Source: Radio New Zealand

Analysis – The 2025 Parliamentary year has ended and it was a monster.

In MPs’ final hurrah-the adjournment debate-David Seymour announced “this government has passed more legislation in the first two years of its three than any MMP Parliament has passed in its whole three years.”

Previous to this 54th Parliament, experts have said New Zealand passed too many laws; heaven knows what those folk would think now.

Parliament is breaking records both for bills passed and for a lack of careful process.

Here are a few numbers from this completed year and this parliament (so far). Where possible the current numbers are compared to previous years or parliaments.

The fun stuff

The vast throughput has chemical drivers and consolations. In his own summary of the year, the Speaker Gerry Brownlee revealed that the Beehive’s in-house cafeteria, Copperfields, sold “60,000 hot drinks-mainly coffee”.

Chris Bishop responded “I think I’ve taken quite a few thousand”, and Nicola Willis piped up, “half of them were for me”.

In a depressant mirror to the Beehive’s stimulants, the in-house bar has moved from the Beehive to Parliament House. It is now further away from the Ministers causing the workload and closer to the backbenchers suffering under it.

The golden throat lozenge awards

Working with Hansard data for the whole Parliament (up until mid-October 2025), I have squeezed out some very rough numbers to find who has done all the talking.

These numbers are for House debates but not question time. Note though: Hansard’s data is not well structured for careful statistical torture, so take the results with a pinch of numerical salt.

The easy winner of the Golden Throat Lozenge Award (for time on their feet) is Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan who spoke 396 times, uttering roughly 194,000 words.

He won the gong despite joining this parliament a few months late (arriving in March 2024 after the sad death of Efeso Collins). Xu-Nan’s tactical pleonism explains the following from Parliament final day:

Xu-Nan: “Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s actually not that common that I get two speeches back to back-what a treat!”. Speaker: “Well, why don’t you give us a treat and make it short.”

He didn’t.

Gerry Brownlee spoke twice more than Xu-Nan (398 times), but presiding officers are brief. Opposition MPs use their full 10 minutes every call if at all possible.

The top ten MPs for words spoken are all from the opposition (see below).

Government backbenchers say very little to defend their own bills (to save time), while opposition are wordy to slow things down (and give bills the fullest possible consideration), especially when bills skip select committees or are being considered under urgency.

MPs at the ‘vow of silence’ end of the list are mostly from National.

Other than recent arrivals the most taciturn were Melissa Lee (just 15 speeches) and Shane Reti (20). Both offered between 6000-7000 words.

The quietest opposition MPs are 13 and 15 places from the bottom. They were Adrian Rurawhe (25 speeches for nearly 14,000 words) and Jenny Salesa (30 speeches for a little over 12,281 words).

Major party leaders spend little time in the House, other than from question time and set-piece debates like the budget.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon managed just 18 speeches, but some were very long so his total words spoken (c. 27,000) raises him to 78th of 123 MPs. Labour leader Chris Hipkins beats him with 47 speeches for 38,000 words.

Minor leaders appear more often. David Seymour made 68 calls for 64,000 words, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer 87 for 62,000, Chloe Swarbrick 82 or 54,000, Winston Peters 47 for 36,00 and Rawiri Waititi 48 for 31,000 words.

Green co-leader Marama Davidson is not included, as multiple MPs named Davidson muddy the waters.

The most loquacious of the government ministers was Chris Bishop (208 speeches and 86,000 words). He has had a number of complex bills spend lengthy periods in the Committee of the Whole, and is a minister happy to answer questions and engage in that stage of deliberation.

Party speaking time

The largest parties get more allocated speaking slots, but only the opposition make full use of theirs.

As noted, the opposition also speak a lot during the unallocated Committee of the Whole stage. Whole days can go by when government backbenchers offer nothing except repeating “I move that debate on this question now close”, which is parliamentese for ‘please stop already’.

Public engagement

Gerry Brownlee reports: “73,000 people went through Parliament in tours this year-quite a large number. If you include visitors who came here for various meetings, that number goes up to 122,000. When you think about the number of people visiting here, it means that, I think, we have a strong democracy, and we’ve got to make sure that this place remains as open as it possibly can.”

The public have been visiting electronically as well.

The bills under debate have attracted an avalanche of public feedback that stretched Parliament’s secretariat until the poor clerks drowned in e-paper. Committees even found it necessary to restrict the extent of some of their reports back to the House (a core function).

It has been suggested to me that the quality of ministerial officials’ advice to committees (and presumably also to government) has degraded with so many different legislative plans for departments to consider.

Clerk of the House of Representatives David Wilson told the Standing Orders Committee, “Two Parliament ago there were 95,000 submissions which we thought was a lot. Now there are over 600,000 in this one.”

The most written submissions for this Parliament (or any Parliament) was the massive new record of 295,670 written submissions on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill.

Legislative process and urgency

The table below outlines the process of non-budgetary government bills over six parliaments (most recent on the left). Each parliament’s figures are truncated at a matching point in the Parliament’s progress. None are for a full three years.

The current government has introduced far more bills and skipped more select committees than any of the previous five.

