Source: Radio New Zealand

Police are again appealing for anyone who knows anything about the death of Abdulhassan Nabizadah to come forward.

It’s been a year since the 63-year-old was assaulted, robbed and left critically injured on Camperdown Road in the Wellington suburb of Miramar.

The offenders, who stole nothing more than his car keys, then left him bleeding and unconscious on the footpath.

Despite best efforts, Nabizadah’s head injuries were unsurvivable and he died in hospital the next day.

Police previously told RNZ they think Nabizadah was “set up” to be robbed, but it took a violent turn.

“We know the people responsible will have talked about the death with friends and family,” Detective Senior Sergeant Tim Leitch said on Tuesday.

Police are encouraging those people to come forward.

Earlier, Leitch said the Nabizadah family didn’t have closure and needed to move on.

“Nabizadah was a husband, father, and grandfather, who brought his family to New Zealand from Afghanistan seeking a better life. Instead, his life was taken in a violent and senseless way.”

Anyone with any information is asked to call 105, referencing numbers 250317/6324 or Operation Celtic. Information can also be provided anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Families with disabled children are facing reductions in support under new rules that include income from boarders in assessments for accommodation supplements or income-related rent in public housing.

Before 2 March, only income from three or more boarders was included.

Minister for Social Development Louise Upston said, when the change was announced in the 2024 Budget, it was simplifying inconsistent treatment of board and rent payments.

It was expected that of the 8200 households who received the accommodation supplement and have boarders, about 7000 would have a reduction in support, of an average $100 a week.

About 6200 social housing households receiving board payments were expected to be affected, with an average rent increase of $132 a week.

Some families said that boarding situations were commonly used when adult children were living at home – sometimes because they could not move out.

“I’ve got a daughter with special needs who will never move out because she’s not capable of doing anything for herself,” one mother, Cheryl said.

“She’s fully dependent so now with the new laws because she’s 18, she gets her own benefit, her board money is now considered an income for me.

“Thankfully we live in the middle of nowhere so our mortgage is cheaper than what people are paying in rent. But people that are paying more would be affected drastically … my girl is non verbal … she’s under 50kg.

“Although she pays rent it mostly goes on food to try and fatten her up and get her over 50kg. It’s not really spent on a roof over her head.”

The potential for disabled people and young people to be more affected was highlighted in a supplementary analysis report by MSD.

University of Auckland associate professor Susan St John said the change had happened with “remarkably little scrutiny”.

She said people who were hosting homestay students would also be affected.

“It’s one of those changes that have been rushed through and was designed to save a paltry amount of money, $160 million over four years.

“We don’t know even whether it’s going to save that because of the behavioural change. People will just find it is not worthwhile to take on boarders … it’s a very complicated, punitive, discouraging kind of policy.”

Green Party spokesperson Ricardo Mendendez March said the policy made it harder for people who were already struggling.

“This is why this policy was never about fairness, but about finding ways to save money, which is explicitly named in the government budget as basically a cost-saving measure.

“Our concern is that at a time of high unemployment, at a time of a cost of living crisis and the fuel crisis bout to make life harder for everyday people, that we’re about to see people whose ability to make ends meet will be made a lot harder due to their inability to claim the full amount for the accommodation supplement as they would have been able to do so previously.”

Upston said in a press release at the time the change was announced that it supported the Government’s aim of making public services fiscally sustainable and effective.

“We believe that those who have a genuine need should be able to get the help they require while ensuring consistency across MSD payments,” Upston said.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The government has announced that hospitals will get hundreds more staff and extra beds as the health system prepares for winter pressure.

Health Minister Simeon Brown said Health New Zealand would invest an extra $25 million to boost hospital capacity and staffing across the country ahead of the colder months.

The funding would provide up to 378 additional full-time staff across nursing, medical, allied health and support roles and 71 extra winter hospital beds.

The beds would be added at four hospitals – 25 at Waikato, 20 in Christchurch, 14 at Middlemore in Auckland and 12 in Wellington.

The government said $16.8 million, around two-thirds of the funding, would going to the most pressured areas including Capital Coast and Hutt Valley, MidCentral, Auckland’s Te Toka Tumai, Counties Manukau, Waikato and Christchurch.

It’s also funding up to 567 short-stay beds in aged residential care to help free up hospital space, and is expanding the “Hospital in the Home” services to allow patients to leave hospital sooner.

Brown said emergency department visits continued to rise as the population grows and ages, putting increasing pressure on hospitals during winter.

“Despite these challenges, Health New Zealand has seen emergency department performance improve since the reintroduction of the government’s health targets, with more patients now being seen sooner, reversing several years of declining performance,” he said.

“While hospitals undertake seasonal planning each year as part of normal operations, winter demand still places significant pressure on services and frontline staff. That’s why strengthening capacity early, ahead of the winter months, is critical to ensuring patients receive timely care.”

Brown said he had made it clear to the Health New Zealand Board that he expected a plan to prepare hospitals for winter to be in place early.

“This gives New Zealanders confidence that the system is getting ready to support them heading into winter,” he said.

“Hospitals will still face high levels of demand this winter. But by planning early, expanding capacity, and supporting our frontline teams, we are giving them the tools, resources, and flexibility they need to better manage pressure, reduce delays, and deliver care for New Zealanders.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Papers show that Health New Zealand faces the “extreme risk” of not having enough of the workers it needs to push through the government’s order to decentralise rapidly.

Health Minister Simeon Brown last November ordered the agency to “rapidly devolve decision-making to its four regions and 20 districts” to improve healthcare.

A new devolution committee has been set up and last month was presented a report assessing the “current state” across the board.

RNZ has seen papers from the report.

“People capability is an extreme risk,” it said.

“Workforce has the lowest capability rating identified across regions and their districts with critical resourcing gaps.”

The “most common” gaps were around staff to handle infrastructure, procurement, health and safety, planning, finance and analysis.

Brown had pushed for speed, but the assessment said there was “a feeling that basics need to be in place first”.

“The transition back to a devolved model too quickly may remove the current controls and undermine the effective oversights that have been put in place.”

That included around finances, it said.

Health NZ told RNZ on Monday it was working to address the workforce gaps and capability issues identified.

The papers showed gaps in devolution resources in areas where the centralised agency in the last two years cut jobs and accepted hundreds of voluntary redundancies.

“The highly centralised organisation structure has led to a loss of experience” in making organisational, operational and strategic decisions in districts, the assessment said.

Even at national senior leadership level there were big gaps – “all interim apart from one role”.

‘As quickly as possible’

The government two years ago castigated Health NZ for loose financial controls, sacked its board and under a reset the new commissioner Lester Levy embarked on a $2 billion savings plan.

The goverment then embarked on rolling back large parts of the centralisation reforms of 2022.

“We want a nationally and regionally planned system, but one that has strong clinical input and buy-in at the hospital level,” said Brown last November.

He gave HNZ a New Year’s Eve deadline to come up with a devolution policy in his letter of expectations.

“This reinforces my expectation that regional accountability, production planning, and local decision-making is embedded as quickly as possible,” his letter said.

“Local districts and regions should be empowered to manage within their allocated budgets, including hiring decisions.”

On Monday a spokesperson for Brown said the government had had to stabilise and turn around a system Labour had restructured during a pandemic “without a plan”.

It “cannot simply be switched off” and must still deliver more care to more patients, faster, and a key to that was moving health decisions closer to communities, they said in a statement.

The report – the second one done on devolution by consultants Deloitte – offered a glimpse of how devolution had been going.

The senior doctors’ union, the ASMS, in principle supported devolution but warned against districts having to take on more responsibility without the resources.

“The chatter that we’re picking up from around our regular set of meetings with the districts is a massive concern that this is just pushing responsibility onto districts without any realistic means of achieving what needs to be done in terms of providing health care,” said executive director Sarah Dalton.

‘Carefully managing the transition’

The assessment said some areas like in strategy and finance showed progress.

But it varied alot. What it called ‘People and Culture’ would be hugely impacted by devolution and was rated the worst, with ‘low’ assessments across all six measures; it was especially weak in the South Island and central North Island from Taranaki to Bay of Plenty.

“Regional and district finance and operational capacity remain concentrated at national level and many local teams are under-resourced in financial management,” it said.

The solution? “Build capability across the organisation.” The districts had lost key roles, now they needed them back.

A chart showed 12 categories – such as budgeting, analysis and auditing – and rated nine of them as less than fully effective. Three were only partially effective – the second-to-lowest rating – including HNZ’s savings programme and its internal audit programme.

Among the other gaps was technology. Key devolution changes were predicated on AI that was not yet in place, and so manual “workarounds” persisted.

Health NZ executive national director of strategy performance improvement Jess Smaling said the current state assessment report was to support “carefully managing the transition back to frontline decision making”.

It came only after HNZ had addressed the first priority of fixing the financial crisis and improved performance, she said in a statement.

“We are committed to ensuring our districts are ready, able and most of all supported, to have more autonomy over their clinical decisions and operational budgets.”

‘Not driven by … cost savings’

Health system commentator Ian Powell had long called for devolution but said that required the right capabilities.

“And we’ve lost that through short-sighted restructuring.”

He did not see signs in the assessment that the topdown command culture was being overhauled. “That’s the missing bit.

“Overwhelmingly on the management side of Te Whatau Ora, both regionally and nationally, there’s a high level of job insecurity, and that is a terrible environment to actually to have to work in, and it guarantees a destabilised organisation.”

Health NZ Te Whatu Ora subsumed all 20 of the old district health boards – DHBs – almost four years ago. Its establishment cost tens of millions of dollars including large sums in consultant fees.

Brown in his letter of expectations to the board chair late last year said it was “clear to me that Health NZ is too centralised”.

“Too many decisions are made by people who are removed from the problems that frontline clinicians are trying to solve.

“While the final devolved structure may result in a smaller national office than in recent years,

this change is not driven by restructuring or cost savings.”

The driver instead was to embed local clinicians in budgeting and planning services, and set up straight lines of accountability everywhere, Brown said.

But the papers the committee looked at last month indicated that districts might struggle with budgeting.

“Staff churn and the absence of robust costing systems and processes has created knowledge gaps, making it difficult to form an accurate bottom-up budget based on cost of services delivered, paticulary in H&SS [Hospital and Specialist Services].”

It talked about reducing some of the risks by adopting a devolution “timeframe” that allowed regions and districts to get critical activities in place to take on more autonomy.

‘Trade-offs and risks’

It sounded other notes of caution, too.

