Source: Radio New Zealand

The boss of the Ministry for the Environment believes most New Zealanders are more concerned about immediate challenges, particularly pressures on households, than the environment.

Ministry officials faced questions about its mahi and people by the Environment select committee on Thursday, as part of Scrutiny Week.

Hundreds of jobs were cut during recent restructures, with full-time employee numbers falling by nearly 27 percent off the most recent peak of 1010 full-time employees in 2022/23 to 738 in 2024/25.

During the Ministry’s annual review, Green MP Lan Pham asked outgoing chief executive James Palmer if the environment had been de-prioritised as a result of reduced the environmental spend.

Palmer said public opinion on environmental matters had shifted.

“What we have seen over the last couple of years as a consequence of the stress on households and businesses and communities has been a reduction in the priority of environmental action and investment in the environment for New Zealanders,” he said.

“And I think that just reflects the priorities and the issues that people are facing.

“I’m incredibly sympathetic to the fact that for most New Zealanders, there are more near-term pressing priorities for them.”

It was a ministry behind a number of significant pieces of work this year, including Resource Management Act reform and climate change adaptation.

Palmer, a former Hawke’s Bay Regional Council chief executive, said the ministry had worked with less, but delivered more.

“Overall, I have to say it was a record volume of deliverables by the ministry, despite the reduction in resources,” he said.

“The ministry produced in terms of outputs to ministers, parliament and the public, 4822 items which included 896 briefings, 62 Cabinet papers, 452 [Official Information Act requests] and many more parliamentary questions and pieces of ministerial correspondence.”

Labour’s Rachel Brooking cited a report that showed 54 percent of the ministry’s staff often reported stress.

“In terms of the statement that you’re working with less but doing more, it seems like there’s a lot more stress as well.”

Palmer said the teams worked extraordinarily hard with dedication to public service.

He said the public service itself had become very agile and “very good at running sprints”, particularly following the Covid-19 pandemic, but recognised this put pressure on workers.

“I think it’s to do with the pace at which we’re working.

“I do think that the cadence of the New Zealand parliamentary system, particularly the three-year term, does result in governments on all sides of the house moving at pace.

“There are things we can’t control and those are particularly the timeframes that the parliamentary process demands of us.”

Palmer said the challenge for New Zealand, given relatively poor economic performance in recent years, was to sustain investment in areas that required a long-term focus.

From next year, Palmer will be chief executive of Earth Sciences New Zealand.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

An Auckland doctor based in Otara said crowded housing makes children in her community more vulnerable to [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/580795/paediatrician-worries-new-measles-wave-spreading-undetected the spread of measles, and is doing everything she can to make vaccinations more accessible to families.

There are now six actively infectious cases of measles across the country, and three of them are in Auckland.

Health New Zealand said the total number of known cases nationally since 8 October is 28.

GP of nearly 30 years, Dr Oruba Khalil, is all too familiar with the damage the highly infectious disease can do to families – having seen how it affected her community in 2019.

“People with fever, whole families affected, we are seeing people at the carpark, lucky that we have a big clinic – we are allocating the people – the number of people affected by measles was very high,” she said.

Khalil said the crowded living conditions of some families made them more vulnerable to the spread of the virus, and at higher risk for children to develop complications.

“Our population, if the kids have measles, and we are having the problems of housing and high rates of smoking, and these things, the kids can end up with pneumonia and lots of complications of measles,” she said.

Khalil said her clinic, Otara GP and Urgent Care, had been sending texts to all enrolled patients who were recorded as not yet vaccinated with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Two doses of the the MMR vaccine (after the age of 12 months) protected about 99 percent of people from getting measles.

The clinic had also been offering vaccinations in the evenings so that working families could make it.

The team was running an event on the evening of Friday 12 December, to raise awareness about measles and provide vaccinations, alongside music, food and activities.

Meanwhile, Pacific community health provider – the Fono – had been busy going door to door to follow up with families with children who weren’t yet vaccinated.

The organisation had about 10,000 patients enrolled at its five clinics.

Its nursing manager Moana Manukia said it’d been challenging to get hold of people, and about half the time people weren’t home.

She said sometimes it found that the family had moved out, but nonetheless, they’d make use of that opportunity to check the immunity of the new tenants.

Manukia said it still gave about 30 MMR vaccinations through its outreach teams every week – mostly to children under four.

She said it’d also been texting the parents of patients under 18 who were recorded as not immunised against measles.

Manukia said the response to those texts had been low, with just 10 percent of patients calling back.

She said the measles coverage for children under two had been good among patients, but coverage was lower for teenagers.

Manukia said it’s possible that some of the older children may have been vaccinated overseas and had no records in New Zealand.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A former addict who spent years moving in and out of jail says the only real way out was through specialist courts that treat addiction.

New Ministry of Justice figures show people who completed the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court (AODTC) reoffended far less than similar high-risk offenders in the District Court.

Australian-born Melanie Rauth was 13 when drugs and alcohol first entered her life after her parents split.

At 20, she moved to Aotearoa – and her addiction deepened. She lost custody of her daughter and spent years moving around, fuelling her drug habit and landing in prison multiple times.

“Being in prison did not help me at all to get well,” she said.

“It helped me to build a persona of myself that kept me safe. I learned how to fight, keep my guard up, and get my own way by causing a scene. But it didn’t really help me in the outside world when I tried to recover. All those masks that kept me safe were really hard to strip back.”

With help from her lawyer, the now-38-year-old was referred to the AODTC, a programme that treats addiction as the driver of offending.

“It is not a softer approach. It is a more realistic approach,” she said.

“Because me being a criminal and an addict isn’t who I was meant to be. Peeling those masks off and being who I am today wasn’t easy. I got kicked out of several treatment centres and went back to jail every time.

“Last time I was beating myself up because I didn’t want to be there. But once I went through the drug court and finished The Higher Ground programme, I realised, actually, I can do this. The team constantly reassured me: ‘We believe in you, you got this, we can do this.’ That was really powerful for me.”

Now, Rauth works as a team leader and support worker at Auckland City Mission’s social detox – a path followed by more than 90 percent of Drug Court graduates.

This week, specialists from around the world gathered at the University of Auckland to discuss the results and the future of these courts.

Graduates told the conference that being brought into support roles after finishing the programme was key to staying well.

“It absolutely transformed my life,” Rauth said.

“My daughter said to me yesterday, ‘I used to look down on you, and now you are my biggest inspiration.’ For my daughter to say that to me was really… it just warmed my heart, because that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve just always wanted to be her mum. I just didn’t know how to get out of that cycle.”

She said expanding the courts nationwide would help break cycles like hers.

“The drug problem in New Zealand is already here, it’s already grown massively, and there are already so many people in jail. And so many of them could benefit from this. Instead of taking from their community, they could be, like me, contributing to it. So why not have more of the courts?”

AODTC: a safety net – addiction expert

Drug Courts began in 2012 in Auckland and Waitākere, expanded to Hamilton in 2021, and remain limited to those three locations – despite two-thirds of prisoners having drug or alcohol problems.

New Ministry of Justice data showed graduates reoffend 50 percent less in their first year than similar offenders, and 20 percent less after four years.

But the government said expansion wasn’t simple: referrals had dropped, courts were expensive to run, and chronic addiction remained difficult to break.

Addiction expert and UK government adviser Professor David Best spoke at the conference.

He said the AOD courts may require more resources to run, but they delivered results traditional courts did not.

“Drug courts are a hugely important potential tipping point in a drug-using career. They create meaningful relationships and provide access to peer support that can break the nexus between drug use and crime.”

Best said the courts offered a positive, incentivised model that helps shape behaviour away from criminality and towards pro-social recovery-based activities.

“But it’s a five-year process over time. In the first year after somebody stops, the likelihood of relapse is between 50 and 70 percent.

