Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - Tonight on Sunday ` trouble in paradise. Is our biggest tourist town broken? - You've got people living eight in a two-bedroom apartment, and the house next door is worth $10 million. I mean, that's bollocks. - Do people moving here realise how bad things are? - No. It's like a tragic paradise right now, really. - A nice place to visit, but a hard place to live. - I didn't think that I'd ever be struggling to find a home in my own country. - There's hundreds of people just like me, but no one sees it. - The computer doesn't judge where you are or what colour your skin is. - And the tech sector's taking off... - We've got more nerds in the herd. Yay. - ...but is everyone along for the ride? - A lot of our kids don't have access to computers. They've never touched a mouse before. - And ` toxic. How the world chewed up and spat out Britney Spears. - # Oh baby, baby. - It was kind of a punchline for a lot of people... - She's getting in the back, Ben. - ...and there was a lot of real suffering behind it. - I mean, the whole thing is just so... nauseating. - Kia ora. I'm Miriama Kamo. It's our country's adventure centre, renowned for its natural beauty. Queenstown has always looked after its tourists, but what about those who call it home? Scratch below the surface, and truth is our international tourist mecca is crumbling ` you can't drink the tap water, and hardworking residents are sleeping in cars, with no immediate solution in sight. Tonight Conor Whitten is with the working houseless in our troubled paradise. (REFLECTIVE MUSIC) - It's hard to not get up in the morning and smile when you've got a mountain covered in snow beside you, a lake right in front of where I work every day. You can't ask for much else, really. - It's a beautiful place. You come here for the adventure, you come here for the lifestyle. - We're a tourism town. We like to invite people here and host people here. - But Queenstown needs to take a good look at itself... if it wants to remain that important tourist destination. - It's fast becoming subject to a division of the haves and the have-nots. - Whoo! Make some nose, everybody! (CROWD CHEERS) It's shiny on the outside, but pretty messy in the middle, when you really dig and look at what's actually happening. - And how many of you are sharing a room with someone else? - Queenstown is sleeping in my car beside a $15 million house. - Did you ever think that you'd have to sleep in your car? - Never. Just whenever you're ready? - Whenever you're ready. - Um, this is Lucy. This is the whip for the time being, while I've been, you know, homeless. She's pretty well set up, definitely good for a single person to be living in. - 'It's Monday evening, mid-October.' - I've got a cooker. I don't really have anywhere to hang clothes and stuff. My skateboard, got... Got everything you really need ` got my high-vis for work. Nothing really else you need other than that. It's a good car, a good car. - Central Queenstown, where we first meet Tyler Tipene and his well-worn wagon, Lucy. - Hi, I'm Tyler. I'm 24. I work in civil construction, and I've been living in my car for four months. - He wants Kiwis to know the truth ` our tourism jewel is losing its lustre. - There's hundreds of people just like me, but no one sees it; they just see the tourist and the mountains, and they're like, 'Oh, his is` this is beautiful,' but they don't see what's really going on. - You can see it all from Bob's Peak in Queenstown ` at the top, the Remarkables gleam in the distance, at the bottom is the shadow of the tourism boom. - One of the most spectacular views on earth... - Mm. - ...and at the end of the day, you're sleeping over there. - Yep. Set up the mattress and just, yeah, go to sleep. - You and I would call this a car park; Tyler called it home. - I just kind of kept an eye out and just saw where no one was, really. So I just found that place over there. - Right above us as we talk is the Skyline Gondola ` Tyler helped renovate it earlier this year. - Like a $250 million project. - Just a few hundred metres from here? - Yeah, just few hundred metres. A normal day here would be go to work at 7, work until 5. Once I'd parked, I would, you know, find somewhere to eat and then find somewhere to shower and then come back and just chill in my car and then go to sleep and wake up for the next day. - So, it's not a matter of not having a job, not having enough money; it's a matter of there being, what, just nowhere to go? - Just not enough places. Yeah, nowhere to go. It's extremely hard, like, applying every day online, on Facebook, on Trade Me and just getting rejected to get a place. - How many places do you think you've tried? - Probably at least 80 to 100. - 80 to 100? - Yeah. - Wow. - It was pretty much every day for four months. - 'A home on wheels right through winter.' How cold is winter in Queenstown when you're living in your car? - It's only, like, minus-2. Well, I've got