“While there is a desire to accelerate the devolution process, HNZ recognises that there are trade-offs and risks involved,” said Deloitte’s assessment.

This could lead to “lack of control, poor decision-making, duplication of effort, inconsistent reporting and accountability gaps”.

The solution was good planning.

But this appeared a long way off.

“The desired end state has not yet been clearly defined, including the [transition] from a national to a regional structure,” it said.

The “scope, sequence and pace” of devolution all needed defining.

Dalton said while 2022’s centralisation had caused “chaos” by distancing clinicians from decisionmaking, devolution had to be resourced and the minister would be wise to taihoa.

“I mean, it really does smack of trying to come up with what looks like some quick wins in an election year, and that’s no way to run a health system.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

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A little bit of eggshell still clings to the slick feathers of the newly hatched brown kiwi chick.

Only a few hours old, it is already able to crouch on its small strong legs in the little heated chamber that will be home for its first two days of life at the National Kiwi Hatchery. Its round belly is full of the yolk that was part of the large egg – food to sustain it for the first few days while it learns to forage for bugs.

A safe start in life

Kiwi chicks are precocious, explains National Kiwi Hatchery manager Emma Bean. This means that, in contrast to human babies who need a lot of post-natal care, kiwi chicks tend to leave the nest, and warmth of their dad’s brood patch, within a week.

Emma says, “Whilst everything’s instinctive, they’ve essentially got chopsticks on their face that they need to just hone their skills, so they know what they’ve got to do… and they just need dad for a couple of days to keep them warm while their feathers dry off and fluff up and they learn to thermoregulate.”

In the hatchery this transition is facilitated by hutches with an angled heating plate, and food sources for the new chicks to search for.

Initially the chicks lose weight, as they use up that yolk. Once they have regained their hatch weight, they are microchipped and then graduate to crèche – either at a project site or at the onsite purpose-built facility at the hatchery.

At this stage, it’s a well-oiled machine.

Started in a shed at Rainbow Springs in 1995, the National Kiwi Hatchery celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, having moved to its new location and facilities in 2023. In total over 2600 North Island brown kiwi chicks have been hatched so far.

The hatchery is part of Operation Nest Egg, a conservation programme that takes kiwi eggs from the wild, then hatches and raises them during their vulnerable first few months of life, before returning them to where they came from.

The goal is to grow the chicks to a ‘stoat-proof’ weight of 1kg. Without this, or effective predator control, the survival rate of a kiwi chick in the wild is about 5 percent. Released at match-ready weight their chances increase to 65 percent.

Combining conservation and eco-tourism

A bus load of visitors pulls up and starts to unload in front of one of the small buildings that make up the hatchery, here for an hour-long tour. Inside they are greeted with information about the different kiwi species, the impact of predators, and facts about kiwi mating, eggs and embryo development.

A key attraction is the nocturnal house – where night and day have been switched and behind a pane of glass a pair of kiwi are up and about looking for food amongst the rotten logs and leaf litter that has been provided for them.

But it is the sight of the chicks that is often elicits the most emotion, says tour guide Rebeca Bothamley, “I’ve noticed when they see a chick or an egg they get really excited … I’ve had a few people cry when they’ve seen a couple chicks.”

The one-hour tour costs $75 per adult with a behind-the-scenes exclusive tour priced at $1250 for up to four people. If visitors want to sponsor a chick and name it, that’s $2787 – the estimate of how much it costs to hatch and rear a kiwi here.

Only a fraction of this is charged to the conservation projects, says Emma. As a Ngāi Tahu owned charitable trust, the idea is that conservation and eco-tourism go hand-in-hand, with the visitors’ contributions supporting the cost of the mahi.

‘The cherry on the top’

While the ultimate conservation goal is a future where Operation Nest Egg is no longer needed, that is not likely any time soon, says Emma. Plus, she sees the advocacy and education aspect of the hatchery as an important part of their work.

It is not the only captive kiwi rearing facility, with others spread across both the North and South Islands, some working with different kiwi species.

The National Kiwi Hatchery collaborates with about 15 different conservation projects around the North Island that monitor males to find nests and eggs, and control predators in their project areas to help kiwi survival after release.

Across their three decades they’ve learned a lot, says both Emma and long-time kiwi keeper Carole Dean. When Carole started in 1998 there was a lot of initial trial-and-error and learning on the job.

“We just had so much passion to learn and get better and obviously share that knowledge as we learnt it with other facilities.”

Today they know more about the development, physiology and embryology of kiwi, which enables them to make better decisions about things like when and how to assist a hatching chick. Plus, they have learned a lot about the husbandry, Carole says, in their onsite kiwi creche.

“What we do now compared to how we did it 15 or even 10 years ago, we’ve come in leaps and bounds with looking after our enclosures and keeping it really healthy up here to maintain healthy birds.”

When she started, there used to be a bit of sadness when a kiwi graduated back out to the forest because “they were such important little creatures to us” but these days, Carole celebrates when they are ready, “Get them out …they need to go home and be a real kiwi in a real forest.”

The ‘cherry on the top’ for her is the fact that chicks that have hatched with them are reproducing, and Carole has since been looking after second and third generations of hatchery chicks.

“That’s really cool … job done”.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Police are seeking help from the public after a woman went missing in Auckland.

In a statement, police said 65-year-old Jane was last seen in Saint Johns on Monday afternoon.

She had brown hair and was wearing a white patterned T-shirt and black leggings.

“Police, and her family, have concerned for her wellbeing.

“Anyone with information is asked to contact police as soon as possible.”

People can call 111, 105 or report any information online using reference number 260316/7192.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

It’s being billed as the data centre that changes everything – but hopefully that doesn’t include the price of your power.

It will be the country’s second biggest user of electricity after the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter.

A $3 billion data centre in Southland that, as the marketing says, “changes everything”….

“…delivering the most significant upgrade to New Zealand’s digital infrastructure in a generation. We’re doubling national data capacity and opening up a high-growth gateway to Asia-Pacific’s booming cloud and AI economy.”

Multiple resource consents have been granted by three local authorities to get Datagrid’s huge AI data storage project in Makarewa off the ground, and to land a high-speed internet cable from Australia coming up at Oreti Beach near Invercargill.

But where will all the power come from? The likely answer is the Manapōuri hydro-electric power plant, which also powers Tiwai.

But if there’s a shortage, say in a drought, what will the data centre’s requirement for constant electricity do to the market – and our power bills?

That’s what niggles Newsroom’s South Island editor, David Williams, who speaks to The Detail today after six years of keeping tabs on the project.

Datagrid has told him it won’t be answering his questions until it issues a news release later on – possibly this week.

For its international clients, the fact that the centre will be using clean energy is a big selling point, but is there enough of that energy to go around?

“It’s not like a data centre can just power down,” says Williams.

“The advantage of Tiwai is that they can say, ‘ok, well, we’re not going to put on this particular potline. We will close down for a while, and that’s part of our contract, and we’ll get paid by the country if you like, to shut down because that’s good for New Zealand Inc.’

“Data centres need continuous power. If they power down… that’s why they have these backup generators… if they power down, it’s actually damaging to their units or their processing centre. It needs to be a constant supply.”

Fast Track approval has just been given for a large Contact Energy wind farm just 50 kilometres away from the centre’s site, so that could be a piece of the puzzle.

Williams says this is “not your usual Southland development, I would have thought”.

“The scale of this is quite something.”

Not only does it involve building six data halls, but it is also flanked by 12-metre-high noise control barriers over 9.5 hectares on a 48-ha property. There will be 84 emergency generators, each with a 10,000 litre diesel tank and a 15m high exhaust stack.

The construction phase will offer the most lucrative economic return to the region, with up to 550 workers expected to be on site, but once it’s finished, it will only require about 50 staff to keep it going.

The main transmission line practically runs over the top of the site, and Datagrid will build its own substation and upgrade the grid exit point.

Williams says the company has done well to consult with neighbours, iwi, and anyone else affected, all of whom seem to be on board with the mitigations it’s planning.

Southland mayor Rob Scott has told him, “these people have done it right”.

“They’ve talked to people, they’ve consulted the community, but more importantly, they’ve listened,” he says.

“They’ve taken account of the things that they’ve said, and they’ve tried to change things.”

Measures included noise mitigation from the 24-hour hum of servers and concerns answered over water, required in great quantities for cooling.

“Most of the people who live around them have given their written approval for what’s going on,” he says.

Williams says given the Amazon data centre debacle in Auckland, where billions of dollar’s worth of building and employment were promised but never eventuated, people are right to be sceptical. But he says this project has emerged differently, starting small and getting bigger.

“But I do note,” he says, “with this particular project, the consent approval announcement was not made by the Prime Minister. So maybe that’s a good sign.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Doctors say the new AI scribe rolling out in EDs around the country is saving them up to 10 minutes per patient, and is particularly helpful for slow typers.

The tool, known as Heidi, was trialled in Hawke’s Bay Hospital’s ED, before the government announced it was being rolled out to all hospitals earlier this month.

The senior doctors’ union, ASMS, said in an update to members there had been no reported resistance from patients and senior medical officers had reported it eased cognitive pressure.

Health New Zealand (HNZ)’s director of digital innovation and AI, Sonny Taite, said clinicians were consistently reporting it reduced the time associated with clinical documentation, allowing them to focus more on patient care.

“Early qualitative feedback from senior medical officers indicates this has helped ease documentation pressure during busy shifts, and there has been no reported resistance from patients to its use in emergency settings.”

But with formal evaluation work ongoing, Health NZ was not attributing specific time savings percentages or quantified burnout outcomes at this stage.

Emergency physician Dr John Bonning said doctors in EDs were finding it “very helpful”, with its main benefit “speeding up those that are slow typists”.

It would normally take 15 minutes to see one patient and write up their notes, Bonning said, but one colleague had reported writing notes for three patients in 11 minutes – less than four minutes per patient.

Bonning himself had trialled the software a couple of times and was planning to incorporate it more into his work, and feedback among his colleagues had been mostly positive, with only about 10 percent deciding it was not for them.

“We do ask [patients’] consent before every use,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody say no, because it helps you do your job, and it helps you be more efficient.”

The app could summarise a handover with a paramedic, for example, which could then be turned into a referral letter or later on, a discharge note.

The notes could be quite wordy, and did need to be “very carefully edited, and occasionally it hallucinates and puts in false information, but not too much”, Bonning said.

Hallucinating, or adding false or illogical information to a response, is a known phenomemon among many types of AI. Tech giant IBM described it as “similar to how humans sometimes see figures in the clouds or faces on the moon”.