“By five years, that drops to about 14 percent, so there has to be continuity of care. No matter how good any intervention is, unless somebody has access to jobs, friends, housing, someone to love, something to do, the chances are that the effects will diminish over time.”

Best rejected the idea that the AOD courts were just an “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”.

“Prison is the real ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Drug courts are a safety net not far off the edge of the cliff.

“We know the time between the onset of dependence and actively seeking specialist treatment is typically five years. If we can intervene with drug courts earlier, we are offering opportunity to move the ambulance up the hill, to move it closer to the top of the cliff rather than the bottom.”

Recent wastewater testing shows meth use nationwide has doubled, with growing problems in Auckland and Waikato. Critics say funding should go to frontline treatment – not specialist courts.

But Professor Best said a “one size fits all” model wouldn’t work.

“In terms of effect sizes, the effects for prevention and early intervention are incredibly small. Punitive approaches are highly unsuccessful with this population. What drug courts do is offer a model of managed behaviour change over time.

“They start the process of resolving the chaos of people’s lives, offering them support to make significant, lasting changes. And while they may appear resource intensive and expensive in the short term, the return on investment is huge.”

‘Support after prison is lacking’ – judge

Waitākere District Court Judge Lisa Tremewan said New Zealand still lacked proper support for people after prison.

“In my experience, judges were used to expecting probation officers to deal with addiction issues in offenders,” Tremewan said.

“Judges would sentence people to prison terms with release conditions, or community-based sentences with requirements to undertake assessments, courses, counselling, and treatment. But we would then see people cycling and recycling because the drivers of their offending, namely their addiction, weren’t really being addressed.

“High-risk, high-needs offenders needed a circuit break, and drug courts could be that. They reduce re-offending, save lives, and provide greater safety to the community. The research shows graduates contribute meaningfully to society, sometimes even more than people who haven’t been through recovery.”

Practical limitations – Ministry of Justice

Courts Minister Nicole McKee said she supported therapeutic approaches but there were no plans for more drug courts.

“I visited the Waitākere Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court and was very impressed with what I saw and heard from those who had been through that system.

“While I’m supportive of the use of therapeutic approaches in the courts to help people with addiction-driven offending, there are practical limitations on expanding the AODT Court.”

She said there were no current plans to establish additional AODT Courts beyond Auckland, Waitākere, and Hamilton.

“The ministry’s analysis of graduates’ reoffending rates is an initial exploration and is anticipated to be refined over time. It is not intended as a full evaluation of the effectiveness of the AODT Courts and does not consider costs or the full set of benefits.

“While the ministry acknowledges the role therapeutic approaches can play in addressing addiction-related offending, there are practical limitations on expanding the AODT Court, for example only a small number of locations would have enough eligible participants, and there are limitations on the availability of suitable treatment,” McKee said.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Homes and businesses have been exposed to a new “lethal” risk of electrocution because of a rule change, according to electrical inspectors.

RNZ can reveal a dispute that’s escalated over the last month as inspectors in multiple meetings and letters have pleaded unsuccessfully with officials to do a U-turn.

On 13 November, a ban on putting a switch or fuse into mains power earthing systems was ditched, among 400 updates to electrical safety regulations.

“It’s a rule that’s just been taken away and … as it stands at the moment, is a lethal risk,” NZ Electrical Inspectors Association president Warren Willetts told RNZ.

Master Electricians industry group said the change had introduced a “critical safety issue” for consumers and installers.

WorkSafe said on Thursday it would be a “rare event” to insert a switch or fuse, and that other safety restrictions remained in place.

However, at the same time, the agency said the change was to allow for safer uptake of common new technologies like EV charging and household solar panels.

It issued a four-line statement saying it would publish guidance soon for the industry, and declined an interview. Letters between WorkSafe and the association seen by RNZ, and Willetts’ comments, show the inspectors are in no way reassured.

WorkSafe promised an external review “to benchmark our advice on the amendment”, but the inspectors said that would come much too late.

“We know of no other country in the world that allows” this, the association wrote to WorkSafe on 21 November.

The removal of the Protective Earth Neutral (PEN) protections could render entire systems “lethal, possibly with multiple injuries or fatalities” even when they were operating normally, it said.

To ‘not get a fatal shock from that is nearly impossible’

“In this case, when you switch the main neutral off, all the metalwork in your house, your hot water cylinder, your tap, your shower, whatever’s been earthed, now becomes 230 volts plus,” Willetts said on Wednesday.

“So you being able to let go and not get a fatal shock from that is nearly impossible.”

A residual current device, or RCD, would not help.

Inspectors requested two urgent meetings with WorkSafe in November, but emerged even more worried.

“It was very concerning to have WorkSafe unable to confirm or deny whether a high-impendance PEN (switch to open circuit) is a potentially lethal risk,” they wrote on 21 November.

‘An appropriate move’

Last Friday, WorkSafe wrote back defending the change. Its letters called the deleted ban “prescriptive” and a “blanket prohibition”.

“We are confident that removal … was an appropriate move,” the agency wrote.

It would not expect installers to put in a switch unless there was “good reason”.

“However in order to address your concerns” it was commissioning an external review.

The inspectors said the safe approach was to do a U-turn now, and claimed that WorkSafe did not consult the industry properly before it went ahead.

“I’m not going to call them incompetent, but it is insinuated that is the case,” Willets told RNZ.

‘Unsafe, unworkable and legally ambiguous’

The Master Electricians industry group said the change introduced a “critical safety issue by permitting switching or fusing of the PEN conductor prior to the main switchboard, directly contradicting Section 8.3.7.2(b) of AS/NZS 3000, which prohibits PEN switching”.

“This creates an unsafe, unworkable, and legally ambiguous situation for installers and consumers,” said chief executive Alex Vranyac-Wheeler in a statement.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment [MBIE] which adminsters the regulations said it had had initial talks with Master Electricians on this and they would meet soon.

It had consulted the public on the whole package of 440 updates to the safety regulation citations to reduce barriers to renewable energy tech, the ministry said, adding WorkSafe engaged with the industry on the disputed change.

WorkSafe told RNZ on Thursday, “In the rare event an electrician needs to switch an earth or PEN conductor, only approved methods should be used to ensure safety.” The link was to 2023 guidance titled ‘Connecting a generator to the wiring of a house or building following an emergency’.

“The regulatory amendment lays the foundation for future measures to ensure electric vehicle charging meets safety expectations, and allow for improved disaster resilience,” it said.

This appeared to be reference to use of generators after a disaster, and needing to isolate them.

Willetts said a scenario created by the change was that a householder looking to charge their EV might hire an electrician, who opted to put in a switch because they could. “A switch or a fuse in that neutral by itself creates this lethal risk.”

WorkSafe said it would put out guidance before Christmas “outlining the restrictions that remain in place to prevent switching from occurring”.

Willetts questioned why the guidance did not accompany the rule change. “We don’t have any guidance yet from Energy Safety [part of WorkSafe] to say what to do and what not to do.”

He said inspectors suspected just one or two people initiated the rule change, and the lethal risk was likely an “unintended consequence”.

But WorkSafe said its experts had engaged with industry experts, and continued to do so, and fed that advice to MBIE which made the regulatory change.

Who knows what?

The inspectors association sent WorkSafe advice from WorkSafe Queensland in 2021 that talks about the risk of electric shock from switching the neutral. Industry commentary in Australia has called it “a very bad idea”.

In its two letters to inspectors, WorkSafe said the responsibilties and liabilities of installers to do a safe job had not changed.

Willetts said this was passing “the legislative responsibility of safety to the electrician” by relying on other safety regulations they were most likely not even aware of.

“I would hope most of them would go ‘no’ [to an unsafe PEN switch] but as an electrical inspector going to sites, I have seen some weird and wonderful things electricians have done.

“We know from past that any emails that they send out, a lot of the electricians just ignore them.”

The inspectors association argued for alternatives for charging EVs, and isolating generators, that it said were being picked up in other countries.

