Source: Radio New Zealand

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The lines of apple trees look lush and healthy, some garlanded with a heavy crop of coloured orbs – greens, bright reds, yellow-striped. For some, the variety is apparent even on the same tree, hosting, as these trees are, two to three different apple cultivars.

And keeping this variety alive is the whole point of this orchard.

The Jim Dunckley Heritage Orchard

Ann Dunckley remembers her dad stopping to look at apple trees at the side of the road or in old orchards when they were out and about. “He liked apples,” she says, “And he was worried about the fact that the old ones were disappearing, old farm orchards were being bulldozed.”

Jim was a founding member of the Coastal Otago Branch of the New Zealand Tree Crops Association and, along with friend Paul Snyder, he started collecting different varieties of apple trees in the 1990s.

Unfortunately, Jim has passed away but the orchard lives on, having moved to a site near Mount Cargill just outside of Dunedin city, in the early 2000s.

Here, neat rows of about 300 root stock apple trees have different cultivars, or varieties, grafted on to them. The root stock trees are clones, chosen for their growth and disease resistance characteristics. Each cultivar is also a clone grafted on, to maintain its genetics.

The idea is that the orchard acts like a living library. New growth or scion wood can be harvested off these trees, stored over winter and then grafted on to new root stock trees to replicate the cultivar.

However, across time, notes and labels were misplaced and uncertainty about the varieties crept in.

It was a chance encounter on an orchard open day that would provide the solution.

Science to the rescue

It was their first orchard open day in 2023 that kicked it all off, says Donal Ferguson. Until recently Donal was the chair of the Coastal Otago Branch of the New Zealand Tree Crops Association. Associate Professor Lynette Brownfield from the University of Otago’s Biochemistry department came along and when she learned about the identification problem, she offered up a solution – genetic testing.

Masters student Aaron Hewson was given the task. Starting with 336 leaf samples, he used genetic analysis to compare the varieties in the orchard to those in the Bioeconomy Science Institute’s heritage orchard records. Some of them matched genetically, but were labelled differently, so he was forced to go further afield.

Luckily there has been a lot of work overseas looking into heritage apples, including compiling genetic and physical trait databases. Aaron was able to use these as a “gold standard” reference to compare his samples against.

To the team’s surprise, 80 percent of the samples matched with apple tree cultivars in this database and some of them were duplicates.

The remaining 20 percent are likely seedlings, says Aaron. While grafting an apple tree creates a clone that is genetically identical, it is quite different if you grow a tree from seed, says Aaron. “They’re quite a genetically diverse species. So, if you cross any two apples together and get a seed, it’s going to look very different to the parents. It’s going to be a random mix up.”

It’s a bit trickier to identify seedlings then, because that means working backwards to figure out a ‘family tree’ for the apple that traces back to the varieties in the database.

But these seedlings might also represent the interesting variety that the orchard was aiming to conserve – apples with desirable traits that grow well in Coastal Otago conditions.

It’s these traits that Aaron finds interesting to think about. For commercial growing, breeders are focused on characteristics like storage, resistance to bruising and disease, or a certain colour or crispness. But this orchard contains a much wider variety of colour, texture and flavours than can be found in our supermarket apples.

Now, thanks to the research, these varieties can be confidently shared with whoever might want to grow them.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Angry truckers have banded together with bus, crane and even combine harvester operators to hit out over rules they say make it too hard to get bigger, more efficient vehicles on the road and easily move them round.

They want far-reaching change to the 23-year-old ‘Rule’ around the size, weight and permitting system for heavy vehicles.

They said in a hardhitting letter to the Transport Agency (NZTA) that the old Rule was blocking safer, more efficient vehicles from easily being imported, envisaging a near future when the maximum 58 tonne diesel trucks were scaled up to 62 tonne electric (which allowed for the battery).

“The level of anger from our members and the risk of more pronounced public responses during an election year should not be underestimated if tangible progress is not made,” said a letter from 11 heavy vehicle associations to the Transport Agency’s chair late last month.

Transport Minister Chris Bishop promised last June the government would be “taking the handbrake off productivity through transport rule reform” – and on Monday said he heard operators “loud and clear when they tell us there are more changes they’d like to see”.

The operators had earlier talked of feeling fobbed off, though the Transport Agency late last week offered them another meeting, for Tuesday this week.

“While responsibility is often framed as sitting with the Ministry, NZTA has long led sector engagement and provided all technical advice to the Ministry and ministers. Recent ministerial correspondence shows the full extent of the lack of progress is not well understood,” their letter said.

“We seem to get pushed from pillar to post,” said signatory Dom Kalasih, head of Transporting NZ that represented 1100 firms, mostly truckers.

Crane operators, who also signed, said the old rules were holding everyone up.

“Getting a crane out for a job, the … permit and exemption process, goodness, for a large crane operation, we’re talking hours, hours a day ,” said Sarah Toase of the Crane Association.

Their next stop would be to seek a meeting with the minister, the associations told RNZ.

Bishop said the rules would be modernised.

“Important research and policy work is underway to carefully consider those ideas,” he said in a statement. “This is a complicated area and not everything can be done all at the same time.”

The question of how fast remained open though the first changes under reform were due this coming July.

‘Complex safety, infrastructure and cost considerations’

The Transport Ministry pushed back on the industry group criticism.

“Many of the changes sought by industry – particularly those enabling significantly larger or heavier vehicles – raise complex safety, infrastructure and cost considerations,” it told RNZ.

Research had to be done on the impacts on roads and what additional infrastructure investment may be required, it added.

However, the industry said “frustration … is now acute”.

The agency was unnecessarily outsourcing analysis to consultants, even though the reform’s ambition had been scaled back.

It talked of batteries and extra safety tech being blocked by the old rules.

“In some cases, safety features are being compromised to manage weight.”

Bishop had got their hopes up last year.

“Instead, the work programme was underwhelming in scope and subsequently reduced, leaving industry with no confidence that meaningful change is being prioritised.”

The reform is of what is called ‘the Rule’, the main VDAM or Vehicle Dimensions and Mass rule.

One core change being proposed was to remove the permits on trucks between 44 and 50 tonnes.

These big trucks would still have to fit the weight and design limits of what is called the ’50MAX’ class – and would still have to stick to certain roads and bridges – but they would not have to get an actual permit, as they have done since 2013 when the High Productivity Motor Vehicle (HPMV) regime was introduced. HPMV’s advent was the biggest change in the Rule.

Electronic monitoring of trucks was now widespread and would help keep them to approved routes that were strong enough, a source said.

Another proposal in the reforms would make it cheaper to comply for the likes of electric buses now tipping the scales at over a seven tonne threshold because of their batteries.

Cranes caught in the Rule

Toase told RNZ it was not enough.

Cranes were “always being dealt with in retrospect” and were routinely having to seek exemptions from narrow rules designed for regular trucks just to operate, she said.

They had tried to build change, for instance, through a trial that succeeded in cutting by a fifth how far overweight mobile cranes had to travel, reducing congestion and emissions.

“We’ve sent all the information through to NZTA and it’s just sitting there.”

Another example she gave was that many mobile cranes were now often failing brake tests under an electronic inspection regime.

“It doesn’t produce accurate results for cranes because they are engineered differently. So cranes are failing those tests, which means they are then deemed not roadworthy.

“They’ve failed compliance and they can’t be used.”

Operators then had to revert to manual testing in order to pass, which all took time.

Federated Farmers and Rural Contractors NZ also signed the letter.

Combine harvesters, for instance, faced very restrictive limits on what bridges they could cross which should be managed in a much less complex way, said another source.

“We’re not just talking about road freight, we’re talking about harvesting of food.”

At the trucking coalface, the old Rule meant heavily specced new vehicles could not be easily imported as-is but needed bespoke modifications, in a market that was already isolated due to being minority righthand drive, the letter said.

The industry ideal for keeping up internationally, allowing for the state of NZ’s roads, was to lift the 58-tonne HPMV limit to 62 tonnes, Kalasih said.

At 62 tonnes they would not be much bigger to overtake, and the distribution of weight between the axles would spread the impact on the road, he said.

The AA did not want to comment on that from a car driver’s point of view.

‘Totally at odds’

Consultation has opened on phase two of the reform following on from phase one that began last October.

But the meetings with officials earlier this year were a final straw for the industry associations.

“The scope of that work is frankly incredibly underwhelming and lacks ambition,” said Kalasih.

“It seems to us totally at odds with what Minister Bishop has asked for.”

They felt the time was up on more reviews, research and meetings, and they were tired of being passed from NZTA to the MOT and back, he said.

But MOT said the latest research was a “necessary step to ensure that any larger changes are safe, durable, and deliver real benefits to industry and the wider transport system”.

Other changes are going on into bridge designs, which determine what weight of trucks can pass, although NZTA has played down how that work would alter old or new bridges.

NZTA said it understood the impact of the Rule’s settings on the industry.

“This is why we are engaging with industry representatives to understand the specific challenges they are facing, and the opportunities which they see for improvement,” it said in a statement.

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi chair Simon Bridges, in a letter responding to the associations, acknowledged their concerns, telling them the minister made the rules and offering another meeting on Tuesday this 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

Dual United Kingdom-New Zealand nationals say it is unfair some European Britons are allowed to dodge new passport rules, while British migrants in other parts of the world have to fall in line.

British citizens or their children who used to visit family and friends there using only a New Zealand passport and an ETA were “bodyslammed” by news last month they would need a UK passport, one migrant said.

Steve Horrell, of Upper Hutt, had already applied for and received his passport, but his son overseas had to scramble for documents so that the whole family – including young grandchildren classed as British – could join him on a trip to the UK next month.

He said Monday’s revelation that European Union nationals granted British citizenship post-Brexit under the Settled Scheme (EUSS) could get permanent exemptions from needing UK passports to travel there was unfair.

“I find it disappointing, actually, because it would be very easy to treat everybody the same. To my mind, if you’re going to apply something and say, you know, in my son’s case, they have to have British passports, why can’t they just apply that around the world? Because there might be a guy living next door to him who falls under this EUSS thing, whose kids might not have to do this, but his do.

“I do think it’s unfair because, Britain voted to be not part of the EU anymore and in many cases, I’ll be quite frank, I think that the government in the UK, whichever government, they sort of can choose between the laws they want to interpret, which suits them best.”

Mark Stocker, also born in the UK and a dual New Zealand citizen, said he was feeling disaffected about the UK policy and response, and sorry for travellers who were affected in more extreme ways, such as needing to visit sick relatives.

The change for EU settled status citizens reinforced the feeling that dual citizens elsewhere now had second class status, he said – behind those who only needed a $37 ETA or a third country’s identity document.

“If you’re being charitable, it’s a small step forward from a realisation of how god-awful the change policy was. But the expat Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians and more, it does nothing whatsoever for us.

“It’s perfectly consistent with the abysmal way in which the whole thing was introduced in the first place, where lies were told by the British government about us being told in good time.

“If the government had fairly signalled the new policies, then one might grin and bear them”.

But the way it has been introduced was “pretty dreadful, pretty abysmal really.”

He could not use an expired UK passport – one of the suggestions the UK put forward as a temporary measure if people also had their valid New Zealand passport – because he threw it away when it expired.

Countries such as Australia and Japan were looking like more attractive alternatives to Britain for a holiday, especially with the war in the Middle East, he said.

The Home Office said the change was made to ensure rights under the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement were upheld.

The British High Commission in Wellington has been approached for comment, including whether it has had to help citizens who have been trying to travel to the UK but did not have the right passport.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Attendance services warn rising fuel prices are likely to drive up truancy.

Two service providers, one in rural Northland the other in Auckland, say transport costs are a big driver of student absences and they expect it to get worse.

Meanwhile, one of the providers, Mangere East Family Service Centre, said long-term truants had often lost the physical fitness they needed to cope with a school day and had to be eased back into classes.

The centre was the new attendance service provider for 22 schools in the area after the government regnegoiated 83 contracts last year.

Chief executive Caroline Tana-Tepania said bidding for the contract was a logical progression because its social workers in schools were already working a lot with truants.

Even so she was surprised by the scale of the problem in the area – so far the centre had been charged with tracking down 400 children who were not enrolled in any school, about 230 of them historical cases from last year.

“I knew that it was an issue, but I certainly wasn’t aware of the extent of the numbers,” she said, adding that schools would be starting to alert the service to their chronic truants.

Anika Channa managed the centre’s nine-person attendance team and had previously worked in attendance for three-and-a-half-years.

She said one of the biggest changes she had noticed in the government’s attendance service overhaul was greater involvement of other social services.

“In my experience, there are a lot of factors as to why children are not going to school. It’s actually not just that they don’t want to go. There’s barriers like transport, housing, health. So having those community organisations involved helps us navigate the families into the correct supports for them,” she said.

In addition, the service’s ‘attendance navigators’ now stayed in contact with children after they returned to school to ensure they maintained their attendance and dealt with any new barriers to attendance that might crop up.

“It just means that we’re able to intervene more quickly rather than having to wait for another referral to come through,” she said.

Channa said a major group of chronic truants was the children of families who had moved out of the area, but kept their children enrolled in a Māngere school.

She said many such families struggled to get their children to school every day and the rising price of petrol would make that problem worse.

Channa said finding non-enrolled children took a “bit of investigation”.

Often the family was not at their last recorded address and attendance officers had to ask schools for children’s emergency contacts, often members of their extended family, in order to track them down.

Channa said once children had been found, they had to be eased back into school.

“Going straight back into school for five days is just so much for them, it’s very overwhelming. It’s not just going to school, it’s socialising, it’s being out in the environment,” she said.

She said that was because many truants spent their time “bed surfing”.

“They just stay in bed and so when they go out to do anything, they get really, really tired so it takes them some time to adjust.”

Channa said consistency and “awhi” or support were the keys to a successful return to school.

Transport a massive problem

Ara Whakamaua has been the attendance service for 26 schools across Hokianga and Kaipara for more than three years.

Director Lisa Halvorson said it usually worked with more than 500 students each year, successfully closing 70-80 percent of the cases by returning children to class or finding other education options for them.

She said this year was already “way better”, thanks largely to a new computer system that showed when and where children last attended school.

“Already we’re seeing that the closure rates are reducing and that the active cases are turning around a lot faster. So that’s really pleasing to see,” she said.

“In the past, we have just been chasing kids to look for them. Whereas now we actually have that last point of contact and we’ve got the ability then to see … a little bit of a pattern or to see how often they were attending and what that looked like. So it does make it so much easier,” she said.

Halvorson said there were a lot of reasons families might not send their children to school.

“Some of it can be as simple as the child doesn’t have the right PE uniform or no shoes, they don’t have a school bag or a lunch box or a drink bottle, and so the whakamā about that child walking into a school without that is hard,” she said.

“Transport is a massive one for us in our region, so the ability for our whanau to have warranted and registered cars or to be able to afford to run their children to school – we’re talking some distances of children having to travel 30 kilometres to get to the closest school one way.”

She said some cases had relatively simple solutions while others involved multiple agencies.

“They just don’t have a pair of shoes on their feet then sure, we’ll go to the Warehouse and buy them a pair of shoes and put them into school,” she said.

“If it’s a bit bigger than that, then yes, there are other avenues that we can support whanau to complete application forms or do hardship grants … We also connect with a lot of other social services in our regions.”

She said the job was rewarding when families received the help they needed and created stability for their children.

“To get the kids back to school and have a sense of well-being and self-worth and some mates around them and a bit of social connection, that goes a long way,” she said.

“Once we see the right supports in place, and then you see the attendance stabilise, and then you see the whanau feel a bit more confident, and then everyone’s navigating the system really well. That’s a massive win,” she said.

“Some of those children would never have had that stabilisation in their lives, because sometimes you’re dealing with little six and seven-year-old children, they’re too young, they don’t know any better.”

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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

Both the previous government and the current one kicked the can down the road on making ‘sensible’ changes to road rules, but now the changes are back on the agenda

Every day, across the country, kids break the law by riding their bikes on the footpath.

Every now and again they might get a growling from a grumpy passerby, but for the most part, Kiwis recognise that it’s a safer alternative to a child riding where they’re technically supposed to – in a cycle path, or on the road.

“I think most parents who have got kids riding their bikes will probably be doing it on the footpath,” director of greater Auckland Matt Lowrie said.

But now, the government has proposed changes to road rules that would mean children 12 and under are free to ride where it’s safest – on the footpath.

In a press release, Transport Minister Chris Bishop said the changes were aimed at “fixing the basics” for big and small forms of transport.

They come in two packages with the first including:

• Allowing e-scooters in cycle lanes
• Kids 12 and under being allowed to bike on the footpaths
• Mandatory passing gaps around cyclists and horses
• Drivers in 60 kilometres or under speed zones to allow buses to merge into traffic
• Better signage for berm parking

The second package relates to heavy vehicles.

This article is focused on the first package and what it means for drivers, riders and pedestrians.

These changes aren’t a new concept.

National announced similar rules in 2025 and the previous Labour government proposed changes to footpath rules in 2020.

Matt Lowrie, who is an avid cyclist, said these changes had been a long time coming.

“A lot of these are quite common sense changes and so the government are now getting back to it again and looking to get them approved.”

New Zealand director of road safety charity BRAKE, Caroline Perry, said the organisation welcomed the changes, but would like clearer guidance on some aspects.

“There are some small parts to it that we would like some clarification on in terms of things like children up to the age of 12 being able to cycle on footpaths. What about their parents or guardians?”

Currently e-scooters are allowed to ride on the footpath and the road, but it’s illegal to ride in the cycle lanes, but this would change under new rules.

“In legislation, only bikes can be on cycle lanes, whereas actually in terms of the speed that e-scooters are generally going, they actually match more appropriately the speeds that are on the cycle lanes, so that makes sense that e-scooters could use those lanes rather than footpaths,” Perry said.

The proposed change to this rule could help improve safety for e-scooter riders – especially important with e-scooter-related ACC claims on the rise.

Between 2022 and 2025, new ACC claims involving e-scooters increased by 55 percent across all age groups.

Young people under the age 25 made up close to half of ACC claims between the beginning of 2026 and early February.

Perry said more could be done to minimise riding risks.

“We need more investment in infrastructure, particularly for active modes.

“Part of making it safer to walk and cycle is to have more of those dedicated facilities for them such as bike lanes.”

Despite all the negative commentary that can come with e-scooters, Lowrie says the positives do outweigh the negatives.

“What e-scooters do is open up the first mile, last mile connection.

“E-scooters can really help with addressing those issues and making public transport – walking, cycling – more attractive and [allowing people to] get around our city easier, and often faster.”

These proposed road rules are currently open for consultation and close on the 25th of March.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Maritime New Zealand has apologised for an error that contributed to delays in releasing a coroner’s report into the river rafting death of a woman near Rotorua in August, 2020.

In his report into the death of 61-year-old Wellington woman Vivienne Pincott released on Tuesday, Coroner Michael Robb blamed Maritime New Zealand and Police for taking too long to provide some files, reports and evidence that led to the delay in releasing his findings.

Pincott died from severe injuries while white water rafting a class-five rapid that contained a seven metre drop.

She was being guided down the Tutea Falls on the Kaituna River.

In his report, Coroner Robb said even though the drop had been undertaken without fatal consequences by many others prior to Pincott’s death, the circumstances highlighted the risks of rafting on such fast moving white water.

“Safety considerations including the wearing of an appropriately sized and fitted lifejacket and helmet must be maintained, but as the circumstances of Vivienne’s death highlight, this may not provide complete protection against a fatal outcome in what is an inherently dangerous activity,” he said.

‘We unreservedly apologise’

In his report, Coroner Robb acknowledged the delay between Pincott’s death and the release of his findings.

“That delay was in large part the result of the report directed by the Coroners Court to be provided from Maritime New Zealand not being provided until 6 May 2024, nearly four years after Vivienne’s death,” he said.

“That delay was then contributed to by the New Zealand Police not providing their investigation file to the Coroners Court until April 2025, four years and eight months after Vivienne’s death.”

Coroner Robb said Maritime New Zealand had acknowledged and apologised for the delay in providing their report explaining that the delay occurred due to “internal circumstances relating to the file and the historical ways in which such matters were managed” at the time.

In a statement, Maritime New Zealand confirmed that the Coroner’s Office request for information into Pincott’s death was missed due to an administrative error.

“We extend our condolences to the family of Ms Pincott for her loss and acknowledge that the delay in finalising the Coroner’s report will have added to their distress. We unreservedly apologise to the Coroner and Ms Pincott’s family for the extended period it took for us to provide the material,” it said.

“Since 2021 we have put in place a new team, systems and processes to manage notifications and requests from the Coroner’s Office and other enquiries, which includes more stringent tracking of reports and cases.

“We are sure a delay of this nature will not happen again.”

In his report, Coroner Robb said that the greatest delay in releasing his findings was due to delays caused by the gap in Maritime New Zealand providing its report to Rotorua Police.

”However, a further year of delay was caused by the Rotorua Police not forwarding that report to the Coroners Court until April, 2025,” he said.

The coroner said that the police took years to sign off written statements from officers who had been working the day Pincott was injured. Some of the officers had left in that time.

In a statement, Rotorua Area Commander Inspector Herby Ngawhika said the police carried out an investigation, as directed by the coroner.

“We accept there was an unnecessary delay in the coronial process caused, in part, by Police,” he said.

“As noted in the report, shortly after Ms Pincott’s death, New Zealand was placed in a COVID19 level 4 lockdown. This unprecedented event consumed much of our available resource and led to a backlog of coronial files,” Ngawhika said.

“We acknowledge the impact of this delay on Ms Pincott’s family and friends and offer our sincere condolences.”

In his report, Coroner Robb said he did not take over the file until December 2025 after the inquiry had been tranferred from the orginal coroner.

“The coroner to whom the inquiry had been reassigned discovering a conflict of interest upon review of the disclosure when it was received in April, 2025. This resulted in the inquiry needing to be transferred to me, as the third assigned coroner,” he said.

“That transfer occurred in December, 2025.”

Coroner Robb said his review of the evidence in December 2025 revealed that there were gaps in the evidence that had been gathered by the police resulting in further reports being sought

from both the rafting company and Maritime New Zealand.

“A fortnight later I received a thorough and comprehensive report from the rafting company (Rotorua Adventures New Zealand – under which River Rats was operating at the time), which addressed all issues that I had raised with both the company and Maritime New Zealand,” he said.

“On 29 January 2026 I received the additional report requested from Maritime New Zealand.”

‘Extremely rare injury’

At the time of her death, Pincott was holidaying with her 25-year-old son, Bryden Frizell.

Although the coroner’s report noted previous heart problems she was described as a “fit and healthy” woman who had taken part in other physical activities without issue.

The River Rats raft she and Bryden were on had successfully navigated several other drops, before guides took it over the final seven metre – class five – waterfall.

Coroner Robb said that the raft initially became momentarily submerged and full of water at the bottom of the waterfall before resurfacing.

Video evidence showed that when the raft resurfaced, there were only three occupants on board.

“The two guides were in their original positions and Bryden remained in the front of the raft, but having been washed or jolted from his original right hand seat position towards his left occupying, or partially occupying where his mother had been seated,” he said.

Pincott resurfaced some 10-15 seconds later, before being rescued by guides.

Although initially concious and able to talk, she deteriorated and collapsed before emergency services arrived.

The coroner’s report said that, despite resuscitation efforts, she was pronounced dead at the scene.

A post-mortem found that Pincott suffered severe traumatic injuries.

“What I wanted to understand was whether this extremely rare injury sustained by Vivienne was a consequence of something environmentally unusual, such as overly high or low river flow, technique or navigation issue that occurred at the time, or any other identifiable difference to the multiple other uneventful navigations of the Tutea Falls,” Coroner Robb said.

The coroner concluded it was most likely that Pincott was driven into rocks or the riverbed after being ejected from the raft.

While such incidents were extremely rare given the large number of people who had rafted Tutea Falls, the coroner found that her death was the result of the inherent risks of white-water rafting, even when safety procedures were followed.

The rafting company, River Rats, had changed ownership since Pincott’s death.

The new owners, and Pincott’s family were approached for comment.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Firefighters have extinguished a large vehicle fire in the West Auckland suburb of Massey this evening.

Fire and Emergency crews arrived on Sunline Avenue to find a car and a van well alight about 7.30pm

The fire was extinguished by 8pm and St John said nobody was injured.

A fire investigator is at the scene to determine the cause of the fire.

Police said they were also at the scene.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Rakiura locals fear surging fuel prices will soon send their power bills rocketing up, and that Stewart Island – which relies on diesel generators for electricity – may face blackouts.

Stewart Island is home to about 400 people and it burns through about 1000 litres of diesel a day to create electricity.

Diesel and petrol prices have now hit $4 per litre on the island as the United States and Israel’s war against Iran continues.

Sharon Ross – one of the owners of the island’s only service station – said the last week had been the busiest they had seen since the Covid-19 pandemic, as people rushed to fill up and beat rising prices.

“People are concerned about how high it’s going to go. There’s been lots of joking that we should have tissues at the counter to mop up the tears after they’ve filled their tanks,” she said.

“People are concerned about the supply, and they’re also concerned that we’ll run out of power because we have five generators operating on diesel, and if they can’t keep the diesel up to them what that would mean to the island.”

Power prices were so far stable, but Ross said it was a waiting game.

“Our average power bill here is between $500 and $700 a month, which is also the same as our home one. So it’s frightening to think how much that might increase,” she said.

“Everything’s affected here because everything arrives by freight to the island so all those cartage bills will go up.”

Southland district councillor Jon Spraggon, from the Rakiura ward, said high diesel prices would likely push up power prices on the island.

“Power is 84 cents a unit here at the moment, where it goes is an unknown factor. Diesel prices have gone up a fairly substantial percentage and I would suspect our price would go up by a similar percentage,” he said.

But his biggest concern was ongoing supply of diesel.

“If we were to run out of diesel, then the electrical supply on the island would cut out. Things like our communication with the mainland, our connections with the mainland, the airline, the ferry services all rely on fuel,” he said.

Spraggon said diesel was delivered to the island twice a week and at the moment that was still happening, but these were uncertain times.

He wanted the government to keep Stewart Island in mind as the fuel situation worsened.

“When they’re looking at it and in future perhaps rationing or anything like that, Stewart Island needs to be a special case because of its remoteness and and it’s total dependency on diesel,” he said

He said the district council was in the process of installing a solar farm on the island to supplement diesel generation, but that was still eight months away.

Stewart Island Backpackers owner Aaron Joy said businesses were being hit hard by escalating fuel prices.

“We run the hostel on Stewart Island and we’re covering the costs at the moment but there will come a time where if it keeps going up we have to pass that onto our clients,” he said.

The Southland District Council said it was monitoring the situation and would discuss its options with the Stewart Island community board.

It said while the Stewart Island Electrical Supply Authority did have reserves, it was not meant to be a buffer for fuel prices.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A cheaper bus or train fare would be far better than working from home to avoid rising fuel prices, say commuters, despite the local government minister ruling it out.

Simon Watts says the government is not looking at any change or incentive model in regards to public transport.

“Public transport usage by New Zealanders has already increased, we’ve seen that flow through in our major urban cities,” he said.

“That’s obviously a result of Kiwis making the conscious decision to take public transport versus driving their vehicle and that’s what you’d expect with prices at the pump being higher.”

He said it should be up to New Zealanders to make their own decisions, based on their own circumstances.

But petrol has sky-rocketed by more than 83 cents a litre and diesel has shot up $1.33 since the US and Israel began attacking Iran.

Auckland Transport, Greater Wellington, and Canterbury Regional Councils are asking the government to encourage people to use more buses, trains, and ferries – rather than work from home.

People RNZ spoke to in central Auckland on Monday said they would prefer that.

“I do like working from home but working in the office is also really nice, it’s more collaborative,” said one commuter.

“I would prefer to have cheaper public transport,” said another.

Shay Peters from Robert Walters Recruitment Agency said a lot of jobseekers preferred to work from home.

“As we’re in tougher economic times, people are probably erring on the side of caution and will like to be in the office but I know a number would also like the opportunity on balance to be able to just save cash and be working from home at the moment.”

Last Tuesday was Auckland’s busiest day on public transport since 2019, and the capital has seen 10 percent more passengers on the train – and six percent on the bus – within the past month.

Greater Wellington Regional Council Public Transport Committee chair Ros Connelly would also like to see subsidised fares.

“There’s no doubt in my mind and from the surveys and customer feedback that we receive that the cost of public transport still is a significant barrier to people. Obviously since we’ve seen the fuel crisis, comparatively the cost of public transport has decreased but still it is extremely expensive.”

She said the train from Masterton to Wellington can cost up to $22.50 each way, per day.

“That is a barrier for many people and so they will look at other options. Working from home is definitely popular but if there was an increased subsidy we’re really confident that we would see more people on public transport and as fuel prices increase this is one way that the government can ensure that people get to work.”

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said it was a no-brainer to make public transport free.

“Fares have gone up by as much as a third in Canterbury, by a quarter in the Manawatū-Whanganui region and Auckland also has seen fare increases in the realm of 15 to 20 percent over the last three years. We need to remove those barriers to access and also be reserving fuel supply for those who actually need it and don’t currently have the option.”

Stacey van der Putten from Auckland Transport would welcome that.

“We’re monitoring it daily so there will be adjustments that are needed but the system does have flex to be able to support it.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Bringing a needle-free flu vaccine to New Zealand would be a good way to boost the country’s vaccination rates, says a vaccine expert.

FluMist has long been used in the northern hemisphere and started being used in Australia this year.

The vaccine is taken in the form of a nasal spray, bypassing the need for an injection.

Immunisation Advisory Centre principal medical advisor Professor Nikki Turner is calling for pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to bring FluMist to New Zealand, saying needles are “way more of a barrier than we realise”.

“Many, many people are just not keen on needles, so you put off doing things because you really don’t want the needle,” she said.

“So it’s important we recognise that and respond to that, and this is one useful way to do that.”

She said FluMist had only recently become available in the southern hemisphere, because each hemisphere had slightly different flu strains.

“The reason why it’s not well established in the southern hemisphere is that each year you have to change the formulation in the flu vaccine to match the circulating strains, and so they’ve done that for the northern hemisphere but the company haven’t really been in a position to do that for the southern hemisphere [until recently],” she said.

Since the vaccine had been approved for use in Australia, Professor Turner expected it would be easy for the company to get approval in New Zealand.

But she said it was up to AstraZeneca to pitch the vaccine to Medsafe.

“The company has to present it to Medsafe for licensure. That should be pretty straightforward, but it has to be presented by the company to Medsafe and for the company to do that they’d want to know they would get decent sales,” she explained.

“So we want to say this would be great for the New Zealand market, we have a significant burden of flu on our young children and we think this would be a great vaccine to have available to move away from injectible vaccines.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the government will reveal in the next few weeks how it will support New Zealanders struggling with skyrocketing fuel prices.

He says the country has healthy fuel stocks, and the government’s doing everything it can to secure them.

Oil prices have risen as the fall out continues from the Middle East crisis; Brent Crude oil rose about US$1 to be just above US$113 a barrel in early Asia trade.

It comes after US President Donald Trump vowed to ‘obliterate’ Iran energy facilities if it doesn’t open Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, Auckland Transport is calling for the government to encourage more people to use public transport.

Follow what happened today in our liveblog below:

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Police are appealing for sightings of a boat last seen in Taurikura Bay on Sunday night.

The 25-foot vessel – named ‘JAGMEN’ – was last seen leaving the bay about 8pm on 22 March, said police.

“Police would like to speak with an occupant believed to be onboard, to ensure their safety.”

Anyone who has any information about the whereabouts of the boat and its occupant is urged to contact police.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A serious crash that closed State Highway 57 in Levin today has claimed two lives.

Emergency services were called to the two-vehicle crash on Arapaepae Road about 2.30am on Monday.

Police said two people were pronounced dead at the scene.

The road is still closed while the Serious Crash Unit carry out a scene examination.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Last year was among the hottest on record, as the world’s “addiction” to fossil fuels continues to drive global warming, new data shows.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) confirmed the average global temperature last year was 1.43°C warmer than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.

2024 remains the hottest year on record, but 2025 was the second- or third-hottest, across the nine major global datasets.

The organisation said the global climate was more out of balance than at any other time in observed history, as greenhouse gas concentrations reached their highest levels in at least 800,000 years.

Most of the trapped heat was stored in the ocean, which is warming at an accelerating pace.

Together with melting sea ice and glaciers, that was driving global sea level rise – which projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show will continue for centuries.

Arctic sea-ice hit a record low in some satellite datasets last year.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the planet was being pushed beyond its limits.

“Every key climate indicator is flashing red.”

Current major conflicts were exposing another truth, Guterres said.

“Our addiction to fossil fuels is destabilising both the climate and global security.”

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, after the country was attacked by Israel and the US, has spiked oil and gas prices and prompted fears of global inflation.

The WMO’s State of the Climate report said increasingly severe weather, driven by climate change, was already affecting agricultural production and displacing people from their homes.

“The cascading and compounding impacts of multiple, sequential disasters severely limit the ability of communities to prepare for, recover from and adapt to shocks,” the report said.

That was especially true in places that were already experiencing conflict or other types of insecurity.

In New Zealand, inflation-adjusted data published by the Insurance Council showed that since 2019, insurance companies had paid out nearly $6 billion for extreme weather-related events in New Zealand.

That did not include pay-outs for severe weather at the beginning of this year, which killed six people in a landslide at Mount Maunganui, cut off entire communities, and closed major roads.

Victoria University professor of climate science James Renwick said the science of climate change had been understood for a century or more now.

“We know what we have to do to stop it,” he said. “Stop burning fossil fuels.”

Policymakers had been given that message for decades but emissions just kept increasing, he said.

He hoped the latest report “moves the dial”.

“The costs of inaction are already astronomical, let’s not make them overwhelming.”

Last week, the High Court in Wellington heard a case taken by two environmental NGOs against the government over its emissions reductions plans, which the organisations argued were risky and unlawful.

The Environmental Law Initiative and Lawyers for Climate Action told the court that the government broke the law when it dismantled dozens of climate policies soon after the election, before it had consulted the public.

The current plan relied overwhelmingly on offsetting emissions by planting forestry, rather than tackling emissions at their sources, the organisations said.

The court has reserved its decision.

Similar cases in the UK succeeded in forcing the government there to re-write its own emissions plans.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has called critics of his Fisheries Amendment Bill “a range of noisy voices” and invited them to have their say at the select committee.

The bill, which is scheduled to have it’s first reading on Tuesday, has been welcomed by the commercial sector but condemned by recreational fishing groups.

Fishing Host Matt Watson – probably the country’s most famous recreational fisher – is dismayed by the proposals in the fishing amendment bill.

He told First Up the bill’s “designed purely to prioritise the profits of the seafood industry”.

“If these go through unchecked, it is disaster. It’s beginning of the end for our fish stocks, and that’ not over dramatising it.”

Among Watson’s concerns is the proposal to remove the minimum size limits for commercial fishers from a number of popular species, including snapper.

He said it wouldn’t encourage commercial fishers to avoid undersized fish and would decrease overall fish stocks.

The current recreational size limit for snapper is between 25cm and 30cm depending on location, while the commercial size limit is 25cm.

Minimum size limits are imposed to ensure fish can reach sexual maturity before being caught.

“If you start killing fish before they’ve had a chance to breed, you’re going to run out of fish and you don’t need to be a genius to figure that out,” Watson said.

Jones argued that allowing the commercial sector to land and sell undersize fish would prevent wastage.

Currently commercial fishers must dump undersize fish dead or alive, and it doesn’t count against their quota.

“The new provision is that if you catch them, you pay for them,” Jones said.

“With the commercial industry, we know every single kilo that they take and their conduct is now captured by cameras.”

But if Jones’ bill passes, the footage taken by cameras on board commercial boats can no longer be accessed under the official information act, effectively making it off limits to the public.

Anyone who leaks the footage faces a $50,000 fine.

“If you’ve got nothing to hide, why on earth would you behave like that,” Sam Woolford of recreational advocacy group Legasea said.

“When cameras on boats were introduced, we know that the rate of discarding, or notified discards, went up about 46 percent. For snapper and kingfish, it was closer to 1000 percent.”

Jones, a self described apostle of industry, brushed off the concerns about snapper stocks, telling First Up the “amount of snapper in our waters is almost biblical in its profundity”.

“You can almost walk on the water we’ve got so many snapper.”

Coalition support means the Fisheries Amendment Bill should easily pass it’s first reading, but Labour’s fisheries and Oceans spokesperson Rachel Boyack said she would make her concerns heard at the select committee stage.

She said her party would do their “best to make changes to the bill so that it’s not as bad as what it could be.”

Although with commercial fishing a strong feature of her Nelson electorate, Boyack was choosing her words carefully .

“It creates jobs in my local community and it’s important that we are able to produce fish for food and for export, but we also have to ensure that the fishery is sustainable”.

Conservation Minister Tama Potaka’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment, but in a facebook post Northland MP Grant McCallum said he met with Legasea and the sports fishing council over the weekend and would strongly represent the views of the recreational sector in the party’s caucus this week.

Seafood New Zealand’s Inshore Policy Manager Tamar Wells said the commercial sector was trying to make the industry more sustainable.

“Fishers do change their methods. In terms of their selectivity of their nets, they’ll have larger mesh to let smaller fish out.

“There’s also new methods coming in, like Flowmo, which is a type of net that can keep fish kind of contained underwater so they have a higher survivability.”

The Fisheries Amendment Bill won’t require commercial fishers to change their methods though and Jones said there was no plan to outlaw trawling.

“It’s evident to me that the vast majority of the activists opposed to trawling are really seeking to undo the Māori fisheries settlement and terminate the commercial fishing industry and that’s just never, ever going to happen for as long as I’m in politics, and I look forward to being in politics for a long, long time.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Human remains found in a garden on Wellington’s south coast are centuries old, according to police.

RNZ understands an Ōwhiro Bay homeowner was gardening when they made the discovery in June last year.

At the time, police said the resident was under no suspicion and a forensic anthropologist and pathologist determined the remains were human.

On Monday, detective constable Sarah Steed said radiocarbon dating showed the remains were possibly pre-European from the 1600s-1700s.

“This information will now be supplied to the Coroner for consideration,” she said.

“Consultation will take place with local iwi to arrange a suitable burial site, once the remains are release by the Coroner.”

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