blankets, I've got sleeping bags. Like, you've gotta make the best of a bad situation. - Queenstown's dirty secret ` the working homeless. And Tyler is not alone. It's not sustainable, is it? - No. And, like, everyone will just leave. Even who do the work that they need done? - Leave and go where? We've come to Queenstown to investigate housing, but it's quickly apparent the crisis has spread. - While Queenstown is the more famous cousin, shall we say, we have exactly the same issues here. - He's talking about Wanaka, an hour over the hill, and he's tracked us down to chat. - Hi, I'm Chris Hadfield. I own Ritual Cafe. I'm here to talk to you about my staff. They're just struggling to find somewhere to live, and I just don't see it changing. - Why did you reach out to us? - It's a good question. When the media inquiry came through from you guys about homelessness in Queenstown, I went, 'No, what about Wanaka?' So being the belligerent person that I am, I thought, 'Right, I'm gonna to find out who these people are.' - 'In the middle of our interview, we can see why.' - ...different ideas. - Wish me luck, Chris. I'm off doing another house viewing. - That's Rachel's other half. - Good luck. Oh, really? - Yes. Off to a house viewing. Fingers crossed. - Rachel Stewart is one of Chris's nine employees. She's in a rental, but not for long. - I'm Rachel, I work at Ritual Cafe in Wanaka, and in two weeks time, I will not have a roof over my head. There you go. Have a great day. Thank you. - After four years working here, she's become a fixture. - Sure. Would you like that warmed up with butter? There's probably 100 regular customers that I know personally by first name, and they know my first name. I know about their lives. It's a close-knit little town, and I love that about Wanaka. - It's home. - Yeah, it's home. Yes. Yep, yep. It's home, yep. Actually, we need to fill in... - But living here has never been harder. Rachel's lease is ending. - You have to move on the Monday? - I have to move on the Monday. Yep. - OK. And how long do you need? - A couple of days, so Monday, Tuesday. - And where are you going? - I don't know yet. - She's been looking for a new one since June. How many places do you think you've applied for? - Oh, (EXHALES SHARPLY) wow. Um... probably a dozen plus, and we're just in line with everybody else, I guess, yeah. I didn't think being 41 years of age, that I'm born and bred in New Zealand, that I'd ever be struggling to find a home in my own country. - All their belongings are bound for storage. They're preparing to sleep in a tent. - It's very unsettling. So, as a parent, it kind of feels like I'm letting my son down, because I'm making him pack, and I'm packing myself, and I'm very unsure where we're going. So It'll be me and my partner and my adult son living in a tent at a campground or freedom camping somewhere here in Wanaka, I guess. - It must be really disheartening. - It is very disheartening. You just wanna cry. You just wanna curl up in a little ball and just cry and rock yourself to sleep at night. Yeah. - Behind the beauty, boutiques and big business, hardworking people are struggling to live. From roughly 42,000 residents, thousands more people have arrived every year, 10,000 extra since 2018, with the biggest rise in the last 12 months. It's the fastest-growing place in the country, but the number of rental bonds is falling, and it has been for the past five years. More people, fewer rentals ` it paints a clear picture. - If you go look on something like Trade Me, you might find half a dozen houses at any one point in time available to be rented. So you can't find many rental properties. Over recent years, we've gained thousands and thousands and thousands of residents, so more people chasing fewer rentals. My name's Benje Patterson I'm an independent economist. Queensland has enormous potential for the future, but our Achilles heel is housing. - Where have all the rental properties gone? - Well, it is a big unknown in many ways. - Many locals blame the rise of short-term accommodation, like Bookabach and Airbnb. - The fabric of our communities is being destroyed, and we've gotta turn that around. I'm Mark Rose, the chief executive of the Rees Hotel in Queenstown. We've had a housing problem here since probably 2015. It's reaching crisis point, and if it keeps crumbling the way that it has been, there's no future to us. - It's a problem for workers and employers. - More than three-quarters of businesses found that housing was one of the key issues affecting them. It's not just a matter of finding a worker, it's actually finding a place for their worker to stay. And many businesses have had to accidentally become landlords, purchase properties just so that their workers can have a place to sleep. - NZSki went and purchased a hostel, and they had people in there. I know that one of the hotels is running a hostel as well, but there's only so many hostels that you can get, and also these hostels used to be