In its 6 November letter, WorkSafe defended the change as in alignment with “an internationally recognised method of protection”.

In the UK, the Institution of Engineering and Technology published a new standard and was pushing for mandatory use of open combined protective and neutral (PEN) conductor detection devices (OPDDs).

Willetts said if any switch or fuse was put in a PEN it should only be done with a certified design by an electrical engineer.

The inspectors association expected to issue guidelines next week. Master Electricians was doing similar and said it was working with MBIE on making the whole regulatory system more flexible like in Australia.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The highly anticipated opening of Swedish furniture company IKEA in New Zealand comes as a rural community worries about the fire risk from pine plantations.

Since 2020 IKEA has converted six Central Hawke’s Bay farms into pine forestry, which they believe makes them the largest forestry owner in the district.

This move, combined with the sale of at least four other Hawke’s Bay farms to overseas forestry companies this year, is sparking concerns from locals about the loss of productive farmland and the risks associated with converting large areas into pines.

At least four other Hawke’s Bay farms have been sold to overseas forestry companies this year. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook

‘Dumbest thing NZ has done in agriculture’

To better understand the scale of this land-use change, Porangahau farmer James Hunter and pilot Joe Faram flew RNZ over thousands of hectares of new pine trees that now cover what had been traditional farmland for generations.

“This is the dumbest thing New Zealand has done in agriculture,” Hunter said.

He wants New Zealanders to witness the extent of farmland being planted in forestry.

“It’s not just one farm, it’s farm after farm and I think it’s the scale of it that people don’t understand.

“Suddenly we’ve got a district that’s been swallowed, and this is apparently good for the country,” he said.

A newly planted forestry block in Central Hawke’s Bay near Pourere, each sprayed circle is a pine tree. Photo: Nick Monro

• More than 1.8 million hectares of New Zealand is planted in pine trees with many farms having been converted since 2008 to earn carbon credits after the Emissions Trading Scheme was introduced.
• This resulted in more ‘carbon farming’ where forests are planted for carbon credits and permanently locked up rather than being harvested for timber.
• Swedish furniture company IKEA has bought 28,000 hectares of New Zealand farmland since 2021, with another 10,000 currently pending approval in Northland.
• However, IKEA told RNZ none of its trees have been planted for carbon credits, although they may look at ‘some form of offsetting in the future’.
• A recent report from the Climate Change Commission estimated another 900,000 hectares of land will be converted to forestry by 2050.
• Most of IKEA’s 4300 hectares of forestry in Central Hawke’s Bay is near the village of Porangahau, where about 200 hectares of its pine trees went up in flames in October and took days to extinguish because of the high winds grounding helicopters.

It’s fires like this that have rural communities on edge, because they say even if the blaze starts on nearby farmland, the forests contain the fuel that feeds them.

“So the question for the forestry owners is how confident are they that they can stop New Zealand haemorrhaging money chasing fires?” Hunter said.

“They’ve brought basically the equivalent of petrol tankers into these rural districts. Why should we pay for the cost of fighting something while they’re making extraordinary money?”

Porangahau farmer James Hunter took RNZ reporter Alexa Cook up in a helicopter to get a clearer view of the extent of pine plantings across the region. Photo: Nick Monro

Hunter believed there’d been ‘no thought to firefighting’, especially in high winds.

“I want to see them have to put in their own water supplies. And I want some confidence that they can fight a fire when the helicopters are not able to fly – and if the helicopters are not able to fly, what happens to the rest of us downwind?”

He’s concerned that Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) didn’t have the resources to deal with major blazes. FENZ said it’s primarily funded through the Fire and Emergency levy, which is collected on contracts of fire insurance. However, there is no mandatory requirement for foresters to insure.

“We do not have a separate breakdown of levy contributions from forestry companies,” a FENZ spokesperson said.

“Other than funding from the levy, Fire and Emergency does not receive any additional dedicated funding to fight forestry fires.”

The organisation said it was “confident in its ability to respond effectively to forestry fires”.

About 200 hectares of IKEA’s Central Hawke’s Bay forestry went up in flames in October. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook

IKEA’s forestland country manager Kelvin Meredith told RNZ the company, like many other forestry owners, did not have fire insurance.

“We don’t insure for fire. It’s prohibitively expensive in New Zealand,” he said.

The Forest Owners Association said about 30 to 40 percent of plantation forest estate was insured. It varied year to year as owners reviewed their risk management.

“Standing crop insurance is becoming increasingly unaffordable, so – like other rural landowners – forest owners weigh the cost, risk and benefits each year,” it said.

“Some companies choose to self-insure and invest heavily in their own firefighting capability, which in turn strengthens rural fire response more broadly.”

Meredith agreed that there is a lot of fuel in a forest but said it provided fire plans to FENZ and worked closely with it to mitigate the fire risk.

“What we can do is have decent fire breaks and decent fire plans in place so if it does break out, the key consideration is that no one’s life is in danger.

“I can’t speak for all forest owners, but I think we’re relatively well prepared in the event of a fire,” said Meredith.

Hunter said if forest owners weren’t contributing financially to FENZ, or properly mitigating the fire risk, then it’s unfair on farmers who did pay fire insurance levies and were investing in fire protections.

“So you want to go and plant your trees? Cool. Don’t leave me with the costs.”

Farmer James Hunter is worried forestry companies aren’t taking the fire risk seriously. Photo: Nick Monro

There’s also currently no mandatory requirement for forestry owners to reduce or mitigate fire risk, but the Forest Owners Association said $21 million a year was spent on fire protection.

Nationally, FENZ had 15 formal service-level agreements with major forestry companies that outlined resource sharing arrangements and joint responsibilities during wildfire events, and said three more were being finalised.

FENZ wouldn’t provide forestry fire plans to RNZ, but said there was ongoing investment in training and technology to ensure they remained well-prepared as fire risks evolved “due to climate and land-use changes”.

“Fire and Emergency remain committed to working with all stakeholders to protect people, property, and the environment from the growing threat of wildfires.”

IKEA said it would consider supporting calls for legislation requiring all landowners, from farmers to foresters, to mitigate fire risk and invest in fire protections.

“If it’s practical and effective and can be implemented in an effective manner. It’s no good writing a piece of legislation that only half the population is going to follow,” said Meredith.

‘I’m embarrassed to be a New Zealander’

Pilot Joe Faram has been fighting forestry fires for decades. He’s had a front row seat witnessing Hawke’s Bay’s landscape steadily change from farms to pines.

“The transition has been very vast over the last 15 years … a lot of that mindset has been detrimental to the betterment of New Zealand.

“I’m embarrassed to be a New Zealander, it’s shameful,” he said.

Pilot Joe Faram has been fighting fires from the air for decades and worries the risk is increasing. Photo: Nick Monro

As a pilot, he said there was a lot of pressure on aerial fire-fighting resources because it’s often the main tool for containing a forestry blaze.

He’s concerned the increase in pine trees is creating a bigger fire risk.

“Because there’s more material, there’s more fuel. We’re certainly putting ourselves in a dangerous situation, so you’re managing risk control.

“By a little bit of good fortune and luck, we have had fires, but we’ve managed to suppress them quite effectively. But one day, the Swiss cheese will line up and we will have a fire that, instead of putting it out in two or three days, it could be up to a month,” he said.

It’s a fear shared by Porangahau hapu Ngāti Kere. Chairperson David Tipene Leach has been in discussions with IKEA since 2022.

“They came to the marae, they talked to us, they told us what they had to offer.

“When you look back on it a couple of years later, actually there’s not much to offer.”

David Tipene Leach feels the spread of forestry in Hawke’s Bay is like another wave of colonisation for Ngāti Kere. Photo: Nick Monro

Since the fire in October, he’s written to IKEA on behalf of the hapu, urging it to remove the pine trees planted closest to the village in an area known as Stoneridge.

