Barney Koneferenisi: Double amputee on playing for the Wheel Blacks and embracing change

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks ed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
This is the Nutters Club, thanks to New Zealand air
on News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Good evening and welcome to the Nutters Club, the show
that talks about your mental health every Sunday night and
Monday morning. Try to see if we can't give you
a hand along the way. My name's Amish Williams, and
a very good evening to you wherever you might be
listening around the country around the world. Special shout out

(01:00):
todd On and I'll tell you why because I'm going
to come and see you tomorrow. Why. It's got some
work here for the day. But I thought i'd say
Heidi also, and great anticipation. If you wouldn't mind making
sure that the traffic is not quite as bad as
you've now got the reputation of being than great, that'll
be fantastic. But otherwise let's see what the weather does.
No doubt you would hope that it's better than what's

(01:21):
going on in Nelson Tasman. Big shout out to you
there and Nelson Tasman tonight too. Know that it's absolutely
terrible down your way and really sad to see some
of the destruction that you're going through. So just so
you know, the rest of us up here, we're all
thinking of you, and when the time's right, we'll also
think about things that we can do to help out.
We did it. We've done it with lots of different

(01:42):
things that have gone on, lots of weather events and
earthquakes and natural disasters and the like. When the dust
settles and we see what it is that we can
do to help, will be there. So to the rest
of you, I hope you're going well. Now. He's my psychotherapist,
he's your psychotherapist. He's Kyl McDonald. He's here in the
Auckland studio with me tonight, Kyle. How's your week been?

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, busy but good. It's always a bit hard at
this time of year, isn't it. I mean, from the
extreme weather events, just short days, cold, dark, everything's a
bit harder.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
You think it has a bit of an effect on people.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Oh, look, it doesn't mean I think. You know, we've
talked a number of times about, you know, a seasonal
effective disorder, which is the best named of all, of course,
being the acronym of sad. And sure it does of
course quite severe more disturbances for some people. But I
actually also think it's just the natural state of being
at this time of year, isn't it. You want to
crawl under the duvet, stay in bed Frankly.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, I mean sometimes though, I've got to be honest,
you know, if it's a bit of a light stormy
day outside, that's okay, unless, of course, you're a Nelson
Tasmani area at the moment, which means that your house
might get picked up and move two hundred meters down
a field.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Pretty scary.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
Aah.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Oh, it was terrible. And I saw some of the
destruction that they've been going through there. You know, it
is really hard, and so you know, I'm not drivening
realizing it at all, but I always think about it.
When those sort of things happen, you really understand, you know,
how communities come together. Yeah, who's got your back?

Speaker 3 (03:08):
You ever expect that, that's the thing, right? I mean,
what three years ago now, we had the Anniversary weekend
floods here in Auckland, and I had quite a few
people I knew who were quite significantly affected, and it
was just like, you know, a week before, if you'd
said to me there was going to be houses written
off in Mount Eaton and Sandragum, I would have laughed
at you.

Speaker 5 (03:26):
But there you go.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
I always say, you know, we can't we can't have
control over the event. Sometimes they happen as they will,
but how we respond to them is really important indeed,
And so if you I would just say to anyone listening,
if you've got the opportunity to help anyone who has
been affected by anything that's going on around the place,
take the opportunity.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
And that might be as simple as actually make them
a cooked meal, or just actually knock it on the
door and saying are you okay? Is there anything I
can do to help?

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Well, Like, we know, it could be that your house
could be fine, but somebody on the other side of
the street might not, you know, literally might be very
very badly affected. So don't be afraid to go and
ask if you can help out, or just do something
that you see as being a bit of helpfulness along
the way probably be more greatly SidD then you realize
moving on, great guest Tonight, Our guest tonight is a

(04:17):
very impressive individual. He has done all sorts of interesting
things in his life. He has represented New Zealand at
the highest possible level for sport on the international stage.
He is a passionate, unrelenting advocate in his community who
has been featured on multiple television, print and radio, you articles,

(04:42):
TV shows. He is quite the individual, so I was
really pleased that we're able to have him in the
Auckland studio with us tonight. His name is Barneer Corner Ferni.
He is here with me in the Auckland Studio tonight. Barney,
how did I go on the name? We're not We're
not getting that. I did all right on the name,

(05:03):
he says, but I'm not doing it right on the microphone.
I think we might just need to change the mic. There,
it's not you, Barney, that's us. Let's try this one.
Was it not plug Ben? Was that the thing? Hang on? Kyle?
Because just so you understand people listening at home, Jess,
the last person we had was actually coming out of
christ Church. So the Auckland, the Auckland Studios.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Or therapist does it take to play a microphone? And
I think we just learned the answer to that one.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, here's the thing. It's all been tumbleweeds around here.
So we came in because Jess just did a great
job out of christ Church. Let's see how we're going now, Barney,
is it working? Now, let's try that again. We'll we'll
just rewind that, which you can't really do in live radio.
My guest tonight is Barney Corner. Fitty NISI Barney? How
did I go on? Pronouncing the name.

Speaker 6 (05:48):
A lot better than a lot of people that I've met?

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Mate, There we go? What do I get? Like a
seven seven.

Speaker 6 (05:53):
Point five reading?

Speaker 5 (05:54):
There we go?

Speaker 2 (05:54):
There we go, Barnie, thank you so much for being
here with us tonight. And I'm really interested in, you know,
sharing his story with with the audience and our listeners.
Tonight said, let's kick it off. Tell me a little
bit about yourself. Where were you bornhe'd you grow up?

Speaker 6 (06:07):
Yeah, grew up in the awesome part of Auckland, which
is South Awkland. Family of three, which was which was
really easy. Got all the teachers to myself. Yeah, I
grew up in a very small family. Me, mom and
dad had a lot of fun growing up. I was
very active on my street, so I always saw me
around a lot of people when they when they see me.

(06:29):
They were like, oh look you could you can literally
hear me before you see me.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Okay, yeah you're one of those kids.

Speaker 6 (06:35):
Yeah, I think with my big island a loud mouth,
you could sounded like a siren going around the entire street.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
So you say islander, you know which which islands are
your family from? Salmon for di lover. Yeah, that's so
growing up, you know, growing up a salmon family. But
you know you were born here in New Zealand, you
know what kind of stuff we were you into? What
was what was sort of family life like?

Speaker 6 (06:58):
So we we had a lot of family gatherings, always
a barbecue every Sunday. I always always loved our Sunday gornutes.
So he's had raw fish, or he's met random people
that you didn't know you were related to and until
they knocked them on your door, came with the ball
of chicken legs and say hey, I'm your cousin. I'm
your cousin from four families down and they don't even

(07:19):
look some on. Yeah, I grew up in a very
religious family, big religious family, big Salmon, big Sarmon people.
It was one. It was one growing We always are
active and volley with a lot of volleyball, which was
which was fine for me as well. Lovely sports, lovely church,
just your basic Pacific islander family.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
The thing that's not so basic, because though you've had
some incredible health challenges that you've you've had to endure
and overcome during during your life, when did that first
start affecting you?

Speaker 6 (07:51):
Uh, I'd say in my early years. I'd say maybe
three or four years old.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
And what was that?

Speaker 6 (07:59):
Three or four years old? I had my first surgery
which was for my spine, had a big spinal alignment
where they had to dig through my back and try
and straighten my spine, whereas they were afraid that if
they didn't do that, I'd come out with spina bifida
as a paraplegic.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
So there was a lot of surgeries though, right yep.

Speaker 6 (08:20):
So from there we went from spinal alignments to skin grafts,
skin grafts to bone alignments, bone alignments to shoulder surgeries,
you name it, I've had it. And then I think
the biggest one was straightening my legs. Unfortunately, they it
was a mission failed on that one, and we had
to go from that to amputations.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Before we get to the amputations, though, just tell me
a little bit about you know, when they were trying to,
you know, help with your legs. You know, how old
were you and how intense was some of the surgeries
that you were going through.

Speaker 6 (08:51):
So my I think I was from memory. I was
six years old when I had my first leg skin gruff.
They had to take skin off my back and pretty
much rip it off my back and put it onto
my leg because my leg was obviously I was growing
by my my my skin was stretching. A few years

(09:11):
after that, they put some sort of contraption on my
right leg and decided to straighten my bones while I
was awake. So he felt like a Saw movie. No
pain killers, painkillers. All I remember was the doctor coming
in with a couple of bolts, waking up after anaesthesia.
Is that how you're saying, and one of them ye ye,

(09:35):
waking up after surgery, and then the doctor coming in
saying that we need to play around with your bones
while it's still fresh. So we had doctors. I had
two doctors come in pull out little screwdrivers and decided
to screw my bones while I was still awake to
try and straighten them out. There was a special day

(09:55):
as well, though, Yeah, because literally two minutes after that,
you had the nurses coming in with a birthday cakes,
Happy birthday to me, and then I was in tears.
I was crying, My mum was crying. Wasn't crying because
they I remembered of my birth there, but crying because
they what they did to my bones. And then after
that there was like smile with the camera and then
I saw the photo where I'm sitting there with their

(10:17):
contraption or my mum next to me, the doctors and
nurses around me, and me just in tears.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
There's a lot of painful experiences to go through at
a very young age, and then ultimately it sort of
was all with nothing because you ended up having your
leagues amputated.

