Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

ACT Leader David Seymour is alleging racism in Parliament over select committee tensions and claims of personal attacks towards MP Karen Chhour.  The ACT Party says its confidence in the Speaker of the House is “falling by the day”, accusing Gerry Brownlee of failing to address racial harassment in Parliament.  Seymour told Mike Hosking this morning they wrote to the Speaker, calling the issues 'serious.'  He says the response suggested there was no issue.  Former National MP and Speaker of the House Sir Lockwood Smith joined Kerre Woodham to discuss how he’d approach such a situation.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today marks the end of Dry July, an annual campaign that challenges people to abstain from alcohol to raise funds for cancer support organisations.  For some people, July has them realising they’d rather stay sober.  Kerre Woodham was joined by Maree MacLean, the author of ‘The No B*llshit Guide to Staying Sober’ for a chat about staying sober.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There simply must be a better way of dealing with mental health patients rather than relying on police. For years now, police men and women have been left to pick up the pieces of broken minds because of a lack of resources within the beleaguered mental health sector. But more than the lack of resources is the lack of will on the part of the mental health sector. When you're overworked, when you're under resourced, and you have somebody else doing the heavy lifting, (that is the police) why on Earth would you make more work for yourself? Why on Earth would you if you were a crisis counsellor, a mental health worker, go out on strike and demand that you be given resourcing for crisis teams to go and pick up the mentally unwell and stop the police doing it? You're just not going to, are you? You've got bigger fish to fry simply putting one foot in front of the other and getting through the shift.   But it is simply not right that the police are the babysitters for the mentally ill, simply because no other government agency will do it. They won't, and they know the police are last resort. Hospital staff say they can't be left to look after people who are a danger to themselves and other people. They don't have the resources or the personnel, and I have seen the charge nurses in ED’s going no, no, you needn't think you're leaving her here to the police officers who bring them in. I haven't got the people. I cannot have two or three nurses sitting here looking after this person while we wait for them to be seen, when really there's nothing physically wrong with them. Nothing. I've got screaming babies running high temperatures. I've got people who can't breathe. I've got broken arms. I've got seven ambulances out the back.   And the police can't leave somebody who is having an episode on their own. And the reason they can't is because nobody else will take the responsibility and nobody else cares, because they have to care more about what's in front of them. Mental health workers say they simply can't produce crisis teams out of thin air, people who are trained to defuse tense situations and provide the sort of triaging necessary when dealing with somebody who's in the midst of a mental health crisis. But that's not the job of the police, either. And yet they're left with it because they can't strike. They can't lobby, and they can't strike, and they can't refuse. And so, because of that, other government agencies are using and abusing them. The police in the past haven't been able to say we haven't got the staff either, and besides, this is not our job. Until now.   Recent changes have seen officers not attending 111 calls relating to mental health if there is no immediate risk to safety or if it's deemed no immediate risk to safety. There are plans to transfer some of those 111 calls to the non-emergency 105 line, and police have been directed that they should only spend a maximum of 60 minutes waiting in ED’s with mental health patients, then it becomes somebody else's problem. I mean, 60 minutes, you're not going to be seen in 60 minutes, but they are going to have to walk away and then it becomes the responsibility of the overworked ED departments. At least they have the luxury of striking. The nurses can say no, we're not doing this until we get the staff, until we get the highly trained staff we need to be able to manage these patients. The police don't have that option. It's the mental health workers and the health agencies who need to be lobbying for extra resources, extra staff, the ability to care for these people, not the police. And what the hell are the police doing there in the first place? Most of these patients that they're dealing with are sad, not bad. They're just very sad people in the midst of a mental health crisis who haven't committed a crime. What the hell are the police doing there? They're there because it's been dumped on them, because other agencies know they can't refuse.   Mark Mitchell said yesterday that police need to draw a line in the sand.   “There's always going to be times when police are going to be required, but there's many times that there aren't, and I think that the rest of the system has got used to always having the police. The police have always been seen as that 24/7 government agency and over time, they've picked up a whole lot of work that is not their core role, and other agencies are going to have to step up. They are going to have to build out some more capability. We are going to have to get smart around triaging and, and identifying what the actual need is and how we best respond to that. I know that it's been about a 60% increase in mental health call outs for police. Like I said to you that that is not sustainable.   “Look, if I use another example, I've been out on night shift with the staff, you had an ICAR, an incident car which has two police officers in it, that was called to a young woman that was having thoughts of self harm, a 19 year old. She needs proper support. She needs proper mental health and health for support wrapped around her. Those police officers were tied up for an entire shift sitting in an ED looking after her. They’re not trained to do that. And when people are actually putting up their hands when they are having to try and survive a violent domestic and there isn't a police car to attend because they're sitting in an ED babysitting and looking after someone that should actually be getting some proper mental health support, then the system is not working properly. It's certainly not working properly for us as a country. It's not working properly for the victims that actually need that support, need the police there when they put their hand up for help.”   Amen to that.   Where should people go when a family member is having a mental health crisis? Surely to goodness the first port of call would be a mental health crisis team, not the police. When the asylums were closed, when the mental hospitals were closed, families, patients, the community were promised that there would be the care necessary for those who find life tough. That hasn't happened. And there needs to be a line drawn in the sand. Just because the police have been the last resort for so many years, it's time to stop and make the agencies that should be in charge of these people. That should be giving them the help and the succour and the sort of tools they need to try and rebuild their life. It's mental health agencies, public health agencies job, not the job of police. Let the police get back to policing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We thought we'd start this morning looking at the Justice Select Committee’s review of the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill. Exciting stuff, it's all in the way you say it!  This is something that is part of a suite of reforms that the government is bringing in to help crack down on gangs. It's the job of the Justice Select Committee, which is made-up of all parties, to take into account the views of citizens who make submissions to consider them, to consider the legislation, to make sure it's good legislation that it's intended to do what it says it's going to do, that there are no unintended consequences as a result of the legislation. And as you can imagine, there's a bit of toing and froing on it.   But it made me think too about one of the great mysteries and conundrums in my life, and that is why police and licensed firearms users in this country aren't besties, because you're both on the same side. You're law abiding, guarantee the vast majority of both groups enjoy the outdoors. Many police would enjoy going hunting. You're not into thugs and bullies and law breakers, that's not what you're about. You're on the side of the angels, you know how to handle a weapon, unlike most other groups in the country. You enjoy the outdoors, you understand the need for firearms where other groups might not, and yet so many times when the issue of how best to manage the firearms inventory in this country and how to manage access to firearms comes up, police and firearms users end up metaphorically yelling at each other across a divide while the bad guys continue the drive by shootings. In a way, it's a colossal diversion for the unlawful, who just sit back, grab the popcorn, watch the licensed firearms users in the different lobby groups and the police yell at each other. And then once they scoff down the popcorn, a little light drive by shooting before a drive through at Macca’s and home, and that's a good day done if you're a gangster. And none of the words, and none of the legislation, and none of the argy bargy and the lobbying has affected them one little bit.   So we've got the firearms prohibition orders legislation Amendment Bill being discussed and the Justice Select Committee has recommended softening it, restricting what can be the subject of a warrantless search. They used as an example if somebody who owned a hotel and was under a firearms prohibitions order, you couldn't search all the rooms in the hotel. They’d have to be due reason to search the rooms, you couldn't just have a blanket policy of searching every single room in the hotel.   The bill is part of the Government’s crackdown on gangs, the FPO's are meant to place restrictions on high-risk individuals by reducing the likelihood of them accessing firearms. Now, I have a problem with the basic premise of that. If introducing a piece of legislation did indeed reduce the likelihood of a gangster getting a gun, go for it. But given what we know about how gangsters access their firearms, given what we know about the illegal importation and trade of all sorts of firearms that come into this country down through the South Pacific, you can get anything you like – birds, guns, drugs, probably ancient relics, you name it, it can be smuggled into the country and there's just no way of keeping tabs on it. So sure, bring in your arms prohibition order. I see you your firearms prohibition order and raise you six containers coming in from South America or China.    FPO's are already possible under legislation that was introduced from the previous government. And they thought, oh, voters are quite serious about this law and order thing, aren't they? Best we do something about it. Now 30 FPO's had been issued in the first 15 months of the law taking effect, eight of which were to gang members. The government's new bill would give police new warrantless search powers and pivot FPO's more towards gang members and their associates. They'd also be applicable to a much wider range of people, up to 3 1/2 times as many under the current law, because lower-level offences would be included. But the Justice Select Committee wants to see some of those provisions scaled back, fearing it will give the police too many powers. Nicole McKee, who's the Associate Justice Minister, says she understands the concerns of the committee but ultimately the government wants guns out of the hands of those who are doing the most harm.  “Some of the things that they have talked about is they're looking at who's captured by firearms prohibition orders. They want to decrease the number of eligible offenses, and they've got some concerns around the warrantless searches. And I take on board what they say. Some of it I agree with, some of it I don't, but at the end of the day, we need to stop the drive by shootings of innocent families that are being held to ransom by gangs and their illegal use of these weapons.”  And again, this is my sticking point. If legislation could do that, fill your boots, draft as many laws as you like. But until you can stop basically importation at will of anything anybody in the criminal underworld wants, it's utterly, utterly pointless. I mean, sure, give them the powers of search so they can have a look, that's great. But a Firearms Prohibition Order won't be worth the paper it's printed on. I suppose it sets up a process so that if you've got a Firearms Prohibitions Order against you, it means that the police can then trigger the search, but it's not going to stop you having a firearm.  Does anybody seriously think it's going to stop the shootings that are taking place? And you've now got innocent collateral who are being used in the drive by shootings, the parents of gangsters, the siblings of gangsters, the children of gangsters, they're all getting caught up in it as well.   So sure, bring in your firearms prohibition order, will that keep guns out of the hands of gangsters? Absolutely not. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Although Federated Farmers has found farmer confidence to be slipping, not every farmer feels that way.  The latest Farm Confidence survey shows that 66% of farmers consider the current economic climate to be bad, which is up 11% since January.  However, there are farmers who are keeping a more proactive, positive outlook, knowing that farming is a longterm game.  Mark Guscott of Glen Eden Farm in South Wairarapa told Kerre Woodham that he tries to associate himself with clever and on to it people, because otherwise it just drags you down.   He said that if you associate yourself with negative people, it just becomes a spiral.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Officials have tried multiple times to build a life-saving disaster coordination system, similar to those other countries have invested in.  But, New Zealand has shied away from its latest attempt, a Common Operation Platform.  Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery Mark Mitchell tells Kerre Woodham many people are working to figure out a way to bring information together quickly during times of disaster – but it is a complex solution to find.  Mitchell praises the work of Civil Defence controllers, first responders and local leadership during national emergencies and says collectively the system will be a heavy investment for the country.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ten young men will enter boot camp 2.0, more officially known as the Military Style Academy pilot. Not much is expected of these ten.   Critics argue that boot camps are cruel and unusual punishment that don't work and have never worked, so they won't work for this lot. Supporters of the boot camps really just want to see a few of the worst oiks punished with no real expectation that they'll be able to make anything of themselves, so really not much is expected of these ten young men.   It is true that previous boot camps haven't resulted in miraculous life transformations.   Reoffending rates were in the 80 and 90 percents - but then very few programs that try to address serious youth offending result in miraculous life transformations however you go about it, life just doesn't work like that.   If you look at the evaluation from the agencies, there's a program called Pae Whakatupuranga - low completion rate for programme, majority of those completed reporting making progress. Yeah. What is that? Most of the programmes didn't have strenuous evaluation (shock me) under the previous administration, so it was very hard, though a lot of it was self-reporting.   They're expensive - anything to do with serious youth offending is expensive. When it came to Youth Services, participants were slightly more likely to be on a benefit and more likely to be serving a community sentence one to two years after the programme.   So, you have to say that's not working, scrap that one. What does seem to be working is the LSV’s. You know, similar to the boot camp style. Participants have increased income, employment, educational participation, less time in prison, but also less educational qualifications and more time on a benefit.   So, anything to do with young people is expensive, there is no guarantee that these young people will be able to suddenly have a road to Damascus experience and think yes, a life of being a worthwhile member of the community appeals to me. The key to the success of this new iteration of boot camps will be in the transitioning back into the community. If these young people go straight back to the environment that shape them into young criminals, then there's really not much hope for them. But this is where boot Camp 2.0 differs. There will be nine months where they will receive wrap-around care and that will be absolutely vital. So too though is having someone believe in them believe that they have inherent worth, that their lives are worthwhile.   Karen Chhour is the Children's Minister and the minister in charge of implementing the boot camps and as a former child of the state, she says every young person is worth trying to save.   “All kids can be helped, Mike. I could have been one of those kids. I could have gone down the wrong path, but I had that one person in my life that told me I was worth something and helped me to steer myself down the right pathway. So hopefully we can put that right person in front of this young person and show them that that actually somebody does care about them.”  