Sunday 22nd of February 2026 02:59:10 AM
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What NZ would look like if we didn’t have enough psychologists?

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Source: Radio New Zealand

There are hundreds of people who take their life each year, but there are thousands more who contemplate it, get help and recover.

But new data released to RNZ’s Nine to Noon shows psychologists and psychiatrists are “leaving in droves”, indicating that there won’t be enough to support the worsening mental health situation.

Shaun Robinson, CEO of Mental Health Foundation, worries that if nothing changes, New Zealand’s mental health situation in 2030 will be more “dire” than it is now.

Mental Health Foundation chief executive Shaun Robinson says the new agency is one of several providing early intervention services.

Chris Skelton / Stuff

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

Kiwis to open Rugby League World Cup against Australia

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The Kiwis celebrate Phoenix Crossland of the Kiwis try (C) during New Zealand Kiwis v Tonga XIII, round 3 of the Pacific Championships at Eden Park. Photosport

The Kiwis have been drawn with defending champions Australia for next year’s Rugby League World Cup.

They are in a four-team Group A along with Fiji and Cook Islands.

England, Samoa and Lebanon are in Group B, while Tonga, Papua New Guinea and France are in Group C.

Group A teams will each play three matches against the other teams in Group A. Group B and C teams will each play three matches against the teams in the adjacent group.

The top two teams from Group A will progress to the Semi-Finals, while the top two teams from a combined table of Group B and Pool C will progress to the Semi-Finals.

New Zealand and Australia will meet in the tournament opener in Sydney on 15 October, 2026.

The Kiwi Ferns are in Group B of the women’s tournament along with Papua New Guinea, France and Fiji, while Australia, England, Samoa and Wales are in group A.

Each team will play three matches against the other teams in their Group. The top two teams from each Group will progress to the Semi-Finals.

There is a double-header in Christchurch on 25 October with the Kiwis playing Cook Islands and the Kiwi Ferns playing France.

The finals will be played in Brisbane on 15 November.

Kiwis’ World Cup draw

Kiwis v Australia: October 15, Sydney

Kiwis v Cook Islands, October 25, Christchurch

Kiwis v Fiji, October 31, Gold Coast

Kiwi Ferns’ World Cup draw

Kiwi Ferns v Fiji, October 18, Newcastle

Kiwi Ferns v France, October 25, Christchurch

Kiwi Ferns v Papua New Guinea, October 31, Gold Coast

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

One university boosted gender diversity in advanced maths by over 30% in 5 years – here’s how

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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zsuzsanna Dancso, Associate Professor of Mathematics, University of Sydney

As the artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing industries explode, trained STEM professionals are in high demand. Mathematics is foundational to these fields.

But mathematics is missing an important ingredient: people who are female or gender-diverse.

In New South Wales, for example, only one-third of high school graduates who complete mathematics at the highest level are female or gender-diverse. And when students choose university courses in December, a large proportion of these highly qualified people will step away from mathematics and STEM.

Australia cannot stay competitive by only accessing half of its young talent. By leaving mathematics early, young women and gender-diverse people limit their own career opportunities. Worse, the new technologies resulting from the current revolutions may not serve broader society well, if women and gender-diverse people are not involved in their development.

But at the University of Sydney over the past five years we have run a successful pilot program to reverse this trend – and to empower young women to make informed career choices. Better, the program is cheap to run and can be easily adopted elsewhere so mathematics – and the many industries it underpins – can be more diverse in ways that benefit everyone, regardless of their gender.

Declining enrolments

Before 2020, female and gender-diverse enrolments in advanced mathematics at the University of Sydney were in decline.

In 2020 the incoming cohort was nearly 80% male. Non-STEM directions offer attractive and important career options, and some movement between specialisations is expected. But a nosedive from 35% female students at the end of high school to 22% at the start of university indicates a problem.

Over five years, a team I lead piloted an intervention which has increased the ratio of female and gender-diverse students in advanced first-year mathematics from 22% to 30% – nearly back to the high school levels.

Our program consists of two components:

  1. information, personalised invitations, and enrolment advice for incoming female and gender-diverse students, and

  2. a mentoring program for female and gender-diverse students who enrol in advanced mathematics.

Targeting the problem from year one

Before the start of semester, we compare first year enrolments with students’ high school certificates and majors. Like in high school, mathematics at the university is offered at multiple parallel levels.

When students are enrolled at a lower level than their background and major would justify, we send personalised emails encouraging them to switch to the advanced level. We hold a welcome event and multiple drop-in sessions, offering tailored advice.

In the mentoring program we match female and gender diverse advanced maths students with groups of eight to twelve peers of mixed year levels. Matching is based on timetables.

Each group is mentored by a senior (Honours or PhD) student, and an academic – at least one of whom is female or gender-diverse. Student mentors bring invaluable insight to the program, as they had walked in the mentees’ shoes only a few years before.

Each year 50–80 students participate in the program, roughly two-thirds of whom are first-year students.

Mentoring groups meet weekly for an hour: sometimes with both mentors, sometimes with the student mentor alone. Meeting topics are loosely structured around academic advice and sharing experiences.

Many groups develop their own agendas organically. The program does not focus on tutoring, though students enjoy discussing key mathematical techniques and concepts.

Fostering community and belonging

At the heart of the program is the opportunity to build community with peers, away from the pressure of assessments. While student feedback on the program is overall enthusiastic, it is a puzzle to maintain engagement with mentoring as semesters get hectic. It is difficult for students to prioritise community building when marks are on the line elsewhere.

We suspected the large drop in female and gender diverse enrolments at the transition to university is at least partly explained by these students’ lack of confidence in their mathematical abilities.

Research shows such insecurities disproportionately affect women. General messaging is ineffective in the face of self-doubt, so we aimed for a personalised but scalable approach.

The mentoring component fosters community and belonging. This combats isolation, provides ongoing support and enables long-term retention.

A low-cost solution

Our program is a low-cost solution that can be implemented in most academic contexts.

The first year of university is a place to start, but it is too late to fully address Australia’s pipeline problem. We can’t expect to have women and gender-diverse students participating in STEM at university in higher numbers than they did at the end of high school.

Similar programs could be put in place in high schools, and personal invitations can even be used to bring more girls to elementary school enrichment programs. This would help boost diverse and equitable participation in STEM from the roots.

The Conversation

Zsuzsanna Dancso does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. One university boosted gender diversity in advanced maths by over 30% in 5 years – here’s how – https://theconversation.com/one-university-boosted-gender-diversity-in-advanced-maths-by-over-30-in-5-years-heres-how-270083

ADHD stimulants are being used recreationally, with consequences for users

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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blair Aitken, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology

Not long ago, most people thought of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, as a childhood condition that would eventually be outgrown. Now it’s everywhere.

TikTok videos describe “ADHD moments” that feel instantly familiar, clinics are booked out for months, and adults are finally getting diagnoses that explain years of chaos and exhaustion.

This visibility has helped people understand ADHD. However, it has also led to a shift in how medicines intended to alleviate symptoms are being used and, in some cases, misused.

What is ADHD? How does medication treat it?

ADHD affects how the brain handles attention, motivation and self-control. For some, this means racing thoughts, missed deadlines and constant restlessness. For others, it feels like a fog of distraction that makes following through on tasks frustratingly difficult.

Brain imaging studies in people with ADHD show subtle differences in how attention and reward circuits communicate. These systems rely on chemical messengers such as dopamine and noradrenaline. When the signalling of these messengers is less efficient, even simple, everyday tasks become harder to start and sustain.

Medicines such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and lisdexamfetamine (Vyvanse) boost dopamine and noradrenaline activity in the brain, enhancing focus, motivation and impulse control.

Large clinical reviews also show wider benefits, including reduced risks of depression, substance misuse, and even criminal behaviour in people with ADHD.

How many people take ADHD medications?

Stimulant prescriptions more than quadrupled between 2013 and 2023, from about 800,000 to more than 4 million scripts per year.

More people getting diagnosed and treated is a positive step. But it also means far more medication is circulating in the community and it’s easier for these drugs to be shared, sold, or used by someone they weren’t prescribed for.

The most recent National Drug Strategy Household Survey estimates roughly 400,000 Australians – about one in 48 people – used prescription stimulants non-medically in the past year. Among those in their 20s, this figure rises to about one in 20.

Why do people without ADHD use these drugs?

Some people use stimulants to stay awake studying or working long hours.

Others use them recreationally, seeking a “high” or to suppress their appetite.

Online, they’re often touted as “smart drugs” – or cognitive enhancers – promising to enhance productivity and brainpower. This isn’t a new idea. In the 1970s, psychologist Corneliu Giurgea coined the term “nootropic” arguing “man is not going to wait passively for millions of years before evolution offers him a better brain”. But more than 50 years later, the science doesn’t support that dream.

Research shows much of the “boost” people feel from stimulants comes from expectation rather than actual improvement. In one experiment, university students who believed they had taken Ritalin reported feeling more focused and euphoric even when they had a placebo – a sugar pill with no active drug.

For those without ADHD, stimulants can make you feel more awake and confident, but they don’t actually make you smarter. A controlled trial found that while stimulants led people to work longer and try harder, the quality of their work dropped, especially for those who performed well without the drugs.

So, these medications might push you to put in more effort, but that effort doesn’t always translate into better results.

What are the risks?

Medications such as Ritalin and Vyvanse are made to strict pharmaceutical standards, so many people assume they are safer than illicit drugs.

But their safety depends entirely on careful medical supervision, including appropriate dosing and regular health monitoring. Without this oversight, and when mixed with alcohol and other substances, risks increase sharply.

When people misuse these drugs – taking higher or more frequent doses – they risk developing a tolerance, meaning they need increasingly larger amounts to feel the same effects.

The high also wears off sharply, leading to a “crash” of fatigue, irritability and low mood, which can push people to take more.

Over time, this cycle may trigger anxiety, insomnia and heart problems.

Reflecting this, a study of emergency department presentations for stimulant-related problems from 2004 to 2014 found visits rose alongside greater availability.

How are these medications controlled?

In Australia, ADHD stimulants are Schedule 8 controlled drugs, meaning their prescribing is tightly regulated, however rules differ by state and territory.

New national ADHD guidelines recommend more consistent oversight, shared care between specialists and GPs, and better follow-up to reduce misuse and diversion.

Policy is evolving, but harm reduction hasn’t yet caught up. Compared with alcohol, tobacco or cannabis, public education on prescription stimulant misuse remains minimal.

Australia’s history offers a cautionary tale about responding to the misuse of prescription medications. When opioid and benzodiazepine prescribing surged in previous decades, supply restrictions alone failed to curb misuse.

Instead, people turned to black markets and unregulated online sources, where counterfeit and high-potency products fill the gap.

If stimulant policy follows a similar path – focusing on control but neglecting prevention and education – we risk repeating those mistakes.

In the United States, rising stimulant prescriptions have been accompanied by sharp increases in misuse and stimulant use disorder – the clinical term for addiction.

In response, health agencies adopted more balanced approaches – integrating prescription drug monitoring programs, clinician training on safer prescribing and community-based education campaigns.

As awareness and diagnosis of ADHD continue to rise in Australia, adopting these measures – including real-time prescription monitoring – could reduce harms while preserving access for those who genuinely need treatment.

The Conversation

Amie Hayley receives funding from the Department of Transport and Planning. She is affiliated with the Australasian College of Road Safety (ACRS) and the International Council for Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety (ICADTS).

Blair Aitken does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ADHD stimulants are being used recreationally, with consequences for users – https://theconversation.com/adhd-stimulants-are-being-used-recreationally-with-consequences-for-users-268491

The key academic skill you’ve probably never heard of – and 4 ways to encourage it

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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Barnes, Associate Professor, School of Education, La Trobe University

SolStock/Getty Images

When parents think about their child’s education, they probably focus on basic skills and exam results, the amount a child is trying and their wellbeing.

But there is another significant factor influencing their success at school. This is metacognition.

What is it? Why is it important? And how can you help your child develop this skill?

What is metacognition?

Metacognition is often described as “thinking about our thinking”. It involves being aware of how our mind works and using that awareness to improve how we learn, solve problems and make decisions. To do this, we need both metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills.

Metacognitive knowledge is what we know about ourselves as learners, the strategies we use and why some approaches work better for us. It includes understanding the conditions that help us learn, how to use different strategies, and when to apply them.

For example, as a child goes to bed, they suddenly remember they forgot to do their homework that’s due the next day. This provides an opportunity for the child to think about the strategies they might use to avoid this situation in the future.

Metacognitive skills are the actions we take to use this knowledge. These include planning, monitoring and evaluating.

Imagine a student sitting down to study for a maths test. They start by planning, setting a goal to revise one topic for 20 minutes using practice questions. As they work, they monitor how things are going. They notice they keep re-reading the same problem without understanding it. So, they try a different strategy. After the test, they evaluate how well their approach worked and realise they need to practice more regularly next time.

When children understand how they learn and use that understanding, they become more confident, more organised and better able to adjust when things get tricky.

Why does it matter?

Metacognition gives students tools to take control of their learning, helping them to apply what they know. However, this does not come naturally, it must be taught.

Research shows when schools explicitly teach students how to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning, student outcomes and achievement improve.

In our study at a large independent school in Australia, we asked 241 high school students to assess and monitor their understanding of key real-world skills such as communication, creative thinking and critical thinking.

After completing two rounds of self-assessments, students received feedback showing where they were in their learning and next steps. Many said this helped them see their strengths and how to improve. But others wanted more teacher guidance to connect it to their learning.

This shows why metacognition needs to be explicitly taught. Students need guidance and support to know how to monitor and apply their learning.

What can parents do to help?

Here are four things you can do to support the development of metacognition with children of all ages.

  1. Think out loud. Talk through your own thinking in front of your child. For example, when planning your day, explain you are making a list of everything that needs to be done, and you’ll start with the most important task.

  2. Make mistakes normal. Show your child that mistakes are part of learning and often mean we need a different strategy. For example, if you forget an ingredient at the supermarket, you might say, “I’ll write a list on my phone next time so I remember.”

  3. Use routines to build independence. This can help plan and manage learning. Everyday tasks like packing a school bag or planning homework help children practise planning ahead, checking what they need and adjusting when something changes.

  4. Encourage reflection. Help children think about their learning and experiences. After school, you might ask “What did you learn today?” or “What did you find confusing?” When things didn’t go to plan – like forgetting something for school – ask “What could you do differently next time?”

The Conversation

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The key academic skill you’ve probably never heard of – and 4 ways to encourage it – https://theconversation.com/the-key-academic-skill-youve-probably-never-heard-of-and-4-ways-to-encourage-it-270151

Do I have to work on Christmas? Or use up leave if work shuts for the holidays?

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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shae McCrystal, Professor of Labour Law, University of Sydney

South Agency/Getty

Whether you’re an employee counting down the days until your break, or an employer trying to keep a business open over Christmas – what are the rules about working these holidays?

And if your workplace shuts over the holiday period, can you or your staff be made to use up leave?

Here’s what the law says.

Do I have to work on Christmas? Can I say no?

Your boss must ask you.

If you’re an employee, you have a legal entitlement not to work on a public holiday. If your boss asks you to work, you can say no if you have a reasonable reason to refuse the request.

The employer’s request for you to work also has to be reasonable – for instance, if they’re running an emergency room, which needs to be open 24/7. But the employee’s personal circumstances are relevant too.

There was an important court ruling about this earlier this month.

Mining giant BHP was ordered to pay 85 miners $A84,000 in compensation, after it made them work Christmas and Boxing Day in 2019 without giving them a chance to say no.

Among the miners forced to work was a single mother without family help, who said she had to go to “demeaning and heartbreaking” lengths to find a babysitter for her two daughters, 11 and 15, on Christmas Day.