Speaker 6 (10:32):
Absolutely. Yeah. The doctor's pretty much turned around said, well,
I'm sorry by any all the forty plus surgeries that
we've done over the ten year timeframes didn't work out.
So the only option that we have now is to
amputate your legs. So in two thousand and six I
had my left leg amputated, and then a year after that,

(10:53):
in two thousand and eight, I had my rightly amputated.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
How did you feel when you were told that that
was what was going to happen. How did how did
that that news land with you?

Speaker 6 (11:05):
I was frustrated by at the same time, I was
relieved because I was like, well, we'll frustrated to the
point where I was thinking, if you if these guys
knew the surgeries weren't going to work out, why didn't
they amputate it before? But relieved to the point where
I was like, if I get it amputated, I won't
have to go through any more surgeries. So if I'm yes,
I'll lose my leg, but at least I'm I'm gaining

(11:27):
some sort of some sort of tickets and no pain.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Well, it was a certainty, right, you knew you knew
that that was that was the end of the surgeries
because he wasn't anything more to have surgery on.

Speaker 6 (11:39):
Yeah, exactly. And I found a lot lighter as well.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah right, Okay, So how old were you at that point?
I was two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, yep, yep,
I was like ten eleven, ten eleven, okay, really young.
We're gonna pause that because we've got to take an
aird break. When we come back, we'll pick up the
story of what Barney did at age eleven once he

(12:04):
was leadless. Back soon here on the Others Club.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
This is the Nutters Club thanks to New Zealand on
News Dogs.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
That'd be Hey, welcome back to the show. My name's
Hamish Williams. And in the Auckland studio with me to
night's psychotherapist car MacDonald and our guest Barney corne FERINESI
talking to us about his life, his challenges and some
of the amazing things that he has achieved along the way. So, Barney,
you know age eleven and you have the reality of

(12:35):
now being a double amputee. Where did that change your
thoughts in terms of what was possible for you? Because
you know, you've been this really gregarious and energetic kid
despite you know, all of the forty surgeries that you've
gone through. One sort of I guess you know, the
reality set in and the day to day life became

(12:55):
apparent of what that was going to look like. Did
that take you a while to acclimatize too, or did
you just sort of said it's another challenge? What was
your approach?

Speaker 6 (13:03):
I think as a kid I was I was saw
a young kid when I had the amputation, so I
always at the back of my head, I was like,
I just lost the leg. I'm still a normal person.
I still had the wheel chair, so I was still
active and pushing around. I guess when it got to
the age of twelve thirteen, when I was slowly entering
my teen years, was when I started caring about what

(13:25):
people said or the way people looked at me when
they saw the wheelchair or the ampute and all the
other stuff.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Say what did people say? How did they treat you?

Speaker 6 (13:36):
Intermedia wasn't the best. I always had kids pointing at me,
laughing at me, especially even during school trips. I was
always at the back of the bus to myself when
we went to the museum and all this other stuff.
I was always to myself. Always had when we were
put into groups, I always had kids not want to
be part of my group, so I was always I

(13:57):
had the teachers had to force the kids to like me.
And that's that's it really had an impact on me
going through intermediate That's when I got into high school,
was when I started taking more notice towards individuals. But
the best part about high school was I felt like
I flourished in high school.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
How so what did Barney flourishing look like?

Speaker 6 (14:18):
Barney Flourishing look like a legless person, because that's when
my second amputy happened. Very active, good looking at the
same time as well. But at the same time, a
lot of people that I went to primary school with
or went to high school with me, so they all
recognized me. Probably didn't it took a while for them
to recognize me because, like, I'm pretty sure the barney

(14:38):
that we had legs, whereas this body was seeking now
was legless. Made friends a lot easier. I was a
lot more out of my shell, and I was a
lot more approachable. Like like I said, in an intermediate
I was shadowing myself from people, and in high school
I was I was open to more people.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
And so you know your head friends, you went and
did things with people on the weekend.

Speaker 6 (15:04):
You know, yeah, we're year nine. We hung out, We
went to youth groups. I made a lot of friends.
I just I saw a random If I saw a
random group of kids that were my age, I will
literally rock up to my wheelchair with my wheelchair and
sit down, park up, put the brakes on, and it
will force them to start the conversation. That's how I
made me friends. I just saw a bunch of people
at the table eating lunch, having donuts. I would go

(15:25):
to the touch shop, buy my supper pie, buy my
supper donut, rock up, parked my chair, its like, hey,
what's up my body, and then start a convo. Then
twenty minutes after that, I would go next to the
next table and just through that until the bell went.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Sporting being active has always been a really big part
of your life. Absolutely, when did it as next become
an idea that this could be a ticket to doing
something more than just being a high school student.

Speaker 6 (15:52):
So when I firstarted high school, I was athletics. That's
where I fell in love with the pushing at fast
speed and not really caring where I end. And I
remember in a wheelchair race, I would always put my
head down, and I felt really bad because I was
computing against guys that were in athletic at all. And
we always had athletics every single year or every single term,

(16:13):
and then they will all have always have wheelchair races,
and you had prefects as well as guys that were
paraplegics or even in power chairs. And I was like
it was my mission. I always made my mission to
beat the guys in power chees because I like, if
these guys and moritarized wheel cheirs, if I can beat them,
I'm the best in my in my in my in
my grade. So it went from that, I got even

(16:36):
more competitive, and I think it got to the point
where the teachers were like, we might need to take
Barney out of out of the wheelchair race because he's
getting a bit too competitive.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
How do you get too competitive in the race anyway? Right?

Speaker 5 (16:49):
Okay?

Speaker 6 (16:49):
Yeah, so fast forward, fastward. A year after that other
amputation I had, I ended up at the Limb Center
and I was like, oh, maybe I can get into
I can be the next blade right now, or be
the next next Oscar Pistorius sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah before.

Speaker 6 (17:07):
Minus the the gunshot. But we I remember my third
visits of the Limb Center when I went to fit
my two prosthetics and I came across Paralympic here and
Cameron Leasley, and Cameron took one look at me and
he's like, oh, this, you'll be really good at wheel
chair ugby. I was like, what's wheelcherr agby? I've never

(17:28):
heard of it. I've heard of wheelshair basketball, but I've
never heard of wheelcher agby. And then he said it's
literally like powerchair football and grit iron put together. And
he said he took me to my I actually picked
me up, took me to my first training, and I
remember I face planted. After two minutes, I got hit
by two big, big gentlemen literally hit me out of

(17:50):
my chair, face planted, and I fell in love with it.
I was like, this is what's this thing? Because I
was so used to being cradled and pushed away from
danger by my parents, and to be around disabled individuals
like myself, and to get involved in such a physical
activity that really not not only pushed your boundaries but
pushed you mentally as well was amazing. And after that first,

(18:14):
like I said, after that for a space plant, I
just fell in love with it.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
For anyone who doesn't know, you know what wheelchair rugby
is like, it's essentially, you know, wheelchairs that have almost
been weaponized by the people sitting in them.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
They fall on.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, I mean its nickname is what murdible.

Speaker 6 (18:29):
Murtible They caught it urtable back in the in the
nineties until they had some markets its sponsors is like,
it's probably not the best name to market to sponsors,
especially if you're trying to make it a Paralympic sport
as well.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Well, I suppose it depends who the sponsors. You know,
Smith and Weston bring you you know, murderble.

Speaker 6 (18:45):
I mean, it was made in Canada and America, so
I'm pretty sure if they if they sold it to
a gun company, they'll be more than happy to have
the sponsor.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
My point exactly. Look, we're going to go to the break,
but just before we do, you know, I want to
explain to you listening at home tonight, you know that
Barney is a well he gets around in a wheelchair.
You're sitting in just a regular chair as anyone who
was be a guest would be sitting in. But you know,
he's he hasn't got hasn't got two legs, and he's

(19:14):
rolling around. And I got to be honest, you looked
pretty dangerous when you were out there in the office,
but and the way that you were moving around at speed.
But you've got incredible control of this thing, and to me,
it just it's it's like it's something that you obviously
have had a lot of practice and have a huge
degree of skill with.

Speaker 6 (19:32):
Yeah, absolutely. I think growing up I always used to
skateboard as well, so that's where that's where my my
trunk and core. I would always park myself at the
top of the hill because we live in a very
steep street and see how fast I can. I can
push myself down the hill without falling out. I was
at a drinven junkie run up. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Have you have you recorded how fast you can go
on a wheelchair?

Speaker 6 (19:52):
No, but the people that do the testing when we
did tests before we fitness test before we went to
certain games, they have some sort of speed down there.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, and what was yours?

Speaker 6 (20:04):
I can't remember. Well, I'm pretty sure I topped it nice.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
I don't know what it was, but whatever it was,
I was the fastest. We're going to take a break,
but when we come back, Barney's going to talk to
us about the reality of competing on that international level
of sport, you know, for for New Zealand, I might add,
So we'll keep the conversation here tonight with our guest
Bunny Corner NISI back care after the break.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
air on News Dog ZB.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Welcome back to the show. We're here tonight with our guest,
Barnie cord in NSI. Barnie, when you started playing wheelchair rugby,
did you ever have the ambition of making it to
the top and representing New Zealand. Was that something that
you thought of early on? Did it come later?