HNZ’s Taite said feedback from 40 clinicians surveyed showed a need to “further improve accuracy and reduce editing effort, which would enhance trust and preserve time savings, particularly for senior clinicians”.

“Many also saw clear gains from smoothing workflow and device integration and better tailoring functionality to the realities of ED consults. Alongside this, there was interest in clearer guidance, templates, and training to support safe, confident use while reinforcing clinical reasoning and governance.”

Security features include encryption, two-factor authentication

Following hacks at both MediMap and ManageMyHealth in recent months, security is a topic front-of-mind for many in the health sector.

Taite explained Heidi operated as a secure cloud service and had been assessed against Health NZ’s privacy, security, and contractual requirements. “Appropriate safeguards are in place as part of the rollout,” he said.

Yass Omar, head of legal and regulatory affairs at Heidi, explained all data within Heidi was encrypted and de-identified, and the app used two-factor authentication.

Data was stored in the cloud, rather than in the device, unless it was waiting for an internet connection – and in those cases, it was stored in the app’s secure sandbox (that is, an isolated part of the app not accessible to anybody else) before being uploaded straight to the cloud once it reconnected.

The information collected by listening in to conversations was transcribed and summarised in the app, and then able to be copy and pasted into the patient’s notes in the hospital’s own IT system, where patient notes had always been stored.

“So you can imagine that [someone] finds an unlocked phone, they see the Heidi app, they press on it, it prompts them for 2FA [two factor authentication], they can’t pass that. And then the next step would be, oh, can I find some files? No, because they’re not actually stored on the phone.”

Heidi had worked with NAIAEAG, Health NZ’s AI group, to make sure its security features were up to scratch, which Omar said was “an exceptionally high bar” to meet in terms of security.

None of the information fed into Heidi was used to train its AI. “Everything we do is about data minimisation,” he said. “We don’t collect any more data than we have to.”

Currently the encrypted, de-identified data was stored in a cloud-based server in Australia, but opening a server in New Zealand was on the cards.

“That’s something that is high in our priority for 2026,” Omar said. “The only thing that limits us is the availability of suitable infrastructure. At the scale that we are, we can’t just kind of use any cloud provider. We have to find ones that can cope with the volume of traffic that we push through.”

Study shows trust in AI will be difficult to repair if broken

According to a new paper, titled “Maintaining patient trust as artificial intelligence’s role in healthcare grows” by Rosie Dobson, Melanie Stowell and Robyn Whittaker, trust around AI could be built and maintained through transparency and good governance – “but if broken or lost, it will be difficult to repair and will have wider implications”.

Through interviews with patients and healthcare workers, the researchers found a few common threads when it came to their concerns:

• The primary benefit of sharing AI data should be to the New Zealand public – not private companies or those overseas
• Strong data protection needed to be in place
• Patients needed choice and to give consent on when to share their data
• AI should not replace the “human touch” of health professions
• There should be Māori representation in work to develop AI tools, and governance over their use
• Universities and New Zealand-based organisations were seen as more trustworthy AI development partners than commercial companies or overseas institutions

The authors recommended there be a culture of transparency, with health well-educated on how their tools work so they could explain it to patients. There also needed to be good governance, with the input of patients and healthcare workers.

GP says patient diagnosis the next step for AI in healthcare

Richard Medlicott, Wellington GP at Island Bay Medical Centre, said the future of AI in healthcare was as a tool for advice, not just a scribe.

Right now, among GPs, AI tools listened to consultations and made notes, which could then be copy and pasted or even automatically fed back into the GPs own patient notes system.

His practice used IntelliTek Health, a company which Medlicott himself had a stake in, rather than Heidi, but any AI software would have the effect of reducing ‘cognitive load’.

“At the end of a consultation, we might have to remember three or four things that were talked about in that fifteen minutes, and then get them all down,” he said.

“I find that quite fatiguing, and the use of scribes over the last two years has been really helpful in that regard.”

He said the scribe also meant he was verbalising more during consultations – “oh, your chest sounds clear, or your tummy’s nice and normal, no signs of an enlarged liver” – for the benefit of the scribe, but which patients appreciated.

And for doctors who preferred to type notes throughout the consult rather than afterwards, it meant they were more present in the conversation rather than at the keyboard, which patients said they appreciated.

It was saving GPs anywhere between two and five minutes per consultation, he said.

The future of AI would move beyond clinical scribes. Around the world already, AI was being used to look at medical records and give medical advice.

“I think we’ll get there, but AI sometimes hallucinate terribly, and just get things wrong,” he said. “That is the next stage, it’s happening now, but it is higher risk than AI scribes.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A controversial plan to pump millions of litres of partially-treated sewage into the Christchurch coastline is leaving community leaders feeling uneasy and sceptical.

Earlier this month, Mayor Phil Mauger floated the idea of pumping around a third of the city’s sewage into the ocean in an effort to lessen the stench from the fire-damaged wastewater plant at Bromley.

The sewage would be partially treated and have chlorine added before being pumped out via the existing outfall pipe into Pegasus Bay.

The announcement came days after the Canterbury Regional Council issued an abatement notice to the city council over the plant’s “objectionable and offensive odour”, which had worsened over recent months resulting in almost 6000 complaints since late January.

The proposal had been met with fierce criticism in some quarters, with Fisheries Minister Shane Jones labelling the idea “ridiculous”.

The city council had until this week to comply with the abatement notice, including providing details on how it would mitigate the stench.

The Waitai Coastal-Burwood-Linwood community board was briefed on the plan on Monday.

Wastewater treatment plant operations manager Adam Twose told members the “multi-million dollar” plan was under consideration because recently-introduced wastewater regulations were more relaxed.

“Under the new wastewater standards, there’s the option to go a lot looser. So you’re allowed to discharge more contaminants to the environment,” he said.

The proposed sewage bypass would not meet the plant’s existing resource consent conditions, Twose said.

There also remained several unresolved matters, including total cost, timeframes and environmental impacts.

At the meeting, board chair Paul McMahon admitted he felt uneasy about the proposal.

“Given the potential environmental impact and lots of other unknowns. But I do think that it needs to be investigated fully,” he said.

The briefing also raised further questions over the plant’s overall resilience which had been operating at maximum capacity, meaning essential site maintenance had been put off.

Twose said if pressure on the plant was not eased, odours could become more frequent and more severe.

“[Our plan] was to see how long we could keep everything going until the new activator sludge was going in. But it’s become obvious that we need to act,” he said.

Councillor Yani Johanson also questioned whether the plan was viable.

“Is there a risk that we spend all this time and effort looking at this option and we don’t get progress on it to fix the problem ahead of when the new solution’s in place.

“If we spend a whole bunch of money doing something that’s not going to be ready in time, what have we achieved.”

The city council was planning to replace the plant’s fire-damaged trickling filters with an activated sludge reactor.

The project was due to completed in late 2028.

The regional council’s director of operations Brett Aldridge said it had received the city council’s plan.

“Our wastewater specialist will work alongside [Canterbury Regional Council] staff to assess the information provided with urgency to ensure it meets the expectations set out in the abatement notice. Depending on the complexity of the material submitted, this may take some time to complete.

“If the plan submitted today is not satisfactory, Christchurch City Council may face additional enforcement action from the regional council.”

Greens’ local government spokesperson Mike Davidson said the city council could be locked into a long-term committment for what was essentially a short-term fix.

“I think the council are genuine in trying to make it temporary, but it will give them a 35-year consent.

“We’ve seen things that were supposed to be temporary last very long, you just have to look at how long this debacle has taken to get to this point.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

It’s being billed as the data centre that changes everything – but hopefully that doesn’t include the price of your power.

It will be the country’s second biggest user of electricity after the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter.

A $3 billion data centre in Southland that, as the marketing says, “changes everything”….

“…delivering the most significant upgrade to New Zealand’s digital infrastructure in a generation. We’re doubling national data capacity and opening up a high-growth gateway to Asia-Pacific’s booming cloud and AI economy.”

Multiple resource consents have been granted by three local authorities to get Datagrid’s huge AI data storage project in Makarewa off the ground, and to land a high-speed internet cable from Australia coming up at Oreti Beach near Invercargill.

But where will all the power come from? The likely answer is the Manapōuri hydro-electric power plant, which also powers Tiwai.

But if there’s a shortage, say in a drought, what will the data centre’s requirement for constant electricity do to the market – and our power bills?

That’s what niggles Newsroom’s South Island editor, David Williams, who speaks to The Detail today after six years of keeping tabs on the project.

Datagrid has told him it won’t be answering his questions until it issues a news release later on – possibly this week.

For its international clients, the fact that the centre will be using clean energy is a big selling point, but is there enough of that energy to go around?

“It’s not like a data centre can just power down,” says Williams.

“The advantage of Tiwai is that they can say, ‘ok, well, we’re not going to put on this particular potline. We will close down for a while, and that’s part of our contract, and we’ll get paid by the country if you like, to shut down because that’s good for New Zealand Inc.’

“Data centres need continuous power. If they power down… that’s why they have these backup generators… if they power down, it’s actually damaging to their units or their processing centre. It needs to be a constant supply.”

Fast Track approval has just been given for a large Contact Energy wind farm just 50 kilometres away from the centre’s site, so that could be a piece of the puzzle.

Williams says this is “not your usual Southland development, I would have thought”.

“The scale of this is quite something.”

Not only does it involve building six data halls, but it is also flanked by 12-metre-high noise control barriers over 9.5 hectares on a 48-ha property. There will be 84 emergency generators, each with a 10,000 litre diesel tank and a 15m high exhaust stack.

The construction phase will offer the most lucrative economic return to the region, with up to 550 workers expected to be on site, but once it’s finished, it will only require about 50 staff to keep it going.

The main transmission line practically runs over the top of the site, and Datagrid will build its own substation and upgrade the grid exit point.

Williams says the company has done well to consult with neighbours, iwi, and anyone else affected, all of whom seem to be on board with the mitigations it’s planning.

Southland mayor Rob Scott has told him, “these people have done it right”.

“They’ve talked to people, they’ve consulted the community, but more importantly, they’ve listened,” he says.

“They’ve taken account of the things that they’ve said, and they’ve tried to change things.”

Measures included noise mitigation from the 24-hour hum of servers and concerns answered over water, required in great quantities for cooling.

“Most of the people who live around them have given their written approval for what’s going on,” he says.

Williams says given the Amazon data centre debacle in Auckland, where billions of dollar’s worth of building and employment were promised but never eventuated, people are right to be sceptical. But he says this project has emerged differently, starting small and getting bigger.

