Far North mayor Moko Tepania is challenging the Coalition Government to witness the housing and infrastructure crisis enveloping his region first-hand.
Tepania was responding to an investigation by The Hui which revealed elderly kaumātua sheltering from the rain under thin tarpaulins or living in a rat-infested, mouldy caravan this winter.
He said Northland's housing crisis should be the Government's focus, not reopening the debate over Māori wards on councils.
"My heart absolutely breaks when you see the realities that kaumātua, kuia; that whānau up here in the Far North are living in," Tepania told The Hui.
He said Northland residents have the worst-quality housing and the highest deprivation levels in the country.
"Absolutely there is a crisis," he added.
"We have 500 whānau on the public housing register waiting for a home right now. Where are those whānau right now? We don't know."
He said those in housing need not feel whakamā, or ashamed, but to instead reach out for help.
As a result, Tepania said, they can be placed on a housing waitlist - or at least provided with portable califont gas heaters so they can have hot water for washing this winter.
Northlanders living rough were not the only ones with housing issues.
Thirty percent of those in the Far North who do have a home are living in overcrowded conditions, Tepania said.
When asked by The Hui host Julian Wilcox what his message would be to the Government, Mayor Tepania responded: "The message is 'you need to come up here'. We need central Government to acknowledge there is a crisis… so we can help our whānau who are hurting."
Tepania also told the Hui he was invoking the star Hiwa-i-te-rangi this Matariki for help in gaining broad support from Regional Development Minister Shane Jones.
Hiwa-i-te-rangi is the star associated with granting wishes and realising aspirations for the coming year.
"We put all our hopes and prayers up to Hiwa-i-te-rangi, hoping that Uncle Shane with his Regional Infrastructure Fund will look favourably on us; to acknowledge the huge deficits we have across water infrastructure, wastewater infrastructure, housing and everything in between - education, health," said Tepania.
"Get up here and do something about it. We need your help and we're willing to be key partners."
Last week's power outages across 100,000 Northland homes and businesses were estimated to have cost the region $80 million.
This came on top of the $2m daily hit to Northland's economy, due to the four-month closure of SH1 through the Brynderwyn Hills.
"We still have 35 active Phase 3 slips from Cyclone Gabrielle last year. The Far North is down and out. Northland is down and out. We're doing a huge job to try and get us back up, but it doesn't help when there are things outside of our control that just continue to hit us," said Tepania.
The mayor described the Coalition Government's moves to force councils to hold referenda on whether to have Māori wards as a "hōhā".
"It's a hōhā and a half, to be honest. It's a distraction from all of those core issues we have around infrastructure, and all that we're doing in that space, to then come in and cause divisiveness in our community and undue cost at the same time."
Made with funding from Te Māngai Pāho and New Zealand On Air.