Speaker 6 (20:52):
I think in the beginning, when I did start playing
wheelchair ugby, I think I was more focused on gaining
my independence as a discipled individual because I saw a
lot of individuals around me who had higher levels of
disability just driving the owned cars, or transferring themselves out
of their own wheelchair into the car and just putting

(21:13):
it in the boot, all this other stuff as well.
Later on down the line, I when I heard the
stories of the other athletes talking about the travels and
the pinnacle, which is the Paralympics, just all of that,
that's when I started making it my mission to try
and make the team, make the squad, make the squad,

(21:36):
and yeah, try and try and attend one of these tournaments.
My first ever tournament was Germany. That's the first time
I've ever left the country. As well, being at the
young age and not being very good with geography, I
didn't know where Germany was I thought Germany was four
or five hours, and then it was we had a

(21:58):
four hour flight. I was like, oh, we're here, and
they're like, no, this is our first stop ever. We're
in Australia, right, gotcha? And then I was like okay.
And then eleven hours later we're from Australia and then
China to Germany. But the best part about travel was
I got two seats to myself, and me being an amputee,
I can easily just lie down and sleep with those

(22:20):
two spaces, so I didn't have much to complain about.
And we had a nice flight. Flighting teen and that
gave me die coke pretty much every every twenty minutes.
And as a young kid, that as a dream to
get unlimited die cokes whenever you at a push up
a button.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
So you went to Germany, you had all that, you
had that that whole experience, you know, and just an
incredible experience. How old were you when you into Germany?

Speaker 7 (22:45):
I was.

Speaker 6 (22:47):
Fourteen? Fifteen?

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, okay, so yeah, I mean that that's an incredible
But but then it kept on is that you know this,
this wasn't the last time that you ended up so
tell us all the other places you've been.

Speaker 6 (22:58):
So we went to Germany, then we went to I
think a few months after that, we went to Australia
for a development camp. Then after development camp we flew
to Korea and then Assaul, South Korea. And then after
the other other opportunities open up, like South Africa, all
these other countries as well, and then I twenty fifteen,

(23:21):
I got the honor to play for United States of America.
So I lived and I shipped. So after after Denmark,
after the World Champions in Denmark, I got scoped by
one of the selectors. Oh sorry, Canada Cup in Canada, Vancouver.
They one of the selectors from the US was there

(23:43):
and they said, would you like to come over and
play for one of our league? And for people that
play with which direct the USA is the best league
to go because they like they have like a lot
of states and that's where that's where a lot of
the good players go. So if you get selectors, go
play for one of the States, you've pretty much made it.
So I as a as a young kid, I got

(24:05):
ushered into from straight from Denmark to the United States,
where I stayed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for four months. I
never been around snow, which was which was amazing. So
I always pushed around. It was it was icy, I
pushed around, had my chair flung left and right with

(24:28):
the wind. But the experience I got there was amazing.
I had my first in and out burger and then
I that was the first time where they asked me
for I d when I asked for any drink, which
which was crazy. Just those those long journeys are going
from what's that place called the very hot Texas to

(24:48):
another state. Just the road journey, all that, it's a memory,
it's it's amazing. But then the biggest pinnacle was the Paralympics.
That's where that's topped it off for everything.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
So the Paralympics and in this and the Paralympics you
represented in New Zealand.

Speaker 6 (25:03):
Represents a New Zealand wheelchair Like the last minute call
up was an expecting to make the team. I wasn't
even on the roster. And then the coach. I remember
the coach messaged me and said, hey, you got a
few minutes to chat And at the back of my
head I knew what he wanted to chat about, because
the same guy that got me into the sport had
to pull out for family circumstances. And I knew when

(25:26):
I got that message that the coach wanted me to
replace replace the GENU when they pulled out. But at
the around that time, my mental health wasn't the best,
and I felt that if I said no, there was
that guilty feeling that I that I'll have with me

(25:49):
saying that if I, if I don't go, the team
won't go, and they'll be leading only the team, but
the entire nation down as well.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
It's a lot of apprecire to carry on too shoulders
and a couple of wheels. Absolutely, so you said yes
and you went.

Speaker 6 (26:01):
I said yes. I said yes, and then they are
They called me up when I got the JAB, so
me away, then got the other JAB.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
So this was the COVID nineteen vaccinations, so you needed
to be vaccinated to go.

Speaker 6 (26:15):
This was during a level four lockdown, so nobody was
allowed to leave. There were no clinics open, nothing, nothing
was flowing.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
So going through all that when you were traveling, you
would have been in quite heavy isolation.

Speaker 6 (26:27):
Then absolutely, yeah, I had to because my parents didn't
get their vaccine vaccine as well, so I had to
isolate myself from my parents, which wasn't the easy easiest thing.
Every time we had a driver picked me up, I
always had to make sure that I was I had
three masks on, I had to make sure I had

(26:49):
long sleeves and all this other stuff on. Before I
got the JAB, I had no contact with anyone. And
the people that touched my wheels when they took my
chair out of the boot, I need to make sure
that they double gloved.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
Because of course you're touching your wheels to move yourself,
my wheels on my legs, Yeah, gotcha predominantly.

Speaker 6 (27:07):
So if I don't have any if if I'm at
the risk of getting if I was at the risk
we're getting content contaminated by anything, then I put myself
at risk. And if I put myself at risk, I
put my teammates at risk too.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Quite a scary thing to be going through, you know,
when when you're sort of so exposed and yet just thinking, well,
the opportunity here is to represent my country or stay
home and isolate, you know, and you had to had
to have all those considerations. You came to an end though,
where you know, you came back from you know, came
back from Japan. Yeah, from representing New Zealand at the Paralympics.

(27:44):
How did you go?

Speaker 6 (27:45):
We didn't do the best. But the last time the
New Zealand weelb Blacks had been to the Parallem Pricks
was two thousand and eight in Beijing. We missed out
in twenty twelve and we missed out twenty sixteen. So
this was a a pretty big move for the New
Zealand wich A rugby franchise. And yeah, it was, it was.
It was a massive boost for the campaign as well.

Speaker 8 (28:07):
So quite fighting is a big deal and absolutely yeah, yeah,
because mind you we are I think at the moment
we are ranked number nine on the table the Wilch
Rugby and a lot of these nations Australia, American and
all these other guys are well funded.

Speaker 6 (28:23):
They get pretty big sponsors where we rely on our
own pockets to get in and out of even in
and out Walkland. Yeah sure, which is in the cheapers
as well. So the fact that we qualified for the
Paralympics and it was all funded was amazing, an amazing opportunity.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
We've got to take a break when we come back,
we want to talk about how your mental health was
actually you know, you had a massive experience going to
the Paralympics and just incredible, but your mental health was
really taken hammering, especially when you got back. We're going
to talk about that and about how life's really changed
for Barney and where he's going to next, and we'll

(28:58):
talk about that stuff to the break here tonight on
The Nutters Club.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
This is The Nutters Club thanks to New Zealand on
News Talks.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Be Welcome back to the show. My name is Sash
Williams and our Auckland studio with psychotherapist Carl McDonald and
our guest tonight Bunnie A Corner and Nissi So Bunny.
When you came back from Japan, it was still what
level four? Was it still lever four When you came back.

Speaker 6 (29:23):
There was level three. Actually it was level four, but
you were sort of allowed to leave if you were essential.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Worker, gotcha. So when you came back you had to
do the two week isolation at the hotels and that
was that was a real challenge for you. Talk us
through that and we're you know, here's the fact of
the matter, right, you know, you're stuck in a room
with just yourself a company, and you can have a
lot of interesting thoughts. How did that affect you? So?

Speaker 6 (29:49):
Yeah, So when we got off the bus, we landed
in Auckland and it was it was crazy because we
got into Auckland and Judy three and everything was cornered off.
It looked like a crime scene. The entire airport looked
like a whole crime scene. So we went from there,
went downstairs, got ushing into a bus. I big guys
with camo suits, military boys, and then we went from

(30:13):
there to one of the nearest uh manage isolation places.
We had to sign a paper, sign a waiber, and
then we had our a few things pointed at our head.
The temperature check, we had to spit into a some
sort of tube where they sent that off to some

(30:33):
sort of lab to determine whether we had some sort
of any COVID symptoms. And then we were shifted off
to our room. So I didn't know at the time,
but we were I had I was in one room,
and then we had a gap room, and then my
teammate was another room, and then another gap room, and
then we were pretty much spread out. And the only

(30:53):
time we ever sure saw each other was only for
thirty minutes once a week when we went out for
fresh air once a week or once a day, once
a week, once a week, I think from memory, Wow, okay,
well once or twice a week. It was one of
the two.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Okay okay and um yeah.

Speaker 6 (31:11):
Just stuck in the room, just talking to myself. I
felt like I was my own company. I had my
laptop with me and we had free WiFi, but I
was just I. Going from an environment where you were
surrounded by teammates and surrounded by other people from other countries,
and just being in that environment where it's chatter and
yelling and all of the other stuff. Going from that

(31:33):
to completely pitch silence wasn't the best, especially when you
had voices in your head and you I was slowly
losing my my, my, my mind.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
What were those voices saying?

Speaker 6 (31:45):
The voices were like, what are you doing? What are
we doing? These? These we Why are we here? You
made a promise to yourself, Barnie, that you were not
going to come back. We left in twenty sixteen. We
were supposed to do something with our life. Why are
we back here?

Speaker 2 (32:02):
And when you say back here, do you mean back
in New zeal Can WHEELCHAIRGB back in wheelchair Rugby can.

Speaker 6 (32:06):
Wheelchair GB because I was in and out of the
sport twenty fourteen was when I said, Sayanada. So as
soon as I got back from America, I decided to
take a break. I went back to UNI, did some
stuff through there, and then after that, I yeah, I left,
pretty much left the scene of sport. And then they,

(32:30):
like I said, they give me a call up. I
came back because I felt guilty, and then I got
into manage isolation.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
I was like, so when you're asked, when those voices
were saying to you know, why are we here, what
was the answer? Why were you there?