The bills that did go through committees had their committee consideration time curtailed more than in any parliament except during John Key’s first government.

For more granular detail on the use of urgency by stage, the chart below is data from The Newsroom’s journalist Marc Daalder. In this case, numbers for previous parliaments are truncated to match the same number of calendar days as the current term has taken.

The 2025 sitting year included 87 sitting days and two weeks of full-time committee scrutiny of government in lieu of the House sitting.

Of the 87 sitting days, 13 did not start afresh, but were just continuations of the previous day. The 87 days broke down to:

Oversight of government

One of any parliament’s core roles is keeping a check on the government that is a subset of itself. This is possible because, constitutionally, governments are subservient to parliaments, though governments often try to eschew this relationship.

Oversight happens in various ways in the House and committees. Most are hard to measure, except the asking of formal questions of ministers.

Oral questions can be a key tool, but when ministers are allowed by Speakers to avoid answering questions they lose all potency, and written questions (which are harder to ignore) gain importance.

See this article for a more detailed, recent look at numbers around Select Committee workloads.

Thanks to The Office of the Clerk, Hansard and Marc Daalder for data.

RNZ’s The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament’s Office of the Clerk. Enjoy our articles or podcast at RNZ.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Department of Conservation says there have been ongoing dog attacks on little blue penguins around Auckland’s coastline.

The attacks have prompted DOC, conservation organisations, Auckland Council and mana whenua to urge dog owners to keep their pets under control, and well away from the rocky coastline, dunes and pest-free islands where kororā are found.

A recent spate of dog attacks at Piha and Te Henga have seen seven birds found dead in the last month.

DOC said it was a further blow to the species, which is already at risk of becoming threatened, due to a declining population.

DOC principal ranger in Auckland David Wilson said every year penguins and other wildlife were killed by dogs, but the seven penguins killed in the last month were “more than usual”.

“There’s too many dogs on the beaches,” he said. “There’s too many irresponsible owners, who aren’t supervising their dogs properly, and it’s just not acceptable for dogs to be killing wildlife in this way.”

His message to dog owners: “Don’t take your dogs where they’re not allowed.

“Know what the regulations are and keep your dogs under tight control at all times, and within your sight and supervision.”

He encouraged people to call DOC, if they saw an attack, and the council, if they saw a dog where it shouldn’t be.

Following rules not optional

Auckland Council animal management manager Elly Waitoa said bylaws restricted dog-walking in some areas and protected wildlife at certain times of the year.

“This is not optional. It isn’t just about bylaws – failure to control dogs and respect restricted areas puts vulnerable coastal wildlife at risk.

“Auckland Council’s animal management team will be patrolling the west coast beaches throughout summer and will issue infringements without hesitation to anyone who chooses to ignore the bylaws.”

Injured penguin put to sleep

Little blue penguins are a protected species, found on both the east and west coasts of Auckland, with colonies at Piha, Muriwai and Te Henga, and on many Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana islands, including Waiheke.

Earlier this month, DOC said a paddleboarder brought his dog illegally to Tiritiri Matangi island – a predator-free native wildlife sanctuary – where a penguin was found needing veterinary care just metres away on the beach.

Dr Rashi Parker, who is the fundraising manager for BirdCare Aotearoa – a native wildlife hospital and rehabilitation centre – said, while the dogs were just displaying dog-like behaviour, their owner’s actions led to incredible pain, distress and often irreversible injuries for the tiny penguins.

“The kororā rushed to us from Tiritiri Matangi was showing torticollis, a painful neck-twisting symptom, and we immediately administered pain relief,” she said. “Torticollis often comes about from ‘ragging’, when dogs bite and shake their prey.

“Although our clinical team tried to stabilise the patient over several days, it was no longer able to swim properly and had to be put to sleep.”

Parker said all their admissions this year were underweight and likely starving.

“The last thing these little penguins need are large predators roaming through their shelters and nests,” she said.

Te Kawerau Iwi Tiaki Trust chief executive Edward Ashby was angry dog attacks kept happening.

“Kororā are a taonga and all New Zealanders have a duty of care, as kaitiaki, to look out for them,” he said. “It’s part of our cultural capital to care for our environment and wildlife.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Wellington’s Harbourmaster says it’s important people check their equipment and the seaworthiness of their boats before heading on the water.

Maritime NZ’s latest annual report found in the 2024 to 2025 financial year there were 19 fatal recreational boating accidents.

The agency said the main factors included a lack of lifejackets and limited means of communication.

Grant Nalder told RNZ there were several ways people could alert people on land if they got into trouble.

“If you are on a paddle board or a kayak it could be like a rugby refs whistle, they are really good because people are going to hear them and start to investigate what it is.

“If you are going further afield a marine radio [or] a personal locator beacon.”

Nalder said the boats out on New Zealand’s waters were getting older, so people needed to maintain them.

“You know if you have got a car you can put it in a garage and change the battery, change the oil and you are away but a boat actually needs attention right throughout its life, and if it doesn’t get it, it starts getting difficult and expensive.”

He warned people of buying cheap old boats online.