What that court case made clear is that rostering people on, then expecting or even suggesting that’s the end of the matter, does not meet the requirements of the Fair Work Act.

If you’re the employer, you need to have a conversation about it, or produce a draft roster, with employees given the opportunity to indicate if they would not like to work. You can’t just roster and forget it.

I’m single and don’t have kids. Can I still say no to work?

If you’re being asked to work, the same rules apply to you as to parents or others.

Is your employer’s request reasonable? Are you in the kind of industry that needs to operate on a public holiday?

What are your personal circumstances and responsibilities? Is there additional compensation beyond your normal pay, such as penalty rates?

It may be easier for someone with kids to argue they have caring responsibilities on a day like Christmas, when alternative childcare is mostly closed.

But if the children can be safely cared for by someone else, it doesn’t necessarily elevate a parent above a single person – who may have other responsibilities, such as caring for parents, or personal circumstances including their own mental wellbeing.

So the right to refuse to work on a public holiday on reasonable grounds doesn’t just belong to parents; it belongs to everybody covered by the Fair Work Act.

Which public holidays do the rules apply to?

The Fair Work Act lists the public holidays these rules apply to:

  • January 1 (New Year’s Day)
  • January 26 (Australia Day)
  • Good Friday
  • Easter Monday
  • April 25 (Anzac Day)
  • the King’s birthday (this date depends on the state or territory you’re in)
  • December 25 (Christmas Day)
  • December 26 (Boxing Day)

Plus any other public holiday declared in your state or territory, unless it’s excluded by regulations.

Is this true for everyone in Australia?

The majority of Australians are covered under the Fair Work Act, with some exceptions, including state public servants outside of Victoria, some council workers and certain private sector employees in Western Australia.

If my work shuts over Christmas, can I (or my staff) be made to use up leave?

Generally speaking, yes. But find out if you’re covered by an award or enterprise agreement, as it’s usually spelled out clearly there.

But if you don’t have a modern award or enterprise agreement, the Fair Work Act notes that one of the times of year it may be reasonable to make people take leave is when:

the employer’s enterprise is being shut down for a period (for example, between Christmas and New Year).

If you don’t have enough paid leave to cover a shutdown period, you can come to an agreement with your employer for other options, such as:

  • using accrued time off
  • annual leave in advance, or
  • leave without pay.

Is there a minimum notice period to be asked to work or take leave?

There’s no set time period under the National Employment Standards, though there may be in your award or agreement.

But if the request to work or take leave is very late, it becomes less “reasonable” than early notice. That’s taken into account under the Fair Work Act too.

So if you’re an employer, the more advance notice you give people when asking them to work over these holidays, or about taking leave, the more chance you have of it being seen as a reasonable request under the law.

The Conversation

Shae McCrystal has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Do I have to work on Christmas? Or use up leave if work shuts for the holidays? – https://theconversation.com/do-i-have-to-work-on-christmas-or-use-up-leave-if-work-shuts-for-the-holidays-269940

Woman says son pleaded to leave boarding house days before death

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Lisa Hawkeswood and her son Jack on mother's day in 2023.

Lisa Hawkeswood and her son Jack on mother’s day in 2023 Supplied

This story discusses suicide.

Lisa Hawkeswood said her son Jack lasted three days in the lodge before pleading to live with her because he hated his accommodation.

A woman whose adult son was discharged from a mental health unit into an Auckland boarding house says the living conditions were appalling and unfit for such a vulnerable person.

Tragically, he died in a suspected suicide after moving in with her.

Lisa Hawkeswood said her son Jack lasted three days in the lodge before pleading to live with her because he hated his accommodation.

“He was discharged alone,” she said.

“Within 72 hours of discharge, he felt like he was having a breakdown and he didn’t feel safe, he didn’t feel safe living there.”

Her son had addiction and mental health challenges and his relationships had fractured by the time he was admitted to Auckland’s acute mental health unit, in November 2023.

Jack was there for three weeks before being discharged to a boarding house.

She said he had called her and left a message in distress, then called an ambulance to be taken back to hospital.

“He said ‘can you help me out and get me out of here, they’ve put me into this kind of motel unit, there’s blood on the carpet and there’s gang members trying to make me do meth’.”

Hawkeswood said he came to live with her and she was devastated when he tragically died three weeks later.

She said she later visited the boarding house he had been discharged to and the manager told her they also housed people released from prison.

“I know this is a problem, safe housing for people after discharge.”

A boarding house manager not linked to the case said he is regularly asked to take people who have been discharged from mental health care.

Fred Ofa owns Charlton Property Management which runs eight boarding houses in Auckland – he said they have about 20 people who are mental health patients, referred to them by support agencies.

“We’re housing them in facilities that are sanitary, facilities that are safe, in facilities that you or I would live in. That brings some normality to their life as well.”

“They’re getting care or wraparound service that’s different from your normal joe blogs. This type of care where you’ve got nurses that are coming on site and making sure that they’re taking their medication, that’s not normal and there’s support to take them to programmes. There’s some normality throughout their day.”

Fred Ofa says he only takes on people from mental health units if they have wrap-around support.

“The worst thing operators like myself and people who supply this type of accommodation is to take anyone and everyone because we’re not trained to look after these people we’re there to supply houses.”

“I’ve seen where they’ve put anyone and everyone into housing and it doesn’t work.”

He says having a support person as a point of contact for tenants receiving mental health care in the community is crucial.

“We had a recent case where the support person left their details with us and as soon as something happened we were able to contact them. The situation was quite severe, he tried to burn down one side of the house. The fact that we said hey look you can’t do that again, we’re going to get you support [after] he slipped up, he didn’t take his medication that day.”

Health NZ’s director of specialist mental health and addiction, Karla Bergquist, said their practice is not to discharge people to homelessness.

“Many people who are admitted to mental health inpatient care are discharged home to their previous accommodation,” she said.

“If this is not possible, clinical services work closely with housing and social service partners to ensure people leaving mental health inpatient care have safe and appropriate accommodation.

But she said there are not any reliable figures on where people are sent to.

Bergquist said a programme to help homeless people move from inpatient care to stable housing with wrap around support began in 2021 in Auckland and Waikato, called Rapua Te Āhuru Mōwai.

Since then more than 90 people in Auckland have been discharged into accommodation that is not a boarding house.

The programme, delivered in partnership with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, houses people in self-contained units or apartments in low or medium density blocks across the Auckland region.

It followed a 2020 report released by the Chief Ombudsman that raised concerns about two Auckland mental health units in which people were staying longer than clinically needed because they had nowhere to live.

At the time, a lack of suitable accommodation meant that 13 people were staying longer than they needed in Auckland City Hospital’s Te Whetu Tāwera Acute Mental Health Unit, one for up to 17 months.

The Chief Ombudsman found another five people had been in Waitākere Hospital’s Waiatarau Mental Health Inpatient Unit for over six months, for the same reason.

Lisa Hawkeswood said when her son was discharged to a boarding house and then lived with her, there was no safety plan for his care – something she has questioned and RNZ understands is part of an ongoing coronial inquiry.

“It was on the last day, on the 11th of December, that the key worker said to me you do know that he shouldn’t be left home alone, which I was confused about because no one had ever told me that.”

Hawkeswood is still grieving for Jack whom she said was outgoing, kind, creative and intelligent and keen to get into acting.

She finds solace in songwriting and has set up a Waikato trust to help others struggling with mental health and addiction, access information and services.

Where to get help:

  • Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737 any time to speak to a trained counsellor, for any reason
  • Lifeline: 0800 543 354 or text HELP to 4357
  • Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 / 0508 TAUTOKO. This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends
  • Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 or text 4202
  • Samaritans: 0800 726 666
  • Youthline: 0800 376 633 or text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz
  • What’s Up: 0800 WHATSUP / 0800 9428 787. This is free counselling for 5 to 19-year-olds
  • Asian Family Services: 0800 862 342 or text 832. Languages spoken: Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Hindi, and English.
  • Rural Support Trust Helpline: 0800 787 254
  • Healthline: 0800 611 116
  • Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155
  • OUTLine: 0800 688 5463
  • Aoake te Rā bereaved by suicide service: or call 0800 000 053

If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

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

‘We want it to end’; Hui on Te Pāti Māori schism

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly

That came from a hui called for by Te Rūnanga Nui Ā Ngāpuhi where more than 200 people packed into Kohewhata Marae in Kaikohe to speak with Kapa-Kingi face-to-face and decide on their response to her and Tākuta Ferris’ expulsion from the party this month.

Among those in attendance were Ferris, Tāmaki Makaurau MP Oriini Kaipara and whānau from across Te Tai Tokerau and Muriwhenua.

There was broad support for Kapa-Kingi at the hui to remain the MP for Te Tai Tokerau and hopes Te Pāti Māori could mend the current schism in time to contest the 2026 General Election as a unified party.

Many also called for the party’s president John Tamihere to stand down.

Te Pāti Māori’s National Executive declined an invitation to attend the hui citing concerns around potential legal trouble – a move described as “extremely disheartening” and “insulting by hui organisers.

The party has alleged Kapa-Kingi “overspent” her electorate budget and, along with Ferris, plotted to take over the leadership of the party. Kapa-Kingi has denied both claims.

Speaking to the crowd, Kapa-Kingi addressed the claims of financial mismanagement. She said she had received an email from the Parliamentary Services Office that she was in fact within her Parliamentary budget – by $1.

“I want to share that with you, because there’s so many other mischievous and bad stories that have been told for bad reasons… and I want to be able to correct those things so that people know better what has actually happened from me.”

Kapa-Kingi said there were dynamics of “sexism”, “narcissism” and “misogyny” at play within the party.

“What is getting played out against me, and against my colleagues – and one of my dear colleagues that is no longer here – is all of that horrible, yuckiness, targeted at wāhine Māori.” she said.

She said some Māori might feel like the last 12 months had been “the worst ever”, the worst was still yet to come.

“I love you, and I am here for you and I’m not going anywhere.” she said.

“And how do we end this? We stand JT down. That’s how we end it.”

Looking ahead

The ultimate goal of the hui was for Te Tai Tokerau to discuss strategies on how to respond to Kapa-Kingi’s expulsion and find consensus on how move forward.

All who wanted to speak where invited to do so, while note takers gathered their kōrero to report back on later in the evening.

The hui was both jovial and tense, at times, as kaikōrero took turns sharing their whakāro to the whare. Some spoke about the need for young people to step up into leadership positions while others spoke of how Te Whakaputanga needed to be at the centre of decision making.

Among the speakers Ngātiwai rangatira Aperahama Edwards who said many people were feeling hurt and confused, especially after the unity displayed during Te Hīkoi mō te Tiriti.

“We want it to end,” he said.

“We don’t want our people led into the trenches to have choose sides.”

Edwards said the ructions within the party had taken attention away from other kaupapa, like the recent changes to the Marine and Coastal Areas Act (MACA).

“I ended up going down to Parliament , so I’m probably the last person to give advice to either of them on how to get back in there. I went down and got kicked out of there to try and draw attention to what’s happening in front of our eyes.”

“But the only kōrero that was being consumed in the media and on social media was the inferno raging within Te Pāti Māori.” he said.

Edwards said it would be the taimariki who carried the mauri of the hīkoi to Parliament that would be most affected.

“Where’s the aroha for those taitamariki? Because they’re looking at all their superheroes sitting across both camps, embroiled in this raru, and their hearts break.” he said.

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F1: Apologies all round after Liam Lawson mistake and McLaren disqualification

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Liam Lawson of New Zealand RUDY CAREZZEVOLI / AFP

Liam Lawson apologised to his team after he squandered valuable F1 points at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

A first-corner clash forced the young Kiwi into the pits and out of the points.

Lawson started the race sixth on the grid after an impressive qualifying series in the wet, and hopes were high that he’d be able to add to the points he picked up with his seventh-place finish in the last round in Brazil.

However, the very short run to the first corner in Vegas caused problems for a number of cars and Lawson had too much speed and was forced to go wide and made contact with the Oscar Piastri’s McLaren.

While he immediately lost a place it appeared that Lawson hadn’t suffered too much damage. However two laps later he was forced into the pits to change the front wing, dropping him to the back of the field.

“Apologies to the team, it was extremely slippery into turn one and once I committed to brake, the cars in front started checking up and I didn’t have anywhere to go,” Lawson said afterwards.

Lawson’s Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar did manage to finish in the top 10, enhancing his reputation, as both drivers look to confirm their places for 2026.

“I’m disappointed for the team today as the car has been fast this weekend,” Lawson said.

“We should have had two cars in the points today, so it’s a shame given where we started.”

Liam Lawson during the Las Vegas Grand Prix, 2025. Joao Filipe / PHOTOSPORT

Lawson wasn’t the only one apologising after the race.

McLaren had both cars disqualified for a technical infringement, meaning the championship race remains alive with two Grands Prix remaining.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won the Las Vegas Grand Prix, while Lando Norris, who was second, and fourth-placed Piastri had their points stripped after a post-race FIA inspection found the thickness of the under-car skid-plank assembly was below the permitted minimum.

It appears the skid-plate was thinner because of excessive wear on the rough Las Vegas track.

It means Norris has a lead of 24 points over Verstappen and Piastri, with Qatar and Abu Dhabi the last two Grands Prix of the season.

“We apologise to Lando and Oscar for the loss of points today, at a critical time in their Championship campaigns after two strong performances from them all weekend,” McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said in a statement.

“As a team, we also apologise to our partners and fans, whose support means so much.

“While this outcome is extremely disappointing, we remain fully focused on the last two races of the season.”

Lawson officially finished the Las Vegas race in 14th place and he remains 14th in the Drivers’ Championship.

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‘It just seems cruel’: Councillor shocked by comments after cycling accident

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Auckland councillor Julie Fairey says her fellow councillors who are women – particularly women of colour – often receive more abuse than their male counterparts.

*******

Auckland councillor Julie Fairey has become accustomed to abusive comments – but she was still shocked by what she saw on social media after she was hit by a car while cycling and suffered a broken leg.

Fairey has spent several years in local politics – and has been called all sorts of things.

“I’ve been called communist scum, which I find interesting.

“I get a fair bit of abuse about my husband, who is a former cabinet minister, that I’m just his appendage and not my own person, which is difficult. We’ve both been involved in politics for a long time, well before we were together.”

But she was still surprised by the cruelty of some of the comments she saw after she was hit by a car while cycling in Mount Roskill earlier this year.

“People were basically one step on from blaming me. It was like I deserved it and that it would be nice if they finished the job or if it happened again, and that’s hard to read.

“How could another human being write that to another person? You’re making this comment about someone, an actual person. How could you wish such ill on anybody? To me, it just seems cruel, and I don’t understand it.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, and a lot of it doesn’t bother me, although probably it should. But what bothers me is the idea that my kids or my mother might see it, and that would be upsetting for them, and that’s not okay.”

When Auckland Council surveyed last term’s councillors and local board members, 81 percent of those who responded said they had been harassed or bullied by members of the public.

Sixty-five percent had been abused or harassed online, with the majority of those targeted being women.

Thirty-three out of 170 members responded to the survey done in April, which was released to RNZ last week.

Councillor Fairey said her fellow councillors who are women – particularly women of colour – often received more abuse than their male counterparts.

“For women, there tends to be more appearance-based attacks. It’s not something I’ve had to deal with too much, being of a smaller size and having pale skin. But I’ve seen colleagues and friends be told to shut up because they’re fat or things of that nature.

“I have several friends who would make great local government elected members who have told me straight that they will not stand because of the fear of abuse. These are staunch women with plenty of useful experience that they could bring to the table, some of them in day jobs or volunteer work where they have stood up to power in the past and they’re not prepared to put themselves up for the election process because of the harassment they know they’ll face, in particular online, and they way that sometimes people’s family members can be targeted as well.”