Speaker 6 (32:41):
Because I felt guilty. I felt guilty because I felt
like I was going to let my teammates down if
I didn't go. And at the time, I was not
doing much with my life, and this was a way
to fill a hole that I felt, a really big
hold that I felt that I had. Like I said,

(33:03):
I was just it was during COVID, I was sitting
at home and doing nothing. Even before COVID, I wasn't
doing much, and this wheelcha REGB, this call up was
blessing to the point where I was doing something and
filling a whole. But a curse I was playing a
sport that I wanted to get out of.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
So when you said why are we back here? Yeah,
were you feeling like you were back in that hole?

Speaker 5 (33:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (33:25):
Yeah, I was like we It took a long time
for me to convince the players back then that the
sport wasn't for me. I didn't want to play, and
for me to come back, and I felt sense of
guiltiness because I felt like I was playing with their
emotions and we were we done semi well in Tokyo,

(33:46):
and then we came back in and the guys were
expecting me to stay for further, to within a longer campaign.
And on the other side, I was approaching thirty and
I was like, these more to this, there's more to
life than disabled sports, or this more to life than
whilch rugby, And I felt like I lost my purpose.

(34:12):
There was nothing I was. I was just I was
just an athlete to most of these guys. And then
after after the Monday night training or after the tournament,
they could go back to their jobs because they had work,
they could go back to their families, so that was
their purpose. I had nothing to do after that. So
after the game, after the height of the Paralympics. If

(34:32):
we went back into liber two litbl two, whatever it
was called. What was I supposed to do there?

Speaker 9 (34:40):
Was?

Speaker 6 (34:40):
I had no purpose in life. So as soon as
I leave if I if I if I stay in
wheelchair agby, I'm gonna hate it because it's a sport
I don't want to play and it's going to harm
my mental health. But at least I have a purpose
in life. If I leave wheelchair Agby, I'm going to
be mentally happy because I'm not playing a sport that
drains my mental health? But what is my purpose after that?

(35:02):
So it was you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (35:04):
I was?

Speaker 6 (35:04):
I was, It was fifty fifty do I leave the sport.
If I leave the sport, I want to be a
lot more happier, but I have no purpose. If I
stay on the sport, I want to be mentally draining,
but I want to have a purpose.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
So when you're in that hole, what was it that
you did to be able to try and start thinking
about how to get out of it?

Speaker 6 (35:24):
I had a pad, I had my my piece of
paper and it was funny thing was it was the
piece of paper that we that that comes with the
hotel because you know you have.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
A little Yeah, I take all the pads from every
hotel I stay there and keep a little pilot home
the grains. Yeah, I have certain ones that I like
better than others because they've got more space to write on.
I don't like the ones that put too many logos
and phone numbers. Anyway, I agree.

Speaker 6 (35:49):
I say, I'm not paying nine hundred dollars for a
fridge that I can't use. The might as well take
your pins.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
So you had the pad, what did you write on
the pads?

Speaker 6 (35:59):
So on the pad? I had pros and cons. So
pros pros of saying wheelchair Ugby, cons of saying wheels Rugby,
pros of believing wheels Rugby, and cons of uh living
with a Rugby. So the prose was I stay fit.
It was my only way of fitness. I get to
travel the world and I get to be around a
great bunch of people. Cons being the fire for the

(36:22):
sport has left my body and it felt more like training,
and all these other things felt more like a chore.
And as soon as I started to feel like the chore,
I didn't want to do it anymore. And Yeah, the
other prose was I get to leave the house when
I can I get to tell my parents that I'm

(36:44):
going to train and when in reality, I'm just going
out just to clean my head. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
So when you looked at it and you could see
the pros and the cons, you decided that you were
going to do something different.

Speaker 6 (36:59):
Yeah. I decided that I was going to get out.
So I had to strategically plan my exit through which rugby.
So what I did was I since I didn't send
the coach a message, I sent my awkward teammates a
message saying, look, guys, this isn't me. I can't do
this anymore. I need to take care of myself physically

(37:22):
and I feel like my mental health is declining rapidly.
A lot of them will supported, a lot of them left,
some of them left me on red was just understandable.
And then from there after that, after I messaged the players,
I then messaged the assistant's assistant coaches. I was like,
this is what I need to do. I also spoke

(37:44):
to ourth We had a sports psychologist, right and our
sports psychologist when I was in Brisbane that was my
last tournament before the exit, I cried. When I spoke
to him, I was like bro, I can't do this.
Yes we are dominating, Yes my name is top of
the board, but I can't do this. It's killing me.

(38:05):
And he said, what we need to do, Barney. We
need to talk to the team and you need to
express how you feel because the more you bottle your emotions,
the worst off you will become. Because the way I
did it was I bottled my emotions and then the
only time I could release my emotions was when I
was on court. And then once I got on court,
I got on my wheelchair, my rugby chair, and I

(38:26):
will smack into people and that was the way of
releasing the aggression. But it got so dangerous where I
started smacking people after the whistle or when the reff
caught a foul on me, even though I knew it
was a riff, I snapped the riff. There was one
time where I snapped at the riff so bad I
called myself back and I was like this, this isn't you.
What's happening.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
We're going to take a break. When we come back,
we'll keep our conversation going with our guests. Tonight, back
in a mine.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
This is the Nutters Club. Thanks to New Zealand on Newstalks, it'd.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Be Hey, welcome back to the Break just before we
get to New Sport. And whether I do want to say,
we would love to have your calls tonight. I would
love you to come and join the conversation here with
our guests Marnie tonight. Look, the conversation which I'm really
interested to hear from you, is about when we have
to make these big calls in our life for the
sake of our mental health. What did it look like

(39:17):
for you? You know you've heard what it looked like for
Barney and Barney, you know, top of the Sport, top
of the roster, you know, the name up and lights,
all the attention. But you know, he just did, like
you said before the break, he knew that there was
behaviors that was coming out of him that was not
what he wanted, wasn't working when it's not working, What

(39:37):
did that look like for you? And how did you
go about having that conversation with yourself with others to
be able to prioritize your mental health Because there's plenty
of people, right Kyle who don't take those cues and
then things just get worse.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Yeah, or don't put it all together. And actually even
realize that what they're doing isn't actually achieving them what
they want.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
So I'd love to talk about the challenges we knew
that you had to put change into your life. Barney's
going to stick around and keep talking with us, obviously,
But you know, Barney, when you did come back from Brisbane,
what were some of the first things that you did
to actually embrace this change? I mean, did you have
a plan that that was that how it started, or
you know what, what did it look like?

Speaker 6 (40:20):
So the plan was the first plan was to get
out of the sport that I loved before but fell
out of love with. And then after that, my second
plan was to go into advocacy and applicate for people
that had issues with their mental health and focus on

(40:41):
a certain sector, which was the disabled side, and then
dig deep into the issue and see where the where
stems from. Where a lot of their mental health issues
steamed from, and a lot of it was from transport.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Transport. So when you say transport, what are we talking about?

Speaker 6 (41:01):
So we were talking about transport, We're talking about public transport, buses, trains,
right share companies like Uber or taxis or other ways
that you normally get around that isn't your own car.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
I am not making the connection very quickly here, probably
because you know that's that time of night. But I
am fascinated for us to be able to understand how
mental health and transport has a connection with each other.

Speaker 6 (41:32):
Yeah. So, as a disabled individual, because a lot of
us cannot drive ourselves to A and B because of
our disability, we rely on certain transport sectors or platforms
to help us get around. So if we need to
get out of the house and go to trainings or

(41:52):
go meet up with friends, we sometimes take a taxi.
A lot of the times, taxis are not disabled friendly
or friendly on the pocket for a lot of people
because a lot of taxi drivers, a lot of taxi
companies take longer routes to raise the meter, the meter
that you see in the car, because they know that
the individual with the disability has a total mobility a

(42:16):
concession card, they can cut that fair in half.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
I've got to pause you there, But essentially what you're
saying is that the taxi drivers, the ride chair companies,
they're ratcheting up the costs. But it doesn't stop there,
does it.

Speaker 6 (42:30):
No, it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
We're going to keep coming back onto this topic very
shortly after News, Sport and Weather. Here tonight on the
Nutterers Club.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
This is the Nutters Club thanks to New Zealand on Newstalk.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
ZB Previously on the Nutters Club we were joined by
Barney Corden Fair and sess Here is from the South
Auckland area and grew up in a very active connected
Sarmon family and has gone on to have all sorts
of amazing adventures in the world of wheelchair rugby aka

(43:06):
murder ball. He's literally traveled the world being able to
represent New Zealand all over the place, even had a
stint over in the States doing some training over there
for their national league as well. The only problem was
Barney at one point ended up finding out that he

(43:26):
had really fallen out of love with the sport. As
he put it in his own words, in the last hour,
the fire for the sport had left him. And I
think that's a really important idea because obviously we can
all have incredible experiences in our lives, experiences that take
us to a whole other level. We get to do
things that we just can't quite even believe that we're doing.

