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A mad trip around Waikato

With a week to go in the local body elections, what’s on voters’ minds? Three waters, divisions in society, rising rates, and what about getting that third bridge built, Cambridge? Richard Walker reports.

Ngā ruawā hia man Ian Wilson has a fair idea who he's going to vote for, but hasn't finally decided. Either way, the status quo will change, with longserving Waikato District Council mayor Allan Sanson stepping down.

Sanson's put in the hard yards, which isn't to say Wilson, walking his samoyed Opal at the dog exercise area off Great South Rd, agrees with everything he's done.

He is concerned the council has prioritised growth by looking after new industry, with ratepayers carrying the cost.

A resident he was just chatting to at the dog park said the rates she paid for a small house had doubled. His own, he says, have gone up about 40% in a year as his house's valuation has risen. He makes the point that cheaper housing in the town has risen more than the high end of town.

Pokeno should have been a lesson. When new people move into a community they want the assets yesterday. ‘‘Somebody's got to pay for that,'' he says. That means the rest of the community subsidising the newcomers in the meantime.

There's a bigger point to be made. ‘‘Growth in itself is not the be-all and end-all,'' he says. ‘‘The population when I was born was two and a half million, it's now 5 million – we've still got 200,000 kids below the poverty line. Growth hasn't improved New Zealand, not for everyone anyway, that's for real.''

Does the council have a role to play in supporting people living in poverty? ‘‘The council's supposed to do what the citizens want it to do. And if they want them to have input into that, well, yes, definitely.''

He points to the agility features in the dog park, built by the local high school with help from contractors and the council. And just down the road from him, the school and council teamed up to put in a small orchard. ‘‘I think that's awesome, the council getting involved in things like that.''

Wilson, who was a one-term councillor in Franklin in the 1990s, has lived in Ngā ruawā hia for seven years. What does he make of it? ‘‘Love the place. Love the people. Incredible community.''

The main shopping street in Ngā ruawā hia, Jesmond St, has a trickle of people passing along it, and the ATM seems to be in constant use. It's the kind of town where everyone knows everyone, and Wahine

Tumai is constantly greeting people.

She's actually from Huntly, but has strong links to the town.

She's already filled out her voting paper, and just needs to put it in the post. Tilly Turner has her vote in the Tai Runga Takiwaa Maaori Ward – Tumai is clear about that. She has known Turner for many years and says her family was brought up in Tū rangawaewae. ‘‘Tilly Turner is an absolutely wonderful person.''

She has noticed more Mā ori standing for her community board. ‘‘The rangatahi, the younger generation are coming forward to be candidates in Huntly, and I think it's a wonderful thing.''

She breaks off as she sees another person she knows, and calls her over. Moera Solomon was on the council for many years, she explains.

Solomon, who has just come from the christening of her granddaughter, says she was on the council for four terms. ‘‘It was the community that put me there, I was the only Mā ori.''

That meant she had a major role to play when it came to Mā ori issues. ‘‘They would look at me. And I said, it may not be important for

Ngā ruawā hia, but it's very important for a race of people, for a tribe.''

It was about respecting opinions, listening and making the decision together, she says. ‘‘Make the decision for Waikato, for the district. It's in our name: the river is Waikato, the district is Waikato.''

Councils are needed, she says, and she has an answer to people who say it's only about cobblestones and water pipes. ‘‘What would we do if we couldn't flush our toilet? What would we do if we couldn't walk down the street safely?''

Solomon has already voted, and wants her people to understand the benefit of voting. ‘‘It's vitally important if you want to have a say. But Mā ori people don't vote.'' Maybe this time? ‘‘Hopefully! We've had a lot of experience now, New Zealand has.''

For herself, when voting she looked for the Mā ori name. ‘‘Of course, because I knew very few of us vote. So naturally, I look for the Mā ori name. That's what I did. And I was hoping all my people would do the same.''

Morrinsville

Dairy farmer Anne Higgens is loading up the back of her car with shopping in the New World carpark at

Morrinsville. She has already voted, and read a lot about the candidates, especially for mayor. As with Waikato, Matamata-Piako will have a new mayor this term, after incumbent Ash Turner decided to step down.