She challenged the idea that elected members should have to put up with vicious comments, including from each other.

“I have colleagues who, the way they feel about it, is that if it’s too hot, get out of the kitchen. But actually, the kitchen shouldn’t be that hot.

“Politicians have a role in bringing down the temperature themselves. Often, the narratives we engage with publicly heat things up, and we need to exhibit the kinds of standards we expect from the community and not make attacks on other people, be they staff, the organisation, or other elected members that are really personal and hurtful.”

Sixty-nine percent of the 33 people who responded to the survey said they had been targeted by fellow elected members.

Fairey said that as of last term, the council started using a platform called Done Safe, where members can report comments that cross the line or persistent abuse.

Councillor Alf Filipaina said he was not active on social media but had received a few odd emails about his support for Māori wards.

“They say things like you’re being divisive, you’re disgusting. But who cares, I just ignore them.”

Another councillor Andy Baker said he avoided social media because of personal attacks.

“I don’t live my life on social media and at times have taken myself off platforms because I was sick of the comments, just in general, how ridiculous some of them are.

“But it is an issue, and some of the comments can be so nasty, so personal, they’ll say ‘you’re just a dickhead’ and use abusive language.

“We can debate and disagree on issues, but when it becomes personal and sometimes they attack family, it just steps over that line.”

Baker said that working as a police officer gave him thick skin.

“Someone pulled a knife on me, I got shot at, so these sorts of comments are inane to me. I actually laugh at them. Deleted and blocked them and moved on.”

He agreed that councillors needed to watch their own behaviour.

“We’re not perfect either, in meetings some of my colleagues will climb into staff knowing they can’t respond.”

Councillor John Watson said the conduct around the council table could be appalling.

“The council has to look at itself before it even starts to look at the public. It should be encouraging a far higher standard of discourse amongst elected members. People have different points of view, and they’re entitled to say them, but they should be respectful.

“Walking the talk and leading by example is a good way of ensuring that quite disturbing behaviour being signalled through this survey isn’t normalised.”

Council spokesperson Lou-Ann Ballantyne said the level of intimidation and threats was worrying.

She said the council had taken actions, including de-escalation training for members and promoting the need to log incidents.

“We acknowledge there’s more to do, and we’re working through a range of possible tactics to help improve elected member safety and wellbeing as we go forward.”

Local Government [LGNZ] vice president and Gisborne mayor Rehette Stolz said the problem was nationwide.

She said they had seen many examples of local and central government politicians being abused, including herself.

“People sometimes talk to you in a way that is inappropriate. They send messages about how useless you are, that your council is a bunch of losers, or to ‘go back to where you came from’.

“People put their names forward for local and central government to serve their communities, and everyone has the right to be treated with respect.”

She hoped recent changes to stalking and harassment legislation would improve safety for councillors across the country.

“LGNZ have been active in supporting members who are victims of abuse and worked closely to get this legislation across the line. Now it’s gone through the house, we’ll support members to know what this means for them, and how they can use it to make sure they are safe and respected.”

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

Work underway to replace pipes after almost century underground in New Plymouth

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Fulton Hogan workers move the new pipe into place in Robe Street. Supplied

Work is underway to replace some of the first water pipes ever installed in New Plymouth after almost a century underground.

The district council was replacing about 306 metres of 1930s cast-iron pipes in Robe, Devon and King streets with new polyethylene (PE) pipes that would be able to keep up with rising water consumption in the centre city and the needs of modern fire-fighting.

NPDC project delivery manager Sean Cressy said the new PE pipes and connections would provide a more secure supply to city centre businesses, such as its hospitality sector.

“These old cast-iron pipes were the very first public water pipes laid in central New Plymouth and we’ve seen them fail several times in recent years as they reach the end of their useful lives.”

Cressy said council, which was investing $289 million over 10 years to fix its plumbing, and its contractors Fulton Hogan aimed to keep disruption to a minimum.

“We know this might cause some disruption to traffic and we’re sorry for any inconvenience, but we’ll keep this to a minimum by drilling beneath the roads, rather than digging trenches to install the new pipes.

“We’ll also try to confine water shutdowns to times that cause the least inconvenience to businesses and residents. All our water supplies will meet New Zealand drinking water standards at all times during this work.”

Fulton Hogan foreman Josh Lehrke checks out part of the original pipe as it’s uncovered for the first time in almost a century. Supplied

Cressy said footpaths and access to all businesses would remain open during the works, which were expected to be finished by the end of the year.

Fast facts:

  • NPDC committed to investing $289 million over 10 years to 2034 to fix the district’s plumbing.
  • The district has about 2026km of water, wastewater and stormwater pipes.
  • In the 2024-25 financial year, it replaced about 5600m of old water pipes and 2000m of old sewer pipes.
  • This financial year (2025/2026), about 7000m of old water and wastewater pipes are scheduled for renewal.
  • There are four separate water supplies in the district: New Plymouth (including Ōmata, Bell Block, Waitara and Urenui), Inglewood, Ōākura and Ōkato.
  • Combined, these facilities supply approximately 28 million litres of water per day to almost 30,000 homes and businesses.
  • The main source of water in the district is Lake Mangamahoe, which holds about 10 days supply.

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

Woman says son pleaded to leave boarding house in distress

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Lisa Hawkeswood and her son Jack on mother’s day in 2023 Supplied

Lisa Hawkeswood said her son Jack lasted three days in the lodge before pleading to live with her because he hated his accommodation.

A woman whose adult son was discharged from a mental health unit into an Auckland boarding house says the living conditions were appalling and unfit for such a vulnerable person.

Tragically, he died in a suspected suicide after moving in with her.

Lisa Hawkeswood said her son Jack lasted three days in the lodge before pleading to live with her because he hated his accommodation.

“He was discharged alone,” she said.

“Within 72 hours of discharge, he felt like he was having a breakdown and he didn’t feel safe, he didn’t feel safe living there.”

Her son had addiction and mental health challenges and his relationships had fractured by the time he was admitted to Auckland’s acute mental health unit, in November 2023.

Jack was there for three weeks before being discharged to a boarding house.

She said he had called her and left a message in distress, then called an ambulance to be taken back to hospital.

“He said ‘can you help me out and get me out of here, they’ve put me into this kind of motel unit, there’s blood on the carpet and there’s gang members trying to make me do meth’.”

Hawkeswood said he came to live with her and she was devastated when he tragically died three weeks later.

She said she later visited the boarding house he had been discharged to and the manager told her they also housed people released from prison.

“I know this is a problem, safe housing for people after discharge.”

A boarding house manager not linked to the case said he is regularly asked to take people who have been discharged from mental health care.

Fred Ofa owns Charlton Property Management which runs eight boarding houses in Auckland – he said they have about 20 people who are mental health patients, referred to them by support agencies.

“We’re housing them in facilities that are sanitary, facilities that are safe, in facilities that you or I would live in. That brings some normality to their life as well.”

“They’re getting care or wraparound service that’s different from your normal joe blogs. This type of care where you’ve got nurses that are coming on site and making sure that they’re taking their medication, that’s not normal and there’s support to take them to programmes. There’s some normality throughout their day.”

Fred Ofa says he only takes on people from mental health units if they have wrap-around support.

“The worst thing operators like myself and people who supply this type of accommodation is to take anyone and everyone because we’re not trained to look after these people we’re there to supply houses.”

“I’ve seen where they’ve put anyone and everyone into housing and it doesn’t work.”

He says having a support person as a point of contact for tenants receiving mental health care in the community is crucial.

“We had a recent case where the support person left their details with us and as soon as something happened we were able to contact them. The situation was quite severe, he tried to burn down one side of the house. The fact that we said hey look you can’t do that again, we’re going to get you support [after] he slipped up, he didn’t take his medication that day.”

Health NZ’s director of specialist mental health and addiction, Karla Bergquist, said their practice is not to discharge people to homelessness.

“Many people who are admitted to mental health inpatient care are discharged home to their previous accommodation,” she said.

“If this is not possible, clinical services work closely with housing and social service partners to ensure people leaving mental health inpatient care have safe and appropriate accommodation.

But she said there are not any reliable figures on where people are sent to.

Bergquist said a programme to help homeless people move from inpatient care to stable housing with wrap around support began in 2021 in Auckland and Waikato, called Rapua Te Āhuru Mōwai.

Since then more than 90 people in Auckland have been discharged into accommodation that is not a boarding house.

The programme, delivered in partnership with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, houses people in self-contained units or apartments in low or medium density blocks across the Auckland region.

It followed a 2020 report released by the Chief Ombudsman that raised concerns about two Auckland mental health units in which people were staying longer than clinically needed because they had nowhere to live.

At the time, a lack of suitable accommodation meant that 13 people were staying longer than they needed in Auckland City Hospital’s Te Whetu Tāwera Acute Mental Health Unit, one for up to 17 months.

The Chief Ombudsman found another five people had been in Waitākere Hospital’s Waiatarau Mental Health Inpatient Unit for over six months, for the same reason.

Lisa Hawkeswood said when her son was discharged to a boarding house and then lived with her, there was no safety plan for his care – something she has questioned and RNZ understands is part of an ongoing coronial inquiry.

“It was on the last day, on the 11th of December, that the key worker said to me you do know that he shouldn’t be left home alone, which I was confused about because no one had ever told me that.”

Hawkeswood is still grieving for Jack whom she said was outgoing, kind, creative and intelligent and keen to get into acting.

She finds solace in songwriting and has set up a Waikato trust to help others struggling with mental health and addiction, access information and services.

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Cause of large Waiheke house fire unknown

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Four firetrucks and 16 crew members tackled the blaze at its peak. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

More than a dozen firefighters were called to a large house fire on Auckland’s Waiheke Island overnight.

Fire and Emergency (FENZ) said it was called to the fire at a property on Nick Johnstone Drive around 12.30am and the fire was extinguished around 3am.

Four firetrucks and 16 crew members tackled the blaze at its peak.

FENZ said all people were accounted for and no one was hurt.

The cause of the fire was unknown.

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Former soldier left ‘sad, devastated and broken’ after training Ukranian recruits

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A former soldier who attacked a taxi driver in a drunken rage says the NZ Defence Force (NZDF) failed to get him desperately needed help after a traumatic stint training Ukrainian civilians for war.

Jack Wesley says he was a ticking timebomb when he got back from Operation Tieke in the UK, drinking heavily and haunted by the deaths in Ukraine of people he helped prepare for the front line.

Following his six-month deployment in 2023, he was diagnosed with PTSD.

Wesley said if the Defence Force had given him the support he so badly needed, the awful assault could have been avoided.

The NZDF said it takes the preparation and psychological support for their deployed personnel seriously.

NZ Defence Force

Operation Tieke

Since the deployment – dubbed ‘Operation Tieke’ – started in 2022, New Zealand infantry have been sent to the United Kingdom to prepare Ukrainian army recruits for battle.

Twenty-six-year-old Wesley was one of them. He trained hundreds of recruits – many of whom he now believed were dead.

He had served nearly seven years in the 1st Battalion, 1st Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (RNZIR), before he was deployed for six months in 2023 as a lance corporal and section 2IC.

Wesley described his role as a ‘shadow’ who followed the recruits around, helping them, teaching them, giving them more “oomph” to their training.

Over his six months, around four lots of new recruits came through. Each training camp was five weeks long and made up of about 200 people.

They were split into groups and trained in combat first aid, operational law, weapon handling, field-craft, offensive and defence operations, and marksmanship.

Over each five weeks period, Wesley and his team worked 24/7 with the recruits.

“For our pre-deployment training, we were… drilled into, not to build a rapport with them.

“It’s pretty easy to start off with… we tried to stick as hard as we could to not building that rapport with the Ukrainians and as the days went on and days in on being stuck with them pretty much 24/7 for the five weeks the relationships grew quite strong.

“My youngest soldier that I taught just turned 18 just before he got on the flight over to the UK and my oldest was 56 years old and…. yeah it hit home, hit home for pretty much all of us.

He cried as he said: “We could see them as either our little brothers or brothers, sisters, fathers, mums.”

The unit often referred to them as ‘the kids’.

When the recruits arrived, Wesley said they were keen to learn, but by the end of the course morale had changed.

“They didn’t want to go, they didn’t want to go back. They felt scared. They didn’t want to leave us because they knew that we would try our hardest to protect them… it just hit home every time.”

Wesley said they became like one unit.

“Just day in, day out, always laughing at each other, giving each other, excuse my language, but shit. Just creating memories… once it got to the last week the raw feelings started to hit and we’d try not think about the day they had to go back home, but once the busses rocked up it started hitting all of us in the gut.”

NZ Defence Force

Wesley and the recruits knew what waited for them in Ukraine.

Of the more than 800 Ukrainians his deployment trained, Wesley believes most are now dead.

Wesley said despite knowing they were not supposed to, the soldiers created a group online to stay connected.

“Just to be able to keep in touch and see how things are going, see whereabouts they are back home. And yeah, the numbers, they slowly started to drop…

“Sometimes the chat would go quiet and then someone will pop in and be like ‘oh blah blah blah is dead, we found him or her, they got ambushed’.

“Then they’d give us the low down of what happened which hit us even more because we put the blame on ourselves… saying did we give them the necessary training they needed? Did we give them 100 percent of us?”

Wesley said he was “sad, devastated and broken” by the deployment and that he was not alone in those feelings.

“If you were to pull them [other soldiers] aside 1 by 1 and ask them how they’re feeling, they’d breakdown.”

RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

The close call

While on deployment, Wesley had a close call.

He was training recruits at the shooting range, working through various shooting positions – standing, kneeling and the prone position on the ground.

“With his transition to the prone he ended up bringing his rifle up on the 45 [degree angle] and as he hit the ground his finger was still on the trigger …heard a round going ‘pewwww’ right above my head…

“I went white as a ghost and just stood there thinking holy **** that just happened.

“I was kinda just shaking, sitting there, white as.”

The range commanding officer was informed and the training session ended.

“The rest of that day I was just shaking. I was like ****.

“That night we went pretty hard on the beers. Just be like **** , trying to decompress.”

Wesley said they did not tell anyone outside of his team about the incident, it was just what they did.

He said it was not the first time there had been close calls during the deployment, but there was a culture of not reporting incidents for fear of retribution or judgement.

“Since shit rolls downhill… they’ll find a way to make it bite you back.

“If I was to mention it or try to push it up higher, they’d probably just put me in the office, sit me down, talk to me about it and then send me back out.”

The NZDF said it had no record of any close calls or incidents during Operation Tieke.

It said if Wesley’s officer had been made aware of the incident and knew he was having psychological difficulties, he would have been recommended a compassionate return to NZ with further support.

NZ Defence Force

Psychological support

Towards the end of Wesley’s deployment, personnel were given several days before a flight home for ‘group decompression”.

It was at that time in August 2023 they were given a psychologist’s appointment for an assessment.

After his assessment, Wesley said he was told more help would be waiting for him and his team within a month or so of their return and that they wouldn’t need to seek it out.

Many of the team from the deployment found it difficult to reintegrate back home and a lot of them resorted to drinking, he said

“It took a toll on us mentally.

‘Whenever we would get the chance, we would just resort to alcohol… it would take the pain away and make us feel numb and we’d just sit there cry.”

Or if his unit wasn’t around… I’d cry by myself. Or get angry.”

It was during this period, Wesley was violently assaulted at a party and suffered a broken jaw and concussion requiring emergency surgery. He returned to drinking as a coping mechanism after his recovery.

Wesley said he knew he was mentally unwell, but felt he could not ask for help.

“Because of the stigma around it, I didn’t want to look weak, I thought, no, I don’t need help, I can try overcome this myself. But yeah, it ended up going down the wrong path and I blew up.