“If you look around the world, and certainly in this day and age, we look into Canada and into the States and other places, and you see the huge forest fires that are occurring in these big plantations, we’ve got to be worried about that sort of stuff.

“With regard to exit and entry from our little isolated town, they’re planting, planting all along the road. You can’t get out of our town if the forests are burning,” he said.

However, IKEA said it’s unlikely it would remove trees.

“As far as taking the whole Stoneridge face out of trees, I can’t see that happening. What we need to do is meet with the community and understand what are the real concerns here related to fire,” said Meredith.

An area of new pine plantings in Central Hawke’s Bay. Photo: Nick Monro

For Tipene Leach, there’s a sense of sadness around seeing farmland planted in pine.

“It’s kind of like this is just another, you know, I don’t want to sound silly, but another wave of colonisation that Ngāti Kere has to deal with.

“Us small hapu, we’re fighting for survival here. We’re not really fighting to change the world. We’re just fighting to maintain our little bit of the world.”

He worried the pine problems seen in Tai Rāwhiti with slash and community loss were creeping down the East Coast, and Hawke’s Bay was set to make the same mistakes.

“The forestry people will tell us, don’t worry, we’ve all learned since then.

“But they are commercial operators who are out there to make a buck where they can, and so I’m not sure that we have any reason to trust them,” Leach said.

Forest Owners Association chief executive Elizabeth Heeg said commercial foresters did want to make a return on their investments, but the returns were slow to be realised and forest owners were highly motivated to protect the environments and communities their trees grew in.

“Part of this is adapting to climate change and with increasing numbers of significant storms, foresters are very focused on adapting their forest and harvest management plans to prevent and prepare for incidents where forest waste leaves their land.

“Our forests are a vast resource and with greater collaboration across the industry and other sectors, using woody biomass for energy generation, more timber in construction, and increasing domestic processing, New Zealand has a significant opportunity to gain far greater value from them,” said Heeg.

Pine forestry in southern Hawke’s Bay Photo: Nick Monro

IKEA said while it couldn’t answer for all foresters, the company was “pouring cash into the country”.

“We’re planting forests … we’re buying native seedlings, we’re employing local contractors, employing planting crews … and we won’t realise a return for 28 years.

“We’re not extracting a lot of cash out of the country for the benefit of an offshore entity, that’s for sure,” said Meredith.

He said IKEA had put a “little bit of a pause” on buying farmland at the moment and was buying existing forests instead.

The timber grown in New Zealand would be used in IKEA’s furniture, however, it’d be shipped overseas for manufacturing.

“The sad situation we’re in is you can actually send logs to places like China and bring back products made in those countries cheaper than we can do it here.

“We’d love to manufacture here. We’d love to support local processing but it’s just the economics are tough.”

Government taking forestry fire risk ‘seriously’

Forestry Minister Todd McClay told RNZ the government took the risk of forest fires seriously and had strengthened its approach in recent years.

“There has been a wide package of work across prevention, readiness, and response. This includes updated guidance for landowners and councils, better coordination between the New Zealand Forest Service and Fire and Emergency New Zealand, and ongoing investment in research, risk mapping, and seasonal forecasting,” he said.

Forestry Minister Todd McClay. Photo: Nick Monro

When asked if the government was considering legislation changes so that it’s mandatory for all landowners to reduce or mitigate fire risk, the minister said they already have responsibility for managing their property against the risk of fire.

“It’s important to note that 98 percent of wildfires in New Zealand are caused by human activity and often spread into forests.

“It’s also important to note that under the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act 2017, FENZ have the authority to require a landowner to create and clear a firebreak on their property if it believes this is needed to help control fires.”

He believed forestry owners were doing enough to reduce the risk of fires on their land.

“Large forestry companies often have their own firefighting teams, equipment, and water supplies. Getting full insurance against fire damage is difficult, so some forestry owners choose to self-insure or buy partial coverage.

“Ultimately, the financial risk of losing trees to fire sits with the forest owner,” McClay said.

*RNZ was taken up on the flight by farmer James Hunter to give a snapshot of the land use change in the area.

Forestry in Hawke’s Bay Photo: Nick Monro

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Those in charge of the country’s most expensive transport infrastructure are confident the new timetable for opening will stick – but they won’t name a date.

Auckland’s $5.5 billion City Rail Link has to undergo thousands of tests including crowd emergency evacuations before it can open in the second half of next year.

Today The Detail goes to the deepest point of the new project inside Karanga-a-Hape station for a glimpse of the country’s longest escalator, and the tracks running more than three kilometres under the city, connecting the two brand new stations (Karanga-a-Hape and Te Waihorotiu) and two extensively modified ones (Maungawhau and Waitematā).

It was originally planned to open this year but it has been pushed back by several months, to the second half of 2026.

More than 13,000 tests have to be completed before City Rail Link Limited hands it over to Auckland Transport, says Alan Trestour, head of CRL delivery for Auckland Transport.

He says there is much more to it than ensuring the trains run every four minutes at peak time.

“It’s about making sure the stations are also delivering the system performance that we’re asking them to,” Trestour says.

Intense and complex testing has been carried out in the last four months and will continue until June 30.

“You run into glitches all the time,” says CRL chief executive Pat Brockie. “But nothing that’s a showstopper at the moment.”

A ‘showstopper’ would set back the June 30 target date, he says.

In the station control room, filled with screens which monitor fire panels and safety system, Russell McMullan explains the role of a large red button with a sign saying ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ on it.

“In the event of something really bad happening, should it occur in the very unlikely event, that button can be used by staff to send a signal to all of the train drivers that there’s a major incident and that they need to stop the trains wherever they are,” says McMullan, CRL’s general manager of assurance and integration.

Passenger modelling simulations have already been carried out and more real life emergency tests will be organised next year involving staff and families, as well as disability groups.

What’s the hold-up?

Several issues contributed to delays but Covid-19 had the greatest impact, he says, with lockdowns and severe restrictions on bringing in workers from overseas.

It also contributed to the budget blowout. It was first estimated to cost $2.8 to $3.4 billion. It was pushed out to $4.4b 2019, then $5.5b in 2023.

For McMullan, who’s worked on the project from the start nearly 10 years ago, the CRL holdups are a hot topic around the barbecue.

“The analogy I give to family and friends and people at barbecues is if you’ve ever built a house and the builder gives you a date and you work towards a date any little things can trip you up and cause that date to move and you cater for that.

“But the CRL is about a thousand times more complicated than a house and it’s about a thousand times the size of your general house so you can generally expect things, when they catch you out can just add to the time that it takes.”

Transport expert Trestour, an Australian who has worked on Sydney and Melbourne rail projects, says the involvement of many agencies has added to the complexity of the architecture.

Auckland Council and the Crown have gone half and half to fund it; a number of other agencies such as construction partner the Link Alliance are on board, iwi groups have had a huge part in the planning and design, Auckland Transport will take over and run it when it’s finished; and KiwiRail has a role integrating it with existing tracks.

But Trestour says it is the incorporation of the Māori design and artworks that set it apart.

“What I find is beautiful on this project is the snapshot to cultural heritage. There’s been high level collaboration to get there with iwi being part of that process,” he says.

“These are pieces of infrastructure that are going to keep a legacy to Aucklanders and I think it’s really important that they represent the local cultural values that are enshrined in the life of Aucklanders.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Auckland has welcomed the first passengers transiting on what has been dubbed the “world’s longest direct flight”.

A new China Eastern Airlines service from Shanghai to Buenos Aires landed in Auckland just after 6pm on Thursday.

The route departs from Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport and is scheduled to take roughly 25 and a half hours before reaching Ezeiza International Airport in the Argentine capital.

The return journey runs even longer, at about 29 hours. Both directions include a two-hour stopover in Auckland.

