Source: Radio New Zealand

A critical section of State Highway 35 has been raised by almost a metre as part of an upgrade to make the road more flood resilient.

The New Zealand Transport Agency says the 230 metre section at Rototahe, just south of Tolaga Bay, is typically the first to flood and close during extreme weather events.

The now completed upgrade will help reduce road closures and keep it open during severe weather and emergencies.

Six new culverts have also been installed and two more upgraded, increasing the site’s water-carrying capacity.

Transport Rebuild East Coast alliance was responsible for the work.

Project manager Richard Bayley said the upgrade has already proven its value.

“We were pleased to see that it performed well in the late January rain event, as the road had been lifted to its final height. This work is an example of the resilience being built into the network and will provide communities, freight and first responders with a more reliable route.”

TREC partnered with local Iwi Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti throughout the project. Kaitiaki lead Anne McGuire said the project reflected the importance of SH35 to local communities.

“SH35 is a lifeline for our communities. This upgrade will make a real difference to those that travel this road to Gisborne regularly,” she said.

Work on the second flood resilience site which is being funded through cost savings – SH2 Hakanui Straight project (formerly Nesbitt’s Dip) – is expected to be completed next month.

The highway has been raised by around 3 metres and culverts have been installed to help manage water and protect the road. Remaining work on the project includes road surfacing and marking, safety barriers and signage.

As of January, almost 90 percent of the overall Tai Rāwhiti recovery programme has been completed.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The conflict in the Middle East is continuing to disrupt global air traffic with nearly 4000 flights a day being cancelled across the region.

Limited flights out of Dubai and Doha were announced after airspace partially reopened on Wednesday morning.

However, hundreds of thousands of passengers were still being impacted, with major airport hubs remain largely out of action.

But how do airlines and other authorities decide when and where it’s safe to fly near a conflict zone?

UK-based aviation expert John Strickland told Nine to Nine it was very much dependant on the government and safety agencies.

“They could be global, such as United Nations, there’s an aviation body, ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation), which is affiliated with the UN.

“Of course, national security bodies, including representation of embassies and consulates and so on, military intelligence agencies.

“All of that has to be put together. Certainly, it is guided through a body like ICAO with the aim of sharing that information transparently as widely as possible and airlines take those briefings. They don’t make a judgement of their own.”

‘No airline would endeavour to make a commercial risk’

Strickland said airlines had reasonable intelligence by virtue of their size and resources it can tap into.

Others may be fully dependent on external safety agencies, he said.

“But certainly, one thing I would say is no airline would endeavour to make a commercial risk, a punt if you like, to fly just because they had passengers to move,” he said.

“Nobody will do anything until they are given the maximum possible assurance that safety and security can be guaranteed for obviously the passengers and their crews as well.”

Strickland said questions over GPS interference and other navigation challenges in or near conflict zones were also considered.

“It has to be factored in as part of the audit, part of the safety checklist as to whether a flight operation can be undertaken safely or not,” he said.

“Indeed, whether it might be possible to operate, but a different route would have to be followed if those risks are known about in certain areas.”

Strickland said repositioning an aircraft and its crews to mitigate the challenges in the Middle East were complex and expensive.

“The complexity of getting aircraft and crews back to the right place is enormous … the first thing is once an aircraft is lost somewhere else, they’ve landed, even if it’s in a planned airport, once that crew has completed their flight, they are out of duty hours based on whatever national regulatory body they come under.

“Certainly, whether it’s New Zealand or Europe, for example, there are clear regulations in place about rest requirements … crews have to have rest. It means with many crews are not where they should be. They’re not available to start afresh from home at the home base to take up new operations.

“The aircraft have to be recovered back to base and undoubtedly cleaned and checked out before they can go back into service.”

Airlines count the cost

He said it took a number of days, and in such a military-induced challenged, it would take even longer, and be more expensive.

Strickland said airlines were also trying to provide accommodation to stranded passengers, which was a positive sign.

He said there were only a handful of flights currently operating, but remained a small fraction of their usual operations.

Strickland said while the level of disruption couldn’t compare to the Covid-19 pandemic – as it affected everyone globally – it was comparable to the 9/11 attacks.

“The hub airports in the Gulf, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, and the airlines operating out of those at Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad have now become such a key part of the global aviation landscape that they are major gateways,” he said.

“They account for about half a million passengers in and out of those three airports every day or last year, 180 million people in a year.

“A large number of those are people transiting … there are people going to and from those airports, but a large number of people, not least to and from New Zealand, transiting in those airports.

“When this happened and flying ceased, there’ll be probably a couple of hundred thousand people may be stuck in Dubai airport, Abu Dhabi, Doha Airport, who were not even due to be there for more than a few hours and suddenly found themselves in this limbo.”

That’s the headache that airlines have got to slowly extricate themselves from as they can do so safely, he said.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The government has been facing too much demand to fund infrastructure projects from agencies left with too little time to plan them, forcing it to push back a Budget 2026 deadline.

A newly-released Treasury report said significant trade-offs were still required.

It showed agencies such as in health, justice and education had faced a December deadline to make the case for their bids for this year’s Budget, but the deadline had to be pushed back.

“With agency capacity constraints being signalled in the QIR (quarterly investment report) for Budget 2026 we have extended this timeline to April 2026.”

