- Takina, takina, takitakina mai nga manu o te rangi. Karanga mai, karanga mai, karanga mai. E karanga mai ana te reo o ta tatou hui ki te ti ki te ta, e nga iwi, whano, whano. Whano mai te toki! Haumi e! Hui e! Taiki e! This week on The Hui ` recent government changes are sidelining our rangatahi... - Young people who are homeless, they are at the bottom of the list. - ...young, alone, and living rough... - It doesn't seem like the government understands how much of a risk they are putting these children, these young people's lives in. - ...and Minister for Youth James Meager joins us to talk about youth justice, homelessness, and mental health. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2025 Nga mate o te wa e haere ana i mua i te aroaro o nga iwi. Haere mai. Haere. Tatou kei te pito ora. Tihewa mauri ora, and welcome back to The Hui. Youth advocates claim that almost half of those who experience homelessness in Aotearoa are rangatahi and tamariki, and that they're seeing an increased demand to find them a roof over their head. It backs up research that shows rangatahi Maori and Pacific young people are more likely to live in private rentals or public housing, experience poorer housing conditions, severe housing deprivation, and more frequent and involuntary moves than European young people. Since the coalition government's reforms to emergency housing last August, youth are being pushed down emergency housing waitlists, and that's led to more of them being exposed to dangerous and precarious living situations. (ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC) - The glittering night lights of Aotearoa's biggest city conceal a grim reality. Somewhere here ` under bridges, in doorways ` hundreds of homeless seek shelter, many of them young and alone. What's it like not having a whare and a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in? What's that like? - It's really dangerous. The streets, they're are pretty dangerous for young people like me to be there. - What kind of dangers? - Violence, drugs, sleeping in public. It's real dangerous. Under bridges, in car parks. - Kat's called the streets home since she was 10. She's now 24, and in that time, living on the street has become even more unsafe for rangatahi like her. - We're talking about young people experiencing homelessness. We're talking about, in some cases, children living on the street, living in environments where they are at constant risk of being physically assaulted, sexually assaulted, where their lives at times are at risk. - Youth worker Aaron Hendry runs Kick Back, a service based in central Tamaki offering wraparound support for at-risk rangatahi. - It's been really good, cos I'm learning from here how to pretty much cook, have showers, cos I've never learned how to do that. So yeah, it's quite good. - Right now, Kick Back's monitoring around 100 or so young people in the city. The youngest is, you know, 11, 12, 13. A lot of our young people now are being directed towards lodges and hostels. These environments are often really unsafe. The pricing is often exploitative. I'm talking like 660 for a tiny, tiny room that is dark and mouldy and cold and damp. It doesn't seem like the government understands how much of a risk they are putting these children, these young people's lives in. This is a crisis. - Homelessness in Auckland has grown 53% in the last quarter, and that's only those sleeping with no shelter. Several factors have contributed to this. Firstly, the government slashed $20 million from rangatahi transitional housing in last year's budget. - Since then, we've seen more young people seeking support, being denied that support and sleeping rough and being in really dangerous situations as a result. - Then in August, the government changed the rules around emergency housing criteria, giving preference to families over young people, which has left rangatahi like Kat more vulnerable than ever. - I had slept in my car... with a friend of mine. We went to Work in Income. We tried to ask for some help in housing, but they just turned us away and said no. - We've noticed in our stats that nearly 100% of our young people have been declined from emergency housing. - Mahera Maipi has seen it become harder for rangatahi to even get on housing waitlists She runs He Pa Piringa, a 10-bed accommodation facility for homeless youth. - Soon as I moved in and saw the area and how spacious it was, I fell in love straight away, and everything was here ` beautiful kitchen. I was like, 'Fantastic!' I was like, 'Holy! Cool as!' - Zevania Mead has recently moved in. - Easy-as rules ` just keep it clean. It's really standard. Just show up on time, look after the place. (CHUCKLES) So, yeah, have high standards and keep it that way. - It's a tikanga-based kaupapa-Maori solution to the housing crisis. - The rules of the marae are exactly the same rules when you come to our whare. When you go to your marae, you know you've got to take your shoes off at the marae. You know that if you got angry, you can't punch holes in your marae. You will get in trouble for doing that. Same ` at our whare, you don't punch holes in the walls. - All young people here have to stay a year to learn the skills they need. - How do you become a good custodian of your space, your whare, the people in your whare, the belongings inside of your whare? If you can learn those skills at He Pa Piringa, you can transfer them into your life, and you can use them like mo ake tonu atu, for forever. We've had zero property damage, zero police callouts for violence against each other, which is an