A welcome ceremony was held at the arrival gate at Auckland Airport following the flight’s touchdown, with attendees including Minister of Tourism and Hospitality Louise Upston, Minister of Immigration and Education Erica Stanford, Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, Chinese Ambassador to New Zealand Wang Xiaolong, Auckland Airport chief executive Carrie Hurihanganui, and China Eastern Airlines chief executive Gao Fei.

Upston said increased air connectivity was vital for New Zealand’s future economic growth.

“We are very firmly focused on growing tourism beyond 2019 levels and China Eastern’s Southern Link marks a new milestone for New Zealand as a tourism and trade gateway,” Upston said.

Stanford said Chinese passengers transiting through New Zealand could now use a NZeTA without applying for a separate transit visa, a policy she said played a critical role in strengthening New Zealand’s economic future.

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown also welcomed the easing of visa settings for Chinese visitors. He said the new service would deliver economic benefits to both Auckland and the wider country.

“It’s a link between two big economies, via our small economy, and we will gain from it,” Brown said.

The new China Eastern service was also well received by passengers.

Yi Zhu, a Shanghai resident visiting South America for the first time, said he enjoyed the long-haul flight and appreciated the opportunity to take a break in Auckland.

“I think two hours is not too long, and we can have some rest,” he said. “It’s good because we can prepare good for the next trip.”

He added that being able to transit through New Zealand without needing a separate visa was convenient for Chinese travellers and made the journey more appealing.

Emilio del Campo, who had been living in China for six months, was also on the flight home.

He said it was the farthest route he could take to return to his country, and he was delighted by the experience.

According to Auckland Airport’s statistics, travel between New Zealand and South America reached about 94,000 passengers last year, roughly two-thirds of pre-pandemic levels.

Air trade between New Zealand and South America totalled $129 million in the year to October 2025, up 11 percent from the previous year.

Auckland Airport chief executive Carrie Hurihanganui said the new service was expected to attract high-value visitors from both China and Argentina while giving New Zealanders a more competitive travel option to South America.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Kmart has cancelled the recall notices that were in force for three of its coloured sand products caught in the asbestos contamination scare.

MBIE said it had been informed the Blue, Green and Pink Magic Sand products were no longer being recalled.

“As in the case of the products recalled voluntarily by companies and suppliers, the decision to cancel a recall is also the supplier’s decision,” the ministry said.

MBIE said tests commissioned by Kmart confirmed no asbestos in the three sand products.

It was now urging buyers who bought the formerly recalled products to make contact with Kmart for remedial costs.

“If you’ve incurred losses (e.g. in clean-up costs etc), you might be able to obtain damages from the supplier under the Consumer Guarantees Act,” MBIE said.

“This will be for consumers to discuss directly with the suppliers.”

Recalls for other Kmart products, the 14-piece Sandcastle Building Set and the Make Your Own Unicorn Sand Ornaments are still in force.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

For more than 30 years, residents on Auckland’s Franklin Road have decked out their properties with Christmas decorations for the rest of the city to enjoy.

Despite prevalent rumours and conspiracy theories that the popular street-wide display is “funded by the electricity companies” or “organised by the council”, Roscoe Thorby – the man who started it all – says no household is forced to participate and it’s a “gift for the people from Franklin Road”.

What started as a bit of fun between neighbours slowly spread up (and down) the street – and now more than 80 percent of the households between Ponsonby Road and Wellington Street take part.

“The idea that it is individual households that make a decision to fund the lights and in many cases, pay for their installation, seems a little alien to some,” says Franklin Lights coordinator Eric Wilson.

“The cost of the electricity itself is relatively minor in comparison, especially with LED lights.”

There are now even displays appearing down the lower end of Franklin Road, as well as some houses in neighbouring Wood and Arthur streets.

“It’s not about how much you spend or the effort you put in,” Thorby says. “Just taking part is the culture of it.”

• Have you seen an impressive Christmas display? Share your pics with us iwitness@rnz.co.nz

Wilson, who has lived on the street for 13 years and took over from Thorby last year, credits Thorby’s enthusiam with growing the event to where it is today.

“Why do we continue to do it? Very simply, it’s seeing the joy it brings to children and families.”

One of Wilson’s most memorable displays was a light sculpture of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’. He also fondly remembers a few years ago where one house simply had the words ‘Ditto’ in lights and an arrow pointing to the house next door.

In 2023, council officers began patrolling the road and moving on street vendors who weren’t meant to be there, after residents complained about hawkers selling food, inflatable toys and light-up accessories, and who refused to leave when asked.

Patrols will continue this year, with organisers keen to preserve the community spirit by keeping those trying to use it for profit away. Organisers want to keep the event free for families to enjoy because “times are tough”, Thorby says.

The lights stay on from 7pm to 10pm every night until Christmas Eve.

RNZ will be livestreaming from 9pm Thursday as we walk Franklin Rd with Eric Wilson and Rosco Thorby, to bring you the lights – and meet some of the residents and revellers taking part.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

For more than 30 years, residents on Auckland’s Franklin Road have decked out their properties with Christmas decorations for the rest of the city to enjoy.

Despite prevalent rumours and conspiracy theories that the popular street-wide display is “funded by the electricity companies” or “organised by the council”, Roscoe Thorby – the man who started it all – says no household is forced to participate and it’s a “gift for the people from Franklin Road”.

What started as a bit of fun between neighbours slowly spread up (and down) the street – and now more than 80 percent of the households between Ponsonby Road and Wellington Street take part.

“The idea that it is individual households that make a decision to fund the lights and in many cases, pay for their installation, seems a little alien to some,” says Franklin Lights coordinator Eric Wilson.

“The cost of the electricity itself is relatively minor in comparison, especially with LED lights.”

There are now even displays appearing down the lower end of Franklin Road, as well as some houses in neighbouring Wood and Arthur streets.

“It’s not about how much you spend or the effort you put in,” Thorby says. “Just taking part is the culture of it.”

• Have you seen an impressive Christmas display? Share your pics with us iwitness@rnz.co.nz

Wilson, who has lived on the street for 13 years and took over from Thorby last year, credits Thorby’s enthusiam with growing the event to where it is today.

“Why do we continue to do it? Very simply, it’s seeing the joy it brings to children and families.”

One of Wilson’s most memorable displays was a light sculpture of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’. He also fondly remembers a few years ago where one house simply had the words ‘Ditto’ in lights and an arrow pointing to the house next door.

In 2023, council officers began patrolling the road and moving on street vendors who weren’t meant to be there, after residents complained about hawkers selling food, inflatable toys and light-up accessories, and who refused to leave when asked.

Patrols will continue this year, with organisers keen to preserve the community spirit by keeping those trying to use it for profit away. Organisers want to keep the event free for families to enjoy because “times are tough”, Thorby says.

The lights stay on from 7pm to 10pm every night until Christmas Eve.

RNZ will be livestreaming from 9pm Thursday as we walk Franklin Rd with Eric Wilson and Rosco Thorby, to bring you the lights – and meet some of the residents and revellers taking part.

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

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The food safety regulator says it’s seen CCTV footage from a Christchurch school, which shows that mouldy lunches were served to students because of a mix up that can’t be blamed on the company providing the meals.

Haeata Community Campus principal Peggy Burrows says the footage shows the school was not at fault, as it shows the same number of boxes being delivered and taken away on Monday, but Food Safety officials say they have seen the footage and disagree.

Officials and the school remain at odds over how mouldy meals came to be served to children alongside fresh ones on Monday.

The regulator is part of the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry’s director-general Ray Smith said an investigation into the meals was ongoing.

He said it had moved quickly in order to address public concerns over food safety, with evidence so far showing the problem had occurred at the school, not at the provider, Compass Group NZ.

“[Our] view is that there’s been a problem at the school with distribution of these things, and we can work with them to help that. Remember, these lunches went to 15 other schools. There’s parents too with children that are receiving these lunches. People need to know that these lunches are safe to eat, and we think that they are.”

Principal confident school is not to blame

The school’s principal Peggy Burrows said there’s no way the mix-up had occurred at the school, as the provider was contracted to prepare, deliver and pick up any leftover school lunches.

Large boxes, known as Cambros, which each hold around 40 meals, are used to keep lunches hot and transport them to schools, with the rubbish then taken away in them.

Burrows said CCTV footage shows there were no meals left at the campus over the weekend, and the school does not keep spare boxes onsite, despite investigators saying so.

But she is unable to share the images despite wanting to, due an agreement with Programmed Facility Management, who look after the campus. Its policy does not allow unauthorised viewing of CCTV footage and says staff are not permitted to take screenshots, or they may face disciplinary action.

Burrows said Compass Group holds a contract to safely prepare meals, deliver them and pick up any leftovers, and the school’s responsible for distributing the meals to students.

She said each day, a Compass driver arrived in a van and delivered the Cambro boxes to the cafe where lunch staff went through them to take out the special meals (halal, vegetarian etc) and put them into one Cambro box then deliver them to students. The boxes were then all returned to the cafe, before being collected by the driver.

“You can see in our video footage, the driver is bending over on the table. He’s got a sheet in front of him and he’s ticking off everything. He puts all of those Cambros back onto his trolley and then he takes them out of the building. If he had a concern that something was missing, would he not then have alerted the school so that we could have assisted him to go and find it so he could take it off site?”

Burrows said the issue of a missing box on Thursday was not brought to her attention that day.

“Our pushback would be, if there is an error with something being left behind and we dispute that but if there was, under their contract they need to resolve that with us immediately and they did not.”

She said any leftover Cambro boxes were collected by the Programmed Facility Management staff who do an interior and exterior sweep of the facility, twice a day and taken to the designated rubbish area.

“There’s no way you could confuse a Cambro with one that would have fresh food in it because it’s put in the area of the cafe where the cleaners and caretakers put rubbish ready for disposal.”

Government officials face questions about school lunch saga

During the Ministry for Primary Industry’s annual review before the select committee on Thursday, Green MP Steve Abel told officials it was appalling that school children were being fed mouldy mincemeat as part of a government school lunch programme.

Food Safety deputy director-general Vince Arbuckle said investigators had visited Haeata Community Campus and Compass in Christchurch this week to work out what had happened.

He said it would have taken several days at the right temperature for the meals to get to the state they were seen in on Monday.

He said the school was served the same menu last Thursday and again on Monday. There was no school on Friday as it was a teacher only day.

On Tuesday, investigators watched the CCTV footage and recorded what they saw.

“We are confident in the numbers, we saw eight boxes coming into the school and nine boxes leaving on the Monday.

“What we also became aware of is that the school retains several other boxes for various purposes and we think that’s probably what’s happened and caused the confusion.”

Of the 300 meals delivered to the school, between 10 to 20 meals were affected.

The lunches had been delivered to 15 other schools in Christchurch on Monday.

“Only one school had this experience and only one part of the school had this experience, the canteen, which all adds up to suggest that somehow in the canteen some meals remained in a box got intermingled with incoming meals on the Monday and innocently served out.”

Arbuckle said in terms of food safety risk, mould was “hugely unpleasant, but unlikely to be poisonous” but if there was bacteria present, that would be a different matter.

Food Safety had retained a number of the meals and would be testing them.

Arbuckle said investigators were still working through the temperature issue, to see if it was possible the meals delivered on Thursday, would still have been lukewarm on Monday.

“Possibly yes, possibly not.”

He said the lunch provider and the school had a shared responsibility to manage the distribution of the lunches and the collection and disposal of any uneaten lunches.

“Compass doesn’t control what the school does and how the school distributes the lunches, each school does that subtly differently depending on their resources and their number of students.”

He said there were lessons to learn from this, with findings and recommendations to come of the investigation.

“One of them may well be that we encourage education to work with schools to get better processes, to make sure that there is an absolute correlation between what goes in and what goes out and more certainty around how those meals are looked after during the course of time.”

Investigation into cause of mouldy meals ongoing

MPI director-general Ray Smith said while the investigation into the meals at Haeata had not been completed, officials felt it was important to clarify their preliminary findings given there had been public commentary around the risks posed by the meals.

“We would not have issued an interim view on it had the thing not been in the public domain in the manner it was that alarmed parents, no question about it. So we had to quickly either tell parents there’s a problem with Compass and deal with Compass or suggest there’s an issue at the school.”

He said they had not been approached by the school after the mouldy meals were discovered, but learnt about it after receiving media enquiries.

“If a school’s worried or finds something, let us know and then we can get in there straight away and try and help sort it out.”

The Healthy School Lunches Programme feeds 75,000 kids a day, five days a week across over 400 schools. Smith said in the year to date it had received 86 complaints, which had resulted in 49 investigations.

Smith said Compass were a global business doing its “level best” to provide healthy lunches.

“We’ve worked really hard with them to lift their game. What we have seen in the last term is a significant drop off in complaints and issues. I think we’ve got about seven in this term, year to date.”

Smith said the organisation would continue to have an open mind as it worked through the investigation.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A man who robbed a sports bar tried to claim it couldn’t have been him because he was busy doing his laundry at the time.

But Hone Daniels was on electronically-monitored bail at the time, so the ankle bracelet he was wearing placed him at the scene.

Daniels tried to counter that by saying he was at the nearby laundromat but his alibi efforts have been described as “ingenious but ineffectual”.

A judge, sentencing Daniels after a jury found him guilty of the Hamilton robbery, has even labelled it as “entertaining”.

“Of course, that was rejected by the jury, and equally, I found it more entertaining than anything that type of defence was being run,” Judge Tini Clark told him in the Hamilton District Court yesterday.

“As I say, ingenious, but ineffectual.”

Daniels was the only one of the three involved to be convicted of the aggravated robbery.

‘A very well planned robbery’

The court heard that on the evening of December 14, 2022, three people, including Daniels, entered The Riv Sports Bar through a back entrance.

One was carrying a pistol, which was used to force the female staff member to open the bar’s safe.

At the time, the bar was open, and there were patrons inside.

The staff member was held at gunpoint until she gathered a large sum of money, around $10,000, the judge said.

“From my recollection, this was a very well planned event and it’s important that I point that out because in essence, there was no ability to connect, forensically, the individuals, so successful was their disguise.”

That disguise included masks and gloves.

However, Daniels was on electronically-monitored bail at the time, and while he had an “ingenious” defence, the jury didn’t fall for it.

Daniels, through his counsel, told the jury that he was travelling in a different vehicle but just happened to be in the bar’s car park at the time of the robbery as he and a friend had been at the nearby laundromat.

It was also a coincidence that after the robbery, the same vehicle travelled to a Sapphire Pl property.

Judge Clark said she had “no difficulty” accepting the jury’s guilty verdict on a charge of aggravated robbery.

‘He wants to turn his life around’

While pointing out there was minimal violence used in the robbery, defence counsel, Melissa James, said she wasn’t trying to minimise her client’s actions.

However, Judge Clark was quick to point out that there “didn’t need to be a huge amount of direct violence because they had a gun”.

As for discounts, James pushed for 10 to 15% for her client’s background, including the death of his mother at a young age.

It was from then, she said, that Daniels’ life began changing and he began “getting closer to those who have an anti-social mindset”.

He joined a gang when he was about 19 and then began “making regular appearances in court and incarceration”.

But Judge Clark noted that at least up until his mother died, his upbringing seemed “pretty standard”.

Even then, he went on to get a sports and fitness certificate before gaining work.

James submitted that Daniels no longer wanted to keep coming to court, and had recently completed a rehabilitative course while on remand.

“Nothing has really slowed down his offending behaviour over the years,” the judge said.

She found that between being found guilty in February and Daniels’ sentencing, he had not made any marked changes.