The report on central government investments for the three months to September 2025 – the latest QIR available – said demand “significantly” exceeded available Budget allowances, though it blanked out the figure

That was also the case for the next four Budgets.

But because agencies had also spent only half what they expected in the quarter – $2.3 billion versus $4.7b forecast – the report held out hope that better planning could result in more investments that were “right-sized and deliverable”, reducing Budget bids.

A debate in Parliament on infrastructure was set for Wednesday.

This follows release of the country’s first National Infrastructure Plan last month that sparked a debate about building roads versus hospitals.

The QIR said there were “large differences between forecast and actual spend and reported delays once entering delivery”.

It also said agencies were continuing to signal funding requirements for Budget 2026 that “significantly exceed available allowances, with $38.2 billion capital signalled over the next five Budgets.

“Significant trade-offs are still required”.

It did not go into details of any possible trade-offs.

Treasury is developing advice on the medium-term capital pipeline due this month.

The QIR said agencies had been expected to have a full-fledged business case or a fast-track single-stage business case done “before submitting a Budget bid in December to ensure robust value for money advice from the Treasury”.

It was pushed back to April to ensure the builds would proceed quickly after the Budget. Last year there was still a backlog of 15 becalmed projects funded in Budget 2024; however, that number had been cut to just three in this QIR.

“The September 2025 QIR tells us that agency projections for timely conversion are looking better than previous quarters.”

This “Budget conversion” – converting from funding, to building – is a marker of momentum.

“We also need to keep momentum and scrutinise whether agencies have done enough planning to ensure that what gets funded in Budget 2026 is investment-ready and starts delivery within the 2026-27 financial year.”

To do that, Treasury was working with bosses of capital-intensive agencies – such as Defence, Health NZ, NZTA – “to improve system approaches, including approaches for more timely conversion post-Budget.”

Part of the problem was underspending.

“Crown capital expenditure underspend of $2.4 billion tells us that agencies may be forecasting too optimistically, such that it does not match their capacity to deliver on everything that has been funded.”

Sometimes the reason was a policy shift, such as that cut Kainga Ora spending, or timing as at NZTA.

But underspending was a big enough worry that bosses of the big-spending agencies had met “to address significant discrepancies between forecasted and actual capital investment spend”, followed up by the Secretary to the Treasury writing to them to improve forecasting, and to their ministers.

Ten projects entered the ‘pipeline’ for planning in the quarter, including private provision of hospital carparking.

The QIR showed some projects as of last September were hitting ructions and delays:

Three had not yet signed contracts though they were funded a long time ago:

• Waikeria prison expansion phase 2, expected to sign a contract in quarter to March 2026
• Specialised Rehabilitation Centre at Manukau Health Park, funded in Budget 2022, expected to sign in June 2026.
• A third project was blanked out.

Fifty-three investments were reporting delays last September, five of them with over a $50m budget that were more than a year delayed.

Delays included:

• Kainga Ora’s Northcote project
• Manukau health park, delayed two years
• Christchurch Hospital Tower 3 delayed by nearly two years, due October 2026
• Nelson Hospital inpatient block delayed 18 months
• Wairarapa rail Upgrades, delayed by 15 months, due for completion March 2027.

Three projects racked up red warning alerts in their first ‘Gateway’ reviews that are meant to keep them on track, signalling “major risks and issues” and triggering Treasury and ministerial intervention:

• Police’s Arms Transformation Programme for implementing legislative changes and improvements to the administration of the Arms Regulatory system
• MSD’s Disability Support Services – High and Complex Framework
• Nelson Hospital Redevelopment.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A person has been seriously injured after getting trapped between a rubbish truck and what RNZ understands to be a skip bin in Wellington.

Emergency services were called to Maning Lane in the central city at 4.55am.

FENZ shift manager Jill Webley said crews extracted a trapped person and they were taken to hospital.

A police spokesperson said investigators would be in the area today working to determine what happened.

They said Worksafe had been advised.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A tribunal has been told a Samoan teenager was adopted by a New Zealand resident in a ‘coerced relocation’ which led to violence and her baby being taken into care.

Immigration New Zealand (INZ) was trying to have her deported for not revealing she was in a relationship when she arrived in 2022.

Allegations of child abuse, a lack of welfare safeguards and unsafe adoptions from countries which are not signatories to Hague Convention protocols prompted a partial ban on international adoptions last September.

The immigration and protection tribunal had two cases involving adopted Samoans last year.

In the latest, the immigration and protection tribunal overturned the woman’s deportation, saying she was blameless as a then 18-year-old schoolgirl for the circumstances of her adoption and failing to tell INZ about her relationship.

“The tribunal notes that no allegations of trafficking have been made in this case, but that there have been cases where young people from Samoa have been adopted at a similar age to the appellant and trafficked to New Zealand using the Family (Dependent Child) residence category as a vehicle.

“The tribunal has heard evidence in a number of cases from these young people about the exploitation they have experienced at the hands of their “adoptive parents” in New Zealand, including being subjected to forced labour.”

The associate justice minister Nicole McKee announced in September a temporary ban on international adoptions from certain countries, and said she would introduce a bill this year to create a longterm solution.

The tribunal said that move meant the woman’s situation would not happen again.

