiences of people growing up around here just cos of the sociopolitical environment. Raife and I ` we kind of grew up with fairly limited resources and maybe not always the encouragement that we wanted to see at certain times. It can really inspire or encourage a lot of creativity. And I think a lot of the things and the art and the things we were creating and were interested in at the time, we kind of were drawn to, I guess, maybe as a form of escapism from some of our realities that we were seeing in our day-to-day lives in our family. - And as soon as these two made it out of high school and into the adult world, Raife's alter ego was born. - I am Bunny Holliday. I am a 28-year-old drag queen from Wellington. And I also happen to be the baddest bitch in the city. I've been doing drag now in Wellington and around the country, really, for about seven years. I feel like now I've found who she is, and I've kind of made a mark on Wellington itself. I'm a drag queen, so I can toot my own horn, but I'd say I'm kind of an icon. (BRITNEY SPEARS' 'IF YOU SEEK AMY' PLAYS) - Bunny Holiday is a pillar of the capital's takatapui community. - # Oh, baby, baby... # - At the moment, I feel like there has been some pushback in terms of the queer community just existing. There was a period where everything was... well, it wasn't OK, but it felt like it was gonna be OK. And I think in recent times, it's kind of a little bit different. There is some pushback from more conservative people. More than ever, we need people like myself and like other performers to be out there and being our authentic selves. - Bunny was the 2022 winner of the Mx Capital Drag pageant, New Zealand's longest-running pageant for drag queens, and recently, drag kings... and now she's making Playboy history. - I applied to be a bunny in the Playboy Centerfold programme. It's similar to OnlyFans in the same kind of vein, but not as explicit. I noticed that they were asking for inclusivity. I noticed that they had some cis men and some trans women as bunnies. I didn't see any drag queens or anything like that. And I was like, 'Well, you're already` you already look the part. 'You know everything about it. Like, just give it a go.' And I applied. I sent in an application. I didn't hear from them for, like, five months. I was like, 'Oh my God, I haven't got it.' Like, I was, like, really, like, sad about it. And then I got the email at mahi one day, and, like, I just couldn't stop screaming. They were like, 'You're officially a Playboy bunny.' We did some research, and we found out that I'm the first official drag queen Playboy bunny in the entire world. - Raife has gone from being merely a fan of former Playmate Holly Madison to Instagram buddies who chat all the time. - Iconic Playboy women are the epitome of beauty to me. Like, the Playmates, like Pamela Anderson and Anna Nicole Smith ` I just thought they were the most glamorous women on the planet. - Raife has stepped into a life he was determined to have... - I think I've been a drag queen for a long time. (CHUCKLES) - ...and has made his way in the world as Bunny Holiday, the way she wants to and on her terms. - JULIAN: Aianei ta tatou hui, coming up soon on The Hui ` from serving seven years behind bars.... - I didn't foresee myself getting incarcerated. - ...to now having a promising life ahead as a kaiwhakairo. - A whole lot of good has come out of me being incarcerated. There's no way I'd be the person I am. There's no way I would've fallen in love with mahi whakairo. - In the face of adversity, Mark Lang is carving out a new path. - It was my dream to open a carving workshop. I started planning for that while I was in the inside. It's turned from a workshop and a shop selling carvings to a massive gallery studio holding a national exhibition. - Mark acknowledges his past but does not choose to dwell on it. Instead, he is redefining his future. - To do my mahi, I've got to be tika and pono. That's why I took on the name Tika Pono Toi for my carving business. - That's our hui for this week. You'll find all our stories from today on our channels, on Facebook and YouTube, or at newshub.co.nz. As always, kia mau ki te turanga o Taputapuatea. Haumi e, hui e, taiki e. Na Sam Baker nga kupu hauraro i hanga. Na Te Puna Whakatongarewa nga kupu hauraro i tautoko. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023. - Ko te reo, te take. - Na Te Puna Whakatongarewa Te Hui i tautoko.