“He has been off the rails for most of his adult life, so why would I have faith at this juncture that there is some significant change that I can recognise?

“Looking at his previous [history] … it’s mostly about dishonesty and taking things that don’t belong to him. Nothing has really changed.”

‘This has upended the victim’s life’

Judge Clark noted the armed robbery was now Daniels’ most serious conviction.

“Mr Daniels does need to take responsibility for the way that he has chosen to live his life,” she said.

As for the victim, the judge noted the incident had “both a short-term and long-term effect on her”.

She quit her job at the bar as she no longer felt safe.

“That really upended her life,” the judge said.

Judge Clark took a starting point of six years and six months, and after applying discounts for Daniels’ upbringing and rehabilitative efforts, she jailed him for five years and 10 months.

This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

[authro:rnz_online]

Police are warning of increasing scammer activity online ahead of the festive season.

Dunedin’s Investigation Support Unit was seeing more people falling victim to scams and other fraud, particularly on Facebook Marketplace, police said.

Southern District Service Delivery Manager Senior Sergeant Blair Dalton said the golden rule with Facebook Marketplace was: “if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.”

There were several other more specific ways to avoid scams and stay safe on the platform.

“A good first step when looking to purchase something on Marketplace is to check when the seller’s Facebook profile was created,” Dalton said.

“If it’s very recent, there is a higher risk that they have just created this account for a one-off fake item.”

Another thing to check for was whether the person’s profile name and bank number matched, he said.

“We’re seeing a lot of scammers claiming their bank account name is different because it belongs to their partner or family member – that’s a huge red flag.

“When you’re selling, never trust a screenshot anyone sends you showing that payment has been made.

“Quite frankly, it’s best for all parties to agree to pay, or be paid, for items in cash and in-person.”

Ideally, that meeting would happen in a public place with live CCTV, Dalton said.

He also recommend people took their due diligence, especially with more expensive items

“If you’re buying a car on Marketplace, check Carjam.co.nz to see if it’s stolen or if there’s money owed on it.”

Bank scams

Beyond Facebook Marketplace schemes, the Investigation Support Unit was also seeing a rise in text messages, phone calls, and emails being sent from scammers pretending to be from people’s banks.

“Key things to remember are that a bank will never contact you asking for your login information.

Banks also never asked people to withdraw cash, or to take their card anywhere for collection, Dalton said.

“If you’re suspicious, reach out to your bank immediately and report what has happened.”

Suspicious activity could also be reported to police on their 105 line.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A brand of snack balls is being pulled off shelves after plastic was found inside some of them.

New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) said specific batches of Tom & Luke’s Low Carb Snacka Balls had been recalled due to the possible presence of hard plastic.

It said Chocolate Coated Cookies & Cream, Raspberry, and Hazelnut flavours had been affected.

NZFS deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle said the products, which are sold in retail outlets and supermarkets, shouldn’t be eaten.

“You can return them to the place of purchase for a refund. If that’s not possible, throw it out.

“As is our usual practice, NZFS will work with Smartfoods Ltd to understand how the contamination occurred and prevent its recurrence,” he said.

Arbuckle said Smartfoods Ltd was doing the responsible thing after customers had flagged small bits of plastic in their snack balls.

He said the source of the plastic appeared to be dried imported dates.

While unpleasant to bite down on, Arbuckle said those who had consumed the snack balls shouldn’t be too worried.

“What we’ve seen is very small pieces. If someone has eaten it and inadvertently consumed a piece they’re so small they’d pass through in the ordinary course of events.”

NZFS confirmed the products had been removed from shelves and that they’d also been exported to Australia.

It advised anyone who had eaten the products and were worried about their health to contact their health professional, or call Healthline on 0800 611 116 for free advice.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

State Highway 35 between Omaio and Pariokara is closed both ways following a two-vehicle crash.

Police were called to the scene around 5:50pm on Thursday.

Three people received serious injuries and are receiving medical attention.

The Serious Crash Unit was notified.

Motorists were advised that there would be delays to their journey.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

As a gun fired seven anniversary shots at Linton Military Camp near Palmerston North, Mihiteria King held a special framed black and white photograph.

The young man in his crisp, pressed army uniform is her father Hemi Kingi, and he’d just landed in Japan, on his way to fight the Korean War with the 16th Field Regiment.

On Thursday, that regiment marked its 75th anniversary.

Set up to join international forces in that Cold War battle, it’s since served around the world, and veterans from many of modern history’s turbulent times, and their families, marked its birthday at Linton.

Kingi fought the Korean War from 1952 to 1954, a period King and her son Scott Douglas are delving into.

King said she was born in 1960 and was adopted out, reconnecting with her birth whānau three decades later.

“[Kingi] passed in 1963, so a lot of that knowledge disappeared when he disappeared and a lot of the whānau started to pass away quite a wee while ago, so all of the people who would have known more couldn’t tell us the information,” King’s son Scott Douglas said.

“It’s kind of like this journey of finding out more information as we go along to the different reunions and services.”

The Auckland pair have travelled to South Korea – Douglas recently returned – and that’s led to some emotional conversations, such as one King had on a train.

“This gentleman stopped and turned around and said, ‘I heard you talking and I believe your fathers or grandfathers were fighting in the war.’

“He said, ‘I just want to thank you.’ He said, ‘I’m a professor here at the University of Seoul and I wouldn’t be able to have done that without your father’s contribution’.”

None of the regiment’s Korean veterans were well enough to attend today, but some who served in Vietnam made it, including Patrick Nolan, from Feilding, and his mate Allan Cameron, from Waihi.

The pair met in training at Papakura and were then together in Vietnam, forming a decades-long friendship.

“The weather was good. The beer was cheap – 15 cents a can,” Nolan recalled.

Nolan – who also later served as a bodyguard to Queen Elizabeth II – joked he was looking forward to a free lunch and day away from his wife, while Cameron wanted to take a look at what the regiment was up to.

Thursday, the regiment finished running a gun 75km around the military camp to mark its birthday – a marathon 24-hour effort.

Regiment commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Brent Morris said it had a proud history, including deployments to Afghanistan, Bosnia and East Timor.

“Most recently we deployed offshore to support the Papua New Guinea defence force to reinvigorate their mortar capability.

“We also have a number of people deployed overseas in various missions, in places such as South Sudan; Syria, with the United Nations; and the Sinai Peninsula.”

But Korea is where it all started – the regiment created just a month earlier first fired its guns in the conflict on 29 January 1951.

“The regiment served proudly, with 4700 New Zealanders serving in the conflict, with 44 killed,” Morris said.

“The regiment fired 750,000 round during that conflict, the most of any Commonwealth regiment.”

Second Lieutenant Pearson Williams recounted its beginning at the ceremony.

“Twenty-four guns of the 16th Field Regiment we in position on the ice-encrusted paddy fields. The gunners stood by, stamping their feet and slapping their arms to keep warm against the freezing wind which blew, as it seemed, from the very heart of the Arctic Circle,” he said.

“Fire orders echoed out of the tannoy system and the gunners leapt into action.”

Veteran Roger Newth, 86, was briefly posted with the regiment during his long military career.

As well as being its birthday, 4 December had further resonance for the regiment’s patron saint, he said.

“Today is St Barbara’s Day, who is the patron saint of workers with explosives, miners, gunners and ladies of the night.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A young person has been arrested for a number of recent incidents across Christchurch, including an aggravated robbery earlier this week that left a store worker seriously injured.

The 17-year-old was located on Thursday afternoon in New Brighton and is set to appear before the Youth Court on a number of charges, including burglary, aggravated robbery, and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Christchurch District Commander Superintendent Tony Hill said police are working on an increase in recent youth offending incidents.

“We continue to work at pace to identify other parties involved in this and other recent youth offending, and hold those parties to account,” he said.

