Source: Radio New Zealand

Gold Rush: Who’s Cashing In on Queenstown? An RNZ series examining the money flowing into Queenstown – and who’s missing out.

The number of first-home buyers in Queenstown has climbed to an 18-year high, making up 19 percent of all the district’s property purchases in 2025.

That is despite soaring property prices and thousands of people on waitlists for affordable housing schemes – with one buyer facing a $600,000 average increase in house prices since he first started looking.

The figures, from property analytics firm Cotality, follow a year in which the district hit a record asking price of $1.6 million, up nearly 20 percent on the previous year.

Christian Belmont, who has lived in Queenstown for more than a decade, said it was far from easy to buy a house in what was now the most expensive district in New Zealand.

“I think I have like 60 to 80 percent of all the real estate agents’ phone numbers on my phone, because I’ve been to dozens and dozens and dozens of open homes and talked with every single real estate agent that I possibly could,” he said.

He and his fiancé have been looking for a house since 2020, after he returned from a short stint in Auckland.

“It’s a long process and I totally recognise a lot of people are in the same boat. We’re very lucky to even have the opportunity to be in this process, very lucky to have the opportunity to even live here. But it still can be frustrating.”

Belmont, a teacher, said his main motivation was simply to get away from the uncertainty of the rental market, but his hopes had been dashed time and again by undisclosed body corporate fees, or other issues “under the hood” that locked him and his fiancé out from buying.

“There are a lot of real estate agents. There are a lot of opportunities. There are a lot of really beautiful houses that you go and see, and something means that you can’t get it or somebody can beat you out for it,” he said.

The couple had resigned themselves to a 10 percent deposit, saying 20 percent was simply out of reach.

Still, putting that together – while living with his partner and mother in a rental – had been “pretty darn hard”, Belmont said.

‘Overwhelming’ demand for affordable housing scheme

Many in Belmont’s position had turned to an affordable housing scheme run by the not-for-profit Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust.

It had built 30 houses in Arrowtown on land provided by the council, with another 38 to go, partly aimed at making it easier for buyers to get a foot in the door.

Its Tewa Banks development included social housing, affordable rentals, rent-to-buy houses and ‘assisted ownership’ houses – where people could purchase the house, but the land would be retained in perpetuity by the Trust.

To sign up, people had to live and work in Queenstown, not own any other property, and have a maximum household income of $130,000.

More than 1600 households were on the waitlist, chief executive Julie Scott said.

“We’ve had overwhelming demand for these homes. I mean, Arrowtown in itself is such a desirable location, but just it’s been extraordinary, the demand,” she said.

The first residents came from a wide range of backgrounds, Scott said.

“We’ve got a high school teacher just in one of these [houses] with his son. We’ve got a lot of tradies, we’ve got some senior housing up the front for senior retirees who don’t obviously own in other income or assets. We’ve got a heap of families and they’re just working all the jobs that keep the town functioning.”

Scott said when it came to meeting the demand for affordable housing in Queenstown, she was hopeful the government would work with councils.

“One thing that we would like to see is a really good regional deal that gives us tools to help level the playing field for, for workers and lower-moderate income households,” she said.

“I think government support for all sorts of housing programmes, for the last couple of years, has been fairly limited. There’s been five Community Housing providers across the country that have been chosen to partner with the government to deliver social housing. There’s probably about another 90 of us sitting in the back wings across the country, kind of scratching our head thinking how do we help the people in our communities?”

First home buyers looking further afield, or to new developments

Bayleys Queenstown sales manager Dee McQuillan said despite the sharp rise in house prices, buying a property under $1m in Queenstown was “absolutely” still possible.

She said there had been rising optimism among first-home buyers as interest rates fell.

Some first-home buyers had been looking further afield to sections in Kingston, while others had been taking an interest in developments like Frankton’s Five Mile Villas, she said.

“Interest is mostly going to those new offerings and building a bit further away,” she said.

“And from time to time, we do get something a little bit unusual that’s very old and maybe needs some work, that might be just under or just around that $1 million mark as well, in areas like Frankton or Fernhill.”

Buyers competing with holiday homes, short-term rentals

Data from the previous census showed just over a quarter of Queenstown’s houses were empty at any given time, including holiday homes and properties used for short-term rentals.

The website AirROI showed AirBnB listings that made up about the equivalent of about 15 percent of Queenstown.

Belmont said as a prospective first-home buyer, it could be frustrating to see how many homes were being bought by investors for use as holiday homes or short-term accommodation.

“In my experience, tourists don’t just come for the beauty, which is obviously a huge piece of it, but the vibe of Queenstown is what keeps people coming back, how friendly we are to them, how accommodating the Kiwis are, and locals are, to tourists. And sometimes I get frustrated with tourists, like they took that house for Airbnb,” he said.

“The frustrating thing is that how long can this go on before the community actually isn’t that desirable to come to … I feel like there’s a critical mass that we’re approaching.

“We’re trying to have it both ways and maybe if we keep on trying to have it both ways, we won’t be able to have it either way. If that makes sense. It’s scary to me as someone who’s super, super invested in Queenstown as a place and wants to keep it amazing.”

Despite that, he said he was set on living in Queenstown, and driven to be a part of its future.

“We even looked at Oamaru actually, we were really down to move to Oamaru. We were very close to it. But … we really think of Queenstown as our home. My partner and I met each other here. We are committed, we’re getting married here next year … our family is here. Our careers are here and also – you don’t want to betray the town that you love by leaving in many ways because you think you can add value to the town as well. So we both want to stay and help fix it.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

These days only one small section of the Kumutoto stream still flows above ground, the rest is culverted and piped running under the motorway and central city streets before emptying into the harbour.