“But I do note,” he says, “with this particular project, the consent approval announcement was not made by the Prime Minister. So maybe that’s a good sign.”

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.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The Public Service Association (PSA) says a group of 2500 Te Whatu Ora staff it represents have ratified a new collective agreement.

The PSA said its members working in policy, advisory, knowledge and services – known as PAKS – voted overhelmingly in favour of the deal.

The PAKS agreement covered those employed in digital services, infrastructure, operations, communications, finance, people and capability, procurement, service design and planning, analytics and research, and policy.

The ratification was the result of 11 months of bargaining, mediation and industrial action.

Health workers covered by the collective would receive a pay increase of 2.5 percent effective from 1 December last year, with a further 2 percent in December this year.

Workers would each receive a $500 lump sum payment prorated for full-time equivalent hours worked.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Papers show that Health New Zealand faces the “extreme risk” of not having enough of the workers it needs to push through the government’s order to decentralise rapidly.

Health Minister Simeon Brown last November ordered the agency to “rapidly devolve decision-making to its four regions and 20 districts” to improve healthcare.

A new devolution committee has been set up and last month was presented a report assessing the “current state” across the board.

RNZ has seen papers from the report.

“People capability is an extreme risk,” it said.

“Workforce has the lowest capability rating identified across regions and their districts with critical resourcing gaps.”

The “most common” gaps were around staff to handle infrastructure, procurement, health and safety, planning, finance and analysis.

Brown had pushed for speed, but the assessment said there was “a feeling that basics need to be in place first”.

“The transition back to a devolved model too quickly may remove the current controls and undermine the effective oversights that have been put in place.”

That included around finances, it said.

Health NZ told RNZ on Monday it was working to address the workforce gaps and capability issues identified.

The papers showed gaps in devolution resources in areas where the centralised agency in the last two years cut jobs and accepted hundreds of voluntary redundancies.

“The highly centralised organisation structure has led to a loss of experience” in making organisational, operational and strategic decisions in districts, the assessment said.

Even at national senior leadership level there were big gaps – “all interim apart from one role”.

‘As quickly as possible’

The government two years ago castigated Health NZ for loose financial controls, sacked its board and under a reset the new commissioner Lester Levy embarked on a $2 billion savings plan.

The goverment then embarked on rolling back large parts of the centralisation reforms of 2022.

“We want a nationally and regionally planned system, but one that has strong clinical input and buy-in at the hospital level,” said Brown last November.

He gave HNZ a New Year’s Eve deadline to come up with a devolution policy in his letter of expectations.

“This reinforces my expectation that regional accountability, production planning, and local decision-making is embedded as quickly as possible,” his letter said.

“Local districts and regions should be empowered to manage within their allocated budgets, including hiring decisions.”

On Monday a spokesperson for Brown said the government had had to stabilise and turn around a system Labour had restructured during a pandemic “without a plan”.

It “cannot simply be switched off” and must still deliver more care to more patients, faster, and a key to that was moving health decisions closer to communities, they said in a statement.

The report – the second one done on devolution by consultants Deloitte – offered a glimpse of how devolution had been going.

The senior doctors’ union, the ASMS, in principle supported devolution but warned against districts having to take on more responsibility without the resources.

“The chatter that we’re picking up from around our regular set of meetings with the districts is a massive concern that this is just pushing responsibility onto districts without any realistic means of achieving what needs to be done in terms of providing health care,” said executive director Sarah Dalton.

‘Carefully managing the transition’

The assessment said some areas like in strategy and finance showed progress.

But it varied alot. What it called ‘People and Culture’ would be hugely impacted by devolution and was rated the worst, with ‘low’ assessments across all six measures; it was especially weak in the South Island and central North Island from Taranaki to Bay of Plenty.

“Regional and district finance and operational capacity remain concentrated at national level and many local teams are under-resourced in financial management,” it said.

The solution? “Build capability across the organisation.” The districts had lost key roles, now they needed them back.

A chart showed 12 categories – such as budgeting, analysis and auditing – and rated nine of them as less than fully effective. Three were only partially effective – the second-to-lowest rating – including HNZ’s savings programme and its internal audit programme.

Among the other gaps was technology. Key devolution changes were predicated on AI that was not yet in place, and so manual “workarounds” persisted.

Health NZ executive national director of strategy performance improvement Jess Smaling said the current state assessment report was to support “carefully managing the transition back to frontline decision making”.

It came only after HNZ had addressed the first priority of fixing the financial crisis and improved performance, she said in a statement.

“We are committed to ensuring our districts are ready, able and most of all supported, to have more autonomy over their clinical decisions and operational budgets.”

‘Not driven by … cost savings’

Health system commentator Ian Powell had long called for devolution but said that required the right capabilities.

“And we’ve lost that through short-sighted restructuring.”

He did not see signs in the assessment that the topdown command culture was being overhauled. “That’s the missing bit.

“Overwhelmingly on the management side of Te Whatau Ora, both regionally and nationally, there’s a high level of job insecurity, and that is a terrible environment to actually to have to work in, and it guarantees a destabilised organisation.”

Health NZ Te Whatu Ora subsumed all 20 of the old district health boards – DHBs – almost four years ago. Its establishment cost tens of millions of dollars including large sums in consultant fees.

Brown in his letter of expectations to the board chair late last year said it was “clear to me that Health NZ is too centralised”.

“Too many decisions are made by people who are removed from the problems that frontline clinicians are trying to solve.

“While the final devolved structure may result in a smaller national office than in recent years,

this change is not driven by restructuring or cost savings.”

The driver instead was to embed local clinicians in budgeting and planning services, and set up straight lines of accountability everywhere, Brown said.

But the papers the committee looked at last month indicated that districts might struggle with budgeting.

“Staff churn and the absence of robust costing systems and processes has created knowledge gaps, making it difficult to form an accurate bottom-up budget based on cost of services delivered, paticulary in H&SS [Hospital and Specialist Services].”

It talked about reducing some of the risks by adopting a devolution “timeframe” that allowed regions and districts to get critical activities in place to take on more autonomy.

‘Trade-offs and risks’

It sounded other notes of caution, too.

“While there is a desire to accelerate the devolution process, HNZ recognises that there are trade-offs and risks involved,” said Deloitte’s assessment.

This could lead to “lack of control, poor decision-making, duplication of effort, inconsistent reporting and accountability gaps”.

The solution was good planning.

But this appeared a long way off.

“The desired end state has not yet been clearly defined, including the [transition] from a national to a regional structure,” it said.

The “scope, sequence and pace” of devolution all needed defining.

Dalton said while 2022’s centralisation had caused “chaos” by distancing clinicians from decisionmaking, devolution had to be resourced and the minister would be wise to taihoa.

“I mean, it really does smack of trying to come up with what looks like some quick wins in an election year, and that’s no way to run a health system.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

It’s feasible that petrol prices could reach $4 a litre, economists say.

Ongoing conflict in the Middle East has pushed up oil prices, taking petrol prices with them.

Over March, the average price of 91 has risen about 50c a litre, according to price monitoring app Gaspy. On Monday it was just over $3 on average across the country.

Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold said if the crisis were to continue, the price of oil could hit US$200 a barrel, which would take retail petrol prices past $4.

Westpac noted last week that refining margins had already lifted from US$20 ($NZ34) to around US$35 a barrel, which amplified the effect on retail prices for petrol in New Zealand.

“Refining margins will go quite high because there’s the supply chain that’s going from the Middle East to the refiners in Asia who are overwhelmingly reliant on crude oil coming out of the Middle East, with a three-week lag, maybe a month if you want to be generous.

“Those refiners in Asia are already considering reducing production because they don’t want to shut down a refinery. They would prefer to run it at a lower level because if you shut it down it’s really expensive and hard to start back up again.

“What that will mean is that there’ll be increasingly reduced supply of refined products around Asia and that will obviously be an important input into petrol and diesel here … $4 petrol prices are eminently feasible if you end up in some of those quite negative scenarios.”

Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub said oil prices at around US$150 a barrel would mean $4 a litre for motorists.

Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said with oil prices at around US$100, petrol should be at about $3.27.

“We’re pushing towards that … if you had another US$35 a barrel on top of that, US$135 on a sustained basis, you could be pushing $4. I’ve seen people talking risks around $150.

“I think Westpac came out with $185 and others are talking $200 …. you look at some of those numbers and you’re talking well north of $4 potentially.”

He said every US$1 increase in the oil price added about 2.2c but Eaqub said as long as the refining crack spread remained the same it could be about 1.2c. Westpac estimated a US$10 increase in the price of oil added 11c a litre.

Murat Ungor, at Otago University, said the market was very sensitive to price movements

“If crude oil were to reach US$130 to US$140 per barrel and stay there for three to four weeks, petrol prices could quickly move into the $3.50-$3.70 range.

“To break the $4 barrier, we would likely need a combination of extreme factors, such as crude sustained at US$140-US$170 per barrel, matching or exceeding the record highs of 2008, or such high prices combined with a weaker New Zealand dollar and higher shipping margins.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Leslie Parr was spiralling.

It had been 27 years since he’d killed his ex-partner Fiona Maulolo, stabbing her repeatedly with a chisel before beheading her.

Following his first killing he was made a special patient under the Mental Health Act after a jury found him not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

From about 2012 he was back in the community and in 2021 he had his status change to being a patient under the Mental Health Act.

But by early 2024 his mental health was rapidly declining, he was having troubles with his relationship and he was using cannabis. In May 2024 he was admitted to a mental health facility after an altercation with a relative. About a week later he was released back into the community.

Then, five days later he killed “the most important thing to him” – his mother Heather Condon. Once again, he would be found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

The case was shrouded in secrecy until RNZ revealed it last year.

On Monday, the Supreme Court dismissed Parr’s application for leave to appeal a decision declining name suppression, allowing RNZ to reveal the full details of the killing.

RNZ has obtained court documents including statements from those who knew him best that lift the lid on Parr’s life, his mental health battles and his family’s anger with the mental health system.

“How can someone who has previously killed another person be able to remain free when the warning signs are right there for all to see?” his father wrote.

‘Cold and sinister’

Leslie Raymond Parr was born in 1974. He was the youngest of four siblings, and a year after he was born the family moved to Whanganui.

Parr’s father Harold Parr would later tell police the children were “all good kids”.

“My boys and I would do lots of things together like hunting, fishing and I coached their school rugby team.”

Wanting the best for his sons, Harold Parr sent them to St Stephen’s secondary school in Auckland.