(43:48):
Those real pinch me moments, and then sometimes you realize
that once you actually get there, the reality of what
we're doing may not actually live up to the dream.
And that's really where Barney had come in, and he
made the decision just a few years ago now to
be able to walk away from it and to find
something else, because at his height, Barney was actually feeling

(44:09):
like he was in a dark hole. It was affecting
his mental health in an incredibly negative way. So he
had to make that really tough choice about doing something different.
What that different looks like is that he's become a
very active advocate in the world of disability transport for
people with disabilities. Barney himself is a w mputee, which

(44:32):
came through a multitude of health challenges that he went
through at a very young age. Forty surgeries before eleven
years old. It's just an incredible amount of pain that
he actually went through. But this is not a guy
who has ever let any of that hold him back,
keep him down. In fact, if anything, it's made him

(44:54):
go harder, faster, and he's been an incredible guy sharing
a story with us over the last hour. Would love
you to get in touch with us tonight and we
welcome you to join the show on oh, eight hundred
and eighty ten eighty, or you can text us on
nine two nine two, And tonight we're talking about the
challenges when we have to challenge ourself to make change

(45:15):
in order to be able to actually be healthy. Now
we're going to keep the conversation going with Barney. He's
still here. Thank you for not running away or we're
not wheeling away. We didn't impound as wheelchair or anything.
He can actually still get out of here on his
own free will. So you know that's all fine. But Kyle, look,
just let's talk about this just from a clinical point
of view for a moment. You know, sometimes a lot

(45:37):
of stories that we share, you know, people don't make
that change until it gets to crisis point. Whereas with Barney,
you know, Barney, very articulately, I might add, you could
actually self assess and realize that he didn't make change,
things were only going to get worse. How common is that?
And if people are feeling that, what is a good

(45:59):
next step from a clinical point of view, Well, to
paraphrase the Buddhists, if I may, change is the only constant,
and I guess that's it's just a.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Truism in life, really, I mean, whether it's aging, whether
it's you know, changing as we develop as people, or
whether it's simply you know, over time recognizing that there
are other things we might wish to pursue in life.
I think that we all go through those shifts and
changes in life, whether it be professionally, personally relationships, and

(46:31):
we can't fight change, you know, we can't if we
just think about aging. I mean, I know I can't
do things that I could do when I was twenty,
and I'm also grateful that I don't do many things
that I did when I was twenty. Right, we all
change across the course of our life, and we have
to go with that change. And I think when we
try to not go with that change, often we get

(46:53):
ourselves in all sorts of strife because we can't. We
just can't keep doing the same things and recognize it.
And you know, we often talk about this with work,
don't we Hammish And we have We've had people on
the show over the years, whether it be professions or
particular kinds of work where you feel like you can't
stop because whether it's the money or the prestige or
you know, the manna. But when we know inside ourselves,

(47:19):
I think we just know. It's really hard to describe
and as you've experienced it, but I think people out
there who are listening, who have had to make those
kinds of changes in life, you just know when it's
not right and to fight it is just to lead
to misery.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah, I mean, I would love to hear from people
tonight as to what that might have been for you
and how did you go about and doing that, and
also too, you know, did life get better once you
made that change?

Speaker 3 (47:44):
Yeah, So we talk about that idea of having to
listen to ourselves, and I think that you know, a
lot of times what happens is that when people come
and talk to someone like me and they're depressed or
they're struggling with anxiety, often we actually have to sort
of accept that we need to assess our lives. That
it's not just as simple as taking a pill and
you know, learning a few skills and then getting on

(48:05):
with it. Actually we have to take a deep breath
and actually have a look around us and figure out, well,
what's not working? And rather than thinking why am I depressed?
It can have to be really useful to ask ourselves
what's making me unhappy?

Speaker 2 (48:16):
I was just thinking another couple of examples of people
who've done that. Kat Stevens, Yeah, Kat Stevens walked away
from it all, you know, number one selling artists, and
was just like, I can't do it anymore. I mean,
he has come back to it, but you know, he
spent spent a better part of two decades, is very
much out of the spotlight. Rick moranis the actor. He

(48:36):
was in Ghostbusters and Honey Has Shrunk the Kids Baseballs.
He was kind of always played the nerdy character and
his wife died of cancer and he decided that he'd
give up acky thing because he wanted to look after
his kids. Fair enough messive change, right. So you know
that's just a couple of examples. But I'm more interested
in hearing about your examples listening tonight. So eight hundred
and eighty ten eighty, let's go to the lines. Neil,

(48:59):
good morning to you.

Speaker 10 (49:01):
Good morning to you, sir. I I know that I
like you, which I've just lost name.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
That's all right, Neil. My name's Haimish, Thank you Hamish.

Speaker 10 (49:14):
Well. I am able to ring tonight because I'm quite
bright I've had tablets. I'm a little bit drunk, but
you know I'm firing on all four cylinders.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Worry Nail, we specialize in a little bit drunkens. He'd
be after about teen o'clock.

Speaker 10 (49:38):
You're wonderful. I want to talk about or even too,
the very fine gentleman called Barnie. Barnie's here, Yes, I know,
solutely inspirational. What I would like to say is as follows.

(50:03):
At one point when he was talking, he used the
whale word struggle, and I behind that word our tears, efforts, prayer,
dishpare and fighting, and he stood all of those, and

(50:27):
it makes it It put my small struggle into context.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
I think that's a really it's a really beautiful way
of putting it, Neil. And and by the way, I
don't think that anyone's struggle is on any scale, whether
it be big small. I think sometimes, you know, struggles
are as big as we make them. And I think,
you know, Barney, your story tonight. I can sit here
and quite easily say that the idea of being a
doubly emputee would scare the hell out of me. And

(51:07):
yet I look at what you've done with that, and
you have traveled places and achieved things which I in
places I haven't been, things I know I will never achieve.
And I look at you and I agree with Neil.
You know, we go wow. You know that that the
achievements have been huge, and what you've done for yourself
as well, that the biggest achievement to prioritize yourself, that

(51:28):
is huge. But Neil, you know and I agree with
everything that you've said tonight. You've put it together very well.

Speaker 10 (51:35):
Can I just add one last thing please, without without
taking up too much of your time, Neil, he all.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
The time you want.

Speaker 10 (51:50):
You you Oh, I'm sorry. You mentioned stated that Bai
had had lots of operations when he was very young
and endured a lot of pain. Well, in my my
own small way, I can say this, that's all that

(52:14):
physical pain that Barny endured was a small pain compared
with the pain of the struggle with.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Mental Indeed, YEP, I hear what you're saying, Neil.

Speaker 10 (52:33):
That's what I think, and I'd like to share. God
bless barnieh bugger. If I've forgotten your name again.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Look, you can call me anything you like, Neil, just
don't call me late. For dinner, but most times people
call me Hamish.

Speaker 10 (52:48):
Thank you my dear friend.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Bye bye now lovely to hear your voice, Neil, thank
you for calling as always. All right, we're going to
take a quick break. When we come back. I've got
more calls coming and two free lines there if you've
been trying to come through, they are available now. Oh
one hundred and eighty teen eighty. When you have had
two you make that hard decision, that choice to prioritize

(53:12):
your mental health, to make massive change in your life.
What did that look like, how did you go about
it and how has it worked out for you? Look
forward to hearing from you tonight. Oh eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty, back soon.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
air on News Talks.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
It'd be welcome back to the show. We're still here
with our guest at Barney Corner and SI we're going
to get back to his conversation, but we would love
to have the conversation with you as well. So eight
hundred and eighty ten eighty, let's go to Albi Alby.
Good morning to you, how Clott co and Barney.

Speaker 10 (53:55):
I really have to take my head off for you.

Speaker 4 (53:58):
You are very brave, very brave, and your decision making
to carry on or not carry on as chipendous much. No, honestly,
I knew a joker, a cheviot and you go to

(54:20):
Gaol Bay and he was mu zualand a tennis champion
in a wheelchair. And also to relieve him of his duties,
he was pending in the sea and the specially made
floating pedant ward a very nice champ here. Have you

(54:48):
made any more decisions on Barley peer and he made
any more decisions on what you might do with the
rest of your life?

Speaker 6 (54:59):
Good question, Alby, Yeah, yes I do. I've gone into
the world of advocacy. I've decided to be the voice
for to say what individuals who don't have a voice
for themselves, as well as throw myself into certain projects
that I see can benefit to the disabled community.

Speaker 4 (55:20):
I find that very good, Barny, that you're actually making
years of uh affection that you had and you branched
out towards helping other people. It's a great mess of empathy.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Thank you, Alby, thanks for the call.

Speaker 6 (55:41):
Good to talk, Thank you, Alby.

Speaker 10 (55:44):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Go Well, all right, let's let's keep going through the calls.
We'll go to Peter now, Peter, good morning, Oh, good morning.

Speaker 5 (55:55):
I finished. I finished college at nature sixteen. Hit my
first job. Hit my first job as a burger king.
They're working at Burgie King in New London. Oh yep, yep, yep.

(56:17):
And then I got sacked from book king because I
worked up late. I was beat to beacause I was
be to turn up at work at nine thirty, but
I woke up late. I woke up eighteen thirty as

(56:38):
a weed to work the medtercy hand over your name take,
So I had to cook my name take to the supervisor.
It's suvis to see that. I will set you. I said, okay,
and I ended up on the streets. Now I'm an original.

(56:58):
I was the original homeless person. The homeless had started
ninety eight. I got kicked out of home because I
once I got sacked, I couldn't pay my rent to
my parents, right say, kicked me out, aid up paperless.
Now I could relate to what's his name, Bunny. I

(57:21):
keep relate to Bunny. I know how Bunny feels. You know.
When I was at primary, Yes, I used to have fights, bullied,
all that silence you know, keep quiet at the back
of the class, keep quiet at school. You know, I

(57:44):
could relate to all that what Bunny said. But look,
I experienced homeless itself. I was one of the original.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
And how long were you homeless for, Peter, because you
don't stand well, can I just put it this way?
You're not homeless now, are you?