“[She] did not know she was being adopted,” it said in its hearing notes. “To any reasonable observer, the appellant was not [her adoptive mother’s] “dependent child”. [She] was a stranger with no relationship to the appellant and her brothers.

“It is unfortunate that immigration policy at the time allowed for the appellant’s “adoption” and her coerced relocation to New Zealand. There were clearly welfare concerns in the setting she was placed, given the later involvement of Oranga Tamariki.”

The woman was six months pregnant when she arrived and had a caesarean birth, but fled the house when she was subject to violence, leaving her baby behind. Her brother had also been assaulted and she showed a phone video she had filmed of the attack to a social worker.

Oranga Tamariki took him into care and sometime later the woman’s daughter was put into foster care for about five months. Mother and child have since been reunited.

In an earlier tribunal decision from March last year, a man who was adopted as a teen described being ‘exploited and frightened by his adoptive parents who treated him like a slave’.

His aunt and uncle adopted him and forced him to work long hours in their factory. “His uncle beat him severely, on one occasion, breaking his arm. He did not receive wages for his

work and was only given $20 a week. He was not allowed a phone and could not maintain contact with his parents in Samoa.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Auckland Council has less than two weeks to respond to a letter from the government wanting the council to outline its plan for housing intensification.

But mayor Wayne Brown says the council is already spending millions on the project and the request is too costly.

In February, Minister for Housing and RMA Reform Chris Bishop announced that Cabinet agreed to reduce the city’s minimum housing capacity requirement from 2.08 million to 1.6 million.

In a letter to Brown dated 24 February, Bishop asked for an outline of the approach the mayor intended to take to review the plan, and of what areas or suburbs may be affected by the change.

Brown refused. “We’ve spent $10 million on Plan Change 78, and by Christmas we’d blown another $3 million on Plan Change 120, as well as having 50 staff reading 10,000 submissions… so this is expensive,” he told a planning committee meeting on Tuesday.

“Preparing maps requires investing significant time and money. It’s not as simple as pushing a button. In this organisation you’re lucky to get a lift by pushing a button. We’ll be telling the government what Aucklanders want, not the other way around.

“What’s important is for Auckland to lead the process from here, not producing maps to see if some ministers worried about their jobs might like them.”

A spokesperson from Chris Bishop’s office later clarified to RNZ that the minister had never asked Brown for a map.

Brown was adament that Auckland Council would not invest any more resources.

“I’m reluctant to commission a hell of a lot of expenditure, which may not meet an unknown criteria from an unknown number of Cabinet Ministers. Most of them don’t live in Auckland.

“That’s just stupid. I’m not going to do that. I’m the mayor of Auckland. If they want to be the mayor of Auckland, have a crack at me.”

Bishop asked Brown to respond to the letter by 17 March.

Councillor Shane Henderson agrees with the mayor’s approach saying the council should not provide an outline until feedback from the public had been considered, and accused the government of “political desperation in an election year”.

Councillor Sarah Paterson-Hamlin was concerned Aucklanders would have to be consulted again.

“I’m really conscious that we asked a lot of Aucklanders,” she said.

“We asked them for feedback on a really complicated thing over Christmas and they came to the party, 10,000 submissions is a lot for a process like that. I don’t know how we can go back out in good faith, and how we communicate to those 10,000-plus people that they will be heard.”

However, deputy mayor Desley Simpson did not understand why it would be too difficult.

“Respectfully it does seem pretty obvious, for me, for a layman, surely if you just up-zoned along the major transport corridors and around the stations added the city centre you’d get a number.

“Why can’t you just tell us straight away what those suburbs would look like going up and the suburbs that would look like going down? That seems like, from a layman, quite a logical thing to ask.”

Auckland Council chief of strategy Megan Tyler responded that it would be too time-consuming.

“It’s not simple. If it was a button, I would happily show you the button. You can press the button yourself. There isn’t one.”

Auckland Council will meet again on 10 March, where Bishop’s letter will be on the agenda.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Close to 50 homes in an Auckland suburb are being compulsorily bought to make way for new flood plains and uncover a buried stream.

This is in Rānui, where some homeowners are relieved to get out, while others wish they could stay.

It’s just the start of Auckland Council’s plan to reduce the risk in flood-prone areas of the region and it says there are more property acquisitions ahead.

Emily Stewart, her husband and two children moved out of their house in Rānui’s Clover Drive a few weeks ago.

It’s been bought under the Public Works Act because a piped stream is being uncovered.

“The stream is going to come through approximately through here…right through our house.”

On Sunday, the home was relocated to Waikato.

Stewart said they planned to sell the house three years ago before the storms hit – some of her neighbours had to kayak from their houses.

The Stewarts weren’t eligible for a risky-home buyout, so had repairs done, then learned their house would be acquired to daylight a stream and create a flood plain.

The family has bought and moved to another part of the city.

“It’s bittersweet because for three years we were just stuck in this limbo. Back in October all of the houses in this cresent were still standing in various states of decay,” Stewart said.

‘We need this land’ – council

Auckland Council’s head of sustainable partnerships Tom Mansell said of the almost 50 homes required for flood plains in Rānui, half were state owned.