for tourists and for workers. We need a short-term fix and a long-term plan. - Housing is unavailable and unaffordable. Mark is worried about his staff. - Oh, it's dire. People that I get to work with are paying ridiculous amounts of money to live here ` and I really do fear that they will disappear. - And our cameras are rolling when he discovers how dire it is. - So, how many of you are living in a house with eight or more people? Right. And how many of you are sharing a room with someone else? Wow, so pretty common. Gladwell came here from Kenya. - We are staying, like, eight people and one bathroom, one washroom. So if someone is using the washroom during busy time, maybe you will miss your bus, you will be late for work. And my room is very small. It's one room, and there is a partition, and I cannot stretch myself horizontally. - Angelica and her husband have their own place now, but when they arrived from the Philippines... - Four of us are sharing in one room. - Four? - Yeah, there is one single bed, and we had just a mattress on the floor. It's getting more expensive. It's so hard to find a house right now here in Queenstown. - And from Thailand, Christina. - The house is like` I think it's more than 10 bedrooms and more than 10 people, like, two people in one room mostly. - So 20 people live there. - I'm not sure. - If you don't know how many people live in your house, that's a lot of people. - There's a lot of people. - Today it's been quite confronting. I mean, I know that there's an issue here, but to hear some of the stories of the people that I work with day in, day out, it's just` it's just unbelievable. You know, you've got people living in a two-bedroom apartment, whereas` and the house nextdoor is worth $10 million. I mean, that's bollocks. That's not the New Zealand that I want my children, my grandchildren to grow up in. - And on top of all that, a water crisis. - I was gobsmacked, you know. It's not something that you would expect in a first-world country. - Is Queenstown about to break? You're saying it's not a crisis because things could still get worse? (PENSIVE MUSIC) - On the shore of spectacular Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown has a peculiar problem. Water, water everywhere... and not a drop to drink. - A boil-water notice covers most of the township, including the luxury Rees Hotel. So every day at his home in Arrowtown, boss Mark Rose has a new routine. - Seven days a week that we've gotta do them, and I'll go in on the weekends and pick them up in the morning and then take them back in to make sure that we've got water for the busier periods. - 'The hotel's water comes straight from his garden tap, container by container, day after day.' How much water do you need to bring in a day to run a hotel? - We'd go through probably seven 25-litre containers... a day. We're down to one 25-litre container for drinking water in the lobby ` that's why we need to rush this in. - Queenstown's Two-Mile treatment plant needs an ultraviolet filter. Human waste ended up in the water supply over a month ago, and at least 68 people got sick. - I was gobsmacked, you know, it's not something that you would expect in a first-world country. Howdy. - Thank goodness you got here. We ran out of bottles. We're on our last one. - Timing is everything, Ty. - He'll be doing this until December. It'll take that long for Central Queenstown's water to be safe. - After two years of Covid, you know, really? Can we`? I'm coming towards the end of my career. I thought it might be champagne and travel, not carting water from Arrowtown each day to ensure that people can clean their teeth. - It's not the experience guests have paid for ` and a room at the Rees does not come cheap. - We've had feedback from the US that people don't want to come to Queenstown because of the water. They're worried about being` getting sick. We've had a lot of cancellations because of it. - What impact is all this had on Queenstown as a whole? - It's just another painful chapter in the last three or four years. - Just as the region had begun to recover. International visitor numbers until now have been higher than they were before Covid hit. So what do the tourists think? Have you heard about the water situation here? - Nah. I haven't, nah. - That you can't drink the water from the taps. - No, I didn't know that at all. - (CHUCKLES) What do you think hearing that? - Hey? It's pretty shocking, to be honest. - It is a problem to me to have that thing happening in a first-world developed, uh, environment. - One town, two crises ` water and housing. What would you say if I told you a lot of the people working here are sleeping in cars? - Queenstown looks very exclusively rich, I would say. But if you are telling me that, it's a shame. - In a tourist destination like this, you expect the basic things to sort of be taken care of, right, which is people and water ` basic necessities. - What impact is this having on the town? - Well, obviously