Speaker 10 (58:02):
Well?

Speaker 5 (58:04):
Well, I've been living in the hotels okay, last year, Okay,
but no, no, I was homeless for.

Speaker 10 (58:14):
Ten years.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
It's a long time.

Speaker 5 (58:18):
Yep, I was. I was staying at the park down
by a New World.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Oh yeah, right park, yep, yep.

Speaker 5 (58:25):
But three are park where I was living there because
we we were we were a little fire underneath the bridge,
a little fire just to keep us warm living. We
were sleeping. I was sleeping on the car parks. It
was real dirty. It was a mattress. I'll be sitting

(58:49):
on the mattress for three years and one time I
would be to the bettress so and urinated all over
the mattress. I still slipped on it as I worked
for in the morning. You know, it's the square seats,
behaved mate. I looked at him, you know he was
going to say something. I started cracking up laughing, were

(59:10):
you you look at me? Look way you're laughed before
looking at me. Go to their sholves, deer. It's really
shower the Victoria Park Is shoves.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Yeah, in the in the in the league club.

Speaker 5 (59:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have a shower. So I stunk
like you that morning. But I laughed because I knew
that I knew he was gonna I thought he was
gonna mock me. I thought, boo.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
You know, well, Peter, Peter, what I what I will
say is I'm really happy to hear that you're not
in that situation anymore. You know, even though it's not
a permanent home, a hotel room is still a lot
better than being out on the streets and putting yourself
in those kind of situations. And the other thing, too,

(01:00:01):
is that, you know, it's it's also not safe. That's
that's the that's the other thing. It's it's not healthy.
It's not safe. And my heart goes out to all
of the people who are experiencing homelessness. But I'm really
glad Peter that you've been able to get the support
to not be in that situation. Appreciate the call when
it comes to change and being able to actually find

(01:00:24):
a way forward. You know, Barney, when you decided you
want to, you wanted to throw yourself into the advocacy space.
You know, that's a tough one, isn't it, because you've
got to suddenly, you've got to suddenly have an opinion
and say things, you know, and people might not like
what you're saying. How did that was that daunting for
you at all? When you thought about, you know, actually

(01:00:46):
I'm going to put myself out there and when you know,
how did you feel about that kind of challenge on it?

Speaker 6 (01:00:52):
So when I first started into advocacy, like you did say,
I was weary about people's opinions under the wine to
throw at me. But at the same time, I I
always said to myself, I always say to myself that
you're desaible. They're not going to like what you say anyway,
So just say it regardless of what people say. Just

(01:01:13):
say why is it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
That people don't like what disabled people say? Because that's
you know, that's an experience that you get regular.

Speaker 6 (01:01:19):
Because when you think about disabled and when you see
the wheelchair people painting in their heads that the disabled
that the individual and the wheelchair cannot speak or cannot
do this or cannot do that. The fact that I
can from my chair say certain words will articulate myself
in a certain way. People aren't used to that. When
when you think about disabled when you see at disabled parking,

(01:01:41):
you the first thing you see as a power chair
coming out of an individual. They can't speak for themselves.
They rely on the terror and all the other stuff.
So yeah, it's it's it's it's weird.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
So do you think that people in their minds dehumanize
people in wheelchairs and people with disabilities?

Speaker 6 (01:01:57):
Absolutely, yeah, they're there were It's it's tricky when you
when you go out into restaurants all the other stuff
when you go when you go with some when you
go with your mate, say they address your friend for saying, oh,
what would you like to eat? Or and then after
they ask him what they want to eat, they ask
what will this guy like to eat? And they're pointing

(01:02:18):
at me. Or you have other times where you have
a complete stranger following me in and then when when
we're going to I don't know, book a hotel, they're like,
would you what room would you need a wheelchairss of
ward room for this guy? And the guy the guy
behind me is like, I have no idea who this
guy is. So that's that's the sort of stuff that
we advocate for. Always address the individual and the wheelchair.

(01:02:40):
If you get in a response within five seconds, then
address the person that they are with now. And that's
the sort of training that we give to organizations. So
we partner with different organizations besides making their their buildings accessible,
white doors with wheelchairs, making sure that your handicap spots
are the parking for disabled don't require you to go

(01:03:01):
up hill, and making sure that they're in front of
the building, making sure that if there is a fire
emergency that your fire exits, your alevators do work. But
if they if they do shut it down, then make
sure that you count the mound disabled in individuals in there,
what sort of wheelchairs they use? Can you carry them
down the stairs? You know that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
I've got a question for it about disabled parking, like
disabled you know people like yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Do you?

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
You guys must be really cashed up because I keep
on seeing like Lamborghini's and Aldis and and you know,
like all the flash cars always seem to park in
the and the disabled spots. Is that you guys, I wish,
I honestly wish it was.

Speaker 6 (01:03:41):
I think the flashest thing I've ever wrote in was
A was there to HiAce?

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
So what the hell is it worth? Expensive bread cars
parking in the disabled spot?

Speaker 6 (01:03:52):
It's not you, No, no. We have this group on
Facebook or Name and Shame, and what we do is
we we take photos of individuals, lovely, absolutely great citizens
of the country, just parking in these in these in
these parks that that are meant for people that don't exist.

Speaker 5 (01:04:13):
You know what.

Speaker 6 (01:04:13):
That's what they say. So what we do is when
we get there and there's a disabled park being parked
and with the disabled individual that drives the McLaren Lucky,
then we we purposely block their car so they can't
get out. And what we do, lovely, we have the
hoist out to the We have the hoist out and
then we get out of a chair, but we park
the hoist to the point where the individual cannot back

(01:04:35):
out perfect And then if we know we're going to
be in the shop for more than two hours, we
don't want to leave the hoist out. We have this
little card that we that we put on the windshield
saying congratulations you park like a D word, and then
we we but I feel like, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
If you were inconvenience yea, They're like.

Speaker 6 (01:04:53):
Oh, we really see you out or were I was
only going to be five minutes John again to get
a piece of to get a loaf of bread. And
then when we call them out, they act like we
don't exist or they do this, do that. But for me.
For me, what I do is if I if I
see an individual that's parked there, because I'm fairly active,
I just say I am an active wheelchair user. I

(01:05:14):
just missing my legs. What I do is I park
my wheelchair nest to their car and I just walk
into the store. And then when they come out, obviously
they can't back out because the wheel chair is it
when they see me, when they see me walk back
to my chair. This is funny as well. We have
a lot of individuals. We wait for them to come
out and then when they see the disabled person next
to their car, next to their van, they're walking up perfectly,

(01:05:37):
but when they see us and they know the situation
that's going to happen, they start limping back to their car.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
No limping, they actually start pretending to tending.

Speaker 6 (01:05:46):
To be injured or disabled and we're just staring at
them and they're like and when they have other people
struggling pretending to struggle to put keys in their cars,
and then McLaren and like Borghini.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
Like they're blind or something. No, they might have.

Speaker 6 (01:06:01):
Cerebral palsy or some sort of disorder, muscular disorder there.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
But am I wrong? Am I wrong when I say
it's not cars? You know, like when I say nice cars,
expensive brands, you know nic and.

Speaker 6 (01:06:12):
All of these cars have have branded number plates or
you have the black and the yellow silver Throit.

Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
I think that a lot of people don't know too.
Is the disability parking is not It's not just about
people who have mobility issues in terms of wheelchairs. It's
also you know, the elderly who might in particular health
conditions who literally cannot walk far enough to get into
the bit.

Speaker 6 (01:06:32):
That's a really good point because you have a lot
of the disabled individuals that have invisible disabilities. Yeah, and
a lot of these guys on the mental health side
might have emotional support animals will be sure, and a
lot of them due to the mental health, cannot walk
very far. So those are the sort of guys that
we so we when we judge people coming out, obviously,
the first thing we do is when we go to

(01:06:53):
their car, we look for the park. If there's no card,
sure be metics the first box.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
It's not just like, oh it's a lambo. It's an instant,
you know, you actually do go and have a check. Yeah,
we came.

Speaker 6 (01:07:04):
Across the guy with the McClaren seven twenty. Yes, that
was the limping though. They was on.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
Macas right and he did not have a disability part.
But he did have a lump.

Speaker 6 (01:07:13):
He did have a Yeah, he did have a limp.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Oh well, thoughts and prayers and Claren.

Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
Quite hard to get in and out of the McLaren's.
You probably heard himself.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Well you wouldn't want to ye anyway, lough of that
and so you wouldn't want to spill you your meccas
on you. I mean, i'd spect them go somewhere a
little bit more, a little bit more upmarket than the
than the Maki das, maybe fatimas. We need to take
a break when we come back. We've got some calls
coming in. We looks like a John Cougar Mellenkemp song

(01:07:44):
of calls coming in. I got Jack and Diane. We're
going to talk to them both after the break here
tonight on the Nutters Club.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
This is the Nutters Club thanks to New Zealand on News.
Dogs'd be hey, welcome back to the show. We'll go
straight to the calls. Jack, good morning to you. Yeah,
very good, good to hear you.

Speaker 11 (01:08:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:08:06):
So I'm a driver and Wellington.

Speaker 11 (01:08:09):
So I pack up all the food deliveries around the
Wellington Reason.