“Some of these properties, most of them have been flooded, some of them have been partially flooded, some of them haven’t been flooded but we need this land to save other surrounding properties from flooding.”

He said it would save 100 properties and also enable future development.

The Rānui Making Space for Water project is costing $85 million, of which most – close to $50m – is for buying properties.

“It’s digging up the pipe, creating the flood plain, creating the stream, upgrading Don Buck Road bridge,” Mansell said.

“It’s transforming communities, it is disruptive, it is costly but moving forward with climate change and increased rainfall it is a new era in managing stormwater.”

Mansell said negotiating with homeowners was a sensitive process.

“Some homeowners are relieved it is a way out, a fresh start for them and some not so much, it’s really quite hard hitting. Some of them have been there 30 to 40 years and it’s their home, there’s a reluctance to leave.”

He said there will be more homes acquired to make way for flood plains in coming years as the council confirms other projects.

“Overall, it creates more greenspace, creates resilient communities and it’s the way of the future for managing stormwater.”

Reluctant to leave

Another Clover Drive homeowner, Wayne Macdonald, didn’t want to leave but accepted a Public Works Act buyout.

“I was hoping to stay,” he said.

“I was disappointed, I like my house. I like its location, I like how it’s close to everything and I didn’t really look forward to looking for a new house and I’m struggling to find something.”

He was aware the acquisition was compulsory and said the financial incentives for accepting a buyout within certain timeframes made it more attractive.

Macdonald said the plans to create a bigger stream and flood plain included walking paths and reserve areas.

“What they’re doing is actually really nice and for a lot of neighbourhoods around, it’s going to give them options. They’re going to be able to walk away from the streets and pollution of the cars, kids are going to have areas to go play.”

Further along the road, Donna Mather’s home is not in a flood zone.

There are already many vacant plots from houses that were too risky to live in and she said having more homes go with compulsory acquisitions will change the neighbourhood.

“A lady friend up on Universal Drive, she will be moving because she was bought out. Apparently her place is going to be a pond.”

Under the Public Works Act, councils or agencies buying properties can only inform property owners – not tenants.

Stewart said this created problems on her street, because some neighbours were only recently informed by their landlords who have to give 90 days notice to end a tenancy.

“They were completely rug-pulled, like what’s going on, what’s happening I’m getting conflicting information.”

She said that needed to change.

“What I’m seeing is that we are prioritising homeowners over people who are renting and that’s not how this society should be supporting each other,” Stewart said.

“The fact that I’ve been told that they are having to look at work-arounds means there’s something wrong with the law. There is an oversight with the laws that they are bound by,” she said.

“The way we can make change for the better for people is to say ‘this isn’t working’.”

Mansell said the council strongly encouraged landlords to inform tenants if their house was being bought out – and tenants have access to financial support during the process.

“We encourage them strongly to talk to their tenants and we have a community advisory group which meets every two weeks…so we try and keep as much information about what we’re doing, the overall layout of the project is out in the community,” Mansell said.

“That’s one way the information gets out but unfortunately we cannot contact the tenants directly, we have to go through the landlord.”

The compulsory buyouts come as the region is under pressure to intensify housing and build more homes and the council was preparing plans to accommodate up to 2 million homes in coming decades.

However last month, Cabinet agreed to lower the maximum number of houses in Auckland from 2 million to at least 1.6 million.

Mansell said houses needed to be built in safe areas.

“The last thing we want to do is more development with houses in the wrong place in a danger zone so we are watching and working with this plan change. We don’t want to create more issues moving forward.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Education Ministry has been underestimating the scale of the secondary teacher shortage, and says correcting its calculations caused this year’s jump in the forecast shortage.

The ministry last week forecast a likely shortfall of 1220 secondary teachers this year and next, up from last year’s projection of 880 for the same period.

The ministry’s education workforce head Anna Welanyk told RNZ the change was because the ministry previously assumed schools hired in outside teachers to cover about half of the time when their regular teachers were out of their classrooms due to factors such as non-contact time.

Welanyk said research last year showed that was true for primary schools, but not for secondary schools which used relief teachers for almost all of their teachers’ non-contact hours.

“We went out and talked to the sector to find out more information about exactly whether or not those assumptions were valid and determined that for primary, they were bang on and for secondary, they really weren’t,” she said.

She said that meant secondary schools needed more teachers in the system than previously thought.

“Because we changed the assumption to reflect what we understand to be something closer to the real life scenario, it’s meant that we’ve had to add on an additional 580-odd additional teachers into the secondary space.

“It’s not that the situation’s got dramatically worse or that our forecasting was not where it needed to be. It’s more that more detail in terms of the research that we’ve done has pointed us in a slightly different direction.”

She confirmed that it also meant the ministry had under-estimated demand for secondary teachers in previous forecasts.

Welanyk said without the change the ministry would have forecast a shortage of 140 rather than 710 secondary teachers this year.

“The situation, as described by the data in the report, is a more accurate reflection of the pressure on the system.”

In 2023, the ministry under-estimated demand for primary teachers after failing to account for changes to their collective agreement.

Meanwhile, Welanyk said there were early signs that enrolments in initial teacher education programmes had increased 30 percent his year.