Higgens voted for Adrienne Wilcock. She knows her, though not personally. ‘‘I think she's got a level head.''

For her, a big issue for the incoming council is three waters. ‘‘I want them to stand firm on that, against it, absolutely.''

She went to a meeting about three waters and acknowledges there are some councils that need upgrading, but not the whole country.

‘‘It's a Labour government policy that is just more of their shit that we are being put on,'' she says. ‘‘I mean that from the dairy farmer's point of view – and small businesses.''

She's looking for a council with common sense. ‘‘It's a lot of work involved, and you've got to listen and make good judgement,'' she says.

‘‘It's really neat that people do put their hand up.''

Further up Thames St, a regional council candidate's sign on a gift shop door echoes Higgens' sentiment about three waters. Waihou candidate Ben Dunbar-Smith wants it stopped, and he's won over Alo shop owner Barbara Smith. Mind you, that's for the kind of person he is as much as the three waters policy.

He came into the shop one day when she was talking to customers who couldn't quite afford a layby. He got the ornaments down himself, paid for them and gave them to the customers. ‘‘So he's got my vote. It's not about what he's spent, it's about the spiritual aspect of what he did.''

Meanwhile, shop volunteer Heleen Verkroost has voted for Stu Husband for Matamata-Piako mayor.

He's been around for a while and she's seen his name mentioned a lot. ‘‘He's lovely,'' Smith agrees. ‘‘So I just felt that's where I wanted to place my vote,'' says Verkroost who, like Smith, lives in Te Aroha.

‘‘Along with the girl with the hyphenated name. I can't remember her but she's the only one with a hyphenated name.''

As far as Verkroost can tell, they have a lot of beliefs in common.

Verkroost ‘‘definitely'' wants to stop three waters.

‘‘We need to start moving forward,'' she says. ‘‘And we need to stop trying to separate and segregate our country, we should all be together as one people.

‘‘We are one people. I think with such a melting pot now, nobody owns anything. We all own it together.''

The council, meanwhile, seems to get a lot of blame for things it's not responsible for, like maintenance of the rail trail, she says.

That said, she thinks spending millions on the Te Aroha domain, including building another public toilet block, is a ‘‘shameful'' waste of money. It's fine to bring in tourism. ‘‘But we need to think about the people that live in these towns.''

Smith would like to see support from the new council for small business owners such as herself. Covid lockdowns have seen her close her two Te Aroha stores.

‘‘We're starting to make ends meet . . . it's been a struggle, it really has,'' she says. ‘‘More support for the businesses would be amazing.''

Cambridge

Tracey Thomas, on the counter of Oxfords clothing store on Cambridge's Duke St, is, like Verkroost, momentarily struggling to recall the name of the mayoral candidate she voted for. She lives on a Tirau farm, so is voting in South Waikato.

Regardless of the memory lapse – caught off guard by the Waikato Times turning up unannounced – she can rattle off the reasons for her vote. ‘‘Her credentials were really impressive. She stood for and represented many a board before, across a broad spectrum. She's a qualified lawyer. She has her own business.''

When choosing her councillors, Thomas says she picked a good array. It wasn't about going on their passion, but their experience.

Like those spoken to in Morrinsville, Thomas has strong feelings about three waters. ‘‘I just feel it's another form of control.'' Local people know better about their local areas and there's too much change happening too quickly. She is also concerned about crime, and thinks the council has a role to play, arming the community with knowledge and support.

‘‘Because everyone is over the boy racers and the violence and everything that's going on,'' she says.

‘‘I'm really not happy how our country is going at the moment. I'm actually sad and quite soul destroyed to see the country I grew up in being flipped on its head.'' Tirau itself may not need a lot of attention. ‘‘It chugs along quite nicely.''

Voting is important – there's no use moaning if you don't vote. ‘‘You can't have change if you don't make change,'' she says.

Also in Cambridge, old mates Kevin Vagg and Phil Cubis are catching up for a beer at the Prince Albert on Victoria St. Vagg's the politician of the two, or at least he nearly was. In 2013, he stood unsuccessfully for council.

Why did he throw his hat in the ring?

‘‘Because he made me,'' he says, indicating Cubis. They laugh.

