NZ Housing could also give her a contract talking to prospective candidates for this terrific rent-equity scheme, giving first-hand experience a credible face to help get others over that psychological hurdle from a lifetime of negative assumptions.
All these Government-funded courses teaching Maori culture, Pacific values, higher self-esteem, Tania Webb and her partner could eject in a one-hour presentation telling it like it is. That household budgeting and self-discipline are absolute requirements. That not continuing the cycle creates a virtuous, rewarding new cycle, that not picking up the pitiful, we're victims mantra means do-ies, not huis.
All the conferences in the world on indigenous issues have not put a single one in their own home. (Well, maybe flasher houses for the corpulent elite.) All the handouts, the pandering to the notion that brown people need first and foremost their cultural identity before they need to know how to budget, how to get on the property ladder, achieves nothing.
By all means have a cultural identity. But your own roof comes first, and that means acquiring the knowledge on how to cut down on everyday living expenses; changing your entire outlook. No-one ever came away from a conference (on anything) that put them in their own home. Tania Webb knows how.
Tania and Letele, you and your children are on your way. I think you are going to take a whole lot of people with you. Now it needs Maori and Pacific Island organisations and leaders to hand the baton to you so our people might learn there is a better way of getting ahead instead of moaning, griping, protesting, belly-aching. (Take heed, Hone Harawira. Our people need solutions not angry discourse.) Regardless of race, ethnicity, the vast majority live, as one scribe said, quiet lives of desperation. But we have many advantages in this modern age of businesses worldwide changing their outlook, growing a culture of social and ethical awareness and responsibility to each other, to the environment.
Government social departments should be picking the brains of the best business minds - and I don't mean corporate leaders, so much as company founders. People with experience on the ground gone through the school of hard knocks who put their own capital at risk, including their houses and maxing out every credit card because banks wouldn't lend to them.
Business people are practical - have to be. The best are visionaries happy to share their experiences with others. Bet not a one would charge. Most are frugal, some are tight. But most I'm sure would be only too glad to pass on knowledge that helps pull others up. Frugality I'm sure would be top of their list.
A person who's been through the weekly struggle of making payroll is of far more use to society than a cultural consultant on two hundred bucks an hour with zero business experience. Of more use than brigades of law firms and tribal leaders carrying invoice books in their back pockets.
Tania Webb, you are an inspiration. I believe you may have started a brand new movement. Make sure they pay you for it.