That was Karen Chhour talking to Mike Hosking this morning. I'd love to know for those of you who have had some experience with kids who have gone off the straight and narrow or were never on it in the first place, is it possible to turn your life around? If you have had no role models in your family, upon which you can model a life? Where going to school is an expectation. Where succeeding as an expectation. Where fulfilling your potential as an expectation. And you have the sort of environment that proactively encourages you to be the best you can be, that that thinks you're amazing.   If you don't have that when you start where on Earth do you get it from? Is that the teachers? It always used to be. Education and good teachers used to be able to save kids who were on a fast track to nowhere.   Is it having somebody, an authority, look you in the eye and say you are worth more than the life you are living, we can help you change. Everybody wants the miraculous life transformation. Everybody wants the young people to believe in themselves, to believe they have something worthwhile to offer, to be able to participate in the community and take the best that the community can offer, while at the same time giving back. But it just doesn't work like that.   These kids have got mountains to climb. There are people willing to help them. There are also, I think, people who are making a good dollar who are setting up programmes without any kind of stringent evaluation.   So, I want to make sure that any kind of programme, including these boot camps works. And if the dollars aren't working, then put them somewhere else.    LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rotorua's Mayor says the city is turning around its problems with emergency housing motels.  Resource consent applications are being sent to the Rotorua Lakes Council for seven motels for up to 549 people in 186 units.   The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development says it intends to stop referring people to emergency housing by July next year.   Mayor Tania Tapsell told Kerre Woodham there's been a definite change during her time in office.   She says there's been a 60% reduction in emergency housing motels .  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For those older survivors of abuse in state and church care, I wonder if you ever, ever thought this day would come?   When you could tell your story without fear of being further beaten and abused and called a liar. When you would be listened to and believed and told that the fault for what has happened to you, the grievous hurt that you have suffered, is not your fault.   It's the fault of sadistic, depraved adults who should never have been put in the position of looking after vulnerable children. It's the fault of organisations that were so hell bent on protecting their holy reputations, that rather than punishing the abuser, they just sent him away, giving them new opportunities to hurt and destroy the lives of more young children.  When you look at your own children or grandchildren, 7-year-old boys and girls – look at them - they are beautiful humans. Half baby, half child but you can see the full adult they're starting to become.   So full of potential, so full of promise and they love life and they love you, and they trust you, and you wonder how on Earth any adult could betray that trust and brutally hurt the bodies and souls of those children?   Well wonder no more. 2944 pages of evidence will tell you exactly how adults did that.   It's the largest and most complex inquiry ever held in New Zealand, and thank you to all of those who took part. The Commission members, which must have been a grueling job and the witnesses.   The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care was six years in the making. And every page is a page of families. Families in the first instance, who either neglected their children, couldn't be bothered with their children, abused their children sufficiently, that the state intervened, and then in came the institutions and the churches.   And they all failed these beautiful, vulnerable young people they were supposed to be protecting. The report was released to the public yesterday afternoon. It contains 138 recommendations and Parliament acknowledged receipt of the report, with speakers from across the House:    “We like to think that abuse like this doesn't happen here in Aotearoa, New Zealand but it did, and it is a shameful chapter of our history that we must confront. And Mr. Speaker, this is a dark and sorrowful day in New Zealand's history. And it's important that as a country, we bring to the surface and we understand the hard truths of what happened so we can try and move forward together. And I say to the survivors, the burden is no longer yours to carry alone. The state is now standing here beside you, accountable and ready to take action.”  That was Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. This is leader of the opposition Chris Hipkins:   “Mr. Speaker, I want to address the Prime Minister and thank him for his words. Our government set up this inquiry and we made some changes. We changed the redress rules on an interim basis and we did set up the Survivor Experiences Board, but Prime Minister, we didn't do enough. And the ball now falls to you and your Government. This must be bigger than politics. Mr. Speaker, we owe it to the survivors and to future generations to finally deliver justice, and to finally end the ongoing abuse that happens in state care. This work will extend beyond the life of any one government, so we should work together to make sure that happens.”   Which is quite true. And finally, Minister in Charge of the Crown Response to the Abuse in Care Inquiry, Erica Stanford:    “These are our most vulnerable and damaged tamariki, and this report tells us today that we must do better. And as a government, we are committed to delivering our response to the report with the respect and dignity it deserves. But today is about the survivors. Today we hear your stories. Today we acknowledge your bravery. And your bravery will not only correct the historic record, but it will determine our future. You are brave, we acknowledge you and we thank you.”   