After finishing school, Leslie Parr returned home. His parents soon separated and Harold Parr moved to Taupō before going to live in Wellington.

Leslie’s troubles were first expressed in 1995 when he developed insomnia, with a decrease in appetite over several months.

He was admitted to a psychiatric unit under the Mental Health Act in August that year after attempting suicide. On admission he was overheard saying “Satan will kill us all. Here to save you”.

A psychiatrist found he was suffering from a disorder of the mind.

“I can only say, most emphatically, that Mr Parr should remain in a psychiatric hospital as an involuntary patient. He is really very ill and is at risk of suiciding. I fear the type of schizophrenia he has is one that is associated with impulsive and often successful suicide attempts, usually based on concealed delusional thinking.”

Parr was then made the subject of a Compulsory Treatment Order. After responding well to medication he was released.

Harold told police about “episodes” Leslie had while living with him.

“I knew he was suffering from something serious because he was so dark and cold when he had an episode.

“I noticed it mostly in his eyes, they were just cold and sinister looking.”

‘I had to kill her’

Leslie met Fiona Maulolo in 1996 and the pair soon moved into a property in the Hutt Valley.

Soon after meeting Maulolo, Leslie stopped taking his antipsychotic medication regularly and had an “episode” which led to him being admitted to Porirua Hospital.

Parr was described as a man who was “depressed and delusional”, thinking that his father was Satan. He was predicting the end of the world in the year 2000, and said he heard voices telling him to kill himself.

When his medication was reintroduced he began to deny psychotic symptoms.

On the day he was due to be discharged from hospital he seriously assaulted a police officer who was visiting the same ward.

Parr told a psychiatrist he didn’t believe he was to blame “because the constable had looked at him”.

Parr was then made a compulsory inpatient for six months under the Mental Health Act.

However, he was released nine days later, on 28 March 1996. He was not seen again by mental health services until 15 April 1997 after he was found semi-conscious in a carport at Maulolo’s property.

He was transported to Hutt Hospital by ambulance and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. He later regained consciousness and underwent a psychiatric assessment before he was discharged into his father’s care.

Three days after he was admitted to hospital his father and another person went to collect some clothes for him from Maulolo’s home. On arrival they found Maulolo’s daughters and a relative who had not heard from Maulolo for a week.

They forced their way into the home and found Maulolo’s body in the bath. Police were then called.

Maulolo had been decapitated with her head found in a plastic bag in a clothes dryer. Forensic evidence revealed Parr had driven a chisel multiple times into her heart before decapitating her.

He went on trial for murder in 1998. At trial police said Parr and Maulolo’s relationship was “volatile” with neighbours describing constant verbal arguments and fights between them. There was a suggestion Maulolo was looking to end the relationship.

He told police he killed her because he believed she was Satan.

A jury found Parr not guilty by reason of insanity. A judge ordered he be detained in a special secure unit and not freed without the health minister’s authority.

A coroner later said Parr’s treatment had been seriously deficient.

There had been no ongoing assessment of Parr’s mental health state, or monitoring of his medication needs between when he was discharged and when the murder occurred.

Parr’s hospital file showed that a clinical review of his mental health had been carried out by his responsible clinician, Dr Linda Astor.

She claimed she had examined Parr and “consulted with other health professionals” involved in the treatment and care of him, and that she had taken their views into account when assessing the results of her review of his condition.

She said he was fit to be released from compulsory status, nine days into what was supposed to be six-months as a compulsory patient.

There was, however, no evidence Dr Astor ever saw Parr or consulted with other health professionals involved in his treatment and care.

Astor later fled the country and was unmasked as a bogus psychiatrist.

‘He was very loving and caring’

Parr was transferred to Te Awhina, an inpatient acute mental health service, to be closer to his family in 2000. He was put on a different medication and his mental health “improved a lot,” his father said.

In the coming years he started doing day visits accompanied by a nurse and even got a job.

Once he was released eventually released from Te Awhina he started going by the name Zac.

At first he lived with his mother, before finding his own place. Harold said Leslie looked after his mother and grandfather including doing their lawns.

In 2021 the special patient order was removed.

In 2023 Leslie met a woman Rachel (not her real name) via online dating, by September they were in a relationship.

The woman told RNZ Leslie, who told her his name was Zac, seemed “perfectly fine”.

“He was very loving and caring and treated me incredibly well.”

She would later tell police Leslie was “always helping his family”.

“Especially his mum and as far as I knew he was a good person, a kind person.”

Harold told police that Leslie spent several years working at a local freezing works but left after people found out about Maulolo’s death. He went on the benefit for a few years before getting a job at a milk factory cleaning trucks.

In March 2024, the work “dried up,” his father said and Leslie was laid off and went back on the benefit.

Harold said he visited his son days before his birthday in April to help as he was having a party.

“When I arrived, Leslie was there with a friend, and they were bouncing off the walls. It was obvious him and his friend had used drugs.”

The following day Harold told Leslie to get off the drugs or he would call the police.

The pair did not have much contact after the incident as they were “both annoyed at one another”.

It was not until May that Leslie told Rachel he killed his former girlfriend in 1997.

“I laughed and thought he was joking but he had a dead-pan face and I eventually realised he was not joking, and I screamed and told him to leave.”

After he left, she looked him up online and read about what happened to Maulolo.

“At the time I thought it had been years earlier and he wasn’t well at the time and the case had not been handled well, lots of mistakes involved.

“So, I believed it was a one-off thing due to all the circumstances and not likely to happen again.”

Leslie also sat down with her and said he was on the wrong medication at the time and claimed he begged them not to let him go because he knew he wasn’t well.

The admission

In May 2024, following an altercation with a relative he was admitted to a mental health facility.

Rachel said after the admission she became “very scared and very terrified”.

He was released after about a week on 30 May. Following his release, he became preoccupied with the loss of keys to his ute which he could not find.

Harold told police his son did not sleep for four nights, worried about his ute.

“He was so agitated about his keys and seemed really scared and stressed,” he said.

“I could tell how much it was affecting him and he just wouldn’t let it go.”

Leslie visited his father’s home on 3 June. He did not go inside, and just sat on the back doorstep.

“He started to remind me of how he behaved in Wellington when the other incident happened.

“Leslie had those dark eyes and wasn’t present. The biggest thing I notice when he’s like that is you can’t reason with him. He talks so fast and frantic that you don’t even have time to answer.”

Rachel’s concerns were also growing.

“I started to see a side to him I didn’t like.”

He started becoming delusional and irrational which appeared to coincide with his consumption of marijuana increasing a lot higher than she had noticed before.

“He said some weird things to me about his mum not being a human and that she was a Demi-God.”

When she heard he was going to be released from the mental health facility she worried “maybe he’s gonna come for me”.

“But I didn’t want to come tell the police because I thought I needed to try get out of it quietly, because I thought if I piss him off, you know you can get protection orders, you can get that but it’s just a piece of paper they can still kill you.”

A day after he was released Leslie messaged Rachel and said he did not love her anymore and wanted to break up.

The following morning, about 4.30am, Rachel woke up to tapping on her ranch slider. She got up and he was standing outside. He said he had been drinking with his friend all day and night and he had been sick and then drove to her place. He ended up staying the night.

Two days later she was mowing her front lawn when she saw him sitting in his car on the road watching her. Rachel asked him what he was doing, and he replied: “Oh, I love you and I want to be with you.”

She told him he was stalking her and was being “creepy”. He took off, but she then saw him again about an hour later across the road. She told him to go away, and she would see him later on.

The next night he visited her home after repeatedly asking to come over. The couple were arguing back and forth in her bedroom.

Rachel said she told him she did not think the relationship was working and he needed to leave.

He refused to leave and asked her what she was going to do about it. She threatened to call the police and then he left.

A second killing

The following morning, the day of the second killing, Parr called Rachel to say he needed someone to pick him up as he had driven out of town and his car broke down in Bulls. Rachel said she was reluctant to help him but eventually relented.

However, when she got there he was not there. Rachel then called Heather and said she could not find him.

Heather said she wondered if he was testing her.

“I said to her, ‘Yeah, he’s been acting very, very strange’ and she started to get upset and said, ‘Yes, I’m very worried about him and he’s been saying that he can’t trust anybody, that he can’t trust me, he can’t trust his dad and he only trusts you and that he only feels safe with you’.”

Shortly after Leslie called Rachel and said his phone had gone flat and he got a lift with someone else.

Leslie had also been calling his father earlier in the day. Leslie’s sister called Harold shortly before 1pm saying she was concerned about her brother and wanted him to go and stay with her to relax about his ute.

“I told her it was better for him to be in Whanganui near the pysch unit and where there are more cops in case something happened”.

Harold then drove around to Leslie’s home. He was not there, but just as he was leaving Heather arrived.

The pair talked about how their son was behaving, including his worries about his keys and his drug use.

About 20 minutes later he got a call from Heather once she was home to say Leslie was at her home when she got there.

“Heather said they had an argument because he was angry at her for calling [Rachel] and getting her involved.

“She said Leslie told her he needed the car, so she threw him the keys and he took off.”

Harold tried calling Leslie to see where he was but he did not answer.

About 1.45pm Leslie called Harold and they talked about hiring a trailer to pick up his ute.

Harold then picked Leslie up from Heather’s home and headed towards the hire centre.

“When we got there Leslie changed his mind about picking up his car.

“We had a heated discussion about picking up his car and mucking around, but he still didn’t want to go get it, so I dropped him back at his mother’s.”

Harold then went to the supermarket. While there he called Leslie’s sister and spoke about Leslie. She said Leslie had been talking about everyone being out to get him.

“[She] said she could hear in his voice that he didn’t seem well but insisted she could help.

“I told [her] we should call Police and try get him back to the hospital.”

He then called Leslie’s nurse to get and get his doctor’s number.

He claimed the nurse told him Leslie went to get this “shot” around 1pm and was “very cagey”.

“I asked [the nurse] if she drug tested Leslie, but she didn’t because she thought he might think she was picking on him and make him angry.”

The nurse said she would call Leslie’s doctor and tell him how he was behaving and express the family’s concerns.

At 4.53pm Harold received a call from Leslie asking for help. He said he was at his mother’s home and the mob was after him.

“He was puffing and was out of breath like he had been fighting or running.”

At 5.35pm Leslie phoned again and said the same thing about needing help, but he was now at his home.

Court documents reveal that between 4.50pm and 5.39pm there was an incident between Leslie and his mother at her home.

Armed with a knife, Leslie fatally stabbed his mother before leaving the address and arriving at an associate’s home about 6.20pm.