you're asking me this question, so it has a slight reputational risk to this town. - 'With problems like these, who would want to be mayor?' - I'm Glen Lewers. I'm the mayor of Queenstown Lakes District Council. To turn this boat around, it's gonna take some time and some investment, and there's no way we can do it by ourselves. - Is there a housing crisis in Queenstown and Wanaka? - I wouldn't go as far as a crisis because once you hit a crisis, there's` where do you go further down? - You're saying it's not a crisis because things could still get worse? - Yes, yeah. - Do people moving here realise how bad things are? - No. That's one thing that's very easy to answer, is no, they don't understand. My name is Hannah Sullivan, and I am one of the co-founders of the Queenstown Housing Initiative. People are worried. It's paradise, but it's like a tragic paradise right now, really. We just wanted to be the voices for making some change. - The housing initiative is a volunteer movement. - We all know what's going on in town right now. There's nowhere to live. - Things reached breaking point at a protest in March... - Whoo! Make some noise, everybody! (CROWD CHEER) - ...for those they call houseless rather than homeless. - It could be anybody. It's not just workers, it's not just visa holders; it's residents, it's families, it's people retiring back to the region. People just were coming mainly to say, 'I'm scared. I don't know what to do.' - Earlier this year, Hannah was one of them. - I've lived here for seven years. I know a lot of people and have been, you know, in the community for a long time, and I couldn't even find anywhere to go. - PHONE: They tried to kick us out for Airbnb, thinking we didn't know the legislation. - Every day she's inundated with stories. - They then tried to up our rent from 950 to 1550. - It's already the most expensive rental market in the country. - Some people paying up to, like, 70% increases. So people are being exploited. - And more than a quarter of Queenstown's houses don't have anyone living in them at all. - We need to really, really look at why there are so many empty houses. Like, we know there's so many houses being built in Queenstown. Why do we still have this problem? We need to look into the short-term rentals, Airbnb. - We do have some controls in place in Queenstown, but they're not being policed. I don't understand why the council, or even our government, doesn't follow the rest of the world and start to find ways to kerb their use. - Why hasn't more been done? - Because as we keep telling that particular gentleman, there is no legislative framework to actually enforce what he's asking. - Council did try to tighten the rules, but Airbnb had it thrown out in court. - We have to follow the law from central government. It's as simple as that. - The district builds homes at a higher rate than anywhere else in the country, so how can there be nowhere to live? - We are actually building 1000 more houses than actually our demand is predicting. It's just that the houses that we build are not the houses we need. - We've come to meet the woman trying to change that. - We've helped 260 households so far who might have otherwise not been able to stay in this district. I'm Julie Scott, chief executive of the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust. - Set up by council to do what others won't ` provide homes locals can actually afford. - 1100 eligible households are on our waiting list as of today. It's going up by about 100 households a month at the moment. - In a good location close to the airport, the trust bought 50 of these apartments. Some are used for public housing; others were sold at a bargain price. But this complex called Toru is meant to be one of three. The other two sites are still sitting empty. - There's been the perfect storm of events that has led to this development remaining undeveloped. I think the cost of construction has gone through the roof and made it very challenging. There's also the cost of financing this, with interest rates at levels we haven't seen for a very long time. - 20 minutes further down the road in Arrowtown, the trust put spades in the ground themselves. So how many homes is this going to provide? - This is going to` We're building 68 homes here. - How did you get the land? - Well, we very kindly received the land from our local council for $1. Now, the value of it is about 10 million, but council gave it to us for $1. - That's a pretty good deal. - We're happy with it. We're very happy with it. - 'Affordable homes for people who need them.' - Anyone who earns under roughly 130,000 gross household income, they're already living in the district, they're working typically, and they can't obviously own any other property. - 'But all this building is a drop in the bucket.' How long is it gonna take you to clear that waitlist? - We have more demand than we know what to do with, so we don't know how long it's going to take, but we're certainly