More seriously, he says at the time there was a lot of controversy in the town about the new swimming pool and how much it would cost. Vagg thought it was far too expensive for what it would be. ‘‘And damn me, we end up with a pool that cost a lot more.''

He remembers at the time a protest march against the council had been held in Te Awamutu. So for a meet the candidates session at the Cambridge Baptist church he thought a couple of hundred might turn up.

‘‘There was eight,'' Cubis says.

‘‘I reckon there was 10,'' says Vagg. And that included the candidates.

At the meeting, somebody asked for the candidates' opinion on the trees in town.

‘‘I remember my answer was, ‘a lot of people I talk to love trees, but they add, as long as they're not on their section'.''

He gives Hall St, well known for its established trees, as an example. He would have been quite happy as a councillor to field questions about what the council is doing with the street, given the tree roots pushing up the footpath. His reply would be, do they want big trees or do they want pavement? ‘‘Oh, well I want big trees,'' comes the imagined response. ‘‘Well you can't have both. Lift your feet.''

For the record, what does he himself want, the big trees or the pristine pavement?

‘‘Probably every second tree,'' he says, speaking like a true politician.

While he stood in 2013 mainly on the swimming pool issue it was also as a longstanding Cambridge resident, one who worked at the Aotearoa meatworks for 21 years before it was shut down. That sense of town is clearly important to both men, and they have a healthy scepticism about the influence Te Awamutu has on Waipā council, with its headquarters being in that town and the current mayor coming from there.

In fact, for that reason Vagg is considering voting for the Cambridge mayoral candidate this time round even though he doesn't really like what he says. Cubis isn't voting this time round. Why

not? ‘‘Because Kevin's not standing,'' he says. They laugh again.

Actually, he's not voting because he thinks this council has achieved nothing important. Planning for a new bridge would have been a good start, he says. ‘‘It's a big issue in town.''

‘‘If we still had the Cambridge Borough Council, we'd probably have one now,'' says Vagg, whose uncle, Gordon, was on the council back in the 80s.

‘‘There's a lot of feeling out there that Te Awamutu do very well, as opposed to us, who actually contribute a lot more money to the council.''

Both men also question how easy it is to go up to a councillor and get a straight answer, rather than being fobbed off.

‘‘But that is politics, Kevin,'' says Cubis, ‘‘that is politics.''

‘‘And I don't like it,'' responds Vagg.

Whatawhata

Raglan woman Kate McGregor is determined to vote in these elections, perhaps more so than she ever has been. That's because of what's happening in the world at large and the division she is seeing.

‘‘What's happening with social media and misinformation is really scary. And it's causing a huge divide, and the mistrust of government,'' says McGregor, who is returning to her car after having lunch at the Village Cafe in Whatawhata with her daughter.

She was talking about it with her father. ‘‘He said never before in his life, and he's in his late 70s, has he felt like this in a community where there is such division.''

She is not on the side of Voices for Freedom. ‘‘I don't even know what they're going to do next. Now we've got no mandates, what's the next thing they're going to come up with that they're going to be anti about? I don't know. But I want to make sure that who I vote for, they are not affiliated with Voices for Freedom.''

Raglan, where she has lived for about 16 years, has been particularly divided, often enough with close friends having different views.

‘‘I think it boils down to your values. That's what I've boiled it down to. It's going, ‘Am I here for the good of the group? Or am I here for myself alone?' I don't know, that's what it boiled down to for me.''

She thinks she's voted in all the past local body elections, though can't be sure. ‘‘It's been kind of low on the priority list, dare I say it.''

That was because she expected those who were involved would do the right thing while she would get on with her life, but this time round some of that trust has gone. ‘‘I'm thinking I need to be very strategic in who I vote for, and who is really going to be the best for our community.''

That community is growing rapidly, and residents are paying significant rates, she says. ‘‘We have got really high rates, and then what are we going to get for that? I do question that. Because just around the corner – if you live just five minutes out of town, three minutes out of town – you pay half.'' She hasn't decided yet who she will vote for, but will be doing her homework. Plus, Raglan being what it is, she knows a lot of the candidates.

Stephen Hand has had a cursory look at the voting papers. The Raglan resident will have another look over the next day or two and make sure he votes.