He walked into the address and sat on the doorstep asking his associate “cuz do you know where to get a gun?”

Leslie said he needed the gun because the Mongrel Mob was after him.

He then called his sister and a plan was made to go to Raetihi.

Leslie got into his associate’s car and while they were travelling he said “cuz I’ve killed mum”.

Asked why, Leslie said “Mum’s possessed, Mum’s possessed. I had to do it.”

The associate got out of the car and walked away. Leslie then drove off. The associate eventually drove to the Whanganui Police Station and told them what Leslie had said.

About 5.30pm, Leslie arrived at Rachel’s home. He made himself a chicken sandwich and about 7pm they went to bed.

Meanwhile, Leslie’s family were becoming concerned as they were unable to get hold of him or Heather.

They thought she may have gone to mass, but it was “out of character” for her not to have her phone. Harold drove to her home but there were no cars outside.

He then went and checked the laundry and shops, but could not find her.

At 8.25pm police found Heather dead in the garden beside the porch.

Harold told police that as soon as he was told about Heather’s death he became concerned for Rachel and her daughter.

“I didn’t know any details of what happened to Heather, but I immediately thought Leslie was the only one capable of doing that and given how he had been behaving it was likely.”

About 1am Rachel woke to get some water when she saw lights coming from outside.

“I woke him up and said ‘there’s all these lights and things’ and he just got up and shot out, and then suddenly there’s armed offenders squad and dogs and guns being pointed and stuff like that.”

Rachel went and spoke with the police and asked what was going on.

Leslie was told he was under arrest for murder and he replied:

“Yes, I know.”

The following day, Rachel was told what had happened.

“I was in disbelief, I was sickened and distraught.”

Heather was “the most important thing to him,” she said.

“This is where it is so hard to believe what he’s done to her because he would talk to her every day, if not multiple times a day.

Harold told police Leslie “loved his mother” and did anything for her.

“When he’s well he’s such a caring person.

“Leslie wasn’t well though and he is capable of anything when his mental state is unstable.”

Mental health system ‘failed everybody’

In April last year in the High Court at Whanganui Justice Karen Grau said there was no question Parr was responsible for his mother’s death, but that he was “legally insane” at the time he caused her death.

“I am satisfied, based on the reports of the experts, that it is clear Mr Parr suffered from a disease of the mind, a relapse in his longstanding schizophrenia, at the time he killed his mother.

“It is not the case that he did not understand the nature of his actions, but as the experts have concluded, and with which I agree, he was incapable of understanding his acts were morally wrong, and they were driven by his delusional beliefs.”

He was ordered to be detained as a special patient under the Mental Health Act.

Justice Grau said the case occurred “against a backdrop of apparent significant failures in the mental health system”.

Harold Parr wrote to Justice Grau as part of proceedings, requesting name suppression for both his son and Heather.

He said he had attended “countless appointments” and meetings relating to his son’s mental health over the years.

“I have met his doctors and psychiatrists and have a good understanding of the mental health system, what services are provided and some of its failings.”

He referenced Maulolo’s killing, saying the details of which were “too horrific to repeat”.

He wrote his son’s release by Dr Astor was “unlawful and improper” and said Leslie “should never have been let out”.

“If the proper procedures were followed Fiona would not have been killed in 1997.”

He also referenced the allegations that on the day Leslie killed for a second time he was supposed to be drug tested but wasn’t because he was “acting cagey” and the staffer didn’t want him to feel he was being “picked on”.

“This is a so-called health professional who observed unusual behaviour from a person with severe mental health issues and they didn’t do anything about it. She didn’t test him and basically allowed him to leave. A few hours later Heather was dead.”

Harold wrote the build-up to Heather’s death was “predictable”, adding his son was “on a downward spiral”.

“The health system is not aggressive enough to make decisions. They pussy foot around because they don’t want to hurt people’s feelings or upset them. But the consequence of them being indecisive is the reason that we find ourselves in this predicament now. Heather is dead and it could and should have been prevented,” he said.

“There are more questions than answers. The health system had Leslie in their custody and released him. A health professional saw Leslie on the day he killed Heather, described him as being cagey, did not do the blood test and let him go without anything. How? Who is accountable? How can someone who has previously killed another person be able to remain free when the warnings signs are right there for all to see?”

Speaking to RNZ, Rachel earlier said Leslie should not have been released from the mental health facility five days before the killing.

“I don’t know how they couldn’t have noticed how he was unwell unless he put on a really good show.”

She believed there had been a “massive failure” in the mental health system.

“It failed him, it failed everybody twice.”

Rachel often wondered whether Leslie may have killed her as well. She was in therapy and said she was “a mess”.

“I feel sad. I feel sad for the victims, I feel sad for him. I feel it’s just sad all around really. He was unwell, and he just wasn’t given the care that he should have been given.”

Reviews under way

Health New Zealand (HNZ) national director of mental health & addictions enhancement, Phil Grady, said on Monday the case was an incredibly tragic event.

“Our thoughts remain with the family, friends and communities affected. On behalf of Health New Zealand, I extend our heartfelt sympathies to everyone impacted,” Grady said.

“It is completely understandable that people feel let down and are seeking answers. We acknowledge those concerns and want to approach them with openness and respect, while recognising the deep impact this has had on both victim’s loved ones, the wider community, and the staff involved in Mr Parr’s care.”

Grady said HNZ also recognised that questions had been raised about aspects of Parr’s care and the decisions made at the time.

“These were complex clinical decisions based on the information available, and the external review has carefully examined those concerns.

“Where the review has identified areas that could be clearer or stronger, such as expectations around drug screening, information sharing, and clinical oversight, we are acting on those findings to improve consistency and strengthen practice across the service.”

Health NZ reviewed every serious adverse event that occurs within its services, and were committed to learning from them, he said.

“An external review of the care Mr Parr received leading up to this event is currently being finalised, led by senior Health NZ staff from outside the Central Region to ensure independence.

“We are committed to implementing any recommended changes so that we continue to strengthen the quality and safety of the care we provide.

“Events of this nature are incredibly tragic, but when they occur, we take them extremely seriously. The learning from this event is already informing improvements across the service, including strengthening clinical leadership, improving information sharing, clarifying clinical protocols such as drug screening, and enhancing whānau engagement and staff training.”

Mental health care in the community was complex, and risk could never be removed entirely, he said

“Especially in the case of serious mental illness, but these improvements are designed to strengthen safeguards and provide reassurance to the people we care for, their whānau, and the wider community.”

The Ministry of Health also extended its deepest sympathies to the families, friends and communities affected.

Following Parr’s second killing, Health New Zealand commissioned an external review into the care provided to the individual.

“Health New Zealand has already made changes since the incident, and I support their work,” Director of Mental Health Dr John Crawshaw said.

He said the external review was being led by an external expert panel and is near completion.

“Once the external review is available, I will carefully consider whether any further actions are required.”

Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey said in a statement his thoughts were with the families impacted.

“I have made it very clear to HNZ that patient and public safety must always be paramount, clearly situations like this are not good enough. New Zealanders deserve to have trust that when people are in the care of mental health services, the appropriate care is being taken to ensure patient and public safety is at the forefront of all decisions,” he said.

“As minister, my focus is on ensuring agencies put in place all necessary changes to prevent tragedies like this from occurring again. I have made it very clear to Health New Zealand that they must move quickly to implement the findings of the reviews and make all necessary changes to prevent this from happening again.”

Doocey was awaiting the Director of Mental Health’s decision on whether he was satisfied with the review and whether any further action needs to be taken.

Chief Victims Advisor Ruth Money said the case was “heartbreaking and preventable”.

When RNZ first revealed the case she called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into forensic mental health facilities.

On Monday she said she stood by those calls.

“Given that unbelievably this is not the only recent case where someone in forensic mental health ‘care’ has gone on to kill twice.

“An inquiry that has mandated recommendations is the only way the system will improve, as opposed to Health NZ continuing to mark their own homework every time a tragedy such as this occurs. These victims and the community deserve infinitely better.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

An apartment block in central Wellington has been evacuated after a fire on Monday evening.

Two people were in the apartment at the time of the fire.

Police say one person was seriously hurt and taken to hospital.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) was alerted to a small third-floor apartment fire at 5.45pm.

Five fire trucks, two aerial appliances, a command unit and a breathing apparatus tender responded.

Response crews came from Wellington, Thorndon, Brooklyn, Kilbirnie and Karori fire stations, FENZ said.

The apartment block was evacuated and the fire quickly extinguished.

Fire investigators were on the scene, as well as police and ambulance.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand Customs has warned tobacco smuggling is becoming more organised, large-scale and sophisticated, with the government pledging to stop the country following Australia into tobacco gangland warfare.

But a public health professor says while criminal involvement is a concern, there is no evidence of a dramatic increase in the size of the tobacco black market.

Chief customs officer for fraud and prohibition Nigel Barnes said seizures have been trending upwards over the past decade, though there have been fluctuations due to large busts.

In 2025, Customs seized 11.1 million illegal cigarettes and cigars, and 5.4 tonnes of loose tobacco, compared to 9.2 million illegal cigarettes and cigars, and 2.7 tonnes of loose tobacco in 2024.

In 2022, 4.8 million cigarettes were seized, and 3.6 tonnes of loose tobacco.

Barnes said illicit cigarette seizures in 2025 represented about $16 million in tax revenue evasion.

“That’s just the stuff we’ve seized.”

He said illegal cigarettes were selling here for between $20 and $25 in diaries, liquor stores and pop-up outlets throughout the country. A legal packet costs between $40 and $50.

“Obviously, there’s a significant-size market in Auckland, but we’ve identified illicit tobacco distribution networks in regional centres as well, as far afield as the South Island and Gisborne.”

Barnes said the increase in seizures partly reflected a $10.4m funding boost in 2022 and the establishment of a dedicated illegal tobacco investigations team.

But the involvement of transnational and serious organised crime groups concerned him.

“Tobacco smuggling into New Zealand is becoming more organised, large-scale and sophisticated.”

Criminals were increasingly adding tobacco to their drug and money laundering operations, he said, and smugglers were masking themselves under shell companies.

Officials had seized drugs, firearms and other weapons, as well as large amounts of cash in investigations.

In 2023, Customs arrested three Malaysian nationals who travelled to New Zealand to smuggle tobacco into the country. When officials did some digging, they found out the trio had the same operation in Australia.

Agents also discovered a large illegal cigarette manufacturing operation in 2024 in Christchurch, where a man had imported loose tobacco under the guise of tea, setting up machinery to make individual cigarettes, boxes of cigarettes and cigarette branded labels.