NZDF said personnel were given a follow-up “psychological screen approximately six months after” returning from the deployment.

RNZ has been seeking answers about the timeframe and delay since September, but has not yet received a response from the NZDF.

Wesley said got a post-deployment phone call four months after he got home and was never seen again until his “bomb went off” .

RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

The assault

In March 2024 Jack Wesley violently attacked a taxi driver on a drunken night out in Palmerston North. Court documents say he punched the taxi driver repeatedly until he was unconscious, hurt a passerby who tried to intervene, and kicked and punched two arresting officers.

The taxi driver was left with a broken eye socket and nose requiring weeks off work, surgeries and follow up dental work.

Wesley was charged with assault, intent to injure and assaulting a police officer and served a nine-month period of home detention.

A psychological assessment prepared for the NZDF after the arrests said he was suicidal and diagnosed him with high Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms and high levels of depression in connection to his deployment to the UK.

But the defence force disputes the cause, saying it was unclear whether trauma was related to his training stint or the injuries from the attack on him at the party.

Wesley said he has no memory of the night he assaulted the driver and has been sober ever since.

“I still feel heavily disappointed in myself and knowing that it was totally out of my character to do something so horrendous to someone and only wish that the victim and their family is safe and healthy.”

The victim is a married man with two young children. Following the assault he was unable to work for three weeks, graduating to reduced hours, during the day because his vision has not recovered from the injuries. At the time of sentencing he had been to five follow up appointments at the hospital and needed ongoing private dental care.

If Wesley had got his six months post deployment follow up debrief on time – it would have been in February, a month before the assault. According to NZDF it was conducted in June 2024 – 10 months after his deployment.

The psychologist report said Wesley’s drinking habits changed dramatically when he returned from the UK. He was consuming a box, or 12 bottles, a day to numb the pain.

“Jack’s experiences of his deployment to the UK appear to have left him with significant moral distress and grief regarding the civilians he trained and subsequently lost in war. He is a very relational person, seemingly inclined to put others first, and described building strong bonds with many of his trainees who he described as “the kids” (with a sense that he and his colleagues in the NZDF were their parents)”

Wesley said this hurt had been building for some time, and the delayed access to mental health support hindered him further.

“Pretty much the help started once my timer went off, and that only happened because the army put me in with a psych to see what was happening with me.”

He said members of his team complained to him about the time delay in getting help and said they were ‘losing their heads’.

“They [NZDF] tell us all the things that we need to know, we need to hear. But when it comes to actually supporting us, there’s nothing really there until s**t hits the fan.”

He said after his arrest, psychological help was readily available for the rest of his unit.

“It opened up so many people’s eyes, and they finally got the help that they needed to before they blew up as well.”

NZ Defence Force

Job loss

Wesley lost his job in the NZ Defence Force because of his offending, despite pleas from his lawyer, concerns from the judge and recommendations from bosses and the psychologist.

Judge Stephanie Edwards said since his arrest, Wesley had shown remorse and sought help.

She also noted the links between his work trauma, drinking and offending – offering a discount to his sentence.

“There are clear links to the trauma that you have suffered partly in the service of your country in your excessive drinking and therefore to this offending.

“I note, too, that your employer, the New Zealand Defence Force, is to be commended for the steps they have taken to recognise the links between your role in the army and this offending and to provide you with psychological and counselling services,” said Judge Edwards.

A transcript document of the court sentencing shows while considering her options Judge Edwards asked whether home detention would affect his employment.

Those documents also show the NZ Defence Force representative said it would not affect his role, and the army would find a way to work around the realities of a home detention sentence.

Less than two months later the NZDF held a retention hearing, and he was let go.

“It shocked me the day that they came around sat me down and told me that my service is getting terminated. I took it on the chin once they said it, but deep down I was broken.”

“There’s just a big empty space in me now.”

Wesley said he would never go back, but he would die for his unit.

“I’ll take a bullet for every single one of them”

“I still have a lot of love for the defence force and what they do, just take care of our Servicemen and servicewomen who have taken this step to help defend a loving country. “

Operation Tieke is not a qualifying Operational Service under the Veterans’ Support Act 2014.

That means Wesley is not covered by the Veterans Support Act, and not eligible for support from Veterans Affairs.

Notes written by the Brigade Commander who signed off his discharge said: “I see that Wesley has raised the topic of PTSD and I want the unit and NZDF medical to ensure PTE Wesley has the appropriate support as he exits the service.”

Jack Wesley said there has been no support from the defence force since his termination.

The NZDF declined to be interviewed.

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

How dark patterns on the web are designed to keep your cash

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A woman shops online from her phone. Unsplash/ Vitaly Gariev

What’s being termed ‘dark patterns’ are becoming increasingly prevalent on shopping websites as online businesses scramble for your dollars

Subscriptions that are impossible to cancel, hidden fees added at the checkout, and constant offers of discounts in exchange for your personal information – dark patterns are the internet traps designed to make you spend more money.

While not explicitly illegal, they’re getting overwhelming.

Last month, food delivery company Hello Fresh was fined $845,000 for misleading its customers, and if you’re online shopping this Christmas, you need to be on the lookout.

“It’s things like hidden fees, where you make a purchasing decision, get to the checkout, and suddenly there’s $20, $30, $40 extra,” said Consumer NZ’s Chris Schulz.

“It’s things like scarcity cues … everyone’s seen those, ‘only one left at this price’ notes, and then there’s subscription traps, everyone’s had a meal kit delivery service or a gym membership that they just can’t be bothered to cancel because you know it’s going to be painful.”

Consumer NZ has just released a report detailing its research on dark patterns.

The overwhelming feedback from research participants was frustration, said Schulz.

“[Dark patterns] have a triple impact, they take our money, people told us they have spent more because of dark patterns… they waste our time, some dark patterns are designed to keep us engaged longer on sites or to stop us from going elsewhere.

“They just affect our confidence as well; they chip away at how people feel, especially if you’re in a less confident bracket.”

Some dark patterns also invade our privacy.

“You’ll often get these offers, ’10 percent, if you sign up,’… and then you’ll have to put in your name, you’ll have to put in your address, your date of birth, whether you’re male or female or other, sometimes even more than that.

“Then these companies have information on you, we know they can use that data to target advertising.”

But dark patterns are also incredibly effective.

Alex Sims, a commercial law professor from Auckland University, said a study that monitored websites found those using dark patterns had double the participation rate than websites that didn’t. When there was an aggressive use of dark patterns, participation quadrupled.

But Sims doesn’t think we need new laws, because the Fair Trading Act and the Privacy Act, while not explicitly defining the shady sales tactics, already cover most dark patterns.

“The main one is under the Fair Trading Act, where businesses cannot be misleading, deceptive and mislead people about price… quite a few of the dark patterns are misleading, so therefore breach the Fair Trading Act.”

Under the Privacy Act, if information about an individual has been collected in an unfair manner, then that individual has grounds to lay a complaint, she said.

“Say, for example, you want to buy a pair of shoes… you go to the checkout, and then it says, ‘create an account,’ and it requires your email address, your phone number, and all these other things that you don’t want to give.

“Arguably, you could say that’s not fair because the only way that you could buy those shoes is to enter that information.”

The reason why dark patterns have become so prolific isn’t because of a lack of laws, she said, but a lack of enforcement.

“Even if [companies] do go to the extreme end… what will happen is normally the Commerce Commission will come along, write a letter and say, ‘look we’re investigating this,’ and often if the company goes ‘oh look I’m really sorry we didn’t realise we won’t do it again,’ [and] sometimes the Commerce Commission will keep on going but most of the time they won’t.”

But it’s also a matter of resourcing; taking legal action uses a lot of time and staff, and it’s expensive. But while providing the Commerce Commission with more resources would be a good idea, she said, there is some onus on consumers as well.

“First of all, what they should be doing is when they experience dark patterns, is stop using that website, and that’s what the Consumer NZ report actually identified… almost 40 percent of people had stopped using [those] websites.”

Sharing your bad experience is also helpful, and people can also make a complaint to the Commerce Commission.

“That’s why Hello Fresh was actually prosecuted because a whole lot of people complained… if the Commerce Commission doesn’t know anything about it, it can’t do anything.”

The Hello Fresh case centred around cold calls made to customers between February 2022 and July 2023, where customers were offered vouchers without being told that accepting them would reactivate their subscription to the service.

While this case was still before the courts, Consumer NZ was conducting its study on dark patterns and had participants try to cancel a Hello Fresh subscription.

At the time, this was a five-step process.

Hello Fresh has since updated its subscription services, telling Consumer NZ it streamlined and simplified its cancellation process in the wake of Consumer’s research.

But these kinds of sales tactics remain rife, and in this episode, Sims tells The Detail what tweaks to existing laws she thinks would help tackle the issue.

“With the Privacy Act, have it so when someone has signed up to social media or something like that, that the highest privacy preservation settings are set … and then allow the user, if they want to, then to share it more.

The second one is to prevent nagging, which Sims explains is when little boxes saying ‘buy this now’ or ‘enter your email for a discount’ keep popping up while a shopper is on a website.

“In Europe, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) and the Data Act say basically you can’t do that and you’ve got a set time period, so you can’t ask them more than say once every year,” she says.

Then there’s the tweak to prevent subscription traps. Sims says it should be as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to sign up for it.

But amidst the frustration and anxiety these dark patterns cause, there is hope that it could encourage consumers to return to in-store shopping.

Schulz hopes that is the case.

“There is something about that experience.

“I love talking to shopkeepers, you don’t get that experience when you’re online, sometimes you can have really good conversations… I think that could be an upside.”

Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here.

You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.

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

Ten things your landlord can’t do

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Tenants have more control in New Zealand’s rental market than they have for a while. RNZ

Tenants have more control in New Zealand’s rental market than they have for a while.

With rents soft and more options to choose from, it’s not a bad time to be looking for a place to live.

But do you know the rules your landlord has to abide by?

Recent Tenancy Tribunal rulings show some are still getting it wrong.

Turn up unannounced

Landlords can’t just turn up to their rental properties without giving notice, even if it is just to do something outside.

They need to give 48 hours’ notice for things like inspections and 24 hours’ notice for repairs or maintenance. If they don’t, they can have exemplary damages awarded against them to a maximum of $1500.

In one case heard by the Tenancy Tribunal recently, a tenant claimed their landlord arrived at the premises uninvited and unannounced, entered the garden and shouted at them about parking in a shared driveway. The landlord argued he had been working on a neighbouring property and noticed where the car was parked.

The tribunal said even if the landlord only stopped at the gate and did not enter the garden, he raised his voice and shouted at the tenants and threatened to end their tenancy. It said the behaviour was a breach of the tenant’s quiet enjoyment and interfered with their reasonable peace, comfort and privacy.

If a house is listed for sale, the tenant has to give permission for open homes to be held.

Require professional cleaning

Your landlord cannot ask you to pay for professional cleaning when you leave, including carpet cleaning.

Tenants are only required to leave the property in a reasonably clean and tidy state.

Sarina Gibbon, director of Tenancy Advisory, said the introduction of new rules around pets could make this a bit murkier. “With the pet provisions coming in, it’s going to be really interesting.”

She said one of the examples given with the introduction of the new rules was that landlords might say a pet was allowed if carpets were cleaned to a professional standard. “That’s just an example given by Parliament… it doesn’t mean it will cover all situations.

“It’s one of those things that I think we’re just going to have to watch how the tribunal interprets the new laws and applied them to give the industry guidance. At the moment we’re still operating under the old rules.

“But without pets, absolutely a tenant cannot be required to professionally clean the carpet.”

Sarina Gibbon, director of Tenancy Advisory. Supplied

Charge a pet bond (yet)

Landlords are not allowed to collect a pet bond until 1 December.

“I’m hearing every week landlords are collecting pet bonds and they have been all year when they are actually not legally allowed to until December 1,” Gibbon said.

“So if a tenant asks for a pet on November 30 and the landlord gives consent on November 30, that landlord cannot collect a pet bond. If the landlord gives consent on December 1, that’s fine.”

Ask tenants to cover the difference when a property is re-let at a lower rent

Gibbon said landlords generally could not ask tenants to pay the difference in rent if they broke a fixed term and the property could not be rented again for the same amount.

“Especially in this market, I’m seeing with market rent going down and tenants trying to get out of fixed-term tenancies, trying to break their lease early, I’m seeing some landlords and property managers try to charge the rental differential because they can’t get the 2024 level of rent in 2025.

“Even though there are some rare exceptions [where] the Tenancy Tribunal has found that the landlord can charge that, those are really quite unusual.

“The law provides for you to charge reasonable expenses that you incur because of the early break but you can’t charge the rental differential because the loss of income is not an expense.”

In a case the tribunal heard, a tenant broke a fixed term that was due to end in December this year in April.

The property was re-let on 5 June and the tribunal said the tenant could be required to pay rent until then.

But while the new tenant was paying $10 less a week, the adjudicator said the former tenant could not be required to cover this because the landlord did not provide enough evidence that the drop was necessary.

“The landlord would need to show that the lower rent was reasonable in the circumstances and that all reasonable steps were taken to achieve the best rent possible. Without this evidence the claim for rent loss is dismissed.”

The adjudicator also said a break fee could not be charged. “The landlord can only claim reasonable costs that are directly related to finding a new tenant. The landlord must provide evidence of these costs. The only cost that the landlord was able to prove was the Trade Me advertisement which I have awarded.”

Take tenants’ possessions

Landlords cannot take tenants’ possessions to cover money they are owed.

In one case involving a Beach Haven property, a landlord who had been sending the tenant “derogatory and racially suggestive messages”, according to the tribunal, entered the premises, threw the tenants’ belongings out, handed them a bill and took their $4000 computer.

The landlord was told to pay $1500 for breaching the tenant’s quiet enjoyment and $3000 for the possessions.

Let rent arrears add up

If a tenant falls behind on rent, the landlord cannot let the arrears mount unreasonably.

The Residential Tenancies Act says when either party breaches the agreement, the other party needs to take reasonable steps to limit the damage or loss.

Gibbon said that duty to mitigate loss meant landlords had to act quickly on arrears.

She said sometimes people would think that their landlord was being nice by not chasing them, and might be complacent. “If that gets piled up it could tip the legal test and the tribunal could very well say essentially you’ve not done anything about it, you’ve not given a 14-day notice, you’ve not sought to terminate the tenancy, you’ve not initiated an installment plan to get yourself compensated… we’re not going to award you all the rent that’s owed to you.”

Not pass on bills in a timely way

Gibbon said people also needed to ensure tenants received bills promptly.

“In Auckland you get billed by Watercare and you’re supposed to pass the usage fee to the tenant each month… you have to on-charge it to your tenant reasonably quickly. I’m seeing landlords who sit on it for months and months or even years then at the end of the tenancy go ‘oh by the way you owe me this much’, like thousands of dollars in water. They can’t do that.”

Leave the country for more than three weeks

Any landlord who leaves the country for more than 21 consecutive days needs to appoint an agent to act for them.

Bungle cabin questions

Gibbon said there could also be problems with tenants wanting to install a cabin.

“If the cabin is a vehicle it’s not really a Residential Tenancies Act issue and to withhold consent or attach conditions to that consent, as landlords sometimes think they’re entitled to, is a breach of the tenant’s quiet enjoyment. But on the flip side, not all cabins or caravans or tiny homes can be brought on to the property by the tenant without the landlords’ consent. It’s complicated.”

She said people should get legal advice.

Retaliate

Landlords can’t give notice to tenants or raise rent in retaliation for anything they have done.

In one case, tenants were given notice in June that a family member was going to move back into their property.

But they said it was prompted by a dispute, including issues about the rent and the healthy homes rules.