Why vote? He echoes Tracey Thomas. ‘‘There's no point in moaning about it once there's someone in place with policies that you don't necessarily agree with.'' He's looking for clear policies so Waikato District councillors can be held to account later, and a key issue for his district council would be balancing growth against the environment question.

Hand is new to Waikato District Council, having shifted to Raglan from eastern Auckland three years ago, so it's not about holding the current council to account, but looking at what the candidates are standing for. He thinks having a balance that reflects New Zealand culture and society is a good thing, and that might influence his vote.

Raglan, where he can largely work from home, offers all those things an Aucklander might like – no traffic lights, low crime, no graffiti and, most importantly, much lower congestion.

Seemingly, it also has a lot of talkers. ‘‘It does take a bit to leave large urban values behind and become a good listener. ''

So the lifestyle is great and he takes the rates in his stride, despite paying up to $1500 more than he did in Auckland. If you live in smalltown New Zealand, you've got to be prepared to pay higher rates since there are fewer people to share the costs. And there's no way around rising rates in the face of inflation.

The Waikato Times talks to Hand at Whatawhata, where, like McGregor, he has just had lunch at the cafe. ‘‘The food here is excellent,'' he says, by way of final comment.

‘‘I want to make sure that who I vote for, they are not affiliated with Voices for Freedom.’’

Kate McGregor, Raglan

Nancy Jiang bounds across the rough alpine terrain as lightly as a dancer. And, man, is she fast. Look away and she's gone, only to pop up seconds later far ahead of where you expected she would be.

The fiercely determined Jiang represents New Zealand in mountain and trail running. She wears out her size 6.5 running shoes every three months and sometimes commutes to work via the steep Nelson hills.

Jiang started running at primary school. A teacher encouraged the structural engineer to enter the interschool cross country. And the rest, she says, ‘‘is history''.

To the unease of her traditional Chinese parents and grandparents, Jiang excelled at running. She also loved it. They tried to discourage her by telling her ‘‘Chinese people don't run''. They also limited the time she could spend outside.

Wanting her to succeed, they pushed her to study Mandarin and calculus in the weekends. It only made Jiang more resolute. ‘‘When I got told Chinese don't run, and we're not going to be good at it

. . . I think I decided I was going to prove my parents and family wrong.

‘‘And that I was going to represent New Zealand one day,'' she laughs.

Jiang is the current New Zealand mountain running champion. Ultramarathons are her passion.

Her parents, Linda and Leiming, moved to New Zealand from Ma'anshan, China, when Jiang was 5. Her younger sister Lucy was born in Aotearoa.

She remembers her parents selling everything, including her toys, to come to New Zealand in search of a better life. ‘‘Everything was quite restricted in China. They were basically told what job they could do after they finished university.''

Asian immigrants at the time Jiang's parents migrated were often seen as rich and flashy. The stereotypical Asian drove expensive cars and snapped up ostentatious houses in Auckland.

But Jiang's family, like other migrants from China in the 1990s, had to work hard, hustle and build an existence from scratch.

The Jiangs lived with another Chinese family in a state house in the Auckland suburb of Glen Innes for their first year.

It was a rough area. Imprinted in Jiang's mind is an image of the neighbourhood kids picking clean the bones of leftover food at her house.

Her parents worked hard, and lived frugally. ‘‘When they were growing up, food was scarce because of the whole communist regime. I know some of my relatives died from starvation during the communist era.''

Jiang laughs often, and has a wide smile that accentuates her dimples. She is softly spoken, and gracious. But her strength of character and steely determination is obvious.

She hints at experiencing racism growing up, but it is not something she dwells on. She played ‘‘a lot of sport'' at school and that ‘‘helped me fit in''.

Jiang is adamant she hasn't set out to smash stereotypes in her sport; she is just ‘‘super headstrong''.

‘‘I like to prove people wrong. If you tell me I can't do something, I'm going to go ahead and prove to you otherwise.''

While she pushed back against her parents when growing up, she now understands their rationale. Running for fun was foreign to her parents, raised in impoverished communist China. ‘‘They were worried that it was going to affect my health and my growth.