“You get someone who might not know much about the boat but think they have just got a really good bargain and actually what they have got is a liability.

“Worst case is they get out somewhere on the water and it either takes on water or breaks down,” he said.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The global population is ageing, and New Zealand is no exception. Almost 20 percent of Kiwis are projected to be 65 or older by 2028, and like many other countries around the world, Aotearoa faces a shortage of healthcare and care workers to look after the elderly.

Could robots with the ability to perform everyday personal and household tasks help meet some of those needs?

Robots have some distinct advantages, robot designer Rich Walker tells Mihingarangi Forbes, speaking from London – but there’s some challenges and hurdles to overcome, and some big ethical considerations.

As the technology evolves, do we need to start asking ourselves how far we want it to go?

Walker is director of Shadow Robot, a UK company specialising in the design and manufacture of robotic hands. He is also an industry advocate for the ethical use of robotic technology.

Walker has played with robotics since being introduced to small robots at a computer camp as a child, where he tried to use them to move chess pieces around.

“I think if you grew up with science fiction, robots are a kind of natural lure, there’s a whole idea that you could build something that could be a companion, an assistant, a helper – a fun character to have in your life,” he says. “And then you find engineering, and you discover that it’s nothing like that, but it’s a lot more interesting in some ways.”

What robots can and can’t easily accomplish are widely misunderstood, because we look at it through our assumptions they will be able to behave like a human body.

In Japan, robots have been used in aged care facilities for more than a decade. But even so, he says “we’re a long way away from the dream of a robot that can wander around your house and do everything.

“I think what happened in Japan is they said ‘let’s give this a try, let’s get robots into care, let’s see what we can do and see how well it works’. And as you might expect the results are mixed. There are some places where actually you can do something quite useful, quite powerful and quite important, and then there are other places where people are just scratching their heads…”

Care work needs sensitivity, touch, judgement and gentleness, which are difficult for a robot to match our human capabilities for.

“If you look at a factory, you see the machinery in there – the robots in there do amazing things, over and over again, exactly the same.

“But if you’ve ever tried to wipe someone’s mouth, that’s never the same twice, that’s never the same experience, it’s never the same person you’re doing that with,” Walker says.

“So that’s really the problem for us, is: What are the jobs where a machine can be really useful and help and free people up to do other things? And what are the jobs where honestly you want to feel that you are engaged with a person – you are interacting with a person there?”

Some areas of human capability and some tasks are particularly difficult for robots – controlled and measured touch is at the top of the list. For example, robots still cannot use scissors.

“Partly it’s because what we do with our fingers is such an innate part of our brain, we have huge trouble thinking about it.

“We have this joke in robotics that if you ask a person in robotics how they’re holding their pen they’ll drop it straight away, because when you think about how you’re holding your pen you can’t do it anymore because it’s completely unconscious.

“And the problem with that is we said ‘oh yeah, it’ll be really difficult to get computers to play chess’ – well actually it wasn’t that difficult, you just needed big computers.

“But it turns out it’s really difficult to get robots to make a chess board, or set up a chess board, or indeed work out where the chess board is in the house and go and get it and come back, because the world is a very complicated and unpredictable place and robots work best in places that are … simple and well organised – not like my house.”

Designs to meet real needs

When parsing out the needs of aged care there have also been some big surprises, Walker says.

“We have conversations with local councils … they say things like ‘our biggest problem is how do we get someone to your house’. It’s not what they do when they’re there, it’s the travel time to get from one person to another to another.

“If you have to have three or four care visits a day, and someone has to travel half an hour for each visit, that’s quite a lot of the day taken up in that.

Things that can make a big difference can sometimes be quite simple, he says.

For instance, a washing machine isn’t normally thought of as a robot, but it is – and appropriate design can make a big difference when it comes to washing clothes for people living with incontinence. Or televisions or cell phones designed to have only a few buttons and channels are much more accessible for people with dementia.

“And a lot of this work, it’s not about clever-clever technology. It’s about saying what can we do to give this person back the independence they are starting to lose.

“And then, when they have carers come round, how can we make it so the carer can spend the time on the human element, not doing a mechanical task that could be done by something else to actually engage with the person, to give them dignity.”

Globally, the need is huge, Walker says.

• Hospitals short an average of 587 nurses every shift last year – report
• Aged care sector in crisis

“This is a big challenge, it is a big problem. Almost every country in the world has the same problem, their populations are ageing, their infrastructure could be better. Robot technology will play a big part in that – and particularly … infrastructure.

University of Auckland research tested using a robot called Bomy at two Auckland retirement villages, to help with daily routines. supplied by University of Auckland

Things like: “Self-driving cars, robots that can repair bridges or build roads or repair railways or just inspect railways. These will make a huge difference. And some of these things will free up humans so they can do more human tasks.”

Even with a belief that this is the direction things are going, the acceleration in commercial manufacturing of some robot appliances has been a surprise, he says.

“We’ve been very surprised by how cheap the recent wave of robots coming out of China are – and we’d always said that robots are going to be very expensive, that they’ll be something that governments buy and councils buy, and companies buy.