Barnes said the trajectory of Australia’s black market for tobacco was “particularly concerning” for New Zealand.

“We’re in contact regularly with our Australian counterparts, and the trajectory of the illicit tobacco market in Australia is particularly concerning, mostly because New Zealand and Australia have the highest excise rates in the Asia-Pacific region. So if it could happen there, it could happen here, is a kind of a theory.

“The standovers and firebombs that are getting reported on in Australia are particularly concerning for us.”

Barnes said Customs was doing everything it could to prevent New Zealand following Australia’s path.

Deaths, threats and firebombs in Australia

In Australia, the illegal cigarette black market has developed into a violent and fast-growing criminal market, to the point where rival gangs are fighting over, and threatening retailers to sell illegal products.

Criminal groups have committed more than 200 arson attacks at retailers, and at least three homicides since 2023, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission said.

It found that illicit tobacco linked to serious and/organised crime cost the Australian economy about $4 billion (NZ$4.8b) in 2023-2024.

Associate professor of criminal justice at Bond University, Dr Terry Goldsworthy, said the black market had infiltrated most parts of the country.

“It was problematic in just a couple of states – but we’ve now seen responses from almost every Australian state, trying to address it.”

It triggered the formation of a federal Tobacco National Disruption group formed by the Albanese government, Goldsworthy said, led by the Australian Border Force and including every state’s police force.

Goldsworthy said arson and standover tactics had caused concern in many communities.

“They’ll go there and stand over the people and get them to sell their products, if they don’t sell their products, then they take the action of either assaulting the people who work there, or they firebomb the place to take it out of business.”

Steve Symon, who headed a ministerial advisory group on organised crime last year, said New Zealand risked following Australia’s path into a serious criminal black market.

“What’s happening there, will happen in New Zealand in 12-18 months, because our conditions are really similar – in terms of our willingness to pay high prices for illicit substances whether it be methamphetamine or cocaine, but the same thing with cigarettes.”

He said organised criminal groups in Australia setting up shop here was also alarming.

“What we see in Australia – it’s very likely, we’ll see here.”

He said illegal cigarettes were funding the operations of more serious, organised crime, and New Zealand needed to address the problem urgently.

“It’s not just you getting a cheap packet of cigarettes, what you are doing is contributing to people who are incentivised to bring the worst types of crime into our community.”

Size of black market contested

The size of New Zealand’s illicit market was not clear, with studies backed by various groups estimating wildly different sizes.

One study from 2025, commissioned by Imperial Tobacco New Zealand and British American Tobacco New Zealand, claimed the size of the illicit market was at 25 percent, but health expert Chris Bullen said his research from 2023 showed it was likely between 5 and 7 percent of the market.

“It’s an illicit trade, so it’s covert activity, it’s really hard to get a handle on what’s going on.”

The professor of public health at the University of Auckland said there was not clear evidence of a dramatic increase in the black market in New Zealand, and smoking rates were dropping among the population.

He said increasing the price of tobacco products had had a dramatic effect on driving down smoking and on people’s health.

Customs seizures did not necessarily indicate the problem was getting worse, Bullen said, but that officers were getting better at intercepting product at the border.

New Zealand had a different tobacco environment to Australia, where vapes were illegal, and the country was closer to the Asian market, he said.

What he wanted was more investment in research monitoring the black market so trends over time could be measured.

“It’s one of those things like wastewater monitoring for methamphetamine – it’s a reasonable thing to do to try and track what’s going on in the population, rather than just hoping that it will go away.

“I think it is wise for the government to be aware that across the ditch, it is a big problem.”

Customs Minister Casey Costello said Customs’ increased seizures signalled the country was facing a growing black market.

“We are very aware of what has occurred in Australia, where we have seen an explosion in the scale of the black market for tobacco and associated challenges with the organised crime groups driving that explosion.

“We cannot let that happen here”.

She said the government would use all the tools it could to disrupt organised crime groups.

“There are also further regulatory options within our tobacco control regime that can support our efforts to tackle illicit tobacco sales.

“I have asked for further advice from the Ministry of Health about how our regulatory regime can be strengthened to effectively manage the sales of illicit tobacco that has made it into New Zealand.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Conservation groups are calling for action to reduce dolphin deaths off Canterbury’s coastline.

A female Hector’s dolphin was killed in a set net off Kaikōura’s coast and discarded last month, according to the Department of Conservation’s (DOC) database.

DOC figures show 14 out of 24 reported dolphin deaths off New Zealand’s coastline over the past two years were in the Canterbury region, including four in Kaikōura.

Seven were due to entanglement in set nets, two from bycatch, three from beachcasting, one by stranding and one was found floating at sea.

The endangered species has an estimated population of 15,700.

Conservationists want more effective rule enforcement, an extension of set-net bans, and better protections in marine areas and reserves.

Forest & Bird Canterbury / West Coast regional conservation manager Nicky Snoyink said dolphin deaths are avoidable.

”It’s a terrible thing to hear these dolphins are dying out and we do so much better.”

Kaikōura Wildlife Centre Trust manager Sabrina Luecht was also concerned by dolphin deaths.

”Effective marine habitat protection, responsible fishing and accountability are imperative in ensuring these precious taonga persist in our region long-term.”

Greanpeace oceans campaigner Juan Parada said the government should ban trawling in dolphin habitats and commit to cameras on the full fishing fleet.

”Even when not directly caught in the nets, trawling degrades the habitats that animals like Hector dolphins and hoiho (yellow-eyed penguins) depend on for food.

”With fewer fish, surviving animals are left hungrier.”

Environment Canterbury (ECan) councillor Genevieve Robinson has been calling on the council to update the 20-year-old Canterbury Regional Coastal Environment Plan.

ECan acting regional planning manager Lisa Jenkins said the role for regional councils under the resource management reform had yet to be clarified.

”Once national direction has been confirmed, options for coastal management will be developed through a public process.”

The coastal plan works alongside the Wildlife Act and the Biosecurity Act to protect the region’s biodiversity.

Fisheries New Zealand and DOC are responsible for managing the risks to Hector’s dolphins.

DOC senior science advisor marine Anton van Helden said the department’s role included addressing the threat of toxoplasmosis (a parasitic disease), managing marine mammal sanctuaries, education, research and managing threats to dolphins.

Fisheries NZ fisheries management director Emma Taylor said Canterbury has the largest populations of Hector’s dolphins.

Set net closures are enforced off Pegasus Bay, the Canterbury Bight, Banks Peninsula and Kaikōura.

Other measures include working with commercial fishing boats to improve bycatch mitigation and the use of on-board cameras.

– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Waiheke Island’s only respite care house for kids with disabilities has closed, leaving parents who booked their children in for school holiday programmes and overnight stays in the lurch.

Spectrum Care said the service at Melanna House was running at a loss and they made the difficult decision to close it last September.

So far no other provider has filled the gap.

Sixteen-year-old Gen has very high, complex needs and requires round-the-clock care. She has been a regular at Melanna House’s school holiday programme for children with disabilities.

Her mum Christabel Tomlinson said its closure six months ago has had a big impact on the family.

“It made me really consider my ability to continue a full time job. I decided that it wasn’t the best move to continue employment and look after my daughter, in fact that would have been impossible.”

She finished her job at the end of last year to take on the full time care of her daughter because finding carers on the island isn’t easy.

By the end of the summer school holidays, Tomlinson had burned out.

“I realised just how burnt out I was looking after her, it’s relentless and you just feel exhausted and tired and I’ve used more than a month to get back to full health and full energy.”

Andrew Sexton’s son James also needs round-the-clock care. He has complex needs.

He said James has been a regularly at Melanna House for almost a decade and the out-of-home care provided them a much-needed break.

“It’s huge it just gives you some space that you desperately need to rest your mind. James he’s a clapper so he claps all the time and he’s got a very loud clap. Just some quiet time makes you feel a lot better.”

Melanna House has provided parents respite since the early 1990s, under various providers.

“It’s quite an essential service to have one house on the island that should be utilised for the community.”

The house is owned by Kainga Ora and its director of supported homes Lucy Ashby said it was one of 1455 homes it leased nationally to housing and support services providers.

She said the Waiheke house was leased at market rent to the service provider, who must also hold an eligible government funding contract to deliver residential care.

“We are continuing discussions with potential providers to assess whether they can take over this service as these homes can only be leased to providers who hold an eligible government funding contract to deliver residential care,” Ashby said.

“If we are unable to identify an eligible provider, we will need to consider next steps, including the potential sale of the property. No decisions have been made at this stage, and we are working through the options.”

She said Kainga Ora remained committed to keeping families updated as this process continued.

Spectrum Care general manager of communications Justin Walsh said after six years running Melanna House, it was a difficult decision to close, but the high costs of operating and the small number of people accessing the support means they’re running at a loss.

He said four families were regularly using the respite house and it operated for four days a week – its only funding were the payments it would get from families booking in their children, via their individualised funding.

“We made sustained efforts to ensure these services could be delivered in a way that was both high-quality and financially sustainable,” Walsh said.

“Despite these efforts, the combination of a very small number of people accessing support and the high costs associated with delivering safe, quality services on the island meant we were unable to achieve a sustainable model.”

Walsh said Spectrum Care worked closely with Disability Support Services, Kainga Ora, Kaikaranga, local partners, and affected people and whānau; reviewing service models and staffing arrangements; and exploring a range of funding and delivery options.

“Following an extensive review and careful consideration, Spectrum Care made the difficult decision to cease respite support services on Waiheke Island,” he said.

“This decision was not made lightly. We recognise the impact it has on people and whānau, and endeavoured to manage the transition with care, respect and ongoing engagement with those affected.”

Ministry of Social Development general manager of commissioning and funding Catherine Poutasi said Disability Support Services (DSS) contracted Spectrum Care to deliver respite services on Waiheke Island for disabled people.

She said DSS were advised in July last year that Spectrum would close Melanna House at the end of September.

“We understand that Spectrum Care offered service options in Auckland for those impacted by the closure on Waiheke,” she said.

Carers NZ chief executive Laurie Hilsgen said more needs to be done to keep the service going for the island community.

“I think that’s a tragic, unacceptable loss. Not that a service might close because that is a reality, sometimes services do come and go but you have to replace it with something or there has to be another plan.”

She said families caring for disabled children need to have respite care options.

“Those parents, those families, they’re not robots. At the end of the day we all go home from our jobs and we rest. For these people that will be placing extra pressure because they are unable to get a wellbeing break.”