Speaker 7 (01:08:12):
And consistently I see other drivers parking at disabled spots
and I'm not one to stand around. My my nanna
was a paraplegic before she said the past, and I
will go up to be drivers. I will tell them
how stupid of a movement is part there, and.

Speaker 11 (01:08:33):
A lot of them just say they do not care.
They can find other parts.

Speaker 12 (01:08:37):
They don't care.

Speaker 11 (01:08:37):
If it's for sabled or elderly.

Speaker 12 (01:08:39):
People mean to use the part, they have the right
to use the part.

Speaker 11 (01:08:43):
And it's just becoming a joke at the moment of
count for the amounts of him doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Well good on you, Jack for actually calling people out
in the first place. So thank you very much for
doing that. In terms of the uber driving, do you
do you actually know anyone who does any you know,
was it uber assists driving at all?

Speaker 9 (01:09:03):
I do not.

Speaker 12 (01:09:04):
I'm on the food side, so I'm not sure of
the passenger side of Waturely, Yeah, I just feel I
had to call up about these people who do park
in these spots just to pick up deliveries for the inconvenience.

Speaker 5 (01:09:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:09:20):
Like I had a week ago at one of the
stores of Mornington and I called him out and he
went absolutely solicit about it, saying that's not my place
to say anything. He grabbed me, assaulted me over it.

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
And it's just.

Speaker 11 (01:09:38):
Why did people do it? You know, there's hundreds of
other parts beside them.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
It's a good question, Jack. So you know what I'm
going to ask the clinician in the room, Kyle, why
do you know when people like Jack, When people like
Jack call me out. So let's say, let's say I've
gone and parked in the disabled spot and you come
back and you go, oh mate, oh Hamish, you know
you shouldn't be parking in there, And I go, get

(01:10:04):
out of my face. What do you know? Who are
you leave me alone? Why are people suddenly having these
over the top reactions.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Yeah, Well, there's a clinical term for it. We call
it being a dickhead, right, Okay, No, I mean seriously, Actually,
what I think is actually going on for most people
in that situation is they're having a shame attack. So
I think people get embarrassed when they get called out,
and a lot of times when we feel shame, we
attack the source of our shame, which in that moment

(01:10:32):
is the person pointing out that we're being a dickhead.
And it's not Okay, I'm not by explaining it, I'm
not excusing it. But I do think it's important to
be careful for that reason when we do call people out,
like I'm inclined to do it myself and have done
it with various things over time. But it's also important
to be safe because people can be unpredictable and if

(01:10:53):
someone's stressed and they're rushing and they're justifying to themselves
that they have to because it's their job and they're rushing,
you know, we don't need people being a vigilante about it.
But by all means, take a photo and jump on
Facebook and was it Name and shame? What's the name
and shame?

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
Name and Shame is the name of the group, Hey Jack,
thank you? Very much, and good on you for actually
caring about other people in the community. Appreciate that man,
Good on you, gold Star. We're going to take a break.
When we come back. Diane is on the line. We'd
love to talk to you as well. Eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty, or you can text us on nine
two nine two back in a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
This is the Nutters Club, thanks to New Zealand on
News dog z'd.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Be welcome back to the Nutters Club. I got a
little bit excited there. We'll go straight back to the lines. Diane,
Good morning to you. Hell.

Speaker 9 (01:11:44):
I hope something that might be useful for Barney and
his advocacy. My husband to be wheeled around in a wheelchair.
And one of the things that most difficult is the changements.
A lot of people don't realize just what flight going

(01:12:08):
along the pavements. It's a very difficult thing to remove
a lot of the time, especially in the older suburb,
because the boom goes down and the wheelchair wants to
run down onto the road. I don't know whether or
not he's interested in Bunny.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
Bunny, you've had a lot of experiences with you know,
with footpaths, haven't you.

Speaker 6 (01:12:33):
Yeah, absolutely, I think the one that you and your
husband have been talking about. It's I found myself really
blessed and really lucky that I am blessed with core.
So regardless how steep or how if the if the
footpath does have a little dip, I can pick myself
back up. But there are a lot of individuals with
different disabilities, that have higher level of disabilities that have

(01:12:56):
found that issue as well. And when they beat.

Speaker 9 (01:13:01):
My husband had a medical misadventure in the hospital and
he was left Michael Baby. He couldn't do anything, and
so I'm seventy four and I was having to push
them his past. Now I had to push them everywhere.
At the beginning, I didn't have a power chare and

(01:13:24):
then after that I got a power chair for him.
But it was really, really, really hard on some of
the some of the paths, you know, a couple of
times it shot off onto the road. It comes to
campus of the foot past where I just sort of
thought that with what you were doing, you might be

(01:13:47):
in a position to let people know the building foot
paths to take that into consideration.

Speaker 6 (01:13:52):
Absolutely, yeah, definitely, we do. I haven't spoken to them,
spoken to them in a while, but I have some
sort of connection with Auckland Council and we do work
through making playgrounds accessible, so having more accessible equipment for
disabled and the disabled children, but also focusing on on

(01:14:15):
widening certain driveways for for larger evans, and the guys
that have the guys that work on the project also
do for past and all the other subs. So it's
definitely something I can raise when I see that we.

Speaker 9 (01:14:27):
Get no able bodied person you don't even take that
into consideration. I've never ever thought of it. I've walked
on my life, I've never taken any loads of it.
When you are disabled, well, it's another different story.

Speaker 3 (01:14:44):
He's one of the other thing amazing things about footpaths too,
because they are something we take for granted. But it's
also coming up very soon this year local body elections. Yes,
and it's one of those things that the local boards
and your councils around the country are one hundred percent
responsible for. So a great question to ask if someone
comes to knocking on your door, how are you going
to make the city more accessible?

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
There you go, Diane, thank you for your call and
really really good point to bring up.

Speaker 10 (01:15:11):
Okay, thank you Dane, Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Another point that we wanted to bring up tonight because
we were talking about, you know, the use of you know,
taxis ride shares that's like your ubers and and then
also you know public transport, but more on the taxi
and the and the ride shares. Is that actually, you know, Barney,
Barney has been telling us about this, and I wanted
them to talk about it on air. But sometimes it's

(01:15:36):
not just that, you know, you get the fears, you know,
wound up and they spend money, but sometimes they're actually
just blatantly rude to you and and you know, at
least be honest quite nasty when they're actually handling you
and pushing in. Can you tell us a little bit
about some of the experiences people are having.

Speaker 5 (01:15:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:15:52):
Absolutely. We have a lot of disabled individuals who have
said that when they do order a hoisted bands, if
they do manage to get one, because a lot of
them are booked out for school runs, if they do
manage to get one, you get a driver that always
has an attitude and once they load you onto the
ramp into try and strap you. Obviously, for safety reasons,
you need to be strapped in to the back of

(01:16:14):
the van and they strapped the chair, they strapped the
chair down. But what they do is they physically put
the belt onto you and when they when they tighten
the wrench or tighten the straps, you could you could
feel them doing it really hard, a lot harder than
it's supposed because when I went to when I when
I went to high school, we had government funded transport,
and I saw first hand how gentle a lot of

(01:16:36):
these a lot of these drivers, Well, you don't have
to be really rough when you're strapping a wheel chair in.
So just having that experience and a lot of individuals
have said that a lot of taxi drivers when they
strap them and they physically touch you or they they
they rough you up when they're putting you in the
cab and then once they slam the back of the
boot and they jump in, they take off pretty pretty dangerously.

(01:17:02):
And when what people don't realize that the chair is
strapped in, but you're not properly strapped in. So when
they're taking turns, the the chairs swinging left and right
and all the other stuff as well. On the other
side as well, we also have our smaller wheel chairs
are like the ones that are used being damaged by
right cheer companies as well as taxi companies. When a

(01:17:23):
lot of guys that aren't trained and folding wheel chairs,
when they dismantle the chair, they don't ask you how
to do it. So what they do is they take
the chair and they take the wheels off pretty rough,
and then they just throw it in the boot. And
then what they do is a lot of times they
put the one of your wheels on top of your
chair and close the boot, and then by the time
it gets to your destination, the spokes and the wheels
already broken. And what people don't know that if the

(01:17:44):
spokes are broken, then the wheels don't turn, and if
the wheel's don't turn, we can't go any wheels. Like
I said before, the wheelchair are our legs. Other times
we have individuals that have service animals and guide dogs.
A lot of them are always left in the dark
or just have their rights canceled when the driver rocks
up because a lot of the time they say that

(01:18:05):
they are allergic to dogs and they don't want dog
and nicker, even though they're signed up to the project,
to the program that requires them to take These individuals
a lot of taxi, a lot of individuals.

Speaker 3 (01:18:16):
Yeah, so that's the important thing, just to make it
really clear for listening, you're talking about taxis or ubers
that you have specifically ordered because they advertise that they
do this kind of work.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
So that all of these examples that you've given us,
Barney like, I don't think there's anyone in agreement that
this is just abhorrent behavior and in a terrible way
to treat people, especially people who are having already to
live with a disability of some description. But what's the
bigger impact? Because ultimately, when people have these negative experiences,

(01:18:48):
the behavior changes because you don't really want to keep
having these negatives. So tell us what happens to people
when they repeatedly have had these experiences.

Speaker 6 (01:18:58):
It mentally, it's mentally draining. If you have your rights
canceled like I had ten times back to back drivers
had seen me rides. It puts you in a very
dark mental place, and then you start doubting yourself saying
of the reason why they're canceled canceling is because of me.