“But actually it’s starting to look like maybe when you manufacture them in very large quantities they don’t have to be super super expensive.

“So I don’t know yet how we will end up having a society where people have robots in the homes – I mean we’ve seen robot vacuum cleaners, and we’ve seen robot lawn mowers, and there are robots like that, they do exist, so it is possible.”

Caution warranted

Despite the promise, it’s sensible to take a cautious approach on robots, he says.

“If I tell you I’m putting something that weighs 150 kilos and will move at 7 miles an hour in your living room, you’re going to want to know that that’s not going to trap you up against a wall and stop, right. Because that would be very very difficult for you and possibly dangerous.

“So people who are building systems have to go in and say: ‘How do we make these systems safe, and how can we make sure that people trust them? – And you can’t build trust by saying ‘I know better’. You have to build trust by saying ‘how can I show you that this is safe and reliable and robust?’

One of the most impressive robots already being used in care environments is a small furry seal called Paro, which was designed as a companion for people who could no longer have a pet or handle one.

Paro the seal, a robot companion animal.

“It gets used in care for people with dementia. It’s a little thing, it sits on your lap, you stroke it. It’s quite warm and it has a couple of little movements it makes and it makes a thing a bit like a purr, and it’s very comforting, and it’s a robot.

“No-one’s going to feel threatened by it, no-one’s going to feel scared by it, and there’s not much it can do to go wrong, but it has fantastic value to people’s well-being… this is something they can cope with.”

Walker says any discussions about robotics for use in aged care need to include consideration that companies creating and selling robotics must earn trust – “it’s not an automatic”.

Regulation is necessary, he says.

“Particularly when we’re dealing with people who are vulnerable or in need of additional support or help, that we make sure that what they’re getting is right.

“I’m not a fan of government, but I recognise that in this case you have to start by having legislation, regulation, laws that say these things must be safe, this is how they must be safe, they musn’t be deceptive – the robot shouldn’t pretend to be something [they aren’t].

“There’s a whole package that needs working out, how we treat these things, because they will come into our lives and we need to make sure that we benefit from them.”

Is it healthy for the lonely and isolated to develop a relationship with AI and robots? It’s a fascinating question, Walker says.

“I don’t think any of us would have guessed how all-encompassing it’s possible to be with ChatGPT and with tools like that. There’s a long history of that in robotics, in artificial intelligence, where people make things you could chat to that seemed intelligent and people do get sucked in, people do really enjoy it.

“And I think there’s a wider question there – it’s like false advertising, we have laws about advertising, you’re not allowed to promise things that are not true of your products. Are we being promised things that are not true around the chatbots like ChatGPT? – I’m not sure.

“But if we are then we should definitely make sure that doesn’t happen. Because the last thing you do want is somebody who is sitting at home with a useful system that can help them, but is deceiving them, is playing mind games with them. Because it can, and it’s able to. And if we haven’t regulated that, that would be a great shame.”

Technical challenges and milestones

Shadow Robot’s Dexterous Robot Hand using a delicate grip to grasp blocks. Matt Lincoln

Some of the Robotic hands Walker works with have more than 100 sensors and have reached the milestone of being able to solve a Rubik’s Cube using a single hand.

The programming behind that is just as crucial as the physical design, and determines how it puts the physical capability to good use, he says. And after the programming there is one more step, training. That teaches the robot which of the things it is capable of are doing are things you want to happen, and details like what order to do something, or in what manner.

Robots can be trained using reinforcement learning, Walker says.

“You do the same as if you’re training a pet … you give it a reward when it does the thing right, and it gradually learns over time what things are right and what things are wrong.”

Walker is taking part in the UK government’s ARIA Robot Dexterity Programme, a high risk, high reward swing at finding ways to solve challenges in robotic dexterity, to create more capable and useful machines.

“Really, it’s the absolute cutting edge of materials science is trying to make things that behave like the muscles of the human body.”

Skin is another fascinating problem, since human skin grows back if it’s damaged, or it can thicken and become more robust by forming calluses. He hopes new learning will come out of the intersections between biology, medicine and robotics.

“Those processes through which things recreate themselves so we can continue to use them, that’s again one of those things where we go ‘wow, if we could do that, it would be transformative!’”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A three car crash shut down State Highway One in the town of Dunsandel south of Christchurch.

The highway has since been reopened.

Emergency services were called to the collision near the intersection with Selwyn Lake Road just before 8pm on Saturday.

One person is reported to have serious injuries, two people have moderate injuries and one person has minor injuries.

Diversions were being put in place and motorists were asked to follow the direction of emergency services staff at the scene.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The Canterbury region has been lashed by hundreds of lightning strikes.

MetService put out a warning earlier on Saturday about thunderstorms that could bring heavy rain and large dumps of hail to parts of the region south of the Rakaia River.

Areas near Ashburton have seen up to 25mm of rain in an hour.

MetService meteorologist Devlin Linden told RNZ there had been a lot of activity in the skies above Canterbury.

“Over the past wee while, there have been about 300-400 lightning strikes and, along with that, there’s been some heavy rain.”

Linden said hail stones of 2-3cm in diameter had been reported.