A local trust that provides residential rehabilitation, Waiheke Island Supported Homes Trust, is looking at whether it could run the service.

General manager Andrew Walters said they would need to be assured the right funding is available.

Tomlinson said Melanna House is crucial for Waiheke – and everything should be done to keep it going, including lowering the rent on the state house.

“To keep those services going on the island I think is super important because we will always be an island and cut off from mainland services and we will always have disabled and special needs people in amongst our community here on Waiheke.”

She said they would also like to hear from any philanthropists interested in helping to keep the service going on the island.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A Christchurch-based fish processor has been fined $20,000 for illegally handling live mussels from a restricted biosecurity zone.

Ikana New Zealand was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court this month after admitting nine biosecurity offences.

Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) investigators found the company received 27 shipments – more than 239 tonnes – of live green-lipped mussels from the Upper South Contained Zone near Nelson and Marlborough.

Restrictions have been in place since 2015 to prevent the spread of the shellfish disease Bonamia ostreae, which affects flat oysters.

A biosecurity inspector discovered the green-lipped mussels were being moved illegally in October 2024, MPI said.

MPI director of investigations and compliance support Gary Orr said neither Ikana, as the receiver of the mussels, nor the company supplying them had the necessary permits.

Ikana’s actions were negligent, he said.

“These green-lipped mussel shellfish were for export, and the unlawful movement of this shellfish had potential to cause serious reputational harm to the New Zealand shellfish industry,” he said.

“The vast majority of people who work in the commercial fishing industry are responsible and do the right thing by following all rules and regulations.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Gloriavale’s leaders made sham payments to community members to make it appear as though they are rewarded for their efforts, the Employment Court has heard.

A group of nine leavers are seeking to quash Labour Inspectorate findings from 2017 and 2021 that those working in the community were not employees.

The group are seeking judicial review of alleged actions and inactions of labour inspectors who investigated and reported on concerns about work within the Gloriavale Christian Community, particularly two reports that found workers were not employees.

The Employment Court has since found those working for the West Coast community’s businesses are employees and the community’s so-called Overseeing Shepherd is their employer.

The Labour Inspectorate – a unit of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment – found in 2021 it had no jurisdiction over the community as workers were not employees under New Zealand’s law.

However, the leavers’ lawyer Brian Henry told the Employment Court at Christchurch on Monday that conclusion followed a 2021 inspection of the community in which the inspector raised concerns about the conditions in the community.

Henry read the labour inspector’s notes, made at the time of her visit, to the court.

“They chose who we spoke to – possible cherry picking, but we were able to wander about,” the inspector’s notes said.

“Only spoke to people of standing in the community. The leader stayed close to us, suggested that we interviewed him – refused.

“Seem to know how much they get paid. Process of putting money into their accounts only for the financial controller to take it out again is a sham. It is a sham to attempt to show people are being paid.”

Members who were part of the community’s “partnership” received payments into their own bank accounts but those payments could be taken out again by the community’s financial controller.

Henry told the court the inspector had recognised the partnership structure used in the community was a sham.

“These are notes made at the time as she’s leaving Gloriavale,” Henry said.

“We all know the value of notes made at the time. Here she is, she’s recording this has been a controlled situation. But most importantly she has understood from talking to these people that this payment structure, which is part of the partnership, is a sham.

“So how did she go from there to a final report saying no one’s an employee based on the partnerships?”

Henry also detailed to the court the working conditions in the community, including boys as young as 6-years-old working in its businesses, a large dairy operation overseen by 14-year-olds, and girls working in what the community’s leaders described as the largest kitchen in the country.

A letter from the Department of Internal Affairs to the Labour Inspectorate outlined concerns about excessive hours, no holidays, insufficient maternity leave, child labour, minimum wage breaches, and poor record keeping.

“The overwhelming impression of Gloriavale when you get there is that this is an industrial complex,” Henry said.

“It had farms, a rendering plant which is very heavy industry, sphagnum moss processing plants, honey factories, projects including drilling for oil and operating an airline, and the workforce is supported by what Neville Cooper – Hopeful Christian – called the biggest kitchen in New Zealand.

“It is quite overwhelming to look at the industrial size of that kitchen producing food for 600 odd people three times a day, approximately 11,000 meals a week.”

The idea workers at the community could be considered volunteers could be “very readily dispelled”, Henry said.

“The vast majority of workers, by the time of the inspectorate investigations leading up to the 2017-2021 reports, were born into or brought in from infancy in the community.

“Life rules are set out in the manual called What We Believe. It’s not just religious, it is their actual life … rules.

“What We Believe states ‘education is limited to the needs of the community’, i.e. the work they’re assigned by the Overseeing Shepherd and they have no choice of their role – especially females.

“All Gloriavale workers do as instructed by their supervisors, responsible to the Overseeing Shepherd, there is no discretion. Gloriavale is an industrial complex with multimillion dollar businesses.

“What We Believe directs all Gloriavale members must do what they’re able to do or they do not eat. All Gloriavale members must support the leaders.

“The workers all owe the Overseeing Shepherd to abide by the doctrine of unity and submission – absolute control. The shepherd has enforcement processes to enforce What We Believe, which are draconian.

“The shepherd decides who a worker marries and before they’re permitted to marry they have to sign the commitment.”

Members were told they could not leave Gloriavale without jeopardizing their eternal soul, Henry said.

The relationship between the community’s leaders and its workers was one of absolute power and control, he said.

“It’s the antithesis of being a volunteer.

“A volunteer is someone who does work without being paid for it because they want to do it. So they’re certainly doing work without being paid for it – they were getting their keep – but they weren’t doing it because they want to, they were doing it because they had to.”

The hearing is set down for five days.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Warning: This story contains details of an alleged sexual assault.

A man accused of taking a teenager 17 years his junior to a bach and then sexually violating him while the young man was intoxicated has pleaded not guilty.

The accused, who has name suppression, is facing one charge of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection between 1994 and 1995.

In her opening address at Christchurch District Court, Crown prosecutor Penny Brown said the complainant, who was 18 or 19 years old, claimed the pair drank and smoked cannabis at the Lake Coleridge bach, with the complainant becoming so intoxicated he thought he might have been drugged.

He said the accused, who was 17 years older than him, helped him to bed and to remove his clothes other than his boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

The complainant said he woke and found himself face down with his hips propped up over cushions, and the accused sexually violating him.

“The defendant said he felt like a child, like a child who was supposed to be seen and not heard,” Brown said, “and while it registered to him that it should not be happening, he could not muster any type of fright or flight response. He just froze and let it happen.”

The complainant did not tell anyone until around 2000 when he revealed what had happened to his ex-wife.

Brown said the complainant did not report it to the police until 2020, by which time she said his life had derailed and he was due to be sentenced for serious offending.

He told the person preparing his pre-sentence report he had been sexually abused.

In 2021, prison staff got in touch with police to say the complainant wanted to speak to someone about the allegations, and a video interview was made.

On Monday afternoon the video interview will be played to the jury. In the video, the man said he knew the accused was gay, but had no issue with that.

On the night of the alleged abuse the accused put on gay pornography, but the younger man asked him to turn it off. The older man said he should watch it for a bit and he might like it.

The complaint left the room, and when he returned the video was off.

He said on the night the accused made all of the drinks in another room, and at the time he just thought the man was being a good host.

“Looking back, why wasn’t the Coke and [stuff] sitting there with us?”

He said he had been drunk and smoked marijuana before, but on this occasion he could not get his body to move properly and his feet were dragging.

The complainant said the next day the accused acted like nothing had happened.

In the defence’s opening address, lawyer Ryan Jones said the accused accepted he took the young man to the bach but said no sexual activity and no sexual abuse occurred.

He said the case was not straightforward, and it should be remembered that the defendant was presumed innocent until proved otherwise.

The trial continues.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Oranga Tamariki is investigating after two youths absconded from a Lower Hutt care facility.

Residential services care and protection manager Karen Gillies said police were called when the pair fled the Epuni Care and Protection Facility on Sunday night.

They were found and returned in the early hours of Monday morning, she said.

“We are looking into the incident to determine how it occurred and consider any lessons we can take forward.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Warning: This story deals with sexual violence.

Lengthy prison sentences for two of Christchurch’s most prolific sex offenders have been upheld by a High Court judge.

Danny and Roberto Jaz were convicted in 2023 of 69 charges, including sexual assault, rape, stupefaction, disabling, sexual violation and indecent assault.

The case garnered international attention after details emerged showing how the brothers had systematically targeted young women at their family businesses over several years.

Many of their 23 victims were staff or patrons of Mama Hooch bar on Colombo Street, or nearby restaurant Venuti.

The brothers were each sentenced to more than 16 years in jail, with non-parole periods of half their sentences.

At sentencing, Judge Paul Mabey told the men the level of their offending was unprecedented in New Zealand.

“You helped yourself to young women with callous disregard for their rights and their dignity, their youth,” Judge Mabey said.

The pair appealed the convictions, claiming Judge Mabey was biased, made errors assessing evidence and breached their fair trial rights by refusing to allow closing submissions.

Danny Jaz also appealed his sentence on the basis he did not receive sufficient credit for pleading guilty.

At appeal, the brothers’ lawyer Ron Mansfield KC told the court his clients did not get a fair hearing, which had led to a significant miscarriage of justice.

All appeals, except for three charges against Roberto Jaz for making an intimate visual recording, failed.

In his decision, which was reserved until Monday, Justice Cameron Mander dismissed the sentence appeal as without merit.

Despite the guilty plea, Danny Jaz showed “no remorse or acceptance of the harm he caused his victims”, he said.

Thirteen of the 14 complainants associated with those charges were still required to attend court and give evidence about “distressing matters” because Jaz continued to deny other related charges of drugging and disabling those same women, he noted.

Justice Mander also dismissed both brothers’ appeal of their conviction, with the exception of three “lesser” charges against Roberto Jaz of making an intimate visual recording, which were quashed.

However, his sentence – 17 years’ imprisonment, with a minimum period of eight years and six months – remained unchanged.

The total starting points for Roberto’s original sentences aggregated to 41 years, and the judge had already significantly reduced that to 17 years, Justice Mander said.

“When viewed overall, I do not consider the final 17-year sentence is required to be adjusted.”

Justice Mander described the trial judge’s decision to skip closing arguments as “unadvised” and demonstrating a “lack of procedural prudence”, noting that the judge appeared to have become distracted by the need to prioritise the start of a second trial.

However, “an appellant must be able to demonstrate that, as a consequence of the error or irregularity, their trial was unfair”, he said.

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