(01:19:20):
I shouldn't even be out. This is my fault for
forcing myself to get out. Or a lot of individuals
that do manage to get into the uber or into
the taxi and rishi companies. When they get rated by
these drivers, they sometimes go home and they cry themselves
asleep because of that certain experience. Then when they reach
out to the company try and make a complain, you
get the most generic responses. That never helps.

Speaker 2 (01:19:41):
So ultimately what happens is that people end up shutting
themselves off pretty much.

Speaker 6 (01:19:46):
Yeah, what they do is they they say no to events.
If you're events coming up, they say no busy the
or no, I can't make it. They do that so
they can save themselves from going through that that dreadful
experience that they did why when they booked a ride
check car or a taxi.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Now you good an idea to do something about this,
and it's a bloody good idea, and we're going to
talk about it in a bit more detail, but first
we've got to take a break. When we come back,
Barney will tell you what he's hoping to do to
be able to get away around this and make sure
that people well basically don't have to be treated like
leave lesser sub human beings. We'll find out all about

(01:20:27):
it very shortly here on Another's.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Club this is the Nutters Club thanks to New Zealand
on News talks that'd be.

Speaker 2 (01:20:34):
Well, well, it's been an absolute pleasure to have our
guest here tonight to Barney cornerfild Inns and you know,
it's one thing to talk about issues and challenges that
we face. And you know, the one that Barney's really
been talking to us about tonight has been his mental
health journey but also too coming to the crucks of
it now in his advocacy role of saying well, if

(01:20:55):
there is one thing that he could do that would
first of all be able to help people with disabilities
be more mobile, but secondly be able to help make
sure we won't say second is in light first and
second on par be able to better help mental health
of those with disabilities. It's to be able to have

(01:21:15):
better transport options. So Barnie, the idea is is that
you understand the issue. So what does the solution look like?

Speaker 6 (01:21:24):
So the solution is I am building my own at
base right sharing service, but focusing on the segments that
are left behind. We will be providing wheelchair accessible vans
at times that are not available because there are a
lot of the times they are booked out for school
runs between six am to ten am and then again
from two thirty pm to five pm. So if we

(01:21:46):
can offer our vans to the disabled individuals at that
certain time, that will help them get to work, help
them get out of their homes as certain times they
need to be, and just help them with their mental health.
I've also partnered with a lot of different right shore
drivers that have picked me up and I will be
taking a program through a program on our application where

(01:22:06):
it will teach them how to dismantle whel chairs, how
to guide certain blind individuals and to cars, and to
ensure that they have a smooth and respectful journey that
we are all are doing too. But to obviously do that,
it's it's a very costly matter. I've literally reached out
to grants and organizations will support and have been left

(01:22:29):
in the dark pool six years. I've been doing this
before Covide, been trying to build this project, but I
have been told no by a lot of different people,
even though we've pleaded our cases, we've done our surveys
and we've shown that there is a demand, but they
refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem there.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
How many disabilities ministers. Have you talked to S seven seven?

Speaker 6 (01:22:53):
I even spoken to the Prime Minister as well as
the Deputy and all these different MPs. None of them
want to stint to it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):
What do they say to you when you talk to
them about it?

Speaker 6 (01:23:03):
So when I talked to them, they said, thank you
for reaching out, Barney. The best thing you can do
is also thank you for reaching out, Barnie. The issues
that you have raised, like concerning the best thing you
can do as reaching out is to reach out to
these disabled organizations. They give me a list, and these
disabled organizations with help people with some sort of funding
or help people with some sort of solution to this project.

(01:23:26):
I reach out to the individuals that they linked and
the same issue was that they don't have any funding
for this project. And in order for me to get funding,
I need to reach out to the individuals that rejected
me when I first reached out. So it's the entire
cycle of Hi Barnie, no Hi Barnie, no Hi Barney,
we'll get back to you, and it's just dead radio silence.
So I decided to stop taking that route because I

(01:23:48):
feel it's not getting me anywhere, and I decided to
start funding the project myself and that was through the
give a Little page. So the give a Little page
will help me raise funds to obviously sit down with
the developers because I have everything planned out. Sit down
with the developers, go through the program, go through able
software that is needed to assist those with disabilities, and

(01:24:12):
plan the whole app and launch it into our market.

Speaker 2 (01:24:15):
How do we find it?

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):
Don't give a little.

Speaker 6 (01:24:16):
So if you want to support the cause, you can
go to give a Little dot codes on and z
and the page is called a Safer Right Option for Everyone.
That's a safer option for everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
We'll put it on the Facebook page.

Speaker 3 (01:24:29):
J Kyle as we speak, it is happening.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
As we speak, it's happening. Brilliant, brilliant, bunny, and sort
of how much money are you thinking roughly that you
want to raise? What's the goal?

Speaker 6 (01:24:38):
So three twenty five is my mangal three hundred and
twenty five thousand. But the developers I'm working with the
more than generous, they say they're more than happening working segments.
So we're working in segments. So discovery will be eighteen
thousand and five hundred or sorry, twenty sorry, twenty two thousand,
and then Uxui will be a further fifty thousand, and
then development and all of the other stuffle fall them

(01:24:58):
to line once we get it done.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
Now, remember people, every little dollar helps, So whatever you
can give, however big or small, it's greatly appreciated. And
all those details are there on our Facebook page, which
is Another's club n Z. Just go to Facebook. You'll
find it easy peasy. Hey, I've got I have got
a question here and it's a text that's come in, Barney,
and I'm interested to get your perspective on this. Right,

(01:25:23):
the person text and says, hey, guys, I'm not sure
members of the public should be policing disability parks. As mentioned,
not all disabilities are visible. People with disabilities can have
expensive cars and forget to display their parking permit. I
get the frustration, but you never know what's going on
in a person person's life. They may have just lost

(01:25:46):
a loved one and aren't thinking straight. We should show
kindness and give people the benefit of the doubt. Now, Barney,
how do you respond to that?

Speaker 6 (01:25:55):
Because I agree with that, Yeah, I completely agree with that.
I was talking to Kyle before and I had mentioned
that there are a lot of disabled individuals that have
invisible disabilities. You can't see it. It might be chronic, it
might be a mental health disability as well. But on
the on the flip side of that, there are a
lot of individuals that are abusing the park and before

(01:26:15):
the government even made it, even brought the fine out,
what people need to realize is that I grew up
with the disability of my entire life, so I have
seen I've been through hundreds of individuals a month parking
on my parking spot. So I I it's there's that
side where I understand where she's coming from. But on
the flip side, you need to realize that what we

(01:26:36):
went through, what we have gone through in our life,
and what we have seen, there are a lot of
individuals that are abusing the park. So I agree to
the point where you shouldn't be policing it. But on
the other side, it's good to police it, but be
be uh investigation investigating.

Speaker 2 (01:26:52):
Before you police, gotcha? Okay, I approach approach the situation
with a degree of compassion pretty.

Speaker 3 (01:26:59):
Much absolutely, And you know, just to be clear, you
need a parking permit. So someone may not quote a
look disabled, but they should at the very least have
to display a permit.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
At all times, text the saying when they might have
forgot the permit, Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:27:12):
They might have, and which case you could ask, did
you know sir? This is a disabled part.

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
Just so long as they don't suddenly sprouted limp coming
out of McDonald's.

Speaker 6 (01:27:22):
Look.

Speaker 3 (01:27:22):
It's a tricky thing, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
But that's tricky, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:27:25):
It's always something that's got on my goat, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:27:28):
Well, you want to be careful getting on your goat,
that's for sure. I know that much. Well, we are
coming to that part of the show where I have
to turn around here and just say to you tonight,
Barney Corner, Barney Corner in NISSI, thank you so much
for being our guest tonight. You have been absolute wonderful individual.

(01:27:50):
So thank you so much for not only the work
that you've done for yourself, but the work that you
do for others.

Speaker 6 (01:27:55):
Thank you for having me. I really really enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:58):
And we'll keep an eye out and see how everything
else goes for you with all of your fundraising efforts.
Look forward to seeing that app getting launched sometime soon.

Speaker 6 (01:28:05):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:28:06):
Psych Therapist car McDonald. Thanks, thank you very much, pleasure.
Thanks very much to our producers tonight and as well
as we've got a big thanks to Pepees who does
our podcast New Zealand on Air for paying the bills
and News Talks you'd be for letting us in the door.
Most of all, thank you to you. Thank you for
your texts, thank you for your calls. We look forward

(01:28:29):
to doing it all again next week. Roman Travis will
be here with you in a moment, taking you through
to five am. In the meantime, you can't to each other,
you can't yourself and we look forward to your company
next time. Here on the Nutters Club, Huffy's both.

Speaker 8 (01:28:48):
Wad Muffy can't touch the crown, touch the crown, I
can see, says Onz.

Speaker 10 (01:28:59):
You are not well.

Speaker 2 (01:29:01):
I'm so.

Speaker 1 (01:29:05):
This is the Nutters Club. Thanks to New Zealand on
it on News Talks EDB. For more from News Talks EDB,
listen live on air or online and keep our shows
with you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

The Breakfast Club

Fudd Around And Find Out

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Barney Koneferenisi: Double amputee on playing for the Wheel Blacks and embracing change

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

The Breakfast Club

Fudd Around And Find Out

All Episodes

Barney Koneferenisi: Double amputee on playing for the Wheel Blacks and embracing change

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce