Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - BONUS: Mike McRoberts On His Te Reo Maori Journey

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

New Zealand's anchorman Mike McRoberts is in studio to chat about his brand new documentary out tonight! Mike chats about his Te Reo journey and how significant the Maori language and culture is to him.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a bonus podcast from Jono and Ben on The Hits. It is, of course, a Māori language week, Tawiki o Te Reo, and Mark McRoberts joins us in the studio. You'll know him from 3 News, but he's got a very personal documentary out tonight. Kia ora, good morning, Mike. Kia ora koutou e te whānau. Thank you. Kia ora, good evening is the name of the show. We say, Kia ora, good morning, I guess, morena for you this morning, Mike.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kia ora, good evening. It's funny because I've said it for 20 years, presenting the Six O'Clock News, and it seemed like an appropriate title. But, you know, for me, it's my personal journey with Te Reo, and I guess my own identity too as a Māori and where I fit into our Māori, the Māori world. And it's pretty personal, you know, it's like, you know, the thing with the news is you always have this safety blanket around you. You're the messenger rather than the message, and so you work in a pretty strict set of boundaries about how much you give of yourself and that kind of thing.

She's all on the table tonight. It must have been quite a vulnerable position to put yourself in, not being used to doing that, just fronting the news. Yeah, it really was because I had to address a whole lot of things. You know, I grew up in Christchurch and if it hadn't been for the occasional trip back to my father's hometown in Wairoa, I could have gone through my whole childhood and adolescence without ever hearing te reo spoken. And so that's where I started from, despite the fact that I'm Māori. Working in this industry, you know, there was an expectation if you're Māori that you should know

it. And I pushed back against that. You know, there was an expectation if you're Māori that you should know it. And I pushed back against that. You know, I didn't want to be called upon for knowledge I didn't have. And it took a long time to come to grips with that. But once I did embrace it and started learning, it's just been the most incredible journey. One of the words I use in the documentary tonight is

haere tono, which means keep going. And, yeah, so that's my motto. A guy that came around to clean your gutters at home, the spouting in the gutters. Yeah, it turns out he was a te reo teacher, kaioku, and I said, well, forget about the gutters, mate. Can you do a whanau lesson for us with my son Ben and Maya and Heidi, my partner? And he did, so we did that every Saturday morning.

What state are the gutters in? Ben and me come around and do the gutters? We get right into the gutters, yeah. Because there's still a huge section of society. They're like, mate, I shouldn't be talking Maori on the news, mate. I can't understand what they're saying. You still get those complaints. Yeah, well, the Broadcasting Standards Authority,

I think a year ago, said they would no longer take complaints about the use of Māori in a news program, and it was so liberating. We don't use that much. Probably if you counted all the words we do in a bulletin, it's like 0.002%. People feel threatened by it, and I get that. They feel fearful of it, but they need to understand it's part of us,

and we're also dealing with generations, probably the older generations. Yeah, yeah. The younger generations, like my kids' age. Well, our kids are going to school. They're learning a part of it. Yeah, they know their own pepeha. You've got 660 with a song about pepeha, and it's just becoming part of their lives now, and that's so good.

I mean, this is something that we can all share in and we all have uh you know respect and and and pride in and and that's what i really hope yeah there's just a reluctant tail yeah at the end of the moment they're all on zb i'm not sure i'm not sure how we're allowed to bring up but you went through something it took about six hours for this something quite personal as well that you will see in the doco as well. The tamoko? Yeah, yeah. It was 12 hours. Was it 12 hours? Yeah, two six-hour sessions. Yeah, and, oh, boy, it was excruciating.

So it's my whakapapa, it's my whānau, so I've got my kids on my chest and my grandparents, my parents and my siblings down my arm. I've told them, no more kids, that's it, you know. Nothing else is getting added to this. But they say when you do your tamuku you go to some dark places and that's the time to let those things go and i must have had a lot of dark places to get rid of because i did feel quite cleansed afterwards and and i'd kind of put off i thought i never needed to have a tamuku but as soon as i got it and and for the last last month or so that I've had it, every morning when I get up and I see something new in it

and I just wonder how on earth I ever lived without one. It's such a part of me now. Do you feel like you're becoming more complete as a person? Complete's a really good word, Jono, and it is that. When I saw my brother learning te reo, I saw the calmness in him and I wanted some of that. I feel that. I feel open now. It makes me think about my own mana and how I use that

and what I do with it. And yeah, it's really good. Good on you, mate. Congratulations. Michael Roberts with us. Kia ora, good evening. It's going to be on three tonight, 8.40. We asked for some questions from some listeners.

We just want to fire those to you. What do you wear on your bottom half when you're doing the news? Always a suit because I end up standing in front of the wall now so years ago you could get away with jeans Have you ever worn shorts while doing the news? Not in the studio, sometimes out in the field, like if I've been at the Commonwealth

Games or Olympic Games or whatever Are your shorts on those legs? Wow, you just don't see them like that Most memorable stuff up live on TV, do you have one there? Well, you guys have already pilled me for this, but when I talked about instead of homeowners, homebuyers. I think we've got that around.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The rank says it won't happen until the middle of next year, at least. But while some first homebuyers are locked out of the market. And we're still not letting it go, Mike. How many years ago was it? I don't know. Two years ago. And of course, we love property, so I get that word all the time.

I'll never make that mistake again. Mike Roberts, we love catching up with you. Congratulations on what you're doing. This is incredible, this journey that you're going on. I think everyone should tune in tonight and watch it on 3. E mihi ana. Kena koe. Thank you.