trying our best to tackle it. - Do you think you can fix this? - In three years? No. Let's be honest. - So who will fix it, and what now for our biggest attractions? - Look, we'll get by. What it will mean is that Queenstown and Wanaka runs the risk of becoming a place just for the well-off. - It's the golden question, really, isn't it? I think Queenstown has always been somewhere that is thriving because people are adventurous. It's a beautiful place, and unfortunately, that lifestyle isn't sustainable right now. And so it's becoming quite a fragile place. - For Rachel and Tyler and so many others, that fragile future is already here. - It's not all Ferg Burgers and bungee jumping. It's just like` It's hard for the workers, and it's hard if you're wanting to live here and, like, have a life here. - If I don't find anything else, obviously, I'll be at a tent in a campground, looking at the lakefront from there. - How do you feel about that? I feel like as an adult, I'm a disappointment at the moment, and I just have to carry on every day, and I feel like I'm a little mouse treading water just trying to carry on every day. - Well, Rachel, her partner and her son moved out this week, and they are living at a campground in a tent. Meanwhile, after four and a half months living in this car, Tyler has finally found a place, sharing a bedroom with a friend. E whai ake nei ` the changing face of our thriving tech sector... - I never thought you were into technology. - Neither did I. (BOTH CHUCKLE) - ...and the push to level the digital playing field. - If we're not at the table designing these solutions, then they're not gonna be designed with us in mind. - ALL: Hooray! - Hip hip! - Hooray! - Happy birthday, mate. - It's your bowel screening test. I've done mine. - WOMEN: Me too! - Uso, you've got this! # Pull the stick from the test. # Put it in the poo. Just follow the pictures... - Koro. You can 'poo' it! - # Put it in the pottle. Put on the date. # Don't delay or procrastinate. (ALL CHEER) # Early detection can save the day. # - Hoki mai ano. It's an exciting and dynamic industry ` technology is a huge part of our daily lives. So who's making it, and what future are they building us? It shapes how we work, socialise and see the world. But the tech sector has a major diversity problem. This matters. Only 7% of the workforce is Maori and Pasifika. Tonight Tania Page is with those looking to add brown nerds to the tech herd. (SOFT PIANO MUSIC PLAYS) - TANIA PAGE: Every Sunday from 7am, Olivia Ah Tune is doing her bit for her community... - Camera's still off. Camera three. - ...ironing out each issue in her quiet way, devoting her technical expertise... - Yep, I took this one. - ...to Victory Power Ministries in South Auckland. So how many cameras have you got set up this morning? - We've got about three cameras. - Oh wow. That's more than us. - Yeah. - (LAUGHS) - We've got about three cameras, and then one's that mobile, like akimbo... - Oh goodness. - ...going around just to capture the atmosphere. (CONGREGATION SING) - Lights, cameras, worship. It's slick, and hard to imagine that just three years ago, Olivia had none of these skills. She needed to learn to livestream services for families isolating during the pandemic. - Some of us had to teach each other, like, how to use the Zoom or the new softwares that were out there. (SINGERS HARMONISE) Do you want milk in yours? - Before becoming tech-savvy, Olivia was at home caring full-time for a sick auntie... - No sugar. - (CHUCKLES) It's always family first. I couldn't go to work knowing that there's something that needed to be done, like stay home and run all the errands for her, take her to her appointment. - ...surviving on a benefit until her aunt passed away in late 2021. Thinking about her future, she wanted to build on her budding interest in tech while giving back to her community. - Even though we weren't able to gather in church, we were able to connect online, and through that, I kind of saw the importance of technology and all of that and the power of technology. What lights are showing up on your modem and your fibre box? 'That's definitely part of the reason why I ventured into educating myself in the tech industry, 'not only to upskill for what I do it within my own ministry, 'but also to kind of learn and adapt to the new way of life.' - She found an online course and soon a new career... surprising her mum. - I never thought you were into technology. - Uh... neither did I. (BOTH CHUCKLE) But God has his ways. - Yeah, nice serve. - Enter entrepreneur Brittany Teei, a former pro tennis player. I was out grinding on the tennis court, and it was freezing cold, I thought, 'There's gotta be a better way` 'or there's gotta be something I can do inside to make money.' (CHUCKLES) You all right, baba? - No IT qualifications, no training, but ambitious and determined to break the mould and succeed. - I had this image in my head of geeky white dude being a techie, and I was like, 'That obviously isn't me, 'you know, if I'm female, and I'm, yeah... 