achievement in itself. It's unheard of not just in New Zealand, but actually all over the world in terms of youth transitional housing. We have people who are really keen to hear what Maori solutions look like, because in the world, Maori are trailblazing in so many areas, in so many ways, and their thinking was that that would transfer over to youth homelessness as well. - He Pa Piringa can't keep up with demand. - Over 100 young people on the waitlist, and we've only got 22 beds available. - But once their time is up, they face more uncertainty. - So now, all I'm focused on is trying to get mahi cos I need money to carry on. (CHUCKLES) - We are very clear with them ` we're only here for a small time in your life. We're only going to be able to do this much. But then where do they go? And if hapu and iwi aren't fully resourced, then it does come back to the government. It does come back to... those people to fill in the gaps. - Think about the reality that for some children, the first time they get a roof over their heads, the first time they get food in their bellies, the first time they get some form of stability is in a prison for children. When you actually start to reflect on that, something is going seriously wrong in our communities. Something is seriously wrong with our priorities, and that's the consequences of homelessness. That's the consequences of abandoning, you know, our children. - Rangatahi, like us, most of us don't have a choice. And seeing them like this, it's heartbreaking. - There are times where they're leaving our doors and we fear whether we'll see them again. And that's the thing that keeps me up at night, is that we're going to lose someone, that one of the young people that we care for and we love is going to die because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because they give up hope. - Kia ita tonu mai e nga iwi. After the break ` we have the Minister for Youth, Hunting and Fishing, and the South Island Te Waipounamu. The Honourable James Meager is with us live from Parliament. - Kia ora mai ano. Whaiwhai ake i te korero e pa ana ki te hunga rangatahi e atiutiu mai ra, e pehea ana nga whakaaro o Te Minita take taiohi. He is the Minister for Youth. He's also the Minister of Hunting and Fishing. and for the South Island Te Waipounamu. He's also a member of te iwi o Ngai Tahu, he uri no Tahu Potiki. The Honourable James Meager joins us now, as you can see, from Parliament in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, in Wellington. E te Minita, tena koe. - Tena koe, Julian. Thanks for having me. - Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it. OK, let's talk about rangatahi housing and homelessness here. Is the government doing enough, do you think, to support these rangatahi so affected by a lack of housing? - Well, we're certainly making big investments in housing. And I've watched the clip, and it's shocking to think that we can live in a society still where we have homeless people and especially homeless young people. And so as a government, we are doing, I think, everything we can to try and address these issues, whether that is provide more housing in general, more social housing places, move people off the emergency housing list and in to sustainable long-term housing; and in particular, my portfolio, focusing on how we can support young people in general. - And I know again, there is some other ministerial responsibility with the Minister of Social Housing, Tama Potaka, and with Minister Chris Bishop. Nevertheless, though, $20 million was taken out of last year's budget for rangatahi transitional housing. Many of the advocates said this is going to have and has actually had an impact on rangatahi and a lack of housing and homelessness now. What's your response to that? - Well, there are lots of ways we can address this issue, and part of that is attacking the underlying problems around the social issues causing youth homelessness ` and I'm looking at that in my portfolio. I'm trying to direct my officials to make sure our investment is going into outcomes that benefit young people in terms of homelessness. But you saw on the weekend big announcements from Minister Willis around the Social Investment Agency and the hundreds of millions of dollars that are going into programmes to help support transitional housing and getting whanau and families through into housing and safe from family violence. So there are a lot of initiatives happening in these kinds of areas, and we're a government that's willing to invest in the programmes that work, and that's why we need that Social Investment approach to prove the programmes that are generating the outcomes so that we can invest in those ones that are working. - OK. But the advocates say that the $20 million was working and would have worked more had it not been taken out. So are you saying that they've got it wrong? - Well, there's a challenge there, because in a number of these programmes that we look into, it is difficult to see where the outcomes come, and I'm certain that some of those programmes were delivering good outcomes. But one of the challenges that I find in some of the things that we are doing, in particular in the youth portfolio, is a lot of the organisations we fund don't have access to the data or the information to be able to demonstrate what they're doing is achieving the goals and the outcomes that government need them to achieve, whether that's getting young people into sustainable housing or into education or employment. So I think as a government, we've got to look at that Social Investment approach, provide the data and the information to those organisations so that they can demonstrate what they're doing is working. But in terms of ongoing long-term investment, we are committed to making sure that everyone has the chance for long-term sustainable housing, and to fix the causes of those underlying issues which come down to, you know, better jobs, better incomes, sustainable employment, and higher education. - Minister, I hear the point. However, when I hear things like Social Investment, I hear 'time'. The Waitangi Tribunal in Wai 2750 said that the government has breached its obligations in dealing with rangatahi homelessness now. Are you simply not going hard enough, fast enough now? - No, I would disagree with that. I mean, we are spending more in the social development space and in housing and in health and education than we ever have before as a country. We've got to do both things. We have to tackle the up-front issues right now, so making sure that we look at challenges like homelessness and housing deprivation, and supporting programmes around Housing First and in the various community housing projects in and around Auckland and Te Waipounamu; but also the Social Investment approach so that we can invest early in our young people's lives so that in 15, 20 years' time, we're not dealing with the same outcome. We can do both things at once. - OK. And you mentioned the lack of measurement` or robust measurement, should I say, in terms of achieving outcomes. I mean, you talked about outcomes in your maiden speech. I think you said, 'When we look at spending as an investment rather than a cost, 'we can focus on outcomes that benefit not only the health and wellbeing of the individual, 'but also the back pocket of the taxpayer.' So how do we measure that then, Minister? How do we measure to know that we're going to get the success of the outcomes that you were talking about in your maiden speech? - There is a very large data set that's contained within government called the IDI, the Integrated Data Infrastructure, and that contains a whole range of information that various government agencies hold on us as individuals ` non-identifiable, but things like what are our educational outcomes? What's our exposure to the criminal justice system? What is our access to health care? What are our income rates? The government holds us data on all sorts of individuals, so we can use that to match against programmes and say, 'Well, for this cohort that you've worked with, 'can we track their progress, sort of, in the medium- to long-term 'to see whether or not they are accessing housing at a higher rate, 'or they are having fewer incidences of family violence?' We actually do have access to some of that data, but I understand a lot of these organisations that we contract to work with are small, they're nimble, they're on the ground, and they don't have the resource all the time or the capacity to try and get into that research themselves. So I think that's the kind of thing that government can help with, and that's the kind of thing that the Social Investment Agency, I think, is well placed to do. - OK. You're also the new minister ` it's a new portfolio ` for Te Waipounamu, for the South Island; brought up in Timaru, Te Tihi o Maru. What will be achieved by the new Minister for the South Island by the next election in 2026? - I'm glad you've give me 18 months, because a lot of people have asked what have I achieved now? So in the past few months... - (LAUGHS) - ...I've been trying to get around the island as much as possible. And you know` you know, you've lived there. You know what it's like. It's a big place to try and get around. I was just in Dunedin and Lawrence over the weekend. But the priorities for me are really that economic-growth picture. And it's not growth for growth's sake, but it is the point that when we get growth, we get higher jobs, higher incomes, we get better jobs, we get more opportunities for our people. So success for me in 18 months' time looks like more growth for the South Island. It looks like, um, fewer incidences of, you know, law-and-order and crime and police callouts. It looks like more jobs. It looks like, um... It looks like fewer hospitalisations and higher vaccination rates, all those things that we can target into the South Island around that growth picture. - It sounds like an advocacy role, Minister, to be frank. It sounds like you're going to be an advocate and working with other ministers rather than ploughing your own path. Is that what it is? - I think that's a relatively good way of describing it, because I think what the Prime Minister has tasked me with is to take an all-of-government approach to issues that particularly affect Te Waipounamu. And so part of that is looking into other areas in other portfolios and saying, what are the priorities for us down south ` whether that's in tourism or agriculture or education or health care ` and how can I have an impact? How can I play an advocacy role for those ministers and try to make sure there is enough attention or enough nuance given to the different issues that we face down south? And look, I mean, as you travel around Te Waipounamu, you see the issues that we face in where I come from in South Canterbury, are different to those on the West Coast or to Central Otago. So it's not as though everything in the South Island needs to be treated the same as well. So it's about making sure that that nuance is made clear to ministers. - Stay with us. We have more from the minister James Meager after this on The Hui. Given he's Ngai Tahu, we're also going