“Where there is a short period of time between the tenant raising an issue about the tenancy (or filing a claim) and the landlord serving a notice, this may lead to a strong inference that the landlord was at least partly motivated by the tenant exercising their rights. In this situation, the evidential onus shifts to the landlord to show that there was a legitimate reason for the notice,” the adjudicator said.

“In my view the fact that the landlords served notice the day after the case management conference held in this matter, at which the tenants itemised their claims in some detail, leads to a strong inference that the landlords were at least partly motivated by the tenants exercising their rights.”

The tenants were awarded $1500.

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

KiwiSaver provider calls for increased contribution to be compulsory

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Source: Radio New Zealand

File photo. National leader Christopher Luxon and finance spokesperson Nicola Willis. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

National’s policy to increase KiwiSaver contribution rates has been met with a big tick of approval by one provider, but with a call to make it compulsory.

National is proposing that, if re-elected, it would gradually increase contributions by employees and employers to 6 percent each, or 12 percent overall.

The government already announced it would lift the default rate from 3 percent to 4 by 2028, at this year’s Budget.

Denouncing “suger-rush” responses to tough economic conditions, National leader Christopher Luxon told party members in Upper Hutt the policy would support New Zealanders’ long-term financial security.

“If we’re serious about building the future, and I am, it’s time for us to increase our ambition for our individual retirement savings, and for our collective savings that can be invested in some of the most transformational projects in our infrastructure pipeline.”

Luxon said he expected KiwiSaver would play an even bigger role in supporting retirements, hinting National could once again campaign on raising the superannuation age.

Simplicity managing director Sam Stubbs said the policy could be a “turning point for economic growth” in New Zealand, as more saving led to more investment.

He said given National’s history of “chipping away” at the scheme, this was a positive step in the right direction.

“This is a really big endorsement of KiwiSaver by National, easily the biggest that they’ve ever made. It really does indicate to me that next year is going to be a KiwiSaver election, in the sense that you are getting parties differentiating themselves not by whether they do or don’t like KiwiSaver, but how much they want it to grow. And that’s a very positive thing for the country.”

New Zealand First has also promised to make KiwiSaver compulsory, with contributions from both employers and employees rising to 10 percent, but offset by tax cuts.

Stubbs said the onus was now on Labour.

“Not only are [National] now firmly endorsing KiwiSaver as a pathway to growth and prosperity, but they’re also serving it up to Labour and saying ‘OK, what are you going to do? This was your policy, are you going to grow it as fast as we do?’”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins. RNZ / Mark Papalii

Labour leader Chris Hipkins welcomed National’s “conversion” to supporting KiwiSaver, given its historic opposition and recent cuts to the government contribution rate.

But Hipkins said there would need to be a credible transition plan to support people on low incomes to get KiwiSaver and maintain their contributions.

“At the moment, it’s tough going in New Zealand. People are just making ends meet. Increasing KiwiSaver contributions is a good thing, but without a plan to support people in the process of increasing KiwiSaver contributions, a lot of Kiwis are going to be hit really hard by it,” he said.

Financial writer Martin Hawes said National’s proposal was “reasonable” to bring New Zealand in line with Australia.

But he said people would struggle if they could not afford to take 6 percent out of their salaries.

“There’ll be definitely people who simply don’t join because they can’t. They can’t pay 6 percent now, they’d be better off joining and paying 2 percent or 3 percent or whatever they can afford, and having that matched, because it’s free money. It’s extra money from the from the employer.”

Unlike Australia, there are no plans to make KiwiSaver compulsory, with National saying New Zealand instead has universal superannuation.

Stubbs said making KiwiSaver compulsory should be the next step.

“Those people who aren’t saving into KiwiSaver are going to be much worse off later on in life. And so if we want to remove inequality in New Zealand, and we don’t like inequality in New Zealand, we have to make sure that everybody is saving for their retirement while they’re earning. And if you don’t have compulsion, that isn’t happening.”

The Retirement Commissioner Jane Wrightson welcomed any policy changes that strengthened New Zealanders’ ability to save for retirement, and the proposal could be a “positive step” towards improving long-term financial security.

“Higher contribution rates will help close the savings gap and ensure more people can enjoy a better standard of living in retirement,” she said.

However, she said it was essential the increases genuinely added to employees’ savings, rather than being offset through total remuneration arrangements.

National’s policy document states that “as has always been the case with KiwiSaver,” employer contributions may effectively for part of the wage negotiation process.

“The recent Review of Retirement Income Policies highlighted that total remuneration practices undermine the intent of KiwiSaver by reducing take-home pay and eroding the additional benefit of employer contributions. We strongly support banning this approach to ensure fairness and transparency,” Wrightson said.

Hawes agreed that the “loophole” should be closed off.

“There are some people who negotiate with their employer that the employer not pay the contribution that they’re expected to pay into KiwiSaver, but instead just put it as part of their total remuneration. So it goes to them in cash, and that means that they are effectively not saving for retirement.”

Hipkins seemed onboard with the call for a ban.

“If we’re going to make KiwiSaver better and bigger, we need to protect employees. And that means making it very clear that KiwiSaver contributions can’t be viewed as part of an employee’s overall pay packet.”

National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis said she was “nervous” that businesses would push back at the Budget announcement, but their support meant she believed they would be onboard with the further increases.

Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young said the challenge was “two-fold,” and there needed to be a balance between what was affordable for employers and employees.

“The big thing from a retail perspective is that whilst there’s a wide variety of roles that are available in retail, for many people that work in retail they’re not earning significant money,” she said.

“And businesses, right now, obviously are really struggling, so that additional cost is going to go onto the business, and could incur some price increases, depending on how that plays out over time.”

Willis was confident the phased changes, and the long notice, would provide “certainty and stability and clarity.”

Dennis Maga, from Workers First Union, says members were already struggling to contribute to KiwiSaver.

“We absolutely support any moves to increase workers’ retirement savings,” he said.

“I’m not sure that increasing an employer’s KiwiSaver contribution is great when the government can’t seem to get a handle the cost of living crisis right now.”

The union represents many lower-paid workers, and Maga said even if the increased contribution was phased in, it would be tough if basic needs like food, rent and fuel were still getting expensive.

Maga said the minimum wage needed to rise higher than inflation.

“There’s a big gap in terms of wages, comparing our wages or pay across the ditch,” Maga said.

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

National’s KiwiSaver plan could add millions to balances – but there’s a catch

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Source: Radio New Zealand

RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

National’s announcement that it would push up contribution rates for KiwiSaver to a total 12 percent is a good step – but there is a major flaw that needs fixing first, one KiwiSaver provider says.

Prime Minister and National leader Christopher Luxon said on Sunday that if it was re-elected next year, the party would gradually increase KiwiSaver contributions to match the Australian 12 percent rate by 2032, with 6 percent contributions from both employers and employees.

It has already started a process to increase the default rate to 4 percent plus 4 percent by April 1, 2028.

“Smaller retirement balances present a challenge for New Zealand as a whole, too, as we rely more on investment from offshore to fund the infrastructure, start-ups, and housing we need to grow our economy, create jobs and lift incomes,” Luxon said.

“If we’re serious about building the future, and I am, it’s time to aim higher.”

Rupert Carlyon, founder of Koura KiwiSaver, agreed contribution rates were not high enough.

He calculated that with a return of 5.5 percent a year and 12 percent contributions, a 21-year-old could end up with $2.13 million in their account at 65, compared to $1.08m at a 3 percent plus 3 percent rate.

Even a conservative investor could end up with another $370,000 as a result of the change, and a balanced fund could have more than $500,000 more.

But he said a big problem was that employers could dodge the increase by moving employees to total remuneration packages.

Under a total remuneration package, an employee is told that a certain amount of money is available to them and they can make their KiwiSaver contributions out of that, or use it as take-home pay.

These have been highlighted as a problem by many providers and the Retirement Commission, who want them banned.

Carlyon said as contribution rates got higher, more people might be tempted to shift over.

“An economically rational person would be better taking the cash in hand rather than opting to have 12 percent of your salary locked up until the age of 65. Without incentives, this policy has the potential to achieve the opposite of what we want – people will be actually discouraged from investing in their KiwiSaver.”

He said employers could not put people on to total remuneration contracts simply to avoid the increase. “But they will be able to turn around, and I suspect to a lot of employees they’ll say ‘hey what do you want to do if you want I’ll give you cash from now on’… they’ll use this as an excuse to move a lot of contracts to total remuneration.”

Carlyon supported calls for a ban on total remuneration. “Admittedly it will put a burden on the private sector but actually it’s a nice fiscally neutral way to incentivise people to save for their retirement.”

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

Cliff rescue in central Auckland suburb

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Source: Radio New Zealand

File photo. RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King

Two people stuck on a cliff in the Auckland suburb of St Heliers have been rescued two hours after they fell.

Emergency services were called to the accident shortly after 9pm this evening.

Fire and Emergency says its specialist lines team managed to reach the pair from below and took them to shore via boat.

St Johns said two patients in a serious condition have been taken to hospital.

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

First indigenous woman to study at Oxford inspires Māori Rhodes Scholar

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Source: Radio New Zealand

University of Waikato student Naianga Tapiata has been named a Rhodes Scholar and will attend the University of Oxford. Supplied/University of Waikato

A Māori Rhodes Scholar says Mākereti (Maggie) Papakura, believed to be the first indigenous woman to study at Oxford, was a huge inspiration behind his choice to study at the same university.

University of Waikato honours student Naianga Tapiata will complete a two-year Master of Philosophy in Social Anthropology at Oxford from 2026.

“We heard the stories of Maggie Papakura growing up, but I never dreamed of it, never saw it being possible,” he said. “Then I remember the first time I was lucky enough to go to Oxford and visit her urupā.

“That, I think, sparked something in me where I realised, ‘Oh, this is possible. This is possible for a young Māori to go to a university like Oxford’.”

Born in Matatā in 1873, Papakura explored the customs of her people of Te Arawa from a female perspective. She died in 1930, just weeks before she was due to present her thesis.

Her thesis was posthumously published by friend, Rhodes Scholar and fellow Oxford anthropologist T K Penniman, in a book entitled The Old-Time Māori and she was awarded a posthumous degree by Oxford University in September 2025.

Tapiata was raised in Rotorua, near the village of Whakarewarewa – the same thermal village Papakura once guided tourists through. She was able to demonstrate that Māori culture had value on the global stage, he said.

“Everyone talked about her when we were over [at Oxford], where she lived, the people she interacted with, and the conditions of care I think she gave to everybody in her vicinity demonstrated to me, I think, the ability for Māori to help offer things to the world, not just how Oxford or the world can help offer things to us, but it’s a reciprocal relationship.

“I think Mākereti was the embodiment of that.”

Mākereti Papakura was believed to be the first indigenous woman to study at Oxford. Supplied / University of Oxford

Tapiata (Te Arawa, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Waikato) is the first graduate of kura kaupapa Māori to become a Rhodes Scholar.

The scholarship is administered by Universities New Zealand and includes a three-stage interview process, involving references, academic results, essays and in-person interviews. Established in 1902, the scholarship is the oldest international graduate scholarship programme in the world.

Tapiata told RNZ it was still a surreal feeling, even two weeks after it was announced, and he was grateful to all the people who had contributed to his education.

“I think it’s a testament to the way they’ve invested in to kaupapa like Te Aho Matua, Kura Kaupapa Māori, Kohanga Reo, etc.”

Tapiata said we were living in a time of revitilisation of indigenous cultures across the world, and Oxford – as a place steeped in colonialism – could play a role in understanding the crossroads of indigenous cultures and Western society.

“I think what’s more important for me is the learning outside the classroom, walking through the halls where colonialism was thought about and strategised about. [What’s] probably more important to me is the people that gather at the University of Oxford and the experiences that come with the diversity of people.”

Indigenous scholars and scholars who were passionate about indigenous cultures had an opportunity to gather at Oxford, and wānanga about these issues, he said.

“I think the collaboration opportunities that come with that, to see what we could do, not just at Oxford, but what we could take back to our own people and help to offer to Oxford opportunities that I think we all hope and dream that our own cultures, our own ways of living have an opportunity to help solve some of the world’s greatest problems like climate change.”

The timing of Tapiata’s study at Oxford couldn’t be any better.

“I think that goes back to the kōrero about Maggie Papakura,” he said. “She enrolled at Oxford in 1927.

“It’s been 98 years since she enrolled. It’ll be 99 when I head over and, only a couple of months ago, she got her degree posthumously awarded to her.

“I think timing played a big role in this opportunity for everyone involved.

“I think, the ability of time to go beyond the normal conditions of human nature, how that can play a role in decision-making is important.

“As we know, as Māori, when you set sail according to different environmental tohu, those factors, I think, play a role in everything, not just things that are Māori, things that are indigenous, but also how they can play a role in things and opportunities like this.”

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

Primary school enrolments drop, as national roll growth slows

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The overall growth was significantly less than 2023 and 2024. Unsplash

Growth in the national school roll slowed this year, as the number of primary school enrolments fell.

Education Ministry figures showed 856,412 school students at the start of July, 5413 more than the same time last year.

Rolls increased in Auckland and Canterbury, but fell in regions, including Northland, Taranaki and Wellington.

The growth was focused on secondary schools, which grew by 6490 students to a total of 311,743, and composite schools, up 2519 students to 73,144.

Primary schools dropped 3835 students to 466,682 at 1 July.

The overall growth was significantly less than in 2023 and 2024, when immigration caused student numbers to jump 15,887 and 19,961 respectively.

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

Showing their aroha for the activist ‘power couple’ of Māngere East

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Asia Pacific Report

Māngere East community stalwarts and activists from across Tamaki Makaurau Auckland have gathered at the local Village Green to pay tribute to their popular ‘power couple’ and entertainers Roger Fowler and Lyn Doherty with their whānau.

MC Emily Worman of Science in a Van summed it up best yesterday morning by declaring the event as the “perfect opportunity to show our aroha for both Roger and Lyn” after a lifetime or service and activism for the community.

Fowler recently retired from his community duties at the Māngere East Community Centre and is seriously ill with cancer.

The community presented both Fowler and Doherty with stunning korowai and their “main stage” entourage included Māori land rights lawyer and activist Pania Newton and former MP Aupito Sua William Sio.

“This is the perfect place to acknowledge them,” said Worman. “Right in the heart of our community beside the Māngere East Community Centre which started out as Roger and Lyn needed after school care for their kids — so you put your heads together and started an after school programme in the late 1990s.

“Right in front of the library that you campaigned to protect and rebuild back in 2002,
over the road from the Post Shop which you organised the community to successfully fight to stop its closure in 2010.

“Next to the Metro Theatre where the Respect Our Community Campaign, ROCC Stars, met with the NZ Transport Authority over 10 years ago now to stop a motorway from going through our hood.

‘Putting in the mahi’
“Next to Vege Oasis which would have been another alcohol outlet if it wasn’t for you and your whānau putting in the mahi!

“Right here in this festival — where, in previous years, we’ve gathered signatures and spread the word about saving the whenua out at Ihumatao.”

Worman said her words were “just a highlight reel” of some of the “awesomeness that is Roger Fowler”.

“We all have our own experiences how Roger has supported us, organised us and shown us how to reach out to others, make connections and stand together,” she added

Former MP Sua said to Fowler and the crowd: “In the traditional Samoan fale, there is a post in the middle – some posts have two or more — usually it is a strong post that hold up the roof and everything else is connected to it.

Roger Fowler about to be presented with a korowai by activist Brendan Corbett. former MP Aupito Sua William Sio (right) liked Fowler to the mainstay post in a Samoan fale. Image: Asia Pacific Report

“And I think, you are that post. You are that post for Māngere East, for our local community.”