‘‘I think they wanted to make sure I got good grades, got into university, did well and got a job that was financially stable.''

While she hasn't had anyone in New Zealand question her citizenship, she has overseas. One memorable moment was during a race at 3000 metres in France. ‘‘Even though it's a New Zealand singlet, some of the people there were like, ‘Go China'. I didn't have enough breath to correct them.''

She also wants her story to encourage others to forge their own paths. ‘‘Hopefully some other little Chinese girl will see this and be inspired.''

Roast duck, racism and bagging Asian drivers

Auckland academic Manying Ip says before 1987 New Zealand's immigration policy strongly favoured immigrants from Europe – mainly Britain and Ireland.

All this changed that year when Aotearoa's ‘‘white'' immigration framework was replaced with a system based on the personal qualities of immigrants.

Migrants who now met educational, business, professional, age or wealth requirements could apply to New Zealand regardless of race or nationality.

Immigrants who were young and educated were actively sought to build the New Zealand economy, which was ‘‘cutting its apron strings'' with Britain.

‘‘This really was for the first time ever that people who were non-British could come into the country in any sizeable number,'' Ip says.

Young, adventurous Asians, particularly from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and China, took a punt on New Zealand.

Ip says they were attracted to Aotearoa in the late 80s and 90s for a number of reasons. They wanted to make a better life, to educate their children in a lesscompetitive environment, to experience a Western democracy, and for the Chinese there was a fear of the Communist Party in that country.

This led to a huge increase in the number of Asians living in New Zealand. From 1986 to 2006, New Zealand's Chinese population grew from 26,541 to 147,567 – an increase of 456%.

Fears of the country being overrun with Asians – first aired in the 1860s – resurfaced. Reports of racist attacks were published in newspapers, and the media itself was guilty of stoking anti-Asian sentiment.

Winston Peters, and NZ First, campaigned on anti-immigration in 1996 on what has been widely called a thinly veiled anti-Asian platform.

In 2004, Peters said the country was ‘‘being dragged into the status of an Asian colony and it is time that New Zealanders were placed first''.

Rose Lu – growing up as a minority in small-town New Zealand

Rose Lu arrives in a burst of colour instantly brightening an already beautiful autumnal Wellington afternoon.

The software engineer and writer turns up on her road bike. She doesn't drive. Her red helmet contrasts with her waist-long black hair.

Wearing an African-print pink jumpsuit, lime sneakers and hexagonal glasses, she isn't afraid to stand out in buttoned-down Thorndon.

Lu, who studied mechatronics engineering and also has a masters in creative writing, has a six-month grant to live at historic Randell Cottage to write her first novel.

The book will explore the uncharted topic of Chinese women in the New Zealand outdoors, she says. ‘‘I wanted to write about Chinese women in the outdoors because, you know, it's not something you ever see really.''

Lu, who loves tramping, climbing and the outdoors, has glibly described her future novel as ‘‘Brokeback Mountain but in the Tararua ranges''.

Her first book – All Who Live On Islands – is a series of personal essays exploring growing up as a minority in regional New Zealand.

Her 20s was a time of coming to terms with her cultural identity and exploring where she fitted between China and New Zealand.

She wrote All Who Live On Islands after searching for New Zealand stories similar to hers and discovering there was ‘‘nothing''.

Like Jiang, Lu's parents also grasped the opportunity to build a better life in New Zealand. ‘‘China as a country was just so incredibly poor at that point in time.''

Her family moved from Shanghai to Auckland in the mid-90s armed with a middle-class background and just $6000. Part of the $6000 was stitched into the coat Rose wore into the country. ‘‘I was the cash mule,'' she jokes.

Her dad was 30, Lu was 5. Her brother was born in New Zealand. The family moved to Whanganui when Rose was in year 9 at school. Moving away from the culturally diverse Mt Roskill was a shock.

‘‘My entire, like, peer group [in Auckland] were Chinese or Indian, and it felt really normal. And then when I moved to Whanganui, which I think it's maybe 33% Mā ori, and then the rest . . . Pā kehā and other.''

(Nearly 70% of the 247,770 people who identify as Chinese live in Auckland, the 2018 census shows.)