The report is really, really important and it has to be a lesson of what not to do in the future. In the first instance, it is families who are failing these children. If families were doing a good job, if families could protect their own children, they wouldn't need to be taken away from them.   And as we have seen, there are woeful families committing grievous harm on their children every single day. Oranga Tamariki is worked off its feet and failing miserably as an organisation, despite the best will of the social welfare workers, so the lessons from the past must be taken into the future because we haven't fixed anything.   The only good thing that's happened in the past 50 or 60 years is that people can speak up now. When I was growing up it was just starting to change, but when I was growing up the doctor, the policeman, the principal, the priest, they were believed. They were respected members of the community and if you had said that the local policeman had hurt you or tried to interfere with you, I'm not entirely sure you'd have been believed. You'd have probably been told off by your parents for telling terrible wicked lies.   We had a paedophile priest roaming around St. John's, when my brother was at St. John's. The kids all knew he was a paedo. He'd come from somewhere else where he'd been a paedo. But rather than the church defrock him and expose him, they sent him along to another school to commit more damage.   And my brother said he wasn't going to be an altar boy anymore and mum wept because every Catholic mother wants the child to be an altar boy. Won't you change your mind? No. He wasn't going to change his mind any time soon.   And Mum said later, many years later when it all came out that this man was a filthy depraved, opportunistic, intelligent, sadistic, paedophile, that even if my brother had said anything, she's not entirely sure she'd have believed him because she wouldn't have thought it was possible. A priest? A priest did what?   Such was the power of the church and of authority figures in the 70s, 60s, 50s, 40s. They were almost omnipotent. Nobody could stop them if they decided to do what they wanted and like finds like.   Paedos find other paedos. They like sharing their filthy little secrets. The only thing that's changed I think from back then is that the covers of darkness have been stripped away and those ghastly sluggish paedos have been exposed to the full light of day.   There is still the most appalling abuse happening in homes. There is still abuse happening in institutions, as we've seen with the reviews of Oranga Tamariki, but it's being exposed far more quickly and hopefully we are learning better ways of doing things.    But it will be the kids themselves, who had to go through hell on Earth who will be the ones who'll be able to inform us on how to do things better. But in the first instance, love your kids, don't let them end up in care, don't hand over their souls and their bodies to other people who are going to damage them. It’s utterly appalling reading.   But thank heavens for the courage and the bravery of those children because it's the children in adults, bodies who spoke at the inquiry. It's those children, thank heavens, who had the courage to speak up, who might just make things better for future generations. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So there she was yesterday, 2pm House of Parliament, one Darleen Tana. Bold as brass as Sister Mary Claire would have said, sitting up the back in the naughty girl's seat lonely as Herb Alpert’s bull. Well, until the leader of Te Pati Maori came by and dropped a hongi on her, or them sorry, she's now a they/them, because she never walks alone. So the leader of Te Pati Maori came by, dropped the hongi on the lonely bull, but after that they were on their own. Alone. Powerless. Party-less. And as useless as the tits on the aforementioned Herb Alpert's lonely bull. To recap, Darleen Tana was elected as a list MP for the Greens, she was stood down while an investigation was conducted and to what they knew of migrant exploitation in their husband's business and what she had divulged to the Green Party. They spent longer on leave than they did on the job, and when the review was finally completed, they resigned before they could be sacked by the Green Party. Their party urged them to shove off out of Parliament completely, as did Labour leader Chris Hipkins, but no. Darleen Tana played fast and loose, refused to say whether they would resign from Parliament, and the will they/won’t they question was finally settled, it appears, when they plonked themselves in the back row of the parliamentary chamber as an independent MP. “They have work to do,” they said. “I'm here now and doing the mahi as long as this place allows me,” were the exact words. “It's been a long time out and I've been very keen to do the mahi. I'm pleased to be back and I'm determined to continue serving the people,” which is all very noble. But exactly what kind of work will they do? Sam, Mike Hosking’s producer, said they replied by text to that question with “I'm honestly just keen to knuckle down and get on with the work. I'm determined to do oceans' protection justice. Thx again for reaching out.” So, oceans' protection justice. Well, heavens knows the oceans need protecting. There also might be a wee bit of self-interest at play here. Now that Tana’s husband, Christian Hoff Nielsen can no longer bring home the Danish pastries given his business has gone into liquidation, someone has to be earning a crust. I would have thought, given Ms Tana’s impressive resume, and despite the hoo-hah over their ignominious, albeit brief time in Parliament, she'd be able to find a good paying job somewhere, but it appears not. Might be hard work finding a job when you've already got one. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and if you've planted your buttocks to the back of a leather seat in the parliamentary chamber, good as gold, you’ve got the job. They are staying put. And do you know what for the next 2 1/2 years, we will get the benefit of Ms Tana’s mahi on oceans' protection justice. Lucky, lucky oceans, lucky, lucky Kiwis. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.