“Certainly large and potentially damaging, if your under that kind of hail.”

He said there were still active storms in the region, but the weather service did not expect to put out any more severe thunderstorm watches.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Police have found a stolen courier van full of Christmas packages just before the holiday.

On Friday, the delivery van was reported missing and officers later followed reports of three suspicious men carrying courier packages in Birdlings Flat, 44km south of Christchurch.

The vehicle was found a shortly after and, with the assistance of a local farmer, three men were located and arrested nearby.

The trio were charged with theft and unlawful taking of a motor vehicle.

They are due to appear in the Christchurch District Court on Tuesday.

Police said most packages were recovered and returned to the courier company for delivery.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

State Highway Three is shut in southern Hamilton, after a crash involving a vehicle and a pedestrian.

Emergency services were called to Ohaupo Road just after 6pm Saturday.

Police say there are reports one person has serious injuries.

The route was shut near Mount View Road.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Emergency services were called to Ohaupo Road just after 6pm. RNZ / Richard Tindiller

State Highway Three is shut in southern Hamilton, after a crash involving a vehicle and a pedestrian.

Emergency services were called to Ohaupo Road just after 6pm Saturday.

Police say there are reports one person has serious injuries.

The route was shut near Mount View Road.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Police say they are looking to identify a second man as part of the Ruatiti homicide investigation, as the hunt for Mitchell Cole continues.

Friends of sheep farmer Brendon Cole and wife Trina said they were found dead at their Murumuru Road property on 13 December.

Son Mitchell Cole, 29, has been named as a person of interest by police.

Central District CIB field crime manager Detective Inspector Gerard Bouterey said police were trying to identify a man who was seen near the intersection of Pukekaha Rd and Rautiti Rd at about 6pm on 13 December.

He said the man had been described as being in his late 20s or early 30s, 1.83m (6ft) tall and clean shaven, with a lean athletic build.

He was last seen wearing a singlet, shorts and a baseball cap.

Police also want to speak with anyone who was in or around Ruatiti Road at the time.

Police have advised the public not to approach Cole and to call 111, if they see him.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Mitchell Cole. Supplied / NZ Police

Police say they are looking to identify a second man as part of the Ruatiti homicide investigation, as the hunt for Mitchell Cole continues.

Friends of sheep farmer Brendon Cole and wife Trina said they were found dead at their Murumuru Road property on 13 December.

Son Mitchell Cole, 29, has been named as a person of interest by police.

Central District CIB field crime manager Detective Inspector Gerard Bouterey said police were trying to identify a man who was seen near the intersection of Pukekaha Rd and Rautiti Rd at about 6pm on 13 December.

He said the man had been described as being in his late 20s or early 30s, 1.83m (6ft) tall and clean shaven, with a lean athletic build.

He was last seen wearing a singlet, shorts and a baseball cap.

Police also want to speak with anyone who was in or around Ruatiti Road at the time.

Police have advised the public not to approach Cole and to call 111, if they see him.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

As Christmas nears, MetService forecasts a mixed bag of weather for much of the country.

South Island

MetService’s early weather forecast suggests it’s a good idea to hold the celebrations indoors, with the South Island facing a bit of rain.

Meteorologist Silvia Martino said the West Coast faced the worst of it.

Further east, Christchurch and Dunedin should be mostly fine with some clouds.

It was still too early for an accurate weather forecast and conditions could change, she said.

North Island

MetService also warns Aucklanders and Northlanders to have a back-up plan, with inconsistent weather expected on Christmas Day.

The early weather forecast is still taking shape, but early indications suggest rainclouds will emerge over the upper North Island in the afternoon.

In the lower North Island, Martino expected good conditions in Wellington.

“It’s not looking too bad for Wellington, might be a bit windy, but we’re used to that.

“From about Auckland northwards, we’ve got some showers later in the day.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A former Gloriavale member says leavers should be involved in helping families adjust to alternative schooling options.

The secretary for education has confirmed the registration of Gloriavale Christian School will be cancelled.

The school’s board said it would challenge the Ministry of Education’s decision, dubbing the move “unjust”.

The ministry said it had outlined a range of options for parents, and had just started working with families, community and other schools.

Virginia Courage, who left the community with her family in 2019, said Gloriavale families would need ample support.

“There needs to be a lot of discussion with the parents, and it actually might take input from leavers to just help them and re-assure them through the process.”

After leaving the West Coast Christian commune, the most daunting issue facing Courage and her husband was the education of her children, she said.

When they departed Gloriavale, seven of their 10 children were still in school.

“We were more concerned about that than where we were going to leave, what kind of Christianity or religion we were now going to be a part of, what we were going to wear,” Courage said.

“Gloriavale people are filled with so much fear about the education system, other than the Gloriavale system.”

Secretary Ellen MacGregor-Reid wrote to Gloriavale’s private school in October, advising that she was considering deregistering the school, after a second failed Education Review Office (ERO) audit in as many years.

July’s ERO report found Gloriavale Christian School had not met three of eight registration criteria, and was not a physically and emotionally safe space for students.