to talk to him about issues related to Ngai Tahu. E haere ake nei e te iwi ` ta tatou hui torangapu. Whakarongo mai rai. - Nga mihi ano o te wa. Ko Te Hui tenei. The minister, the Honourable James Minister` James Meager, minister, is with us from Parliament. Kia mokowhiti ano tatou ki te Whare Paremata iaianei. Minister, as I said, you are a descendant of Ngai Tahu ` Rapaki, Te Rakiwhakaputa, Ngati Wheke. (CHUCKLES) What have Ngai Tahu told you they want from you as the Minister of Te Waipounamu? - Well, they've told me fairly similar things that what most people around home have told me ` they want jobs, opportunities, growth for our people. They want to have the ability to undertake developments and initiatives and conservation on their lands, like we all do. So I think this whole idea that there is distinct differences between what Ngai Tahu will want and what Te Tau Ihu iwi at the top of the South Island want, or anyone else, kind of fade away when you actually get down to the nitty gritty of figuring out what is it that is important to us. Well, it's about making sure that we are happy, healthy families, that we've got jobs, and we've got incomes, and we can prosper, and that's what Ngai Tahu want. - OK. And the kaiwhakahaere, Justin Tipa, and actually Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu has been very strident on some coalition government policies, obviously on the Treaty Principles Bill, the Regulatory Standards Bill, and I will talk to you also about the Nelson Tenths case as well. Is your role to work with iwi and to liaise between iwi and the coalition government when it comes to these thorny issues that Ngai Tahu has squarely pegged upon this government and not being happy with the government about? - Well, the good thing about Justin and the team at Ngai Tahu and actually a lot of our runanga and iwis, they already have great relationships with ministers and with government. But if there are particular areas that I can help in and or bring some focus to, I'm more than happy to. So, I sat in a room on Friday morning with the runanga down in Otakou talking about some of the opportunities down south to try and make sure that we attract people to live and to create employment opportunities down there. So if there is a particular focus that any particular hapu or iwi want me to take up for us down south and bring to ministers, I'm happy to do so. - OK. you talked about Te Tau Ihu. I just wanted to ask you, where is your thinking at with regards to the Nelson Tenths case? It is squarely with the coalition government to deal with that issue now. Do you have a role there? - Well, there are proceedings that are before the court, so I think we need to allow those to play their way through. Um, I've got some knowledge in the space because I've had some, uh, work in this area in the past through a law firm that I acted for, so I won't say too much more on that. But the position is pretty clear from both sides. Um, the court case is working its way through, and so I think we need to let that play out before we see where ministers lie on any particular decision. - OK. And at the risk of getting the same answer to this question, I'm going to ask it anyway. You're Ngai Tahu. Ngai Tahu says they own the fresh water. Do Ngai Tahu own the fresh water, Minister? - Well, that's not the government's position. And again, both sides are making their arguments very forcefully in the courts at the moment. So again, we'll allow the courts to go through that process and come to a decision. And, look, if there is an outcome that the parliament sees as being inconsistent with what the law was intended to be, then Parliament always reserves that right to be the ultimate say into what the law is and should be. But again, we'll let that court case play through. We'll let the judge hear the arguments from both sides. And then again, ministers can make decisions at the end of that. - Minister, you chaired the Justice select committee with the Treaty of Waitangi` the Treaty Principles Bill. There is Regulatory Standards Bill coming to Parliament and that debate happening next week. Maori have had hikoi. There's a planned haka supposedly happening tomorrow at 3.30. How would you characterise the Crown's relationship with Maori now? - Well, I mean, it all depends on who you ask and what people think the relationship should be. In some areas, it's been tense and stretched over various policies that people disagree with; in other areas, Crown and iwi Maori are working really well together. There are many, many areas around housing developments for example up in Nelson that we mentioned before. In Waimea, there is a rather significant development going on up there that's going to create housing for quite a number of people up there. So in some areas, yep, there's a bit of tension, and there's always going to be because we don't agree on everything; but in other areas, we work really well together. So I think you've got to take all the stuff on balance. - And I get that point that you're trying to make. Nevertheless, these were big` The Treaty Principles Bill was a massive issue. The Regulatory Standards Bill, I mean, the tribunal's called for an immediate halt and for meaningful conversation with Maori that your party and the coalition government wants to move forward on. So I get the point you're trying to make, that you've got to look at things in balance, but these are big issues for Maori, and you would be aware of that. So is the answer simply that we just need to take everything on balance, or is the answer actually to Maori to say, 'Look, we should have a better conversation about these things 'rather than rushing it through coalition agreements'? - Well, part of the argument, I think, is we've got to take these things on balance, because that's a pretty, I think, mature way of approaching all of these issues. But we've also got to be careful about when we say Maori think this or Maori think that. I mean, there's no homogenous worldview on these things, and you don't get to have some people who have a particularly strong view on an issue come out there and say that they speak for all Maori on a particular topic or a particular piece of legislation. So we've got to be cautious that when we say, you know, Maori are against X or Maori are for Y, that we actually don't lump us all together and in the sort of same homogenous thought-speak that seems to happen all the time. And in the Regulatory Standards Bill, we're talking about a piece of legislation which I don't even think has been introduced to Parliament yet, so how people can comment on its merits or otherwise or that haven't actually seen the bill, I'm not too sure whether that's conversation that we can even get into until we've actually seen the bill and tried to figure out what the effects of it are. - Come on, Minister, you're not naive enough to suggest that Maori don't know what's going to be coming in that Regulatory Standards Bill. That's the same rhetoric that your coalition partner, particularly David Seymour, said was coming in the Treaty Principles Bill and what he said and what Maori thought would happen that was going to be in that bill, happened in that bill. You can't be so naive to suggest that Maori don't know what's coming in the RSB, surely? - Well, again, we're talking as though there is a homogenous world` one worldview that all Maori hold, and I just disagree with that proposition. I mean, you've got the author of a particular piece of legislation who whakapapas Maori himself. So then what is the consequence of saying that if you disagree with a particular Maori worldview, does that mean you no longer count as being Maori? I mean, how can that be the case? So I kind of` To use a phrase that's been overused, I reject the proposition, or I reject the assertions made in the question in the first instance. I just don't think you can view it that way. - OK, but do you think there's been meaningful consultation ` seriously? I mean, that's the point, right, is the meaningful consultation point ` with Maori. - On the Regulatory Standards Bill? - Well, throughout the process of the Treaty Principles Bill, and actually in terms of the RSB as well. I know there's a process, but nevertheless, there is meaningful consultation under the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi that should occur. Do you think that's happened? - Well, for the Regulatory Standards Bill, the way I understand it, it's been out there for consultation for a number of months, and there's been, I think, tens of thousands of people have had their view on that. And then if you talk about the Treaty Principles Bill, I mean, I sat there and I chaired, uh, close to 50 hours of submissions on that bill, and certainly a number of people quite strongly and quite forcefully had their say on it and actually presented a range of views on whether or not that bill was worth going forward or not. So, look, I think at the end of the day, some people aren't going to be happy with any level of consultation on some of these issues, and they want them to go away completely, but, you know, Parliament has a role to play. It puts forward laws to propose to the public, and if people think that Parliament is getting it wrong, then every three years, they have the right to change the parliament and put in a team who will put different laws through. We think we've got the right laws going through, so we're happy to back those. - Minister for Youth, Hunting and Fishing, and the South Island Te Waipounamu, the Honourable James Meager, tena koe, thank you for your time. - Thank you, Julian. - Tera pea e te iwi e mahara iho ana koutou ki te hui a Te Hui ki nga kaiarahi takirua o Te Pati Maori i tera wiki. You may remember we had a little bit of a korero with the Maori Party co-leaders, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, last week regarding their suspensions proposed by the Privileges Committee from the debating chamber. Let's take a look at that korero now. Can I begin by getting your response, your reaction to the decision of the Privileges Committee in suspending you both for 21 days? - It's just so... harmful and triggering when so many of our people are doing so much to get ahead. - I think about... I think about my parents at this time, who I lost within 12 months and the sacrifice... my babies... (SIGHS) my wife... and the people who have entrusted us to be... And what I feel is that we are being punished for being Maori. The country loves my haka. - (CHUCKLES) - The world loves my haka... - Mm. ...(INHALES DEEPLY) but it feels like they don't love me. And it's the... They love my reo, but they don't love me. What I mean by me is us. - Now, we had a massive reaction to that interview. And just to note, the final decision for the proposed suspensions from the Privileges Committee is debated tomorrow in the debating chamber of Parliament. Next week, we discuss all the permutations for Budget 2025. That is a te ra wiki he Te Hui e haere ake nei. Until then e nga iwi, kia mau ki te turanga o Taputapuatea. Haumi e! Hui e! Taiki e! Captions by Tom Clarke. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2025 - Ko te reo te taki.