'Cook Island, I'm Maori.' So I had to get over that hurdle first. A lot of the technologies that are out there have such a massive influence on our lives. If we're not at the table designing these solutions, then they're not gonna be designed with us in mind. Have you thought about tech before, like, as a job? - She upskilled fast and now targets Maori and Pasifika wanting to get into the sector without committing to full-time tertiary study. - The stats all show that we don't make it to the end of that pathway. You know, like every year that you go through school, then you get to uni, Maori and Pasifika are dropping off because they've got other life pressures that they have to deal with ` and it becomes a choice, you know, of supporting my whanau or... studying. So of course they're gonna help their family out. - She had already found it success eight years ago when she launched KidsCoin, software that teaches tamariki financial literacy. - KidsCoin actually not only addresses the need to understand money, it also addresses the need for raising literacy levels in New Zealand. Morning, everyone. - Now mostly through Ministry of Pacific Peoples' funding, she offers introductory courses for teenagers and adults like Olivia. - So it's all online. It's flexible working. We're really trying to get in there and sort of expose them to other avenues and pathways they can go down to` down without having to get a massive student loan. - Another place nurturing skills and ambition is down the line in Rotorua, home of hot pools and geysers ` and innovation. - Welcome to Native Tech. This is the Disneyland of Rotorua. (BOTH CHUCKLE) - This is where we all have lots of fun. - Awesome. Native Tech is a digital and creative hub for teens who have slipped through the gaps. - I think what happened during Covid was a lot of our tamariki went home and stayed home. - Potaua Biasiny-Tule is a co-founder. - To walk into a place like this, it's like Disneyland, so there's lights, LED, everywhere. There's Pikachu over there, and there's Star Wars over there, so it's to take them from the sometimes harsh reality of their own home or school life, and to bring them to a place where it's fun, where learning can be engaging ` and last year we had 4000 kids come through our doors. - What's their time taken up with while they're here in the space? - So, they could like drawing. So if you're a drawer, you can do illustration. Then they might like logos and designs, and then those designs could go into a client's work. And same with our techies who, if they're good enough, we wanna put them into cyber security. - Others are showing flair in 3-D printing and coding, all learned here at the site of an old bank. - We have the safe right here. - Far out. That's an impressive door. - Yeah. - What do you keep in there? - All the precious stuff, so the Nerf guns, the Warhammer gear. - (LAUGHS) 'It's a long way from where Potaua started, 'having studied political science at university.' What brought you into tech as a career? - I worked in the public sector, worked in Waitangi Tribunal in Parliament to actually figure out what I didn't want to do. And what I really loved was arcade game Spacies and gaming animation. - So he made a career out of it, picking up contracts with local iwi Te Arawa. - We'd built websites for the iwi, and you can only build enough websites, and then you're done. But then we were trying to get other workers to help us, and we realised that we could go to Wellington and Auckland, but why not look in our local community, raise a new generation, train all the young people around us? - Teokotai Hawkins is part of their latest intake. He and his mum were working in Australia before moving home last year. - I had a job in... well, in the meatworks from with my mum. My mum asked me or begged me to quit school to help her out with the` get enough money to travel to New Zealand. So I quit school, helped Mum out, grabbed some money and then went off. - At the moment, the 18-year-old's employment options are limited... - So there's New World that's available, so I will think of starting working there. - ...but he's also started thinking big. - This just for, like, reference and stuff. - Yeah, like a T-Rex reference. - That's cool, man. This is really, really, really good stuff. - If I'm finished, I'm proud of myself. I need to find a job that's for my skills and my experience to, um, do this, like, art animation. Like, I'm pretty sure I won't give up and I won't stop until, like, I'm finding what I'm looking for. - For Teokotai and the other rangatahi here, this is all new. - A lot of our kids don't have access to computers. They've never touched a mouse before. A laptop is usually a parents' or sibling's ` which they're not allowed to touch. - Native Tech is NZQA-approved for NCEA Levels 1 and 2, and hopes to have Level 3 approved by year's end. It's now also opening more hubs. - In Wairoa, in