Gloriavale Leavers’ Trust spokesperson Liz Gregory said families that had home-schooled their children had also failed ERO reviews.

Courage was concerned about the potential for “heavier” indoctrination tactics outside school hours, if children were educated outside Gloriavale.

“I think that’s a real issue that needs to be considered. How much are those little children going to hear – even more now – talk about the fact they’re going outside into this worldly school and these people are going to teach them terrible things?

“No child should be suffering through that.”

Gloriavale children’s’ eyes will be opened – lawyer

Lawyer Dennis Gates was part of the legal team that represented former Gloriavale residents at the Employment Court. He said the closure of the school would have knock-on effects for the children inside the commune.

“With these kids going into public schools, they’ll get unimpeded access to the internet. They’ll see how the rest of the world lives, and then go back and see what squalor they’re living in, and ask the question why.”

Gates called on the government and its applicable ministries to put Gloriavale through a “forensic examination”.

“They signed off a child welfare policy with Howard Temple, who has now been convicted of child sexual abuse, and all the factors in that child welfare policy that indicate sexual abuse are still there on Saturday.”

Temple – the 85-year-old former Gloriavale overseeing shepherd – was last week sentenced to 26 months in prison for indecently assaulting young women and girls over 20 years.

Children’s Commissioner Dr Claire Achmad told RNZ the transition of Gloriavale children into other schooling options would need to be carefully managed.

“No matter what the new educational environment looks like for the children of Gloriavale, it’s going to be really important that there’s continued oversight of that to ensure there’s high quality education, and that it is safe and inclusive for all of the children of Gloriavale.”

The cancellation was due to take effect from 23 January.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Human remains have been found on an island off the coast of Northland.

On Saturday afternoon, police said they were discovered on Coppermine Island (Mauipane), east of Whangārei.

They have begun a formal identification process and said it was unclear how long they might have been there.

Police said identifying the remains was “expected to take some time” and not other information was available.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

One person has been seriously injured and a section of State Highway 2 has been closed in Manawatū, after a three-vehicle crash.

The highway was closed near Piripiri Road, just north of the town, after the crash was reported about 2.40pm Saturday.

“One person is believed to have sustained serious injuries, a further four people have moderate injuries,” police said.

NZTA said the crash was blocking the road and motorists in the area should follow the instructions of emergency services at the site.

Drivers should avoid the area and expect delays.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand needs to step up its approach to the increase in organised criminal groups targeting the country, Casey Costello says. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

Organised crime networks are escalating their activities in New Zealand, Associate Minister of Police Casey Costello says, announcing a new cross-agency plan to combat them.

“New Zealand and our Pacific neighbours are being increasingly targeted by organised criminal groups, who are using new technologies and new ways of operating,” she said. “We need a different, stronger and more cohesive response.”

• The Detail: Changing the future for organised crime

Many New Zealand agencies have some level of responsibility for dealing with organised crime, but more work was needed to enable them to work together more effectively, Costello said on Saturday.

The change would mean better use of resources, powers and information that agencies collectively possess, and better accountability of efforts to combat organised crime.

• ‘Organised crime is organised. We are not’, ministers told

Organised crime taking place in New Zealand included drug trafficking, scams, migrant exploitation and money laundering, harming individuals and families, legitimate businesses and the broader New Zealand economy, she said.

“The illicit drug trade alone is estimated to cost the country around $1.5 billion in social harm.

“The key thing I think we need to recognise is that organised crime is a business that will do anything it can to make a profit. They are agnostic about commodity – whether it’s people, whether it’s tobacco, whether it’s drugs, whether it’s money laundering, whether it’s scamming – whatever they can do to make money, they will do.

“We need to be pivoting and responding in a far more flexible and responsive way than we currently are.”

Some of the almost 14kg of methamphetamine and $360,000 of cash seized by police from a Mexican man posing as a tourist in Auckland. NZME / Supplied / NZ Police

A ministerial advisory group on organised crime has published a series of reports on the vulnerabilities in the country’s response to transnational crime, including revealing that government agencies typically avoid the risk of sharing data and work was needed to address the problem.

“Organised crime is organised, we are not”, and it should be recognised as the greatest threat to national security, the report, released earlier said.

It recommended urgent action, including one minister tasked with responsibility for the government’s organised crime response, an overhaul of strategy and a charter that would hold agencies accountable. It also warned the government that a “smaller, scaled back option” taken from its full recommendations, would “not achieve the results we need”.

What the newly announced plan includes:

• Exploring the idea of one agency responsible for transnational and serious organised crime
• Developing new methods for sharing information and data between agencies
• Putting into action a package of actions on methamphetamine harm
• Strengthening communities and addressing harm through ‘Resilience to Organised Crime’ initiatives.

“It’s about better accountability,” Costello said. “It’s about focusing our resources where they most need to be.

“Sometimes we get swallowed up with keeping busy and forget to identify what the outcomes are. We really want to get some strong outcomes, because organised crime effectively needs organised government to respond to it.”

However Aotearoa had some advantages when it came to tackling organised crime, she said.

“We are the envy when I go around the world and talk to other agencies. We don’t have state boundaries – we have one jurisdiction.