“It’s very promising. It’s the highest increase that we’ve seen in quite a while, since before covid. So what that tells us is that people are interested in teaching as a profession. They do see it as a viable career path,” she said.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A proposed gold mine is on the fast-track list. Proponents says it will bring jobs and money to the region, but opponents say it will be an economic ‘short-term sugar hit … with long-term consequences’.

Plans for a large, open cast gold mine in Central Otago are pitting locals against each other, while a mining industry executive says New Zealanders are too negative and catastrophise projects they don’t understand.

Australian company Santana Minerals has applied for fast-track approval to build an open cast mine in the Dunstan mountain range, an hour’s drive east of Queenstown, after discovering what it calls the largest single gold deposit in New Zealand in more than four decades.

According to the documents submitted to the fast-track panel, Santana will build four open mine pits. The largest, Rise and Shine Open Pit will be one kilometre long, 800 metres wide and 200 metres deep. There will also be three shallower pits, a processing plant that is one kilometre long and 120 metres wide, and a tailing storage facility to store mineral waste dust.

It says the project will employ hundreds of people and be worth $6 billion in revenue and more than $1b in taxes and royalties for New Zealand.

The fast-track panel is set to decide by late October and, if approved, it will be the first new mine to get the go-ahead under the accelerated process.

Opponents fear it will destroy threatened plants, scar the unique landscape and pollute the land and water. They say New Zealand will not get all the economic benefits because Santana is an Australian company, and they warn it will open the door to more mining in the region.

Two main groups are campaigning against the mine with backing from famous residents including actor Sir Sam Neill and painter Sir Grahame Sydney, as well as the former prime minister Helen Clark.

One of the groups, Sustainable Tarras, has already been fighting plans to build an international airport near the town. It calls the Santana proposal ‘David versus Goliath’ and is asking for donations to fund experts to fully understand the economic, environmental and social impacts of the mine.

“We are fighting this hard,” it says on its website.

Artist Gregory O’Brien, who organised a fundraising exhibition for the group, says the “proposed desecration of a heritage area for purely monetary gain is an outrage to all of us, as it is to the citizens of Central Otago and to all New Zealanders”.

“Painters, photographers, writers, film-makers, choreographers and other arts practitioners from within Central Otago and further afield are incensed at the churlishness of both the mining consortium and the Government’s ruinous ‘fast-track’ (aka ‘Highway to Hell’) legislation.

“The environmental cost of such a cold-blooded, extractive exercise is simply too high, as is the social impact and down-stream legacy.”

On the other side, Santana Mine Supporters, a Facebook group with 6,800 members says Central Otago “deserves opportunity – higher-paid local jobs, stronger regional businesses, and meaningful investment back into our community. We also believe development must be done properly, with high standards, transparency, and long-term accountability.”

RNZ Central Otago reporter Katie Todd has spoken to many locals, including farmers who see it as a positive move for the region and a continuation of the area’s mining legacy.

She says the application has been drawn out.

“Santana Minerals were asking for it to be considered within 30 days or so and we’ve recently learnt it’s going to be more like 140 days.

“In part that’s because of iwi opposition. Kā Rūnaka, which is a collective of Otago hapū, has raised concerns about potential Treaty settlement breaches and their concerns were described by the panel convenor of the fast-track application as significant and immutable.

“So that’s going to be something to watch,” says Todd.

Matthew Sole of Central Otago Environmental Society says communities are divided over the mine.

“There’s a lot of tension in the community,” he says. “There are certainly a lot of people for it.

“It’s the comments you receive on social media when you try and put up a counter argument and the difficulty I find with it is it’s actually hard to have a conversation.”

Sole says many people are under financial pressure and are concerned about the country’s future.

“I take a wider, longer term view that we’ve got to move on from exploitation to economies that have a right relationship with our environment. I think we’ve got to change away from these extractive processes to more enduring relationships and regenerative relationships with the land.”

Sole has produced a YouTube video of the area that will be mined and points out unique, threatened plants and remnants of past mining endeavours that are part of its precious heritage that he says are at risk. He says the old mining era cannot be compared to today’s.

“We’re talking about two different things. The early mining was largely mining of individual endeavour and it was largely with human hands with the use of water,” he says.

The impact of modern mining is “devastating, it has lost its context and meaning because of the vast industrial scale by massive machinery. We’re not comparing like with like”.

In a story for Newsroom last week, Jill Herron wrote that nearly a million hectares across Otago, and another 100,000 in Southland, are now at various stages of being “pegged” by gold mining companies.

But chief executive of New Zealand Minerals Council, Josie Vidal, says people have no need to panic and “possibly none” of the areas that have been identified on a minerals map drawn up by Earth Sciences New Zealand will be mined.

Heightened interest in the area is driven by the record price of gold, she says. She believes many will be hobby gold miners and doubts there would be any other large mines like Santana that are at a serious stage.

“There’s a lot of interest in gold of the traditional gold mining areas of which Otago is one, and there’s quite a lot of interest from smaller prospectors who could do quite well out of getting a fairly small amount of gold because the price is so high.”

She calls the Santana proposal “a bog standard gold mine”.

“I’m mystified by the attention. It’s a gold mine like any other. There’s no reason for it not to proceed.”

When The Detail asked Santana for an interview, it replied in an email with a number of conditions.