While paying tribute to Fowler’s contribution to Mangere East, Sua also acknowledged his activism for international issues such as the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Fowler had set up Kia Ora Gaza, a New Zealand charity member of the global Gaza Freedom Flotilla network trying to break the siege around the enclave. He wore his favourite “Kia Ora Gaza” beanie for Palestine during the tribute.

‘Powerful man in gumboots’
Worman said: “Roger, we all know you love to grab your guitar and get the crowd going.

“But you’ve shown us over the years, it’s not about getting the attention for yourself — it’s about pointing us to where it matters most.

“I’ve never met such a quiet yet powerful man who wears gumboots to almost every occasion!”

Turning to Roger’s partner, “Lyn, on the other hand, always looks fabulous.

“She is the perfect match for you Roger. We might not always see Lyn out the front but — trust me — she’s a powerhouse in her own right!

“Lyn, who knows intuitively what our families need, and then gets a PhD to prove it in order to get the resources so that our whānau can thrive.”

Part of the crowd at Māngere East’s Village Green. Image: Asia Pacific Report

The work of health and science psychologist Dr Lyn Doherty (Ngati Porou and Ngapuhi) with the Ohomairangi Trust is “vast and continues to have a huge impact on the wellbeing of our community”.

Worman also said one of the couple’s biggest achievements together had been their four children — “they are all amazing, caring, capable and fun children, Kahu, Tawera, Maia and Hone”.

“And they are now raising another generation of outstanding humans,” she said.

Other Asia Pacific Report images and video clips are here. Montage: APR

The three grandchildren treated the Village Green crowd to a waiata and also songs from Fowler’s recently released vinyl album “Songs of Struggle and Solidarity” and finishing with a Christmas musical message for all.

The whānau are also working on a forthcoming book of community activism and resistance with a similar title to the album.

Fowler thanked the community for its support and gave an emotional tribute to Doherty for all her mahi and aroha.

Roger Fowler’s grandchildren sing a waiata on Māngere East’s Village Green yesterday. Image: Asia Pacific Report

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Tenancy Tribunal orders Auckland landlord Darren Williams to pay tenants at two properties

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Tenants Niral Dedhia and Jagdev Snider said property owner David Williams made racist comments, such as “go to Mumbai”.

A landlord has been accused of subjecting tenants at two rental properties to racist messages, including telling one couple to “go to Mumbai”.

Darren Williams has appeared before the Tenancy Tribunal twice this year, both times for the way he has treated tenants at two Auckland properties.

Tenants Niral Dedhia and Jagdev Sinder rented a property Williams owned in Birkdale. They told the tribunal the relationship between the parties soured towards the end of the tenancy in April last year.

Dedhia and Sinder said Williams tried to demand money for items in the house they had not broken and, when they refused, he applied “psychological pressure”.

They told the tribunal he made baseless accusations and racist comments, such as “go to Mumbai”, “why did you vote for National?”, “now go to Winston Peters”, along with other derogatory remarks about the tenants’ parents and their nationality.

The tenants also claimed Williams came to the house without permission, took a pair of expensive slippers and potplants, and threatened to enter the property when they were not home.

In defence, Williams said the potplants caused the deck to rot in winter and denied taking the slippers.

Dedhia and Sinder provided the tribunal with evidence of all the communications between the parties, which contained references to several nationalities.

In a decision released in September, tribunal adjudicator Joon Yi said the messages from the landlord “can be best described as rambling accusations and conspiracy theory-type remarks”.

Despite this, Yi said he didn’t order Williams to pay compensation to his tenants for the messages, because he was suffering from a “somewhat evident mental condition” at the time.

Yi did order him to pay $500 for the potplants and slippers for what he called a “serious invasion to the tenant”.

‘Bizarre’ remarks

In another decision from the tribunal, released this week, Williams was found to have made remarks with a racial undertone to a tenant at a property he owned in Beach Haven.

The tenant moved into the rental in August 2024 and paid $700 a week. In March, Williams advised the rent would increase to $765 per week.

When the tenant told him that was illegal under the Residential Tenancies Act, he agreed to delay the rise until August.

In April, the power tripped at the property. The tenant left for safety and told the landlord, who – according to the decision – then accused the other man of causing the damage and made “bizarre” remarks that caused him distress.

When the tenant requested an invoice for a water bill he had paid his landlord for, Williams responded with “more strange comments, including one implying racial undertone”, according to the tribunal’s decision.

Williams sent the tenant a picture of a screw and demanded an explanation, demanded money and then threatened to take his dishwasher away.

After his tenant reminded him that a landlord must give 24 hours’ notice before entering a property, the decision said Williams sent more derogatory and racially suggestive messages.

Within a week, Williams entered the property without permission and allegedly threw the tenant’s belongings out, including a $4000 computer.

The tenant applied to be released from his fixed-term contract at a hearing last month. He provided photos of his belongings on the street, along with Williams holding his desktop computer.

The tribunal adjudicator said Williams didn’t disagree with his tenant’s version of events. He instead said he wished to apologise and was suffering mental health issues at the time.

Yi, who handled both tenants’ applications, said while he took into account the landlord’s mental health, it didn’t completely excuse his behaviour.

“Although this explains his bizarre acts, it does not do so to the extent of it completely excusing his actions,” Yi said.

“The effect of the acts of the landlord had made the tenant fear for continued stay and had personal belongings thrown out through an extreme invasion of privacy. The perplexing messages and emails with reference to the tenant’s race were such that it amounted to harassment.”

Yi ordered Williams pay his tenant $1500 for exemplary damages for breaching the tenant’s quiet enjoyment and $3000 for disposing of the tenant’s goods.

In 2020, Williams was ordered to pay more than $6000 to two tenants, after unlawfully entering the Birkdale property, and taking away the front door, damaging or causing the tenants’ possessions to be wilfully damaged, and serving them with an unlawful trespass notice.

This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.

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

Search and rescue mission for missing person at Cape Reinga

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A person went missing in the water near Cape Reinga. 123RF

A search and rescue mission is underway for a person missing in the water near Cape Reinga – the northern-most tip of the North Island.

Police say they received a report of a person needing help in the water about 3.30pm, after falling from rocks near Tapotupotu Bay Beach.

They say they’re still searching.

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NZIGP Waikato Challenge cancelled after competitor taken to hospital in critical condition

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Hampton Downs Motorsport Park Hampton Downs

A Waikato motorsport event has been cancelled, after a competitor was taken to hospital in a critical condition.

MotorSport New Zealand said a competitor suffered a medical episode during a race at the NZIGP Waikato Challenge at Hampton Downs on Sunday.

They pulled to the side of the track and responders were on the scene immediately.

The rest of the event was called off.

MotorSport NZ president Deborah Day said its thoughts and best wishes were with the competitor and their family.

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Pouākai Tarns boardwalk upgrade could impair iconic photo oppportunity

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Source: Radio New Zealand

For many enjoying the Pouākai Tarns walk, getting the perfect shot of the maunga reflected in the water is a big drawcard. Madeleine Lynch

Trampers are warned that upgrades to the Pouākai Tarns boardwalk in Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki – the final phase of the Taranaki Crossing project – could mean they are delayed and may not get that special photograph they are after.

Department of Conservation Hauraki-Waikato-Taranaki regional director Tinaka Mearns said the tarns were a sensitive and significant wetland feature within Te-Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki, offering visitors dramatic views of both the Pouākai Range and Taranaki Maunga.

“For many enjoying the walk, it’s a chance to get the iconic image of the maunga reflected in the tarns’ water. It really is a fabulous peaceful location, which makes it so popular with visitors.”

Mearns said about 120 metres of boardwalk across the tarns would be replaced. At 1.2m wide, the new boardwalk would be nearly twice as wide as the existing structures and would be elevated above the sensitive tarns at heights between 20-90 centimetres.

The existing boardwalk will be replaced with a boardwalk nearly twice as wide. Supplied / Wayne Boness, Department of Conservation

Construction would take about nine weeks – weather allowing – and would mean staged closures of different sections of the boardwalk, while work was completed.

No detours would keep visitors off the sensitive plants, which were found across the tarns, and people enjoying the walk were asked to alert contractor staff to their presence.

“We do want to acknowledge the replacement of the boardwalk will mean some delays and visitors may not be able to get that special photograph they’re after, but we’re confident the investment and this part of the project will deliver a memorable experience for visitors, who’ll be out naturing when the work is completed – and we’d encourage them to come back another time.”

Taranaki iwi representative Jacqui King said the start of the final stage of the Taranaki Crossing infrastructure upgrade was an exciting milestone for all partners involved.

“Mana whenua have been working tirelessly with our DOC and Kānoa teams to ensure each project – within the broader Taranaki Crossing project – is focused on protecting ngā maunga, and providing manaaki [support] for manuhiri [visitors] throughout their journey.

“As kaitiaki [guardians] of this whenua, we hold a deep responsibility to care for this special place that sustains us all. This unique wetland is a taonga – a treasured ecosystem, rich with life and meaning.”

King said, over time, the growing number of visitors had placed stress on the delicate environment and ensuring it remained healthy for future generations was important.

“The extended and renewed boardwalk will allow people to continue to experience the beauty and mauri [life force] of this special place, without harming the fragile Taiao [water, soils and habitats] that lie beneath.”

King said the project partners looked forward to welcoming visitors, who shared their respect of this unique landscape – those who walked gently, who listened and who understood that true connection to the natural world came with care.

“Patience and support from manuhiri [visitors] during this time of rebuild will help us improve the infrastructure to protect this special place, so it can continue to thrive and inspire all who visit for generations to come.”

The Taranaki Crossing project was a partnership involving DOC, Kānoa – Regional Economic Development & Investment Unit, Ngā Iwi o Taranaki and hapū, which involved several tracks across Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki being upgraded and the Pouākai Hut replaced.

It was funded by the Provincial Growth Fund ($16.4 million), which was administered by Kānoa, with additional funding provided by DOC ($5.2m).

A Taranaki Crossing feasibility study in 2017 identified the project was expected to generate $3.7m annually for the region’s economy.

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

Auckland FC fall short of A-League win against Brisbane Roar in stalemate

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Auckland FC players celebrate a goal by Lachlan Brook to hit the lead early against Brisbane Roar. Andrew Cornaga/www.photosport.nz

Auckland FC were unable to assert themselves after the international break in a 1-1 A-League draw with Brisbane Roar.

With five key Auckland players sidelined by injury or suspension after red cards, Brisbane pushed the home side to the brink at Mt Smart on Sunday afternoon.

Auckland hit the lead early with an immense strike from well outside the box from Australian winger Lachlan Brook.

He curled a stunning 18th-minute free-kick into the top corner for his first goal of the season.

Brisbane was on the verge of the equaliser, when Brisbane’s Michael Ruse hit the crossbar.

The visitors continued to press forward and were rewarded in first-half stoppage time, when Michael Ruhs slipped a pass through to Justic Vidic.

Vidic fired the ball into the back of the net, squaring up the score before the halftime break.

Neither side could truly rise to the occasion in a tight second half.

Brisbane faced a scare in stoppage time, when Auckland captain Francis de Vries struck the crossbar.

Defending the final corner of the game, Brisbane did all they needed to split the points.

Auckland remain unbeaten after five games, one point off Sydney FC in top spot.

The Roar are in fifth, pleased with a credible performance on the road.

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Football: Teenage sensation creates history in 1-0 win for Wellington Phoenix women

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Pia Vlok,17, has become the youngest-ever goalscorer for Wellington Phoenix women. Marty Melville

Wellington Phoenix women are on the board in the A-League, thanks to a 38th-minute goal from teenage star Pia Vlok.

Wellington defeated heavyweights Melbourne Victory 1-0 at Porirua Park on Sunday afternoon in their third match of the 2025/26 season.

Vlok’s goal makes her the youngest-ever scorer for the Phoenix women, beating Milly Clegg’s record by one day.

The 17-year-old netted from the back post, after a sweeping move downfield from the Phoenix attack.

Vlok’s heroics in her second start for Wellington secured the team’s first win of the campaign.

She made her debut against Newcastle last week, impressing coach Bev Priestman enough to earn a second successive start.

Originally from Auckland, Vlok, signed a three-year deal with Wellington last August.

After a Round One bye, the Phoenix drew twice, before claiming victory in their third match.

The Wellington side are in the top six for the first time this season, up to fifth, two points behind leaders Newcastle Jets.

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Man sent to prison for historical Whangārei sex crimes

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Geoffery Miller’s first victim had lived with post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and had more than 20 clinical bouts of depression as a result of his offending against her. 123RF

Warning: This article discusses sexual abuse and may upset some readers.

It was not the sexual violence or years of trauma that finally broke a victim’s silence, but a chilling moment in adulthood, when her perpetrator stood in her kitchen, boasting of being “proud” of his life.

The remark felt so brazen, it ripped open the locked boxes of pain she carried and gave her the courage to report Geoffery Miller to the authorities.

Now, Miller, 53, has appeared in the Whangārei District Court for sentencing on historical sexual abuse charges relating to two victims in separate decades.

Earlier this year, he was found guilty by a jury of 12 charges, including rape and supplying methamphetamine to one of his victims.

Miller’s first round of offending occurred when he was 14 years old and repeatedly sexually abused a girl.

The court heard he violated her with objects and, on one occasion, he plied her with alcohol, until she passed out, and then raped her.

Decades later, Miller’s sexual offending continued, but he had a new victim.

Miller repeatedly touched that girl sexually and gave her cannabis. He also supplied her with methamphetamine and smoked it with her.

Miller touched her inappropriately and spoke to her sexually, as a form of payment for the drug.

Both victims, now adults, read their victim impact statements to Miller, while he stood in the dock at his recent sentencing.

The first victim said that, when she was younger, she was scared of Miller’s dark moods and he was intolerable to be around.

She said she felt safer on the streets, in the dark.

“I had to grow up real fast to survive you,” she said.

For years, she lived with post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and had more than 20 clinical bouts of depression, as a result of his offending against her.

When she encountered Miller in her adult life, she became triggered by something he said.

“You stood in my kitchen one day, in front of my teenage kids, and said, ‘I’m really proud of my life’,” the woman recalled.

“Those words triggered me and sickened me. How could you be proud of what you did to me?

“All the locked boxes in my brain, all the tucked-up pain came out, piece by piece.

“That event is what brought us here today. Your words set me free.

“I finally felt the courage to stand up tall and do the right thing.”

The second victim also lived a life with mental health challenges linked to Miller’s offending and battled a drug addiction, which took hold, after he had supplied her with drugs when she was younger.

“I’m constantly living the same thing, repetitive memories take over my mind that I never asked for,” she said in her victim impact statement.

“I had so much more potential than what I’ve been and what I am now. I don’t remember ever feeling happy or, let alone, good enough.

“Instead, I felt like a worthless piece of meat.”

Her statement had some parting words for Miller.

“I hope you f****** rot in sh**.”

Continued denial of offending

Crown lawyer Danette Cole said both victims had reported Miller was also physically violent towards them.

“Both victims came forward and said how they thought their life would turn out differently, but because of the offending, their lives have taken a turn for the worse,” Cole said.

Miller’s lawyer, Chris Muston, made no oral submissions at the hearing.

Judge Keith de Ridder noted Miller had denied the offending, when speaking to pre-sentence report writers.

“You make no admission whatsoever of any offending and deny any offending of any sort,” the judge said.

“The report touches briefly on your upbringing and your employment history with some sense of self-pity arising from, what you say, were the actions taken against you by the victims’ families.”

Judge de Ridder said the offending, particularly with the first victim, was premeditated, violent and intrusive.

“There were threats made to her, in particular, if she told anybody about this offending. The jury obviously also accepted her evidence that you would become physically and verbally abusive towards her.”

The judge considered the act of supplying drugs to a child to facilitate offending against the second victim as an aggravating feature.

He sentenced Miller to five years and seven months for the rape of the first victim, and imposed an additional cumulative four‑year term for offending against the second.

Miller was sent to prison for nine years and seven months.

This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.

Where to get help:

Sexual Violence

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Iwi vs iwi at Taranaki Tū Mai festival

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Friday’s formalities open up three days of cultural and sporting events. Supplied / Quentin Bedwell

It will be a case of iwi versus iwi at the Taranaki Tū Mai festival over the weekend.

More than 5000 uri of the eight iwi of Taranaki are expected to come together in Ōpunakē to celebrate their unity through cultural activities and “friendly” sporting competition.

Taranaki Iwi is hosting the ninth edition of the biennial event featuring about 30 events and activities across eight venues.

Taranaki Tū Mai Trust chairperson Wharehoka Wano said the festival was founded on three pou – kotahitanga (unity), whanaungatanga (connection) and Taranakitanga.

“It’s a unifying kaupapa because often we are doing our things as individual iwi and hapū and marae, but this is about us just being together and then the Taranakitanga is just celebrating our identity as descendants of Taranaki Maunga.”

Hundreds of whānau representing their iwi around the maunga were welcomed in a pōwhiri led by Taranaki Iwi at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Tamarongo on Friday morning. Supplied / Quentin Bedwell

He said iwi spent a lot of time working in the political, social and environmental spheres and “sometimes we just need an event which is about celebrating who we are”.

That didn’t mean competition wouldn’t be intense.

“I mean, of course we’re passionate, we enjoy and love competition. So, the rivalry is passionate and when we play, whether it’s netball, league or basketball, you can see and feel the passion.

“Because when you put on the iwi shirt you have responsibility to do well for your tribe. So all of that goes on, but as soon as the competition is over we hongi and embrace.”

Cultural activities included this year were wānanga, a hīkoi to Te Namu Pā, maara kūmara (gardening), kapa haka and tautohehohe (debating).

Iwi bring the Tū Mai trophies they won in 2023 back for this year’s events. Supplied / Quentin Bedwell

Sporting codes range from bowls, darts and pool, to rugby league 9s, netball, touch, volleyball and softball.

Two new events had been added to this year’s competition – euchre and surfing.

Wano was particularly pleased to see surfing on the list.

“It’s taken me nine events to get surfing into the programme and it does help that we are in Ōpunakē, but really we’ve got quite a strong community of Māori surfers that have performed at the highest levels both nationally and internationally.

“So, I’m looking forward to spending time with my surfing community and also helping them to have a connection back in the tribal area.”

Kapa haka at the Taranaki Tū Mai festival. Supplied

Tumu Whakarito (chief exectutive) of Te Kāhui o Taranaki, Damon Ritai, said hosting the event was a huge undertaking.

“If you think of some of the numbers in terms of registrations, for our iwi alone we had 993 bags ready and prepared to be picked up by whānau and that’s just one of the iwi, so there’s thousands of whānau that we that we are anticipating arriving here.”

Accommodation at Ōpunakē and surrounding marae was full or near capacity.

Ritai said beyond the sports and activities, the popular tamariki zone was returning and about 14 food trucks would be at the main festival hub axis between Ōpunakē High School, and Sinclair Electrical and Refrigeration Events Centre, which would also include a hauora hub and information stalls.

“I think there’s the island-style foods. You’ve got raw fish, you’ve got some hangi that will be available. I mean just for us we have 3000 we will be catering for on Sunday for a hangi – that’s something we are doing as an iwi – but you’ve got a whole lot of different food trucks that are going to be available to whānau, so I know they’ll be really popular.”

Bowls at the Taranaki Tū Mai festival. Supplied

Ritai was looking forward to a giant catch up.

“You know, the reconnecting with people that we haven’t seen for a time. I think, yeah, just having us all together in one place with great weather and getting involved in sporting events and involved in discussions and knowledge sharing.”

Meanwhile Wano, who also had whakapapa to Taranaki iwi, had his eye on capturing the Taranaki Tū Mai title from the last host, Ngāti Tama, on his mind.

“They are coming back to retain their trophy and, of course, Taranaki iwi as hosts have a responsibility to challenge for it. So, yes, there’s certainly a trophy for the main winners.”

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NZIGP Waikato Challenge was cancelled after competitor taken to hospital in critical condition

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Hampton Downs Motorsport Park Hampton Downs

A Waikato motorsport event has been cancelled after a competitor was taken to hospital in a critical condition.

MotorSport New Zealand says a competitor suffered a medical episode during a race at the NZIGP Waikato Challenge at Hampton Downs on Sunday.

It says they pulled to the side of the track and responders were on the scene immediately.

The rest of the event has been called off.

MotorSport NZ president Deborah Day says their thoughts and best wishes are with the competitor and their family.

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Auckland FC fall short of A-League win against Brisbane Roar in 1-1 stalemate

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Auckland FC players celebrate a goal by Lachlan Brook to hit the lead early against the Brisbane Roar. Andrew Cornaga/www.photosport.nz

Auckland FC were unable to assert themselves after the international break in a 1-1 A-League draw with Brisbane Roar.

With five key players in blue sidelined by injury or suspension after red cards, Brisbane pushed the home side to the brink at Mt Smart on Sunday afternoon.

Auckland hit the lead early with an immense strike from well outside the box from Australian winger Lachlan Brook.

He curled a stunning 18th minute free kick into the top corner for his first goal of the season.

Brisbane was on the verge of the equaliser when Brisbane’s Michael Ruse hit the crossbar.

The visitors continued to press forward and were rewarded in first-half stoppage time when Michael Ruhs slipped a pass through to Justic Vidic.

Vidic fired the ball into the back of the net squaring up the score ahead of the halftime break.

Neither side could truly rise to the occasion in a tight second half.

Brisbane faced a scare in stoppage time when Auckland captain Francis de Vries struck the crossbar.

Defending the final corner of the game, Brisbane did all they needed to split the points.

Auckland remain unbeaten after five games, one point off the top spot held by Sydney FC.

The Roar are in fifth following Sunday’s 1-1 result, pleased with a credible performance on the road.

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NZSale closed for business

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Customers will only be able to return faulty or damaged items as the site closes operations in New Zealand. Unsplash/ Rupixen

Christmas shoppers won’t be stocking up at NZSale this year.

The site has closed its operations in New Zealand as of Sunday.

Customers will not be able to return items due to having changed their minds but the site said it would still be able to help customers whose items arrived faulty or damaged.

“But exchanges for size, colour, or preference won’t be accepted or possible after this date.”

NZSale offered sales for a limited time, after which stock was brought in from suppliers and sent to customers.

There had been some complaints in recent years about the length of time some deliveries were taking.

It launched in New Zealand in 2009, and operates in Australia as OzSale and Singapore as SingSale.

OzSale has also said it will close its sites and operations, from 27 January next year.

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Film, documentary maker Costa Botes dies after nearly decade with cancer

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Prolific documentary and filmmaker Costa Botes. Supplied

Prolific documentary and filmmaker Costa Botes – who found fame creating mockumentary Forgotten Silver alongside Peter Jackson – has died after living with cancer for nearly a decade.

Botes won multiple awards for his work on Forgotten Silver in the late 1990’s as well as short film Stalin’s Sickle (1988) and later with Saving Grace (1999) and Lost in Wonderland in 2010.

His Screenography on New Zealand On Screen credits his involvement in more than 40 productions between 1980 and 2023.

He told the website he grew up in Wellington – after being born to Greek parents on the Turkish Island of Imbroz – and dove into filmmaking after diverting away from being “bored witless” by his English Literature degree to study film at Ilam School of Fine Arts in Christchurch.

He went full time into film making making in 1985 and would continue working on projects until shortly before his death in Wellington’s Mary Potter Hospice on 21 November.

Continued to work until his final weeks

His partner of 14 years Debs Botes said her husband was proud of his entire body of work but found particular satisfaction in his independent productions.

“The latter documentaries that he made on his own – on a shoe string budget – and cobbled together with the help of friends and colleagues and really made something of.

“I think he liked being the lone wolf because he kind of made the decisions at the end of the day.

Costa Botes grew up in Wellington after being born to Greek parents on the Turkish Island of Imbroz. Supplied

“He was very proud of When the Cows Came Home and some others like The Last Dogs of Winter, Angie, Act of Kindness. There were quite a few – in the last 15 years – he was very proud of,” she said.

Shortly before his death, Botes had completed the first cut of a new film that she hoped a colleague would be able to “whip into shape” for release next year, Debs Botes said.

Botes was well known amongst musical circles in Wellington both as a player and an enthusiastic listener.

In his last weeks he bought his dream guitar, a Gibson Les Paul, and posted pictures of himself playing the instrument from his hospital bed, she said.

An enduring fascination with people and stories

Arts and entertainment writer Sarah McMullan said Botes inspired many with his no nonsense attitude and generosity of spirit.

McMullan said she and Botes bonded over his work on 2011 documentary The Last Dogs of Winter.

“He loved life and he loved people. That’s why he made such beautiful films – he was so interested in people – and, I think, that’s how he managed to achieve that level of intimacy that made his films so special,” McMullan said.

She said she loved discussing almost any element of filmmaking with Botes who would liked little more than to talk over the pros and cons of films, shows and documentaries.

Wellington Musician Carol Bean said she admired his skill as a musician and also his witty and, at times, cutting sense of humour. Supplied

He took that passion to stints teaching filmmaking and scriptwriting at the NZ Film and TV School, and Victoria and Massey University, she said.

“I wish everybody had the chance to have watched Jaws with an audio commentary from Costa because his in depth analysis of how that film is made is incredible. It just completely opens your eyes to – what is a brilliant film – but it’s just [his awareness of] the detail and nuance which just speaks to his talent as a filmmaker,” McMullan said.

Late last month filmmaker Zoe McIntosh wrote on the Women in Film & Television website of the profound affect Botes had when he worked alongside her to make Lost in Wonderland which would go on to screen at international festivals and win Best Documentary at the Qantas Film and Television Awards.

“I was 22, broke, and living in a damp Wellington flat where rice was both dinner and décor. At a depressing documentary hui, out of sheer desperation and delusion, I pitched my first documentary idea to filmmaker Costa Botes. I expected a polite brush-off. Instead, he said, ‘I’ll shoot it. Let’s just go make it’.

“No funding applications. No contracts. No catch. That offhand ‘yes’ changed everything,” McIntosh wrote.

She said Botes’ faith in her work and forthright critical honesty help shaped her confidence and vision for her work and career.

“He was always there, always honest, sometimes brutally so. But he never let me lose sight of my vision. He’d say, ‘You’ve got half a film here. The other half’s still hiding. You gotta dig deeper’.

“Costa gives his time generously, quietly, without agenda. He doesn’t chase credit; he’s allergic to self-promotion. He’s the guy at the back of the screening checking sound levels while everyone else basks in applause. Motivated by people and, always, by story,” McIntosh wrote.

Shining lights on the dark corners

Wellington Musician Carol Bean worked in crews on Botes’ films and also played alongside him in bands.

She said she admired his skill as a musician and also his witty and, at times, cutting sense of humour.

In his last weeks he bought his dream guitar, a Gibson Les Paul, and posted pictures of himself playing the instrument from his hospital bed. Supplied

“He had a bite. He didn’t suffer fools but deep down very compassionate person.

“He had a lot of time for an authentic, regular person who wasn’t blowing their own trumpet. He said he liked ‘shining lights in the dark corners’ with his films. Bringing people out, bringing the story out, the real true story, the best of people,” Bean said.

Costa Botes spent the last weeks of his life in the care of the Mary Potter Hospice in Newtown Wellington.

Debs Botes said she was hugely grateful to the staff who kept him comfortable and accommodated his much loved dogs, bedside editing suite and guitar.

“He knew what was happening and he knew that it was the best place for him to be because they would keep him comfortable and they did that to the very last moment,” Debs Botes said.

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Geoffery Miller sent to prison for historical Whangārei sex crimes

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Geoffery Miller’s first victim had lived with post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and had more than 20 clinical bouts of depression as a result of his offending against her. 123RF

Warning: This article discusses sexual abuse and may upset some readers.

It was not the sexual violence or years of trauma that finally broke a victim’s silence, but a chilling moment in adulthood, when her perpetrator stood in her kitchen, boasting of being “proud” of his life.

The remark felt so brazen, it ripped open the locked boxes of pain she carried and gave her the courage to report Geoffery Miller to the authorities.

Now, Miller, 53, has appeared in the Whangārei District Court for sentencing on historical sexual abuse charges relating to two victims in separate decades.

Earlier this year, he was found guilty by a jury of 12 charges, including rape and supplying methamphetamine to one of his victims.

Miller’s first round of offending occurred when he was 14 years old and repeatedly sexually abused a girl.

The court heard he violated her with objects and, on one occasion, he plied her with alcohol, until she passed out, and then raped her.

Decades later, Miller’s sexual offending continued, but he had a new victim.

Miller repeatedly touched that girl sexually and gave her cannabis. He also supplied her with methamphetamine and smoked it with her.

Miller touched her inappropriately and spoke to her sexually, as a form of payment for the drug.

Both victims, now adults, read their victim impact statements to Miller, while he stood in the dock at his recent sentencing.

The first victim said that, when she was younger, she was scared of Miller’s dark moods and he was intolerable to be around.

She said she felt safer on the streets, in the dark.

“I had to grow up real fast to survive you,” she said.

For years, she lived with post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and had more than 20 clinical bouts of depression, as a result of his offending against her.

When she encountered Miller in her adult life, she became triggered by something he said.

“You stood in my kitchen one day, in front of my teenage kids, and said, ‘I’m really proud of my life’,” the woman recalled.

“Those words triggered me and sickened me. How could you be proud of what you did to me?

“All the locked boxes in my brain, all the tucked-up pain came out, piece by piece.

“That event is what brought us here today. Your words set me free.

“I finally felt the courage to stand up tall and do the right thing.”

The second victim also lived a life with mental health challenges linked to Miller’s offending and battled a drug addiction, which took hold, after he had supplied her with drugs when she was younger.

“I’m constantly living the same thing, repetitive memories take over my mind that I never asked for,” she said in her victim impact statement.

“I had so much more potential than what I’ve been and what I am now. I don’t remember ever feeling happy or, let alone, good enough.

“Instead, I felt like a worthless piece of meat.”

Her statement had some parting words for Miller.

“I hope you f****** rot in sh**.”

Continued denial of offending

Crown lawyer Danette Cole said both victims had reported Miller was also physically violent towards them.

“Both victims came forward and said how they thought their life would turn out differently, but because of the offending, their lives have taken a turn for the worse,” Cole said.

Miller’s lawyer, Chris Muston, made no oral submissions at the hearing.

Judge Keith de Ridder noted Miller had denied the offending, when speaking to pre-sentence report writers.

“You make no admission whatsoever of any offending and deny any offending of any sort,” the judge said.

“The report touches briefly on your upbringing and your employment history with some sense of self-pity arising from, what you say, were the actions taken against you by the victims’ families.”

Judge de Ridder said the offending, particularly with the first victim, was premeditated, violent and intrusive.

“There were threats made to her, in particular, if she told anybody about this offending. The jury obviously also accepted her evidence that you would become physically and verbally abusive towards her.”

The judge considered the act of supplying drugs to a child to facilitate offending against the second victim as an aggravating feature.

He sentenced Miller to five years and seven months for the rape of the first victim, and imposed an additional cumulative four‑year term for offending against the second.

Miller was sent to prison for nine years and seven months.

This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.

Where to get help:

Sexual Violence

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Defence Force checks whether information exposed to hackers targeting Australia

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The Defence Force is looking into whether any of its information has been exposed to hackers. 123rf

The Defence Force is checking to see if any information has been exposed to hackers, after Australian media reports of cyberattacks on contractors in the country’s defence supply chain.