Where the stream once met the harbour was also the site of one of the main Māori villages in central Wellington, also named Kumutoto.

The manager of Māori heritage recognition and engagement at Heritage NZ, Dennis Ngawhare (Taranaki), said it was just one of many waterways Wellingtonians walked or drove over every day.

“One of the fascinating things with the Kumutoto is that, despite it being buried and culverted and piped from the 1860s onwards, it still leaves its presence in the landscape,” he said.

Heritage NZ has designated the sole remaining above ground section of the river in the Kumutoto forest near Victoria University of Wellington as a Wāhi Tīpuna on the New Zealand Heritage List.

“But regardless of whether you can see the awa or not, you can really see its influence on the landscape and how the city was built around it and over it. And that, unbeknownst to most people in Wellington, that underneath our feet this river is still flowing, albeit through the old pipes and culverts that have been developed over the century and a half at Wellington has been here,” Ngawhare said.

Native fish such as kōkopu, kōaro and perhaps even tuna (eels) still swim in the waters of the Kumutoto, at least in the part in the open air.

Ngawhare, paraphrasing the poet and scholar Dr Alice Te Punga Sommerville, said “no one has told the eels to stop acting like eels.”

“We can bury our streams in pipes and culverts, but eels and other fish life are still going to find their way up and in. And so I think it’s, for any waterway, it’s a really positive sign when we’re seeing life in our streams. And especially in central Wellington, a central city stream, we’re still seeing life.”

The path of the river

Ngawhare remembers while doing his undergraduate degree at Victoria University sitting outside on the marae at Te Tumu Herenga Waka he could hear a “bubbling brook” where there was none visible.

He asked one of the university’s kaumātua who told him that was the Kumutoto, that is where his interest in the awa began.

The stream begins beneath Pukehinau Ridge, in the area now occupied by Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington.

“And so from essentially under the marae at Te Herenga Waka, but down the middle of Kelburn Parade is the culvert or the pipes that kind of gathers all that water from the water table. It flows down Kelburn Parade to a sharp right at Salamanca Road. And those of you who’ve been to Wellington and Victoria University and on Kelburn Parade in Salamanca, it’s quite a sharp right-hand bend. And that essentially, when the road was developed, it followed the course of the awa itself. And just, again, giving shape to the roads that have been built that we travel upon,” Ngawhare said.

From there, it drops down beneath the Kelburn Tennis Court into the Kumutoto Forest, which is a part of the Wellington town belt.

From the glade it then enters into another culvert that runs alongside the Terrace Tunnel and underneath the Northern Motorway. Then cuts to the right underneath The Terrace out to Woodward Street.

It then exits out to Lambton Quay, which was once the waterfront of Wellington, and crosses over several roads out to the harbour at what is now called Kumutoto Plaza.

Ngawhare said you could still see the influence of the Kumutoto on Wellington’s streets, like where the Terrace Tunnel plunges into the gully which now contains the motorway.

The entire path of the river from the university to the harbour can be traversed in about an hour and a half, he said.

“It’s just a real fascinating juxtaposition of coming from the university into the bush and then exiting out on the motorway, travelling underneath tunnels and just following the path of the awa. It’s a really interesting and fascinating walk.”

Kumutoto Papakāinga

Established by Wi Piti Pomare of Ngāti Mutunga in 1824, Kumutoto Pā was a settlement founded at the old mouth of the stream, where Woodward Street and The Terrace meet.

In 1835, ownership was passed over to the tupuna Ngātata-i-te-rangi of Ngāti Te Whiti, Te Ātiawa. Ngawhare said when Ngāti Mutunga left Kumutoto they ritually burned their houses, thereby relinquishing their claim.

“The Kumutoto Papakāinga itself was only occupied for around 30-odd years, but it was quite a significant settlement at the time, not only for the people that were living there, and there were multiple other settlements around the harbour settled by refugees from Taranaki,” he said.

“But the Kumutoto itself was also the heart of the Wellington flax trade, and so flax traders had set up for a few years there at Kumutoto, and that was an important part of the early trade development from Te Whanganui-a-Tara, that Māori were engaged in with English traders.”

By around 1852, most people had moved from Kumutoto and relocated themselves to other places in the region such as Ngauranga, Petone and Waiwhetu, he said.

Ngawhare said the name Kumutoto is said to refer to Māori birthing practices. It was known as a place where the wāhine of that early settlement period would go to have their children.

Daylighting

When asked if the Kumutoto could potentially be “daylighted,” ie making the stream visible again, Ngawhare said regardless of what humans do to redirect and to bury waterways, water will always find a way.

He said there had been talk of daylighting other streams, like the Waitangi stream also in Wellington or the Horotiu which runs beneath Auckland’s Queen Street.

“It would be difficult. And for some of these streams, infrastructure won’t really allow us to do it. But wouldn’t it be great to be able to see these streams flowing through our cities again?”

And while it may initially seem impossible it has happened in other cities around the world, such as in Seoul where an elevated motorway was removed in order to daylight the Cheonggyecheon stream, which has since become a popular park.

Ngawhare said one important process of listing the stream at Heritage New Zealand, was not only to acknowledge its historical significance, but it was also an opportunity to recognise the significance and importance of the waterway itself, so that perhaps in the future that people may look at daylighting this stream and other streams that there is a body of evidence there.

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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 meal base that can turn almost any assortment of vegetables and proteins into a one-pot meal is being distributed to foodbanks.

The New Zealand Food Network has teamed up with Nestlé to help families in need make a nutritious meal from scratch with food parcel ingredients.