“Police’s operation announced earlier today will enhance our capabilities and resources as we work to tackle this recent increase in offending.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Paid firefighters will continue with strike action and not withdraw their notices as Fire and Emergency is urging them to.

The Employment Relations Authority is referring the warring sides to facilitated bargaining.

FENZ is welcoming the decision and said the union is calling on the Professional Firefighters Union to withdraw strike action, the next of which is for an hour on Friday.

But the union says it will not be doing that.

“It’s a bit rich actually, them asking for that,” NZPFU national secretary Wattie Watson said.

“It’s not going to happen, FENZ needs to get around the table and make some progress with us and we will do so,” she said.

The union said there was nothing to stop FENZ from going into talks or agreeing to dates for them outside the ERA process.

“In fact, it’s probably something that the ERA would expect, that we would do our damnedest at getting around the table and negotiating,” Watson said.

“FENZ is just sitting back on its hands saying, well, now it’s with the Authority.”

Fire and Emergency said the talks over pay and conditions had gone on for more than 16 months.

“Attending independent facilitation with the Authority is the next logical step in coming to an agreement and we will participate in good faith with the NZPFU,” deputy national commander Megan Stiffler said.

“We hope the facilitation process introduces some realism to the discussions.”

FENZ said its latest pay offer was “a fair and sustainable” increase.

The offer amounts to a 6.2 percent average increase over three years which it said is in line with other public sector agreements.

As it called for the union to withdraw its strikes, FENZ said there was no good reason for continuing to put the community at risk.

The union said it was FENZ putting the community at risk with its resourcing and fire trucks and equipment that kept breaking down.

“If firefighters can’t get to the fire or the incident quick enough, then their ability to protect and rescue and to douse a fire is compromised considerably,” Watson said.

“So FENZ every day, every day rolls that dice on community safety, which should not be occurring.”

Watson said facilitated bargaining is “not the magic wand” FENZ thought it was.

The facilitator, at most, can put forward recommendations, she said.

“Either party can reject or accept those recommendations and it would take both parties to accept them in order for them to result in a settlement.”

Last month 60 firefighters marched from their Pitt Street central Auckland fire station to Karangahape Road, protesting over pay and work conditions.

Banners highlighted concerns with the fleet, equipment and staffing.

Firefighter and union delegate Adam Wright had previously said the protest wasn’t just about pay.

He said the fleet was in tatters, with a conservative estimate of 800 fire truck breakdown in Auckland over a 12-month period.

The ERA will next hold a case management conference.

The Professional Firefighters Union has issued strike notices for 5 December, 12 December and 19 December.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Another measles case has been confirmed, taking the national total to 28 – 22 of which are no longer infectious.

Health New Zealand said the latest case is in Wellington.

New locations of interest include Dunedin Hospital’s Emergency Department waiting room and triage on the afternoon of Tuesday, 2 November.

Health New Zealand said it’s highly likely that several of the cases confirmed on Wednesday can be linked back to exposure at Auckland Airport’s domestic terminal last month.

Health NZ said people should stay up-to-date with locations of interest online, check their immunisation status, and if need be get vaccinated – especially if planning to travel overseas.

“Two doses of the MMR vaccine (after the age of 12 months) protect about 99 percent of people from getting measles.”

It said people should allow two weeks for immunity to develop following vaccination, and also encouraged those returning from overseas to monitor for symptoms.

Those with measles symptoms, including fever, cough, runny or red eyes, and a rash starting at the face, should contact Healthline on 0800 611 116, or their usual healthcare provider.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Police will use the Eagle helicopter in Christchurch as part of a two-month operation to tackle a recent rise in youth crime.

Officers arrested a 14-year-old boy after an Opawa dairy owner was stabbed during an aggravated robbery on Tuesday.

Three people robbed Opawa Discounter dairy in an early morning raid and left owner Kamlesh Patel with serious injuries.

The offenders fled in a car, taking a till and other items.

Canterbury District Commander superintendent Tony Hill said the Eagle helicopter would be temporarily sent to Christchurch on Friday.

“This operation is being launched to disrupt offending patterns, hold offenders to account and deter any further offending,” he said.

“We understand there is a lot of frustration among the community following recent offending, and we hear you.

“We know the impact this has on business owners and their staff. Nobody should turn up to work in fear of becoming the next victim of this violent offending.”

Police said they were also boosting the ‘youth targeting team’ with extra staff.

On Tuesday Hill called for public help to find people involved in the dairy robbery and any sightings of a silver Toyota MarkX with the registration number NRP221.

“We would like anyone who may have seen this vehicle in the Opawa or surrounding areas to please contact police immediately,” he said.

In a post on social media, Kamlesh Patel’s daughter Nidhi Patel said the attack on her father was “shocking and heartbreaking”.

“My dad works 16-18 hours a day, 7 days a week. He pours his heart into supporting his community and genuinely loves what he does. The dairy is not just his work – it’s his home, his safe place,” she said.

Patel said the family had been left shaken and frustrated.

She said her father was in a stable condition but had a long road to recovery.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Police arrested a North Canterbury resident for over 500 tags in various locations throughout Kaikoura, Canterbury and Dunedin.

The 23-year-old man will be appearing at the Christchurch District Court on 5 December on charges of entering agricultural land with intent and wilful damage for graffiti.

Senior Sergeant Stephen McDaniel said that Police are happy to have the brazen tagger off the streets.

“Not only was the offender spray painting his ‘tag’ everywhere, he was also taking videos of his offending and posting them to social media and benefiting from the notoriety.”

The offending tag was found on public bridges, toilets, walls, rubbish bins, walkways, light posts, former gun emplacements, train tracks, water tanks and drainage pipes.

“The offending leaves a lasting piece of graffiti on the public structures, and in some instances the offender has spray painted the same spot after councils have cleaned up their prior graffiti.”

“Graffiti or tagging is considered as intentionally damaging property, and we’ll hold offenders to account,” says Senior Sergeant McDaniel.

Police are asking the public to report any illegal graffiti they witness.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The Ministry of Education says early childhood services and school boards are legally responsible for funding asbestos-contaminated sand removal, after a kindergarten operator estimated a $350,000 clean-up to decontaminate her sites.

Whānau Manaaki chief executive Amanda Coulston told Checkpoint on Wednesday test results showed three of 13 of its kindergartens returned positive results for asbestos contamination.

The not-for-profit group had spent $40,000 on the tests so far, and she estimated the final cost to between $300,000 and $350,000 – a clean-up that is not covered by insurance, Coulston said.

That includes rounds of testing, removing carpet and soft toys, and refurnishing the sites, she said.

The Ministry of Education had been “pretty hands off in terms of all of this”, and they’d been told to try for reimbursement from suppliers, Coulston said.

When asked for a response on these issues, the Ministry of Education’s Helen Hurst early learning service managers and school boards were responsible for managing abestos risks on their sites, including removing it, under health and safety legislation.

Early learning service managers and school boards are considered the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) under the Health and Safety at Work Act, she said.

“While the Ministry does not fund asbestos remediation because it falls under the health and safety responsibilities of early learning services, we do not underestimate the impact this can have,” Hurst said.

Centres forced to close could request funding if they were impacted by asbestos contamination that could not be safely isolated, and the service had to shut for a short time, Hurst said.

Dozens of schools and early childhood centres had to shut following the revelation that popular children’s play sand products have been contaminated with asbestos last month.

Three early childhood centres are closed on Thursday due to the contamination.

“We want to acknowledge the significant effort early learning services and schools have put into responding to this issue,” Hurst said.

“They have acted quickly and responsibly to protect learners and staff, in a situation that is no fault of their own. Their commitment to safety has been evident in the way they have managed this challenge.”

The Ministry of Education was working closely with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) as the lead agency dealing with the issue, and WorkSafe as the regulator, Hurst said.

More advice could be found on the website, and the Ministry is focused on supporting centres and schools by providing step-by-step guidance and practical support to help them stay open, she said.

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