New Plymouth, in Otautahi. And we've got a couple more on the cards, but those three are definitely going to be opening this year. So that means that we've got more nerds in the herd. Yay. - Olivia is helping grow that herd too in her own small way. She divides her time between working from the office and home, giving technical support to families accessing their first internet connection. - Some have had to make a lot of sacrifices to be able to... just be able to get through the week, and internet connection is just not one of those things that's on the top of the list. - She loves the challenge. - Just learning to work with different technical software and programs and portals that they have, which is constantly evolving. - You must be proud of yourself. - Um, praise God. (CHUCKLES) I just had to trust that this is a door open for me... not only for my family, but my community too. It's often an industry I don't really see a lot of my own people in. - The computer doesn't judge where you are or what colour your skin is. I think it's an equaliser in that sense. It means that someone who can't` you know, doesn't have the financial means to go to university can upskill themselves from the comfort of their own home. But once you have those things in place, I think, yeah, the world is your oyster. - Well, industry group NZTech is calling on the incoming government to upskill our teachers so they are properly equipped to teach digital literacy. It also wants to see all students given access to digital equipment at home as well as at school. E haere ake nei ` how the world almost destroyed Britney Spears. - Everyone's talking about it. - What? - Your breasts. (LAUGHTER) My breasts? - Gross. It's gross. It is shocking to think that we all in some ways colluded in this kind of behaviour. - Nau mai ano. She was once America's sweetheart, but Britney Spears' downfall was humiliating and very public. Almost everyone she came in contact with wanted a piece of her, and eventually, it all became too much. First the world watched and laughed, but then it fought for her. With a tell-all memoir, Tom Steinfort discovers there's a chance for Britney herself to rewrite her own story. - # I'm Miss 'Bad Media Karma'. # Another day, another drama. - TOM STEINFORT: The melodrama of Britney Spears is a cautionary tale... - It's bad. - ...about the tormented life of a celebrity ` be careful what you wish for. - I'm sad. (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) - She's getting in the back, Ben. - I think it's really, really easy to dehumanise a famous person, right? They're sort of like animals in a zoo. We love to look at them. We like to watch them, you know, do what they do best, and then we like to watch them fall. - The world has watched with a weird fascination the meteoric rise and even more turbulent fall of Britney Spears. - REPORTER: ...taken to the hospital for the second time this month. - Starting with her time as a young starlet on the Mickey Mouse Club... - BOTH: # Baby, when I'm with you. - ...to breaking out as a solo pop megastar. - # Oh baby, baby... - Then came the high-profile lover ` Justin Timberlake, Colin Farrell and Kevin Federline. - He's really very sweet and very nice. - But perhaps most seared into a lot of people's memories are the chaotic spirals ` head shaving, attacking paparazzi with umbrellas and the car-crash interviews. - You've had a year that would test a lot of people. - Yeah, it's kind of weird. Uh, weird? Hello. Um, yeah, it was a weird... (SOFTLY) time. EMOTIONALLY: Ew, I'm embarrassed. Can we stop this? - End the conservatorship! - CROWD: Now! - End the conservatorship! - Now! - More recently was the fight to free Britney from her 13-year conservatorship, every facet of her life ruled by her father. But now she's regained her freedom... and the famed singer found her voice again, this time with the release of her tell-all book. - Reliving everything that you're about to hear has been exciting, heart-wrenching and emotional, to say the least. - How did you feel reading this book? - I` I felt heartbroken for her. - Veteran entertainment writer Leah Greenblatt reviewed Britney's book, The Woman in Me, for The New York Times, a memoir littered with sad reflections on a tormented life. Revelations include that her mother introduced her to alcohol at just 13; the pop star's father would starve her; that boyfriends like Justin Timberlake would cheat on her, and even worse. - That was an offer. Women are so ambiguous. - No, we're not. - Was there anything in particular in the book that stopped you in your tracks? - I think probably the fact that she got an abortion at age 19. you know, obviously Justin Timberlake at the time, they were both huge stars, but very young. You know, she said the choice was really his, and she felt that she had to go along. She had to do it at home, and it was turned out to be really painful. She talks about spending hours crying and sobbing on the bathroom floor, while