On balance and representation it said, “Please confirm who else will be featured or interviewed, and whether local voices and businesses many of which support the project – not just high-profile critics – are being included to reflect the full spectrum of community sentiment”.

It later declined our interview request but referred us it its 9,400-page application.

In an email, it said it welcomes scrutiny.

“What we cannot support is the amplification of assertions that have already been addressed, in writing, in data, numerous interviews and expert reports – simply because they are emotive or convenient to repeat and you haven’t bothered to fact check their claims.

“If the program’s objective is balance and informed debate, then the technical evidence must sit alongside the sentiment.”

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

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

MediMap’s failings will likely be covered by the review into Manage My Health, despite the recent data breach not being included by name.

The prescription portal was now being brought back online, having been down since 22 February, after it was discovered patient information had been changed.

MediMap said it had “rebuilt a secure production environment, completed a forensic review and validation of our data, identified the specific demographic records that were altered, and strengthened authentication controls, supported by independent cyber security specialists”.

All user passwords would be reset and any medication changes made manually during the outage would require clinical review, it said.

It acknowledged the “patience and professionalism” of healthcare staff dealing with manual processes, and apologised to residents, patients, families and healthcare providers for any disruption and distress.

A court injunction had been granted which prohibited anyone from accessing, using, copying, sharing or publishing any of the data.

The MediMap breach followed a hack of the patient portal ManageMyHealth (MMH) in late December, which sparked a review, commissioned by Health Minister Simeon Brown, to be carried out by the Ministry of Health.

The minister’s office said while MediMap would not be explicitly included by name in the review currently underway, the systemic issues which led to it would likely apply to both.

“The Ministry of Health’s review into the Manage My Health (MMH) cyber security incident is considering the broader issue of how private companies secure health data,” a spokesperson said.

A Ministry of Health spokesperson said the aim of the review was to understand the causes of the MMH breach, and the response, and to recommend improvements to ensure data breaches were better prevented in the future.

“While our focus remains on Manage My Health, the learnings will apply more broadly to other digital platforms which manage heath data.”

MediMap has been approached for comment.

On Thursday last week, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Cabinet had just signed off on a new cyber security policy and strategy.

“It’s entirely appropriate that we look at our whole settings, because we need to make sure we’ve got tougher cyber securities around our critical infrastructure.”

He also sent a strong message to businesses.

“The Kiwi laid-backness in a cyber security world where there are real risks and challenges is not good enough. You need to be investing, and making sure that your systems and your protocols are up to speed, and are actually on-point, and that they continually evolve.”

He said the government would be consulting on the problem over the next few months, and considering incentives and punishments.

Last week, Manage My Health began notifying a further group of patients affected by the December attack.

It did not respond to questions about why these people had not been notified earlier.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Budding astronomers and photographers have ditched sleep overnight to lay eyes on a total lunar eclipse over New Zealand – from what one expert says is the “best seat in the world”.

The only lunar eclipse of 2026, also known as a blood moon, began just before 10pm on Tuesday.

Stardome astronomer Josh Aoraki earlier told RNZ lunar eclipses were not rare per se – the rarity was whether or not it was visible from your location.

“For this one in particular, we really have the best seat in the world, really. It’s really only visible for its entirety over the Pacific. And it’s the only one that we’re going to see this year. I don’t think we have another until 2028, about two years.”

Missed out? Never fear, there are other astronomical phenomenon to look forward to throughout the year.

Here’s what the view looked like from across New Zealand:

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A man who was abused in state care is “angry and saddened” that the number of children and young people being abused in care has continued to increase.

The Independent Children’s Monitor’s latest report said 530 tamaraki and rangatahi were abused in state care during the 2024/25 year, up from 507 during the 2023/24 year.

State abuse survivor Keith Wiffin said that was difficult for him and many other survivors to hear.

“In particular the 3000 courageous survivors who gave testimony to the royal comission on the basis that the appalling rates of abuse that continue would cease and we would see change and improvement.”

But he said the government and faith based institutions had not made enough changes after the Royal Comission on Abuse in Care.

“They have generally ignored the findings and recommendations of the royal comission, and therefore been contemptous of it, and that’s played a role in these continuing appalling rates of abuse.”

Keith Wiffin was abused in state care in the 1970s at Epuni boys home in the Hutt Valley and testified to the Royal Comission.

He said tinkering with the care system would not work, and fundamental change was needed for things to improve.

“That approach is: families, communties, iwi, hapu need to be resourced to look after their own. The best way to stop abuse in care is to see our young don’t go into care in the first place.”

Keith Wiffin said during his time in state care, he had a good social worker but he was completely overworked with a caseload of 80 boys.

Independent Children’s Monitor chief executive, Arran Jones, said social workers being overworked was still a problem today.

“Social workers spend a lot of time trying to find homes for young people that have to be removed from mum and dad … so that places pressure on the social work day job.

“The second thing is trying to access the help these kids need – so time taken negotiating with health and education over who will pay for supports.”

The report found a third of tamariki and rangatahi were not being visited by their social worker as often as they should be.

It also highlighted problems acessing health and education services, and Jones suggested prioritising tamaraki and rangatahi in care for these services over the general population.

“Because what the evidence tells us is tamariki in care have far worse outcomes into their adult lives than other children.”