Some reports say Iranian-backed hackers posted classified plans of a new infantry fighting vehicle.

Government defence plans call for greater integration with Australia.

“The NZDF is making inquiries to determine if any NZDF information has been exposed,” a spokesperson told RNZ.

“We will not be able to comment, until we have ascertained what, if any NZDF information is at risk of being exposed.”

Asked if integration increased the risks, they said the Defence Force’s “appetite for risk” was determined by NZ Information Security Manual and Protective Security Requirements, which had a process around approving operations.

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Live: Kiwi Liam Lawson at F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Kiwi Liam Lawson will start from sixth on the grid, as he tries to gather more Formula One championship points at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Lawson currently sits 14th on the championship standings with 36 points, with Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar in 10th, seven points ahead.

His best finish so far this season was fifth at the Azerbaijan GP in September, when he qualified third.

Lawson is currently battling for his Racing Bulls seat next year.

The race start is scheduled for 5pn NZT.

Liam Lawson in action during Las Vegas GP practice. Joao Filipe/Photosport

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

ER Report: A Roundup of Significant Articles on EveningReport.nz for November 23, 2025

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ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on November 23, 2025.

This year’s climate talks saw real progress – just not on fossil fuels
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Peel, Professor of Law, The University of Melbourne Antonio Scorza/COP30, CC BY-NC-ND It wasn’t a comfortable process for the tens of thousands of delegates trying to hash out progress on climate change on the edge of the Amazon in Belém, Brazil. I experienced the challenges of

Protesters march to Warehouse in Auckland city, demand halt to Israeli SodaStream products
Asia Pacific Report New Zealand pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched peacefully on The Warehouse in downtown Auckland today to protest over the sale of products by the genocidal state of Israel. Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair Maher Nazzal and fellow protesters delivered a giant letter calling on the management to stop selling SodaStream products. SodaStream —

Samoan PM takes aim at local journalists, claims overseas media ‘in the dark’
By Sulamanaia Manaui Faulalo of the Samoa Observer Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt says international media are “in the dark” about the reasons behind his decision to ban the Samoa Observer from government press conferences, arguing that overseas attention has created “support for one newspaper at the expense of the entire country.” He also addressed concerns

What does the US Congress want with Australia’s eSafety commissioner?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lester Munson, Non-Resident Fellow, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney In the lead-up to the much-discussed social media ban taking effect, Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is often in the headlines. For all the attention she’s been getting, Inman Grant probably didn’t expect any of

ER Report: A Roundup of Significant Articles on EveningReport.nz for November 22, 2025
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on November 22, 2025.

Mediawatch: Angst over EVs blows up in headlines

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Media reports about electric vehicles on fire have fuelled fears about safety. Manawatu Standard

“Easing the cost of new and used imported vehicles” was the pitch of transport minister Chris Bishop’s media release last Monday.

The means to that end was slashing by 80 percent the clean car standard – which incentivised sales of low- or zero-emission vehicles – by the end of the week.

$265 million in penalties would not now be charged on ‘ordinary’ cars, Bishop claimed.

On Monday, Newstalk ZB’s host Ryan Bridge pitched this as a promise of cheaper cars to come – and Bishop listed savings for selected makes and models set out in his media release.

Soon after, TVNZ’s political editor Maiki Sherman ran through those herself on 1News, even displaying the savings on the screen.

“This Corolla would see charges reduced by more than $6500,” she said, in the manner of a car yard commercial.

But on RNZ’s Morning Report the next day, Ingrid Hipkiss noted the minister’s figures for savings on different makes and models were only estimates.

“We’ve carefully caveated the words because it’s complex. Every vehicle importer will be in a different situation when it comes to penalties and credit so it will really depend on the particular type of car and the situation they’re in,” Bishop explained.

Bishop also said the changes would only have a minimal effect on emissions – and the main reason for changing the law now was that “the bottom’s fallen out of the EV market.”

“There just simply hasn’t been the demand there and they also haven’t been able to get the supply. It’s a double whammy.”

Among things that might affect demand – recent media reports about EV safety.

Safety fears hit headlines

Last week The New Zealand Herald reported a retirement village on Auckland’s North Shore – Fairview – had banned new electric vehicles.

“One resident who did not want to be named told the Herald he was pulled into a meeting with other residents where ‘management tried to scare us’ (about) the supposed fire risk electric vehicles posed,” the Herald reported.

“They’re concerned about the risk an EV fire would pose to the busy communities, residents and homes,” RNZ’s Lisa Owen explained on Checkpoint the same day.

But why, when there are no restrictions on parking or charging them anywhere else?

“As soon as there’s an EV that blows up or catches fire, it’s on the front page or it’s on the six o’ clock news. If it’s a diesel or a petrol car, you won’t hear about it,” Retirement Village Residents Association chief executive Nigel Matthews told Checkpoint.

“I’ve seen the YouTube clips where things have exploded, whether it be an e-bike or an EV of some sort that’s being charged and then just caught alight. But I’ve also seen it with cell phones. At what point do you actually stop and say we need to have a bigger holistic look at this?” he asked.

When 28 cars were set alight in Whangarei Hospital’s car park a month ago, it was dry grass on a hot exhaust that started the blaze. But plenty of online speculation suggested an overheated EV could have started it.

A day later the driver of an electric bus died after it was engulfed in flames following a collision with a petrol powered car on Tamaki Drive in Auckland.

The busy road was closed for almost a day.

“Due to the bus’s electric battery, the area could remain hazardous,” a Police statement said.

That prompted keyboard warriors to conclude batteries in the buses were not just a hazard – but could have caused the fire.

Some also cited a bus colliding with an Auckland railway station building earlier in October. Nobody was hurt in that, but smoke was seen emerging from the top of

the bus.

Alarmed by what he called ‘misinformation’ about the Tamaki Drive crash – and “bizarre anti-EV propaganda” – Auckland City Councillor Richard Hills then took to social media himself.

He pointed out that Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) had confirmed the fire started from the petrol vehicle that hit that bus on Tamaki Drive, and bus company Kinetic found the electric bus’s batteries were undamaged.

“But all I saw everywhere was: ‘Told ya, told ya – EV buses and EV batteries’,” Hills told the Newstalk ZB Drive show.

“But this cannot happen again if we have an electric bus that has a crash on Tamaki Drive. You cannot shut a road for 24 hours,” ZB host Heather du Plessis-Allan responded.

“If you thought it was because it was an electric vehicle – it was. We did some extensive looking into it for you,” she told ZB listeners.

“Once they got on the bus, what they saw was battery packs hanging through the roof and so they were worried about that.”

She also said firefighters saw gas leaking and were worried lithium batteries were starting to disintegrate.

“Actually it was an aircon problem, but again, they were treating it differently because it was an electric vehicle,” she said.

But those details were not in any news story published by Newstalk ZB or its stablemates at the Herald at the time. Or any other media outlet for that matter.

There’s been no official FENZ incident report about the incident made public yet. FENZ has not yet responded to Mediawatch’s request for further information.

The risks and the reality

Firefighters at the scene of a fatal collision between a petrol powered car and an electric bus, on Tamaki Drive in Auckland, on 22 October. RNZ / Marika Khabazi

It is true that fires involving electric vehicles can be harder to suppress and take longer to make safe.

On [https://www.nzherald.co.nz/video/herald-now/auckland-bus-fire-should-we-be-worried-about-lithium-batteries/OGYBS4PTGQJCANRCBPAVSVWZTQ/ the

Herald Now show] AUT professor of electronic engineering Adnan Al-Anbuky explained the reaction known as ‘thermal runaway’ – heat can excite a lithium battery cell causing ignition or even explosion in neighbouring cells in extreme circumstances.

But it still wasn’t clear how likely that is to happen on the road – or in a garage.

Ten days after the Tamaki Drive crash, another Auckland Transport electric bus caught fire when it struck an overpass.

There were no passengers and the driver got out safely that time, but dramatic images of the flames in the underpass were widely viewed on social media, sparking more speculation about the fire risk of electric buses.

That prompted an explainer from Stuff the next day: ‘[https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360874741/no-electric-buses-arent-catching-fire-because-their-batteries No. Electric buses aren’t catching fire because of their batteries.’

Australian fire safety expert Emma Sutcliffe – who researches battery fires for Australia’s Department of Defence – told Stuff there had been only eight such fires in

Australia in three years to 2024, at a time when there were more than 180,000 EVs in use there.

While Auckland has had three events in a row, they are unconnected, she said.

“It’s just unfortunate that they’ve happened in a bit of a cluster,” she told Stuff.

“You should be far more concerned about the cheap lithium-ion batteries in your house than the ones powering your bus to work,” Emma Sutcliffe added.

Not for nothing did Fire and Emergency New Zealand launch a campaign about that last month, with slogans like: ‘Warning! Using an incorrect battery in your e-bike can cause violent fire in seconds.’

But sometimes, the media give people the wrong idea.

Last year RNZ reported a Wellington man’s claim that his neighbour’s Tesla burst into flames in the garage next door. Eventually, FENZ ruled out electric vehicles or lithium-ion batteries as the cause. RNZ updated the story accordingly.

Earlier this year a fire destroyed a boarding house in a Sydney suburb. The Sydney Morning Herald said it was not clear if the blaze began as an electrical fire, but lithium ion e-bike batteries “had contributed to the fire’s rapid spread and intensity.”

But the headline on that – ‘Jet-like flame’. E- bike batteries fuel Sydney boarding house fire– created the impression the batteries were the cause.

Channel 7’s TV news report also suggested batteries as the cause of the fire, but one of the distressed residents could be heard off-camera telling the reporter: “I had a candle going. Maybe it was the candle.”

[embedded content]

Call for context and ‘pre-bunking’

Co-president of the New Zealand Association of Scientists – Dr Troy Baisden – was alarmed by how recent news reports described the risks of EVs and the possibility of ‘thermal runaway.’

Dr Troy Baisden Waikato University

Dr Baisden took to social media himself to point out that none of the recent vehicle fires were caused by EVs or their batteries.

But if the risk is real – albeit remote in normal circumstances – how should media report incidents like the ones in Auckland recently?

“We know there’s a risk of EV myths and misinformation spread. The most interesting thing about these stories is that there were stories about EV fires that contained … no EV fire,” Dr Baisden told Mediawatch.

He cited New Zealand Herald and RNZ’s Checkpoint coverage of the Fairview community’s dilemma as failing to make clear that EVs pose a much lower fire risk than combustion engine vehicles.

A recent peer-reviewed study of four nations found more people believed misinformation about EVs than disagreed with it – including vehicles being more likely to catch fire.

But if it was reports of the recent bus fires that prompted the Fairview residents and management to discuss the issue, news editors can not ignore that context?

“They could have said the risk of EVs catching fire is about 60 times less than an equivalent petrol or diesel vehicle. Adjusted for the mileage, it’s maybe 20 times less,” Dr Baisden told Mediawatch.

“There’s other information that you could think about. Anything that can move you hundreds of kilometres in two tonnes of metal is going to have a lot of energy stored in it, so it can create a fire.”

“I feel like the retirement village residents – and the decisions that were going on there – were really let down by our information ecosystem.”

Checkpoint‘s coverage of the Fairview controversy stated right at the start that EV fires are rare but they can be harder to put out.

Both things that are true – and an online story carried a link to an RNZ article from 2019 all about that.

Is that sufficient ‘pre-bunking’ – informing people of facts before they’re exposed to contrary opinions, misinformation or fringe views?

“Probably not. I still don’t think that’s the most relevant thing – which is risk reduction. Fires are scary and historically vehicle fires used to be much more common than they are now. The other issue is: are we ready to deal with EV fires? That’s actually a more important issue.”

“It’s important where there are a lot of EVs – or particularly really big batteries like the bus batteries – that those firefighting methods are known and ready to respond.”

“It also points out we’re not great at working through risk – and the information to support journalists reporting these risks in New Zealand isn’t great.”

“Consumer magazine in New Zealand is a great trusted source. But where news organisations responding to headlines and trying to come up with an angle and a story, need to make sure journalists or the editors can find those.”

“This is a classic gap. We’re talking about something that actually hasn’t happened. There’s been no EV fire that’s been caused by an EV in New Zealand as yet.”

But we know that this is not a ‘zero risk’ technology. When fires occur, batteries can become a specific fire hazard which needs special treatment.

“Everybody’s home has a number of risks. The risks associated with a barbecue. Storing that in a garage with a car and other things that can catch on fire is a problem. Maybe take it from a scientist who’s run large laboratories with a lot of dangerous things in them: Don’t put the dangerous things that can catch on fire together.”

Baisden is an environmental scientist who researches carbon emissions and is in favour of low and zero-emission technologies. Does he have a bias which might prompt him to minimise the risk associated with them?

“I am keen to see the uptake of electric cars. I’ve had one for a number of years. I don’t have any vested interest in it. But here we’re talking about … at least 20 times less risk associated with EVs than conventional cars. It’s difficult to say that I’d be causing more bias than that.”

“I really don’t want to be a regular performer on the radio talking about EV fires again – and there’s still been no EV fires.”

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England legend Geoff Boycott among ex-players bashing beleaguered Bazballers

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Source: Radio New Zealand

England captain Ben Stokes is under the spotlight, after England’s batters failed to bide their time in the opening Ashes test. AAP / Photosport

A chorus of former England cricket stars have torn into the current ‘Bazball’ side, after the team suffered an embarrassing Ashes test defeat in Perth inside just two days.

Long-time commentator and former test opener Geoffrey Boycott has unleashed a scathing column in the The Telegraph, declaring he could no longer take the team seriously, after Australia won by eight wickets.

He labelled the Ben Stokes-led and Brendon McCullum-coached side “stupid”, and dismissed their batting as utterly “brainless”.

England was on top for most of the first four sessions, but lost control with a batting collapse after lunch on day two.

“They never learn, because they never listen to anyone outside their own bubble,” Boycott said.

Ex-captain Michael Vaughan, who captained the side in the 2000s, didn’t hold back either.

He accused England of repeating the very mistakes that haunted them in the last Ashes series two year ago.

Now part of Australia’s Fox Cricket commentary team, alongside Australian counterparts Mark Waugh, Brett Lee and Adam Gilchrist, Vaughan was quick to underline the gravity of the defeat.

“It disappoints me hugely,” Vaughan told Fox Sports.

“We’ve been saying we want Bazball with brains, but the brains haven’t arrived,” he told the BBC.

[embedded content]

Recent former England pace-bowler Stuart Broad’s internal agony in the Channel 7 commentary box went viral, after ex-skipper Joe Root became the third England batter to fall in just six deliveries on day two.

Arms tightly crossed and eyes squeezed shut, Broad pinched his nose and drew a long, pained breath, as Mitchell Starc claimed another wicket.

The moment prompted co-commentator and former Australian test batter Matthew Hayden to cheekily remind Broad to “stay in the commentary box”.

England allrounder and legend Sir Ian Botham weighed in before the series.

The former captain told Reuters he was unimpressed with the England’s preparations, which included whiteball cricket in New Zealand, arguing touring sides traditionally needed time to acclimatise to Australian conditions.

“It’s not the way I would prepare,” Botham told reporters in Australia. “The ball does seems to get to you quicker [in Perth] and the light’s different.

“You’ve got the ‘Fremantle Doctor’ – there’s all kinds of things go into the melting pot.”

Stokes, McCullum and the England players will have a chance to prove the critics wrong in the second test, which begins on 4 December at Brisbane’s Gabba.

Meanwhile, Stokes reacted to the defeat, admitting he was “a little bit shellshocked”, after Australian hero Travis Head wrestled Australia out of a tough spot to claim victory.

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