“We have one border. We have very straightforward legislation.

“We have a good judiciary, so we have that cohesion that should make us the very hardest border to penetrate and the easiest to enforce law in this space.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Manta rays visiting New Zealand are under threat from pollution and boat strikes.

The Department of Conservation has assigned manta rays the threatened status after a new report found numbers were dwindling.

Their status is now ‘Threatened – Nationally Vulnerable’ when they were previously ‘Data Deficient’.

“This change represents a greater level of concern for the species than previously held,” DOC said in a statement.

The manta rays are one of 113 species who were assessed by an independent panel for the latest conservation status report about New Zealand’s chimaeras, sharks and rays.

Senior Science advisor Dr Karen Middlemiss said manta rays spend about six months in New Zealand waters each year when it’s warm.

But DOC staff often find them injured.

“In New Zealand waters the sorts of things that we find impacting them are pollution in the waters, habitat degradation, disturbance in key aggregation sites, and vessel activity can also play a role, Middlemiss said.

“We often find animals that have got evidence of boat strikes.”

Middlemiss said current estimmates suggest there are just a few thousand manta rays in New Zealand – but further data is needed to confirm this.

“We know very little about our manta ray population size, age structure, and regional connectivity with other Pacific populations.”

Meanwhile, Basking and Plunket’s sharks are now considered ‘Threatened – Nationally Critical’ – the last status before extinction.

“The disappearance of the basking shark from New Zealand’s shores is very concerning, and we don’t know exactly why this has happened,” Middlemiss said.

“Urgent research is required to better understand population pressures – both human induced and environmental – to inform conservation management decisions for both basking and Plunket’s sharks.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Parents of students who attended Gloriavale Christian School will still have “a range of options” for their children’s education, the Ministry of Education says.

The ministry advised the West Coast Christian community on Thursday that it had decided to cancel the private school’s registration from 23 January.

Acting Hautū (leader) Te Tai Runga (South) Andrea Williams said it had only just started working through options with the families, community and other schools.

“The ministry recognises that there is a strong desire from the community for options that recognise their distinct nature and educates their children together as much as possible.

“There are a range of options the ministry is considering within the state system, which includes provision at a local school, establishing a satellite of another state school, a Te Kura Hub or a combination of these.”

Families would need to meet the criteria and be approved to enrol with Te Kura, in line with national processes, she said.

Similarly, any application from families to home school their children would be “treated on its merits”.

“There is guidance on the ministry’s website on the requirements that must be fulfilled to be granted an exemption by the Secretary for Education.”

It would not be possible for the community to set up a charter school for next year as the date for sponsors to submit applications to set up new schools in 2026 had closed, Williams said.

Gloriavale Christian School’s board has said it would challenge the ministry’s decision to cancel its registration.

However, Williams said there were no avenues for the school to do so under the Education and Training Act.

“We can’t comment on other possible avenues of appeal the school might be considering.”

Further details of plans for the children’s education would be shared once they had been confirmed, she said.

The cancellation decision comes after the school’s second failed Education Review Office (ERO) audit in as many years.

July’s ERO report found it had not met three of eight registration criteria and was not a physically and emotionally safe space for students.

Secretary for Education Ellen MacGregor-Reid advised the school that she was considering cancelling its registration in October.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Part of State Highway 1 in Northland is closed following a serious crash.

Police said the two-vehicle crash happened between Greenway and Mountain roads in Kaiwaka on Saturday morning.

Officers were called to the scene about 9.20am.

In a statement, police said initial indications suggested serious injuries were involved.

“The road will be closed, with diversions in place.

“Motorists should please avoid the area if possible, or expect delays.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Thrill-seekers causing significant damage to dunes on the Far North’s Tokerau Beach have forced the kaitiaki rōpū to install temporary fences and block access points.

As many people head off to the beaches for summer, a group from hapū Te Whānau Moana me Te Rorohuri are trying to educate those who drive on the beach and in the dunes.

Kaitiaki Victoria Lelo Kapa-Kingi told Saturday Morning the behaviour was “really dangerous”.

“I think the best way to describe the behaviour is, I think it comes from a place of thrill-seeking,” Lelo Kapa-Kingi said.

“We’re seeing motorised vehicles destroying our dunes, really. They’re being driven all through our dune ecosystems on our beaches, not just two-wheel motorised vehicles but four-wheels as well, doing donuts up and down our beach.”

Lelo Kapa-Kingi said the small kaitiaki rōpū (guardian group) was looking after 18 kilometres of shoreline and dune ecosystems – and seeing vehicles destroy shell life, kaimoana (sea food), pipi beds and tuatuas.

“In our dune systems, we have our coastal birds who lay, they have their nesting sites throughout our dunes, we have our skinks, our gecko, our katipō (spider) which also live through our dunes, we have a multitude of native plant life that are being destroyed as well.

“They’re all being basically ripped up through the tyres going through our dune systems. It’s devastating in all ways.”

Not only was there native flora and fauna throughout, but there were a number of wāhi tapu (burial grounds) all throughout the dune systems.