Oranga Tamariki has been working on a National Care Standards Action Plan since early last year which Jones hoped would make a difference.

“This is the first time in the six years I’ve seen Oranga Tamariki commit to a very clear actionable plan. So this is a positive sign.”

Minister responds

Minister for Children Karen Chhour said turning around generations of failures would not happen overnight, but she believed the most recent data from Oranga Tamariki showed progress was being made towards a stronger safety net for young people in care.

Chhour acknowledged the report identified silos and gaps between government agencies and said she had spoken to ministerial colleagues about working more closely together.

She said she was particularly proud of the progress towards working more closely with communities, strategic partners, and iwi and hapu

Oranga Tamariki responds

Oranga Tamariki chief social worker, Nicolette Dickson, said it had seen performance improvements in eight out of the 10 focus areas in the National Care Standards Action Plan, and was confident about seeing sustained improvements through a focus on that work.

Dickson said more tamariki were being supported to remain safely with their whānau, and of those surveyed, 96 percent of children in care said they felt safe, 90 percent felt supported to achieve their goals and 89 percent felt they had somewhere to belong.

She agreed there were a number of areas to improve on, but said the organisation was on the right track to address them.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Protesting could be banned from some parts of Christchurch, if one city councillor gets his way.

The council will vote on Wednesday on a request staff investigate councillor Aaron Keown’s proposal to create protest-free zones at what he calls “sensitive sites”, including the Bridge of Remembrance, the Earthquake Memorial and places of worship and cemeteries

One of the city’s best-known protesters John Minto is alarmed, along with Amnesty International, which said the right to protest was fundamental.

Keown said the proposed notice of motion stemmed from complaints he had received about protests at the Bridge of Remembrance, singling out Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) chair John Minto.

The group has held more than 125 marches departing from the bridge, since the Israeli bombardment of Gaza began in 2023.

“As a city leader, it’s embarrassing having these people at the Bridge of Remembrance, which is a war memorial site, arguing over wars all around the world that don’t necessarily affect New Zealand, and a lot of the ones in the Middle East don’t necessarily affect New Zealand,” Keown said.

The heritage-listed bridge over the Avon River was built in 1923 to commemorate Canterbury soldiers who fought in World War I.

PSNA chair John Minto said the site was eminently appropriate to host the protests, given it included the commemoration of New Zealanders who fought and died to liberate Palestine from the Ottoman Turks during World War I.

“There are 23 New Zealand soldiers who are buried in the Gaza War Cemetery, they died fighting to liberate Palestine from the Turks. This is the most appropriate place for us to hold protests calling for the liberation of Palestine today.”

Minto said despite his long history in activism, he had never seen anything like the consistency and longevity of the pro-Palestinian movement.

“I’ve never experienced a protest movement like this where people have been consistently coming out week after week right around the country. I’m proud of New Zealanders for doing that. We’ve done it in the past and we’ll continue to do it.”

Keown said he supported free speech, but not anytime or anywhere.

“I think there’s a time and place for protests, and I don’t think it’s down there [at the Bridge of Remembrance].

“A number of businesses have talked about the disruption from the great unwashed, turning up week after week to… they just change the flag usually, and it’s another protest.

“The climate change people, the Palestine people, they’re all the same usually.”

The bylaw would also apply to other protests, such as the School Strike for Climate Change or last year’s hikoi, he said

Keown said he was not aware of specific protests in cemeteries, but planned to include them.

Minto said he had attended a cemetery protest before.

“It was a protest at the Symonds Street Cemetery in Auckland where somebody had spray painted swastikas over the Jewish graves. So I was there along with a whole pile of other people to show solidarity with the Jewish community of New Zealand against an anti-Semitic attack. So protests can can happen anywhere and it’s appropriate for them to happen wherever – there should be no restrictions.”

Mandating approved protest zones was contrary to New Zealander’s sense of democracy, Minto said.

Keown said he had not kept track of how many complaints he had received.

A Christchurch City Council spokesperson said it had received 12 complaints relating to protest activity at the Bridge of Remembrance over the past year, which included concerns about Destiny Church activity during the Pride Parade.

It had also received one complaint about a protest in New Brighton, another was received by noise control about a protest at the Commodore Airport Hotel, and four others about protests with no specific location.

No complaints were identified relating specifically to cemeteries, places of worship, or the Earthquake Memorial, the spokesperson said.

In the report accompanying the notice of motion, council staff warned “protest-free sites” could be considered an unlawful restriction on peoples’ rights, and said it would advise whether the concept could be in contravention of the Bill of Rights.

Amnesty International director of advocacy and movement building Lisa Woods said the right to protest was fundamental, and was a right that could help protect other rights.

“It’s a really important part of our society that’s used to expose injustice, demand accountability, push for change.

“Between elections there are quite limited opportunities for a meaningful say, protest is a key way we communicate to decision-makers and others in the community about what’s important and needed.”

The default position for decision makers should be to avoid restrictions and focus on facilitating protest, she said.

Limitations could be imposed, but they needed to be very specific, justified and limited – people not liking the look of a protest, or a protest disrupting business was not sufficient, Woods said.

“Protest is by its nature disruptive – that’s the point. It might cause some disruption to society’s daily functioning but only serious disruption can justify restrictions. Because it’s not a good look would not meet the test to enable a justified restriction.”