The lack of other Asian families in Whanganui meant she keenly experienced being different in a small town, which meant ‘‘lots of jokes'' and putdowns. At times it felt ‘‘really, really unfair''.

Lu smiles often, drops the f-bomb and explains tricky topics simply. She's sassy, and says that, despite the racism, she ‘‘didn't put up with any shit . . . I'm like ... well, if you want to dish it out . . . you better take it back from me, you know.''

She also saw her mother and father work long hours in their dairy and takeaway to build a life from the ground up. ‘‘It's so hard to start your life from scratch. And that's kind of what I saw my parents do.''

Her father had a degree in engineering, and did a masters at Massey University, but instead chose the well-worn migrant path of running a dairy and takeaway shop.

Now 31, Rose is comfortable having a foot in two cultures. An extended period in China helped her gain a deeper understanding of that part of her whakapapa.

‘‘I felt, finally, my version of being Chinese was kind of valid as well, because there is no way to be Chinese . . . if you are Chinese, you are just Chinese, so you don't have to be a certain way.''

Shaping the face of New Zealand

The first Chinese to arrive in New Zealand was Appo Hocton, who jumped ship in Nelson in 1842, but the Chinese arrived in significant numbers on the Otago goldfields.

They were invited to re-work the goldfields in 1865, and numbered about 4000 at their peak in 1871.

As the gold ran out, from the 1890s onwards, the men moved into other regions to work in market gardens, fruit and vege shops, and laundries.

The Chinese faced discrimination, such as an entry or poll tax – ‘‘for no other reason than for the fact they were Chinese'', Ip says.

Other laws singled out the Chinese, such as a cargo tax limiting the numbers of Chinese who could enter, a reading test upon arrival, and being deprived of their right to naturalisation from 1908 to 1951.

Women and families were finally allowed to settle in New Zealand as refugees on the back of China's efforts in World War II. But by 1986 Chinese were still only 1% of New Zealand's population.

In 2002 Helen Clark's government apologised for the poll tax, which started at £10 and rose to about a year's wages, or £100. The tax was abolished in 1944.

Ip says the arrival of immigrants from diverse parts of China in the 80s and 90s transformed the make-up of the NZ Chinese population.

Cantonese is no longer the main language spoken; now it's Mandarin.

The old Chinese were from Guangdong in southern China. Largely uneducated, they came from humble farming backgrounds and built a life in New Zealand by ‘‘keeping their heads down''.

In contrast to earlier immigration, the men from newer immigrant whā nau left families in New Zealand to work in the booming Asian economies. The new arrivals were also more likely to speak out and challenge racism, Ip says.

Kiwis in the 80s and earlier were generally ignorant of Asia, she says. Many couldn't distinguish between Asian countries, let alone new or old immigrants.

The old Chinese, who had worked hard to integrate, suddenly found themselves experiencing racism and resented the new arrivals for sticking out.

Looking to the future

For her part, Ip says New Zealand was not prepared to deal with new immigrants in the 80s and 90s.

She still remembers teachers, officials and others who were genuinely puzzled as to why migrants who had been picked due to their successful backgrounds were floundering in New Zealand. ‘‘Everyone was taken by surprise.''

Part of the reason it was so difficult was the Kiwi business environment was so foreign. She recalls suggesting to a migrant that they set up a shop in busy parts of downtown Auckland such as Newmarket – and the immigrants said there was ‘‘hardly any foot traffic''.

Friends who worked in international banks confided that the transactions they did in one day in Asia would be the equivalent of one month's transactions in New Zealand.

The tall poppy syndrome in New Zealand meant new Asians who drove their new Mercedes or BMW were genuinely not aware they would be seen as showing off. ‘‘The new Chinese really stuck out like a sore thumb.''

Despite the racism Chinese have faced, Ip is optimistic about the future.

She's excited to hear about Jiang and Lu and says more New Zealand Chinese role models are needed. Telling the stories of New Zealand Chinese and the discrimination they have suffered will help bring change, she says.

Ip has strongly advocated for the history of New Zealand Chinese to be included in the new school curriculum, despite being told they did not want to ‘‘focus on newcomers''.

‘‘And I said: ‘180 years [of Chinese immigration] is a pretty long time.' ''

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