The network’s chief executive Gavin Findlay said it’s a concept that has been successful with foodbanks in Australia.

“It’s a good healthy product that’s easy to use. A lot of our community’s access and capability of cooking can be challenged if they’re in transitional housing or hotels/motels while they’re waiting,” he said.

Nestlé is manufacturing and donating the meal base sachets, which can be used as a soup or to make a hearty casserole.

“You’re not making a meal per se, it’s a dried sachet product that you’re just adding water to. If you’ve got a kettle and a cup you’re there,” Findlay said.

“This is intentional giving, this is a company saying what can we do to help your community who’s struggling.”

Nestlé New Zealand chief executive Susan Catania said the one-pot meal base had been a success with foodbanks in Australia.

“We know that food insecurity is real and is increasing but we’ve also learned through the partnership [with the NZ Food Network] that food relief often depends on what’s available in any given week,” she said.

“That means people might not know what to do with the mix of items that they get. We really wanted to create a product that would create a versatile meal no matter what mix of proteins, vegetables or pantry items you had on any given week.”

Over the past five years, Nestlé has donated more than 497,000 kilograms of food for the Food Network to distribute to 65 foodbanks and food charities – the equivalent of over 1.1 million meals.

Catania said the meal base would be part of their ongoing partnership.

“We know that now is the right time because the holiday season can be a tough time for a lot ofpeople so this really helps make it a little easier for families to put food on the table.”

Demand on foodbanks has been increasing with no sign of let up – and food charities have been calling for ongoing government funding instead of one-off grants.

The Food Network began in 2020 during the pandemic when the country needed a national organisation to collect and distribute surplus edible food that manufacturers and growers cannot sell.

The network then shares the food amongst food charities that distribute parcels to their communities.

It received a $5.8 million grant from the Ministry of Social Development but does not know if that will be extended past July 2026.

Findlay said more edible food would go to landfill if they could not maintain the current level of service.

“The baseline of people needing some form of support is actually quite high. We thought it was going to drop down post Covid but the cost of living environment means that hasn’t happened and in fact has trended up slightly,” he said.

“We see no let up in the need for helping those that require food support.”

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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 diesel spill has closed Wellington’s Aotea Quay.

Police were notified of a single-vehicle crash involving a fuel truck about 2.45am on Tuesday.

The on-ramp heading northbound was blocked, but motorists could still get off State Highway 1 via the off-ramp.

Police said it will remain closed throughout the morning, and Wellington City Council warn that ferry access and egress would also be impacted.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Residents of a central Auckland suburb are fed up with frequent sewage overflows ruining what should be a picturesque coastal view.

A community group in Hobson Bay, just east of the city centre, says the council is responding too slowly to the flood of faeces.

Rain or shine, local woman Margot Nicholson said sewage was a regular sight.

“We have dry weather spills, which are from broken pipes and blockages and things. Those are happening almost all the time,” she said.

“In wet weather, the phrase we use is: if it’s wet enough for your hair to get wet … there will be spills.”

Hobson Bay and the neighbouring Judges Bay had been haunted by frequent wastewater spills for several years.

Much of the surrounding residential area still used combined waste and stormwater pipes that were over 100 years old and prone to leaks.

Most recently, the 2023 storms broke the wastewater pipeline in Judges Bay necessitating a $13 million repair that is still ongoing.

Nicholson, who serves as a spokesperson for community group Hapua Thrive, had to warn people not to swim in faeces.

“I was going for a walk and there was a woman there with her little boy racing across the mud flats, very excited to get into the water, and I had to say to her: ‘look, do you know what the situation is?’”

Wastewater biologist Gemma Tolich Allen said the amount of sewage flowing into the bays was extreme.

“When there are high flows into the harbour, the bacterial levels are extremely high and they’re the sort of levels that I would see entering a wastewater treatment plant,” she said.

“We’re actually seeing the harbour doing the treatment of the sewage waste that should actually be going to a wastewater treatment plant.”

Allen said Hobson and Judges Bay were effectively acting as an open-air treatment plant, which wasn’t fair to ratepayers.

“When we’re charged on our wastewater bill … when you have large volumes of water not being treated, expecting the local environment to treat it, then you’re actually short changing the community.”

Nicholson said enough was enough and it was time for council to do something about it.

“I don’t believe they are doing enough. They’ve known about this forever, they’ve got the projects there, and there are fixes available. There’s been a lot of work in monitoring, which is great, but they know the problem, they know what they need to do, and they need to get on and do it,” she said.

“I don’t think our clean, green reputation is deserved … it’s not okay for Hobson Bay to be effectively a wastewater treatment plant.”

Auckland Council’s Watercare had invested $8 billion into upgrading and repairing Auckland’s wastewater system over the next decade.

The centrepiece of that work was the Central Interceptor, which head of wastewater planning Andrew Deutschle claimed would reduce overflows in the western isthmus by 80 percent.

Hobson Bay is in the east and wouldn’t benefit directly, but Deutschle said the $1.6b project would help ease the load.

The benefit it provides for Hobson Bay, for Judges Bay, and for other parts of the eastern isthmus is it takes some of the load off our Orakei Main Sewer,” he said.

“By taking a load off that, that allows other sources in the eastern isthmus to better utilise that asset.”

The Central Interceptor was due in late 2026, but Nicholson had her sights set on a different project.

The Newmarket Gully was originally promised for 2016, but still hadn’t left the feasibility stage almost ten years later.

“There was a plan that there would be a tunnel, or a storage tank, that would reduce the overflows in this area by 50 percent. That still hasn’t been done, that’s still in the planning process,” she said.

That project would redirect overflows to a storage tunnel to reduce leakage into Hobson Bay.

But Deutschle said it wouldn’t be completed until 2033.

“The current timing for the Newmarket Gully project is working towards completion by 2033, with our large-scale complex projects we find that they often take some time and we need to really carefully consider or sometimes reassess options.”

Gemma Tolich Allen had witnessed frequent spills into Judges Bay over multiple decades and said work on the Newmarket Gully had been too slow.

“I believe, as a wastewater biologist, that the environmental cost can be reversed…. but when you’re looking at 40 years of Judges Bay still being contaminated, that’s a whole generation of people who have been unable to use it,” she said.

Watercare said it planned to eventually replace all of the old combined waste and stormwater pipes with separate lines, but the process would take decades.

Until then, projects like the Central Interceptor and Newmarket Gully would reduce the frequency of spills, and Watercare would prioritise areas that were at a higher risk of overflows.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

• The day of a deadline for a ransom demand in the massive Manage My Health data leak has arrived.
• It is believed the deadline expires at 5.37am New Zealand time.
• It comes as communication from the country’s largest patient portal is criticised by a former intelligence officer.

The deadline has arrived for the ransom being demanded after hundreds of thousands of medical files were stolen from the country’s largest patient portal.

Manage My Health is still grappling with the massive data breach affecting more than 120,000 of its users.

Health Minister Simeon Brown said the government had a long-standing position that ransoms should not be paid.

Manage My Health said late on Monday, ahead of the deadline, that any ransom demand was a matter for Police.

It said it would not be making any comment about a ransom while an investigation was ongoing.

The platform said it was sincerely sorry for pain and anxiety caused to health providers and patients.

“We acknowledge we could have done a better job at communication,” it said in a statement.

“However, our priority was to secure patient data and work on the accuracy of all information before providing it to practices and patients.”

It said it would be publishing daily updates with all the information it was able to share.

Simeon Brown, speaking after announcing an urgent review into the breach, said he had raised communication with the platform.

“I spoke to the CEO last week, made my expectations incredibly clear around the need for Manage My Health to be clear and transparent with its communications to the public and its users and to work closely with agencies and to make sure that they are following their advice,” he told RNZ.

Brown described the data disappearing as “pretty unacceptable”.

Luke Hogan, a senior technical manager who works at Intellium, said he could not see Manage My Health recovering.

“I don’t know how they’re going to come back from this, it’s a bit tough,” he said.

“For me it’s really, really disappointing that basic cyber security has not been taken seriously.

“From my perspective, health data is right up there with financial data, some of the most critical data that needs to be protected,” he said.

“It’s just very, very disappointing and a little bit shocking as an IT professional to hear that this has happened”.

Will ransom be paid?

While Manage My Health would not be drawn on the ransom, a former intelligence officer said in general they should not be paid.

Antony Grasso had also worked at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the United Kingdom’s intelligence, security and cyber agency.

He himself was a Manage My Health user.

“I personally would advise not to, even if it was my own data that was going to get released, which it may be,” he said.

“It’s a tough call without giving the full context but the general rule is not to pay the ransom, that’s the general rule.

“I mean, you’re bargaining with effectively criminals or thieves, and there’s no honour amongst thieves, we know that, and they may release it anyway and it also means we’re a soft touch.”

Grasso said he had not seen Manage My Health take many tangible actions after the breach.

“You know, just as a general bod on the street, I don’t feel like they will necessarily have had a good plan for the response,” he said.

“I haven’t seen a lot of transparency and I haven’t seen a lot of action that I would expect for a company that’s holding that much private information.”

Grasso hoped security companies used by the platform would be dumped and have nothing to do with it in the future.

“Because clearly, somebody’s dropped the ball.”

‘Rumours for some time’ – Deputy Privacy Commissioner

Deputy Privacy Commissioner Liz MacPherson told RNZ she believed issues had surfaced in the past.

“As I understand it there have been rumours for some time but the issue we’ve got is that there are white knight hackers and others out there who do raise these issues, quite often it’s very difficult to know whether these people are actually hackers themselves or whether they are white knights, so it’s difficult to police,” she said.

A white knight is a hacker who acts with good intentions to get vulnerabilities fixed.

“So as I understand it, these issues have been drawn to Manage My Health in the past and I think to some media outlets as well,” MacPherson said.

She said the Office was irked by widespread complacency around cyber security.

“The frustration for us at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner is that we continue to see complacency from, and this is across the board… a continuation of the ‘it’ll happen to somebody else, not to me’ type approach,” she said.

“And you have to ask the question, is the lack of a penalty regime part of that?”

MacPherson said fines in Australia used to be around $3.3 million but had risen significantly.

“So the major breaches risk fines of up to greater than $50m AUD, which is three times the financial gain from the breach, or 30 percent of the company’s turnover.

“I guess what I’m saying to you is that we didn’t even have the lower level fines that they had, which were around 2 to $3 million,” she said.

“We don’t have any penalties, we do not have a civil penalty rating.”

What Manage My Health says

Manage My Health, in its latest update, said it wanted to reassure the public that its team had been working tirelessly through the holiday period.

“Secondly, we have been working as part of a cross-sector group to implement processes to begin communication with affected practices and patients,” it said.

“We acknowledge that this delay has been a cause for concern.”

The platform said it welcomed the review launched by the Health Minister and it would fully cooperate.

It said its international team was monitoring known data leak websites and was prepared to issue takedown notices immediately if any stolen information was posted.

It had also obtained a High Court injunction preventing third parties from accessing data posted as a result of the cyber attack.

The High Court in Wellington has confirmed to RNZ it received an application for an injunction.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A coroner is calling for restrictions on the internet, after a teenager accidentally died, while imitating acts he saw online.

An inquest by coroner Michael Robb found the Bay of Plenty teen had become interested in violent pornography and had made “troubling” internet searches the day before his death in 2024.

He was found dead, after disappearing overnight, and Robb believed he had attempted to imitate what he had seen on the internet.

“I consider he [was] in some way endeavouring to mirror what he had seen in the internet searches in some kind of experimental or exploration context,” Robb’s report said.

The coroner referenced Australia’s recent decision to ban children under 16 from accessing social media platforms and that the New Zealand government was discussing a similar bill.

“It does not appear to have been his accessing or ability to access social media platforms, but rather the open access to the internet that is available to any person, child or adult, who has access to any internet-enabled device.”

Robb said the teen’s death “highlights the need for internet access restrictions being imposed, where a youth might access the internet” and that parental controls on residential modems didn’t go far enough.

“While controls can be applied to the device, the risk remains that tech-savvy youth can work around this,” he said.

“I acknowledge it can be difficult to imagine what the potential harms are, what might be searched, what might spark interest in the young, but in my view, [the teenager’s] avoidable death represents an example of the dangers of open internet access.

“It represents the reality that the consequences can ultimately lead to the preventable loss of a young life.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A Tolaga Bay farmer is “back at square one” just months after completing repairs to damage to his property from storms that hit four years ago.

A low pressure system brought heavy rain and thunderstorms to northern parts of the country over the weekend – causing surface flooding and felling trees, as well as stranding travellers and forcing the evacuation of up to 30 campers in Tolaga Bay.

Greg Shelton – who is also the area manager for Tolaga Bay Civil Defence – said it would take him at least three days to assess the extent of damage to his property.

But Federated Farmers said – while some farms had suffered significant damage – others would be welcoming a break in near drought conditions ahead of the storms.

‘Pretty damn hard’

Shelton said his farm was cut off and suffered extensive damage during intense localised downpours.

He said a rain gauge near his property – about 8 kms east of Tolaga Bay – had measured 215 mms of rain falling over a 12 hour period during the weekend.

He estimated more than half of that fell during an hour and a half of severe thunderstorms on Saturday night.

“Other farms around here were recording half or a quarter of that so unfortunately we got caught in that weather bomb. We got hit particularly hard for an hour and a half and that’s really what did the most of the damage,” Shelton said.

Shelton said his farm was “back at square one” just months after completing repairs following damage to his property during storms in March 2022.

“We’re dealing with most fences down, roads that need a lot attention. The main access road is a narrow pathway now to get vehicles in and out. Then we sit down and look at animal health issues and then boundary fences and try to prioritise everything.

“It is huge, there’s a lot of mud, a lot of logs, a lot of debris in them and it’s just a case of ‘we’ve been here before’ we just take a breath and try to prioritise things which is pretty damn hard,” Shelton said.

He estimated this storm’s repairs could take up to a year to complete.

“We know this will take all winter. We’re a steep hill country property. We have to fly gear out by helicopters – we just don’t get to a repair job by lunchtime,” Shelton said.

Shelton said he was “a possum caught in the headlights” on Sunday morning but he was grateful for the help of his son and his family to keep him grounded as they faced the task ahead.

He said the weekend’s events were the first time in nearly 40 years involvement in the local Civil Defence that he was unable to be a part of setting up the community’s emergency centre.

“The Uawa/Tolaga Bay Civil Defence team stood up and they had young people come on board and I can’t praise them enough,” he said.

‘Some people get hammered, some people get saved’

Federated Farmers Gisborne and Wairoa provincial president Charlie Reynolds said he was aware some farmers had been hit hard by the weather while others would have welcomed the rain.

He said the rain over the New Year break and last weekend was the first significant rainfall in the area since October.

“We were gearing up with MPI [Ministry for Primary Industries] to declare a drought. A lot of people were getting pretty worried.

“The first lot of rain – just before New Year’s Eve – just soaked into the ground which was brilliant. This second lot has filled the dams and tanks. It’s one of those mixed bags – some people get hammered some people get saved,” Reynolds said.

Community volunteers step up

Ūawa deputy Civil Defence officer Nori Parata said the area had generally fared relatively well as the direction of the weather system had limited the weather’s impact on the levels of the Hikuwai River.

She said nearly 40 people were still forced to take shelter in the Tolaga Bay Area School’s gymnasium on Saturday night – the majority being campers from low lying parts of the nearby Tolaga Bay Top 10 Camp.

Parata said the number of evacuees from the camp could have been higher but rising waters cut of the route between the camp and school.

“We were very pleased the camp operators took action when they did – at around 8.30 pm – while it was still light. If they had waited a couple of hours it would have been a very different situation. It would have been drama, the rain was torrential,” Parata said.

Parata said the she was grateful to local volunteers who sprang into action to set up mattresses and bedding and prepare the kitchen at the school for evacuees to use.

“They are a well oiled machine and they work well together. We had TV, we had packs of cards, there was a jovial atmosphere. When we gave them access to the wi-fi, the teenagers all cheered.”

She said State Highway 35 was been reopened to traffic ahead of 9 am on Sunday morning and evacuees were able to leave the gymnasium later that day.

Shelton said the community was getting used to preparing for adverse weather events as soon as forecasts showed severe weather on the way.

“This is going to be a norm unfortunately. Warmer water temperatures, warmer atmosphere, cooler ground temperatures, it’s a recipe for more events like this weather localised or throughout the Cape. We are going to get more of them I’m afraid,” Shelton said.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A ransom hack on New Zealand’s largest health portal is being billed as one of the country’s biggest cybersecurity incidents, but how does it compare?

The hackers have threatened to release more than 400,000 documents stolen from about 126,000 ManageMyHealth patients if the private company failed to pay $60,000 by 5am Tuesday.

The breach has prompted a government review of what happened, looking into whether security protections were sufficient, and any improvements that should be made.

ManageMyHealth is seeking an injunction on the patient information being used publicly, and working to notify those affected.

The company is also working with Health NZ, the Ministry, the Privacy Commissioner and General Practice to minimise ongoing risk.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)’s latest Cyber Threat Report in December identified increasing commercialisation of cybercrime, with known weaknesses and unpatched vulnerabilities in New Zealand “providing threat actors with easy access”.

More than 40 percent of incidents NCSC dealt with in the 2024/25 year had links criminal or financially motivations, compared to about 25 percent with suspected links to state-sponsored actors. About 34 percent could not be linked to either.

The number of criminal or financially motivated attacks more than doubled compared to the previous year, and financial losses rose from more than $26.9m to $21.6m.

The agency, which provides cybersecurity services to all New Zealanders, advises not paying ransoms to hackers.

“Unfortunately, many of those who pay do not get their data back or their systems unlocked, and sometimes they are extorted further with the threat of releasing sensitive data.”

The report said AI had only added to the threat – with attackers no longer needing advanced technical skills to launch convincing and scalable attacks.

“The scale and speed of AI-driven attacks could overwhelm traditional security teams, especially if basic cyber hygiene is lacking. Still, automation benefits both sides: rapid detection and response must outpace automated attacks to remain effective,” the report said.

Waikato DHB

One of the most notorious attacks affecting New Zealand specifically, the Waikato District Health Board (DHB) incident received significant media attention due to its clear effect on local hospitals.

The attack paralysed services at five hospitals on 18 May 2021, after hackers brought down the District Health Board (DHB)’s 611 servers and – six weeks later – leaked private data from more than 4000 patients and employees on the dark web.

As with the ManageMyHealth attack, the hackers used ransomware – software which threatens to shut down access and/or steal data unless a ransom is paid – to shut down all phones and internal systems other than email.

Staff were still having to use manual workarounds in some areas three months later, when the DHB was still trying to figure out how big the patient backlog would be.

The DHB had been warned just months earlier about its outdated security provisions, including clinical devices still running Windows XP – which had not been supported for five years – behind on security patches, and too few staff to manage upgrades.

A report later found the DHB was up to date with patching, and that software vulnerabilities did not play a role in the incident. However, much of that report’s insights into how well set up the DHB was prior to the incident, and details of the attack, were redacted.

Tonga Health System, 2025

Tonga’s health system was taken down for nearly a month in June last year by hackers demanding $1 million.

The ransom was not paid and Tonga got help from Australia to restore their system, asking patients for weeks to bring in handwritten notes instead of relying on their own records.

Case study

In an example that never hit the headlines, the NCSC’s report illustrated how strong security and quick responses could be effective in combating ransomware attacks by highlighting another case in the health sector.

“Many of the organisation’s servers and endpoint devices had been encrypted, and a large amount of data was stolen,” the report said.

“The organisation’s IT provider helped it to take initial remediation steps, which included changing credentials, updating accounts, and deploying extra security measures.”

The report said the NCSC had found a lack of multi-factor authentication (MFA) – where a user provides two or more verifications, like a password as well as a phone access code – had allowed a hacker to gain access.

“Fortunately, the organisation had completed system backups just one hour before the ransomware activity occurred. By restoring from these recent backups, it was able to successfully recover its systems and quickly return to normal operations.”

The report said such frequent backups were what allowed the organisation to recover so fast, but having MFA would have prevented the attack.

WannaCry attack 2017

The WannaCry attack in May 2017 was notable for its breadth.

Locking down more than 300,000 computers in more than 150 countries, the attackers demanded US$300 for each machine affected.

WannaCry was named after the ransomware used to prevent people from accessing their files.

Most of those affected were thought to have not paid the hackers, and reports suggested those who paid were not rewarded with access to their documents.

The UK’s health service was particularly affected, with nearly 20,000 hospital appointments cancelled.

In New Zealand, perhaps one of the biggest effects was the shutdown of Lyttelton Port as a precaution.

Afterward, Counties Manukau DHB reported significant challenges and gaps in how medical device computers were managed, which experts warned would be widespread and it would be a challenge for DHBs.

The United States pinned the blame on North Korea.

Qantas

Moving away from health data, New Zealanders were also caught up in the breach that affected 5.7 million Qantas customers in mid-2025.

The Australian airline in October revealed the extent of the attack, which stole data from about 40 companies worldwide in June.

Details taken included customer records including name, email address and frequent flyer details.

Thankfully, no credit card, personal financial information, passport details or Qantas frequent flyer account passwords and logins were thought to have been taken.

Nissan cyber attack 2024

About 100,000 customers from carmaker Nissan’s Australian and New Zealand arms were affected by a hack in March 2024, with copies of documents including driver licences, passports, tax files and medicare cards.

At least some of the stolen data was published on the dark web.

Latitude Financial, 2023

In March 2023, Australian financial services firm Latitude announced on the Australian stock exchange that it had been hit by an attack.

Initially believed to affect just 330,000 people, Latitude eventually confirmed the attack affected more than 14 million documents in what was believed to have been the biggest data breach in New Zealand at the time.

More than a million New Zealand driver licence numbers, 90,000 personal bank account numbers, details from 34,000 passports, and details relating to the company’s Gem Visa credit cards were thought to have been taken.

A ransom was demanded, but was not paid.

Mercury IT, 2022

An attack in 2022 saw Health NZ and the Ministry of Justice lose access to health and coronial files.

The data – about 14,500 coronial files, 4000 post mortem reports, about 8500 bereavement care records, and about 5500 Cardiac and Inherited Disease Registry records dating back as far as 2018 – was held by external provider Mercury IT.

The NCSC’s latest annual report identifies such “supply chain hack” attacks targeting third-party suppliers and services as an increasing trend.

“This approach works where the third party may not adhere to the same security standards as the target organisation, or where actors are prepared to put in the effort to compromise the third party because it is key to unlocking access to one or more valuable targets,” the report said.

At the time, Mercury said it immediately reported the attack to government authorities after learning about it on 30 November.

The Ministry of Justice and Health NZ said there was no evidence of any unauthorised access or downloading of the files, but an official said it could not be ruled out.

Squirrel, 2024

Another example of a supply chain hack, mortgage broking and investment firm Squirrel was targeted in an attack exposing about 600 peer-to-peer investors’ passport or drivers’ licence details.

The company said the attack had hit a third-party system used for registering investors, which was held for 30 days.

“The data that was exposed was people’s name, date of birth and ID number… there was no Squirrel info or any more personal info exposed,” founder John Bolton said.

AA Traveller

The AA Traveller website in May 2022 reported names, addresses, contact details and expired credit card numbers from hundreds of thousands of customers had been stolen the previous August.

The breach affected customers who had used the website between 2003 and 2018.

A further 30,000 people who took an online AA Travel New Zealand survey in 2010 had also been exposed to risk of being hacked by an overseas account.

China accused of hacking NZ Parliament

Senior Minister Judith Collins – who has responsibility for the GCSB and SIS spy agencies – revealed in March 2024 the Parliamentary Service and Parliamentary Counsel Office had been allegedly targeted in 2021 by a group called APT40.

“Fortunately, in this instance, the NCSC worked with the impacted organisations to contain the activity and remove the actor shortly after they were able to access the network,” she told reporters.

Collins’ announcement followed one in 2021 by her predecessor Andrew Little, who said the GCSB had uncovered links between APT40 and the Chinese government.

He said at the time Chinese state-sponsored hackers had been identified as being responsible for an attack targeting Microsoft Exchange email software.

China’s embassy has maintained the accusations linking it to hacking in New Zealand are “groundless and irresponsible”.

NZX attack in 2020

The New Zealand stock exchange came under repeated Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in August 2020, bringing trading to a halt.

Public-facing NZX servers were taken down for nearly a week, and trading had to be intermittently halted for four days in a row.

Such attacks coordinate large volumes of internet traffic to a target to overwhelm servers and networks.

They have also been used as leverage to try to get a ransom in return for the hackers halting their attacks.

Crowdstrike

An event described as the biggest IT meltdown the world had ever seen was less deliberate attack, more unintentional glitch.

The Crowdstrike incident in mid-2024 saw errant code in a security update bring down services including airlines, healthcare, shipping, finance, TV and transport networks around the world.

New Zealand was affected, including with internet services going down, but largely escaped some of the worst impacts.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The rescue of two men stranded on a boat in Fiordland has prompted warnings to other boaties about the need to be prepared.

The pair were on a fishing and diving trip south of Milford Sound when their 6.4 metre recreational boat broke down on Saturday night.

Emergency SOS messages from their phones were picked up by the iPhone Emergency Comms Centre in the Netherlands, which then alerted New Zealand Police.

Marine VHF radio broadcasts were then put out by Maritime NZ every hour, requesting assistance from any potential vessels in the area.

These broadcasts went unanswered until Sunday morning, when a boatie heard the call for help.

At the time, police and family members were arranging a float plane to fly replacement batteries to the stranded men.

But the fisherman and his three passengers went to the pair’s rescue and were able to tow the stricken vessel about 50 kilometres back to Milford Sound.

Invercargill Police search and rescue coordinator Sergeant Dougall Henderson said the men were equipped with lifejackets, two forms of communication and had not drunk any alcohol.

“Although the boys were well prepared… the incident highlights how difficult assistance can be if you have a mechanical failure or emergency situation,” he said.

“It is a timely reminder of the golden rules of boating particularly in isolated areas like Fiordland.”

Police outlined outlined several key guidelines for boaties.

They included: always wearing lifejackets; ensuring two forms of communication on board, including a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) or Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB); checking the weather forecast, avoiding alcohol; ensuring others know where you are headed; and ensuring you had an auxiliary motor.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Sections of Kahurangi National Park in the Upper South Island will be closed while rescue teams use radar technology to find a tramper who has gone missing in the area.

Graham Garnett, 66, was expected to return from a tramp in the Baton/Ellis River area on 30 December, but has not.

Garnett is about 177cm tall, approximately 100kg, and has grey hair.

Sergeant Jonny Evans said police will be using a radar tomorrow, and has asked the public to steer clear of the search areas.

The following areas in the Baton Valley will be closed tomorrow:

• Wilkinson Track
• Baton Saddle
• Loveridge Spur Route
• Cowin Spur Track
• Wharepapa Arthur Range – from Mount Star through to the twins
• Walking track to Flanagans Hut

Evans said the search will involve the use of Recco detecting equipment.

“We are keen to hear from anyone who we haven’t spoken with yet, who was in the Baton/Ellis River area from the afternoon of 26 December, particularly anyone who was around Flanagan’s Hut,” said Evans.

Further south, police are also still looking for 20-year-old Connor Purvis, who has not been seen since he went to climb Mt Huxley on Tuesday last week.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A woman has been charged with bringing more than 20 kilograms of meth into the country in her checked luggage.

The 33-year-old was arrested at Auckland International airport on Sunday.

Court documents claim she arrived on a flight from Singapore with roughly 22 kilograms of methamphetamine.

She had been charged with importing a class A controlled drug.

The maximum sentence was life imprisonment.

Court documents show the woman was both unemployed and had no fixed abode.

She was expected to appear in Manukau District Court on Monday afternoon.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Cordons have been removed from a Christchurch property where an item of concern was found this morning.

Police were called to St Barnabas Street in Fendalton at about 9.15am on Monday.

The Defence Force explosive bomb disposal team recovered the item, and it will be disposed of.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police investigating a mass disorder incident that occurred on Karangahape Road in Auckland just after Christmas are appealing for the public’s assistance in identifying the people pictured in several CCTV images.

At about 3.40am on 28 December, emergency services were called to the disorder involving about 50 people.

Auckland City Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Greaves said the police investigation remains ongoing into three serious assaults on and around Karangahape Road during the incident.

“One person has been arrested, however we would like help identifying the others pictured in these images.

“I’m asking anyone who knows who they are to please get in touch.”

One male is wearing black pants, a blue and black hunting and fishing jacket and a black cap with white writing.

The second male is wearing a white shirt with a beige hat.

“Someone knows who these people are and we are urging them to speak to us,” Greaves said.

Anyone who recognises these men or who has information about the incident is asked to contact police.

People can report information online or call 105 and quote file number 251228/4774. Information can also be provided anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A woman has been charged with allegedly bringing more than 20 kilograms of meth into the country in her checked luggage.

The 33-year-old was arrested at Auckland International airport on Sunday.

Court documents claimed she arrived on a flight from Singapore with roughly 22 kilograms of methamphetamine.

She had been charged with importing a class A controlled drug.

The maximum sentence was life imprisonment.

Court documents show the woman was both unemployed and had no fixed abode.

She was expected to appear in Manukau District Court on Monday afternoon.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

No charges have been laid in relation to a homicide investigation in the central North Island where a couple were found dead.

It has been more than three weeks since since 56-year-old Brendon Leigh Cole and 54-year-old Trina Michelle Cole were found at a rural property in Ruatiti, west of Ruapehu, on 13 December.

A person of interest handed himself into police on Christmas Day.

The 29-year-old man was arrested on an active warrant, and appeared in Whanganui District Court on Boxing Day.

Police said no charges have been laid in relation to the deaths, and the homicide investigation was ongoing.

They said there were no significant updates.

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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 couple staying with friends near Whangārei Heads has been surprised by a special guest over the holidays after finding a kiwi in the sleepout they were staying in.

The pair had left the doors open to cool down the room.

As they were getting ready for bed they spotted a little brown kiwi tucked in the corner.

The bird was carefully picked up and placed outside where it ran off into the dark.

One of the people involved posted what happened on social media, describing the experience as wonderful.

“I fetched the others who likewise thought I was joking!” he wrote.

“The kiwi was very calm, although I suspect the light would have blinded him. I carefully ushered him into a place where I carefully picked him up and placed him outside, where he scooted off into the night.”

Forest and Bird regional conservation manager for Waikato and Taranaki Elvisa van der Leden told RNZ she believed the kiwi might have been a lost juvenile.

“[Kiwi] have terrible eyesight,” she said.

“They navigate more with their sense of smell…”

It was more likely there was bush near the sleepout where the kiwi was found, van der Leden said, and that it just wandered into the house not realising it wasn’t outside anymore, rather than the bird actively seeking shelter inside.

Getting instructions from experts was important when dealing with a wild kiwi or other animal, she said.

“You can transfer germs or disease onto them without realising it, and they can do the same back to you.”

“Waiting for a [Department of Conservation] ranger to provide instructions is always the best thing to do as the first point of call.”

Van der Leden said it was very easy to accidentally hurt kiwi.

“They have a very specific biology, their ribcage area is actually quite vulnerable so it requires trained experts to handle them without harming them,” she said.

Department of Conservation biodiversity liasion Jess Scrimgeour said it was best to let kiwi find their own way out.

“Clear the way out and you can gently usher the bird if needed. Give it space if it seems stressed.”

She was urging people not to pick up kiwi.

“They have under-developed wing and chest muscles and lack a sternum (breastbone). This makes them particularly vulnerable to crushing injuries,” she said.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Four people have died in a series of separate crashes in 24 hours.

Emergency services were called to a two-vehicle crash on State Highway 24 in Waikato, south of Matamata at 9.45am.

“One person died at the scene, no further injuries were reported,” police said.

“The road remains closed, with diversions in place. Motorists are advised to expect delays.”

Meanwhile, a person was killed in a crash on Roche Street in Wanaka.

Police were called to the scene about 10.45am.

“An area of Roche Street remains closed while a scene examination is completed.”

Earlier on Monday, another person died in a crash on Jones Road in Rolleston.

Police also reported on Monday that a person died in a crash in Auckland’s Papatoetoe late Sunday night.

The official holiday road toll ended at 6am on Monday with seven provisional deaths.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Cordons are in place around a Christchurch property where an ‘item of concern’ has been found.

Police were called to St Barnabas Street in Fendalton at about 9.15am on Monday.

The Defence Force explosive bomb disposal team is also responding.

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