New Zealand had a proud tradition of protest, Woods said.

“We stand on the shoulders of people who have, through protest, fought for important human rights and change that we all enjoy today.

“And that continues – we want to, as a society, continue getting better, and protest is a fundamental way of that being achieved, and of achieving change in the future.”

“In our political system, there aren’t always opportunities for meaningful engagement on a regular basis in-between elections, but protest is one of the key spaces where community claims its power and tells decision makers what is important.”

Keown said police told him months ago that they needed powers like the proposed move-on orders, which he believed would help disperse protesters.

Councillor Keown welcomed the newly announced move-on powers, which he believed would “absolutely help” disperse protesters, something Woods said was of grave concern to Amnesty International.

Woods said the move-on orders were “chilling policy”.

“We are worried that it’s going to impact people protesting and how in practice such a law could be used to limit people’s rights across a range of scenarios.”

Minto said civil liberties and protest groups were concerned about misuse of the proposed powers.

“We’ll be watching very carefully how this legislation develops because there are numerous examples of legislation that’s been passed for one particular purpose but then used for another, and we’ve seen that used against the protest movement, for example trespass orders, used against the protesters quite inappropriately by the police.

“Any restriction on the right to protest peacefully in a public place, we have to resist absolutely.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

• Seven weeks of weeding work at Lake Horowhenua has finished
• More than 400 tonnes of invasive weeds collected
• No easy fix for lake that for decades had sewage pumped into it.

Raw sewage was pumped into Punahau Lake Horowhenua for decades, earning it the dubious reputation as one of New Zealand’s most polluted waterways.

A years-long cleanup project is now working to restore it back to health, although it is not possible to yet put a timeframe on when the lake, west of Levin, will be safe to swim in again.

A special harvester has operated there for the past five summers, chopping out invasive weeds to give native species the chance to flourish, and replenish the oxygen-deprived water.

Mowing the lake

It was a crisp but calm day when RNZ visited Lake Horowhenua and headed out on the water on the paddle steamer-like $300,000 harvester – one of two in New Zealand.

Skipper Julian Everth explained how it worked.

“You have one horizontal set of teeth, which cuts horizontally, and then two vertical ones. And as you’re going along the weed gets cut out in a chunk.

“That comes out on a conveyer belt and then lands on another conveyer belt by your feet. Once it’s full there you can shift the conveyer belt backwards more and load more on to the boat.”

Over the past seven weeks Everth and another skipper have operated the harvester for 12 hours a day – mowing the 390-hectare lake bed in a grid pattern. Tuesday was their last day this summer.

They will collect more than 400 tonnes of weed, and the odd creature too.

“We gets lots of little perch and carp. They’re both invasive species, so we’re not too worried about them.

“Occasionally we will get eels that will swim up on to the harvester. When that happens we stop the cutting process, pull backwards a little bit and allow them to swim off.”

While the lake was safe for aquatic life, it was not recommended for humans due to the bacteria it contained.

The harvested weed was scooped into a truck and taken to Feilding for composting, rather than rotting in the lake.

“Essentially, it uses up lots of nutrients in the lake to grow. Eventually it will die and collapse,” Everth said.

“You end up with a blanket of dead weed on the bottom of the lake. When that happens it rots and makes an anoxic environment. A lot of the fish and eels can’t survive in that.”

Lake still getting poisoned – guardian

Tangata tiaki Deanna Hanita-Paki said the lake was for a long time a receptacle for effluent runoff, pesticides and worse.

“Back in the 1950s and 60s the council started putting raw sewage straight into the lake. That stayed like that until about 1985.

“They’ve had years of polluting – raw sewage straight into the lake.”

Lake trustees fought court battles to halt this, but their win took years and the effects of the pollution were devastating, Hanita-Paki said.

But the iwi Muaūpoko and the Horizons Regional Council were now putting much effort into nursing the lake back to life.

“It’s a lot better. With the harvester being there we can see the water’s getting better – the quality of that water was getting better and so was the weed changing, and our creatures were coming back.

“Our fish were coming back – same with the eels.”

But it was not perfect, as stormwater was still routed there.

“We’ve found that on those weather events the lake starts to smell and it smells different.

“I go out every month. We do water testing with Horizons. It started changing about October, November last year. The smell inside the lake was really bad.”

She said as far as she was concerned, the lake was still being poisoned due to toxins in the stormwater.

Weeding part of the plan

Horizons Regional Council fresh water and projects manager Logan Brown said lakes were complex.

“There is no silver bullet for restoration of Lake Horowhenua. There are lots of little projects that go together and they piece together.

“For all lakes across the country when we’re doing restoration you have to do both in-lake interventions and catchment interventions.”

A wetland project would also begin shortly, while the weed harvester was about to get a deep clean and then go into storage ahead of next summer.

“I like to compare it to a lawnmower. Effectively, we’re mowing the weed of the bottom of the lake,” Brown said.

“We’re not trying to get rid of all the weed. Like cutting your lawn, you leave the lawn there for stability.

“We want the aquatic plants to stay on the lake bed. That helps with stability. We get really high winds here and it just stops that stirring up on the lake bed.”

The lake is only as deep as 1.8 metres now due to silt build-up down the years.

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