Justin strummed his guitar to make her feel better. - But when it comes to Britney's high-profile exes, it's the father of her two children, Kevin Federline, who comes in for the most criticism. - Hi! Kevin, we have to ask you... - As soon as she basically married him and started having his children, he left her behind and in fact had security guards that she was paying for not allow her into the studio while he was trying to become a successful rapper. - I mean, the whole thing is just so... nauseating, and I hope that it doesn't happen to anyone again. - As her former tour manager, Dan George was front and centre for the Britney show. - Britney was such a sweetheart. She was just so endearing and so kind and funny and quirky. She always made me laugh. - The kindness that you mentioned, do you think that's something that, in the end, some people saw as a gentle nature that could be exploited? - Oh, absolutely I think she was exploited, I think without a doubt. And as long as those people keep winning, it's hard for... the... kind, humble, empathetic among us to... come forward and do our part without being shot. - Off the back of numerous dramas in her personal life, Britney's father, Jamie Spears, was granted a conservatorship over his daughter, a guardianship he then set about exploiting for more than a decade. - Jamie Spears would walk around saying, 'As far as the state of California is concerned, I am Britney Spears.' So it kind of went to his head. She could not spend her own money. She couldn't choose who she wanted to hang out with. She was under constant surveillance. - They would take away privileges. They would take away seeing her sons. Her Circus tour had made $130 million, she got $15 million to do the X Factor, and she was not allowed to have more than $2000 a week. - Well, let's see, I've been in a conservatorship for 13 years. It's a really long time to be in a situation you don't want to be in. - After a groundswell of public support, Britney Spears managed to get a California court to overturn the conservatorship in 2021. And when that happened, the true extent of the way she'd been treated in the early years ` dismissed as an air-headed sex symbol ` was laid bare. - Am I a virgin? (LAUGHTER) - I mean, this is only 15 years ago. It's so weird to look back and think that a young woman's virginity was so openly discussed. - She would go on talk shows when she was 16 years old, and they would obsessively talk about her breasts to her face. - Everyone's talking about it. - What? - Well... your breasts. (LAUGHTER) - My breasts? - Gross. It's gross, and it's very recent, yeah. And I'm sure there's things we do now that we'll look back on the same way, but it is shocking to think that we all in some ways colluded in this kind of behaviour. Kind of the whole world let her down, more specifically her family and her team, but we all kind of watched this happen ` in slow motion, essentially ` over many years, and it was kind of a punch line for a lot of people, and there was a lot of real suffering behind it. - # Cos it's a bittersweet # symphony.... - Britney's state is still clearly fragile. She's done no live interviews to promote her new book, but hers is a story that unfortunately sells itself. There are many people out there, from fans to former colleagues, who simply want to see one ending ` and that is for Britney Spears to be happy. - For Britney, I wish freedom... and love and family and normalcy. - Well, clearly there's still a fascination with all things Britney. Her book has smashed sales projections and sparked a bidding war for the film and TV rights. Stay with us as we look into the devastating and deadly impact of failures in our mental health system. - Kia ora ano. Mental health services for those patients who pose the highest risk are failing, and the consequences of that can be devastating and deadly. Next week we'll bring you the stories of three very sick men, their families' pleas for help and the unfathomable acts of violence that followed. - Do you believe that James' death could have been prevented? - Yeah, definitely. - How? - If they'd done their job. - I can never forgive him. He killed my mum. - I don't understand how you can do that to somebody and not know what you're doing. - The high-risk group of people suffering from psychotic disorders are not receiving adequate care. It is a tragedy, it always is. - Had there been a bed available, my dad may still be here today. - I don't think they helped him, you know. They done nothing. - He deserved the treatment that he needed. And because he didn't get it, my mum paid the ultimate price. - Yeah, something has to change, doesn't it? We'll bring you this important story next week. But that is our show for tonight. Do share your thoughts on social media, or if you want to suggest a story, email the team at Sunday@TVNZ.co.nz. And remember you can find our stories on full shows on the Sunday page at TVNZ+. Thanks for joining us. Nga mihi nui, hei kona.