With an influx of manuhiri (visitors) and whānau (family) coming to the area for the summer period, Lelo Kapa-Kingi said they were fencing and blocking all entrances to the beach to protect the dunes and all that was in them.

She said the group had had a positive response to the work they had done so far. Some were unsure, giving them the opportunity to educate them, while some had already cut fences and driven through the barriers.

But Lelo Kapa-Kingi said it wasn’t the first time they have had to reinstall fencing “and we will continue to do so”.

“As someone who lives in Whatuwhiwhi and is on the ground every day, I am very picky and choosy about when I take my tamariki (children) to the beach.

“We do what we can to influence, to educate, but at the end of the day, if there’s reckless behaviour on our beaches, we need to choose safer wahi (place) for our tamariki to enjoy, to live, to be their best tamariki selves and unfortunately, at this time, the behaviour on Tokerau is not supporting that.”

Lelo Kapa-Kingi said they had received funding from Northland Regional Council and were working on creating kaitiaki coastal toolkits in the hopes of passing their learnings for dune protection on to other coastal hapū and iwi.

But at Tokerau Beach, the group would be looking to weed and hold community wānanga (discussion) in the new year to get everyone one board and replant.

The goal was to plant 5000 new plants into the dune ecosystem and replace what had been destroyed.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Got questions? RNZ has launched a [ https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/no-stupid-questions new podcast, ‘No Stupid Questions’], with Susan Edmunds.

We’d love to hear more of your questions about money and the economy.

You can send through written questions, like these ones, but even better, you can drop us a voice memo to our email questions@rnz.co.nz.

What age can children living at home get a Community Services Card? Bus fares, doctors visits and prescriptions are all costs that a community services card would make a big difference with. Is there any other information that we all should know about the benefits of a community services card? I am sure there are many families with older children that don’t know about this issue.

The Ministry of Social Development pointed me to a couple of places for information about this.

If they are a dependent child, they can only get a Community Services Card if their parent or caregiver is getting an orphan’s benefit, unsupported child benefit or child disability allowance.

The ministry defines a dependent child as someone who is:

• Under 18 (or still living at home in their last year of school as an 18-year-old).
• Living with parents, step parents, adopted parents or grandparents as a member of the family.
• Financially dependent on their caregivers.

If someone is no longer a dependent child, they can get a community services card as a single person living with others if their income is less than $33,919 a year.

They don’t have to be receiving a benefit to qualify.

They can use the card to help with visits to a doctor you’re enrolled with, prescriptions, public transport, some emergency dental care and home help.

We currently have emergency savings of $15,000 split across three term deposits. It is roughly the equivalent of three months car and mortgage repayments, should my partner or I lose their job. I’ve always thought this was prudent, but given term deposit rates may be dropping and the emergency may never eventuate, is it better to invest this money and pull it from the investment, if needed?

It’s a great idea to have some money as emergency savings.

This isn’t personalised advice, but if I were you I would consider using it to reduce my mortgage.

You could put the money into an offset account if your bank offers that, or have it as a revolving credit facility. That means it’s there if you need to access it but otherwise it reduces what you pay in interest on your home loan.

You could invest it but if you know that you need to be able to access it at short notice, you won’t be able to take a lot of risk with it so you might find that the returns you get won’t outweigh the interest you save on your mortgage.

You could chat to a mortgage adviser about the right plan.

We’ve had seven-days payments processing since May 2023, where direct debits are processed on the exact day they are due, including weekends and public holidays. Yet many banks still pay interest on savings and term deposits on business days only. If such an interest payment is due on Saturday but paid on the following Monday, and a direct debit due on Sunday and processed on that day causes our account balance to go below zero, does the bank get to charge us fees and/or interest for the temporary overdraft?

Example: The account balance is $500 on Saturday when an interest credit of $700 is due but not paid out until Monday. On Sunday a direct debit of $800 is processed on that day and causes the balance to fall to -$300, causing an overdraft. On Monday the delayed interest payment brings the balance back up to $400, but the account balance was negative for a day and might trigger overdraft fees and/or interest, even so the credit payment that would have kept the balance positive was due before the debit payment.

Do we think that it’s fair to process debit transactions on the same day but delay credit transactions until the next business day, and that banks might even profit from that? Are you aware of any upcoming changes that will extend seven-days payments to all types of transactions and eliminate the risk of accidental temporary overdrafts?

I asked Banking Ombudsman Nicola Sladden what she thought of your question.

She said her scheme received complaints about the order of bank payments from time to time.

“However, we have not considered a specific complaint about the scenario below. If we received such a complaint, we would consider whether the bank acted fairly, including whether it complied with its terms and conditions and properly disclosed how interest would be calculated and paid.

“When seven day processing was introduced, some banks offered to refund fees while customers adjusted to the payments coming out every day – and the banks assisted them to change outgoing payments to align with incoming payments where possible. It is important customers consider the timing of payments they have agreed to be direct debited and ensure there are sufficient funds in their account at that time.”

She said if someone had experienced a delayed interest payment, they should raise the concern with their bank and contact the ombudsman scheme if they were not happy with the response.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand