Source: Radio New Zealand

A transport consultancy firm says analysis of traffic data reveals the total cost of a crash is up to 70 percent higher that previously calculated.

The Ministry of Transport currently calculates the social cost of a road fatality at more than $15 million, which includes elements such as the road closure, emergency service response, and the social costs for the life lost.

But Abley Principal Transportation Planner Chris Blackmore told Nine to Noon data analysis shows that the impact of a crash on the overall road network is not factored into that calculation.

“There’s a lot of big immediate costs that we see when you look at the impacts of road trauma – be that FENZ, hospital admission, recovery costs.

“We do occasionally take into account any easily visible impacts of closing a road … but at the moment that’s only really included at a high level, and it ignores a lot of the secondary and following impacts.”

Councils and the Transport Agency had traditionally relied on physical equipment such as pneumatic road tubes to measure traffic data.

“That’s really what has prevented, up until now, having a more holistic view of the impacts of what we call network disruption.”

But a system called TomTom Area Speed enabled the analysis of more information, and more sophisticated data about the wider impacts crashes had, Blackmore said.

TomTom takes information from sources such as Apple, data from the cars themselves, and other apps motorists might be using to show exactly how widespread the congestion is, for how long, and what activities might be affected.

Blackmore provided the example of a crash between a bus and a car on Auckland’s Tamaki Drive, which closed the significant connection between the eastern bays and the city centre for more than 24 hours.

“What we could see with TomTom was that as that link closed, people had to find their way around.

“Say five O’clock, six O’clock in the morning, that’s all right … but what happens when you get into the peak hour … we see all of the other connections from the eastern bays massively overloaded.

The TomTom data showed exactly how people reacted to road closures, he said.

“Some people do u-turns, some people turn of earlier and try and get through some back roads, some people try to tough it out in the queue.”

When the data was added up, it revealed the overall impact the crash had on travel times, and the total disruption to the road network.

Crashes on rural roads also could carry a heavy unseen cost, Blackmore said, using the example of a crash on State Highway 6 near Kington in Otago.

“What we saw there was that travel time increases weren’t as significant because there’s not a heap of congestion. People could figure out that there’s a crash before they started driving down State Highway 6 and make their choices.

“But we did see hundreds of thousands of extra kilometres that people had to travel, and that has impacts on people’s lives and their routines as well.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Public transport is nearly half the price of driving to work in Auckland as fuel prices surge amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East

It comes amid huge uncertainty on the price of petrol in New Zealand following Israel’s attack on the world’s largest natural gasfield in Pars overnight, AA is warning.

The attack has increased uncertainty and seen Brent Crude prices surge to $US110 a barrel by 11am on Thursday (NZT).

Auckland Transport said before the Iran conflict began late last month, the cost of public transport was roughly the same as the cost of driving a vehicle with single occupancy in Auckland.

It’s now costing people nearly double to drive their own cars.

“The cost of petrol has risen at least 50 cents per litre since then, with a 15-kilometre single person commute now costing roughly 80 cents per kilometre, which is equal to about $12 for the total trip.”

AT said this did not include any parking costs.

“On public transport, that same 15-kilometre trip would typically cost $4.90 and would be a significantly faster journey due to congestion and the availability of bus lanes, frequent rail and ferry services.”

“We can confidently say that the cost of driving 15-kilometres in or out of the city is now roughly double the cost of travelling the same distance by public transport.”

AT said the first week of March was the was the busiest for the public transport network this year with 2.217 million trips on bus, train and ferry services – up from 2.174 million trips, the same time last year.

It said this was likely just a result of more people using public transport rather than concerns over the cost of fuel.

However it expects the trend will continue upward as the fuel crisis developed.

Auckland Transport said despite big numbers of travellers, it has plenty of capacity across the network.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Buller’s mayor says it’s “devastating” Westport could lose its only air direct service.

Originair said the Wellington to Westport route is not commercially viable, asking central government to step in.

Buller District Council Mayor Chris Russell told Morning Report the service was a “lifeline connection” for isolated communities.

“The reality is that the route is just not economical which is quite devastating for us here in the Buller District.”

He said air travel could be the only way to evacuate if roads were cut off after a major earthquake or flooding.

“Losing the link, puts Buller and Northern Buller at risk of losing that connection in the event that something goes wrong, and we’ve got a business opportunities here too, particularly in Reefton, also mining in the Buller area too.”

Russell said it was a critical route, and in a major event coastal shipping is too slow, and an airport is vital.

“We’ll have to talk to government about that too, because keeping an airport open is not cheap either, and we are a small ratepayer base – so if we are not getting revenue to come in to help cover that, we have to ask the question of whether we go with it.”

Russell said the former mayor and staff had worked hard to bring Originair in after Sounds Air pulled out in 2024. He said he would be meeting with ministers late next week to discuss whether government support was possible.

Associate Transport Minister James Meager said in a statement that concessionary loans for regional airlines were available, but Originair had withdrawn its expression of interest for those loans.

He said the airline had expressed an interest in an alternate form of operational funding, which would require Cabinet to reconsider funding decisions.

Originair managing director Robert Inglis told Morning Report the route wasn’t economically viable, and concessionary loans for managing debt would not help in this case.

“They’re certainly not designed to support loss-making routes, and we’ve made that very clear to associate transport minister Meager, that we see absolutely no point in borrowing money to run a loss-making route.”

Inglis said it had been challenging operating the route with Buller district’s small population, and the company has had to reduce flights and increase fares.

He said the company had tried to operate a safe and reliable route for the past 15 months.

Recent fuel price shocks had not helped the airline’s challenges.

Meager said the government was keeping a watchful eye on the conflict through the newly established Ministerial Economic Security and Supply Chains Group.

“This provides strategic oversight and co-ordinated leadership to agencies to ensure a quick and effective response to any potential disruptions to petrol, diesel, and jet fuel supplies, as well as other key supply chains.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A week since a two-year harvesting ban on the Hauraki Gulf coast in north Auckland came into force, no fines have been handed out.

It is now illegal to take seaweed, shellfish, and other rockpool sea life from intertidal zones along the Whangaparāoa Peninsula, and further north at Kawau Bay and Ōmaha Bay.

Fisheries north regional manager Andre Espinoza said officers had “educational discussions” with six groups who were planning to harvest at the newly protected beaches this past week.

All were cooperative and unaware of the rules.

“You’re always going to have a few people who are unaware,” Espinoza said.

“There’ll be a very small minority that will just continue doing it anyway, and they’re the ones that are very much of interest to fishery officers.”

He said they had several conversations with people about taking seaweed.

“After a big storm, and seaweed has been washed up, you can take it if it’s above the high water mark. If it’s below the high water mark, it’s prohibited to take.

“People who take seaweed are across the spectrum, pretty much all ethnicities. People use it for gardening and various purposes.

“Seaweed has its place in the ecosystem, so it’s really important everyone sticks to the rules so we can see recovery faster.”

He said racism, particularly targeting Asian communities, has been troubling.

“Some bus tour groups intercepted by very passionate locals looking to do the right thing were church groups, not there to gather shellfish but for a picnic. But because they were of a certain ethnic group, they’ve been challenged for being at that beach.

“There is a very small minority who take it too far and judge people based on their race. We have on a number of occasions had complaints saying a certain ethnic group has arrived at the beach, they must be doing something wrong.

“It’s something that I really struggle with on a personal level, the profiling and dehumanisation.”

He said Fisheries was focused on educating, not shaming. About 60 signs have been put up in the area, and the new rules are being promoted on social media platforms, including Facebook, RedNote, and Sky Kiwi.

He encouraged people to report any suspected illegal activity through the appropriate channels.

Protect Whangaparāoa Rockpools founder Mark Lenton said people using the rockpool issue to voice hate speech was shameful.

“It doesn’t help the cause. It doesn’t help the credibility,” Lenton said.

“Blaming any single ethnicity for what’s going on is just plain stupid.”

He believed it would take more than two years for the rockpools to recover and that it would be a long-term commitment.

“We need to discourage the promotion of this term called beachcombing, which actively encourages people to go to a beach and take whatever they can find whenever they can find it.

“That’s the attitude we need to shift, and that also is done through targeted education.”

Chief executive of the Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust, Nicola MacDonald, applied for the ban. She said beaches were for everybody.

“It is not a vigilante witch-hunting exercise, because nobody wins out of that.

“People who may be indulging in harvesting like that will continue to take those practices elsewhere and harvest in areas that may not be protected, and we don’t want that.”

She called for more education, which was inclusive of Aotearoa’s diverse communities, so everyone could understand why people were concerned about the amount being taken from rockpools.

“We want people to understand these are species that we absolutely protect so that our children, our next generations, don’t have dead oceans.”

Sir Peter Blake Marine Education and Recreation Centre general manager Yuin Khai Foong agreed that education was crucial to protect marine life across the country.

“We have this displacement effect that kind of says, well, if we can’t collect here, then a very natural and understandable human response to that is to go somewhere else. That’s because legislation has boundaries.

“Education doesn’t really have boundaries. So it’s a really good complement to legislation, if we understand why the legislation had to be put into place and why the marine ecosystem is so important.

“It’s about people understanding what a rockpool actually is, what the species are, how they work together, how the whole ecosystem functions, and that the health of the ocean ultimately is going to impact the health of humans.”

But he said a kind approach was needed to raise awareness.

“As a migrant from Southeast Asia, a lot of my views on conservation have been through fundamentally my parents, understanding why we made the move to New Zealand and how special New Zealand is as a country and celebrating all those things.

“And then having the lived experience that I’ve had of engaging in natural spaces and engaging in the ocean, reinforced why our country is so special and why it’s so important that we take care of it.

“If we don’t take care of it, we’ll lose it.”

Meanwhile, Luella Bartlett, from the community group Protect Piha Rockpools, said harvesting on Auckland’s West Coast had not slowed down, and a similar ban was desperately needed for places like Muriwai, Bethells, and Piha.

She said if harvesting continued at its current rate, they would not only lose species like green shell mussels, but the snapper that fed on them.

Racism had also been an issue there.

“People are making assumptions that aren’t necessarily true. It’s causing huge social problems.”

She said a two-year ban was their best course of action, and her group had been talking to the local iwi about applying for one.

Suspected illegal harvesting or fishing activity can be reported to the toll-free HOTLINE at 0800-4-Poacher (0800-476-224).

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Source: Radio New Zealand

All bets are off on the price of petrol in New Zealand following Israel’s attack on the world’s largest natural gasfield in Pars overnight, AA is warning.

Brent Crude prices have surged since the attack, climbing to $US109 a barrel by 9am on Monday (NZT).

AA’s transport policy adviser Terry Collins says the move from military to economic targets marks an escalation in the war that will drive up the price of oil and petrol.

Pars is the Iranian sector of the world’s largest natural gas deposit, which Iran shares with Qatar across the Gulf.

Iran has vowed to retaliate.

Collins told Morning Report after prices appeared to stabilise on Wednesday, they were once again uncertain.

Israel’s attack marked the first reported strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure in the Gulf during the US-Israeli war, a major escalation that prompted Tehran to warn its neighbours that their energy installations would be targeted “in the coming hours”.

Oil prices shot up after the attack in a conflict that has already halted shipping from the world’s most important energy-producing region and could now bring lasting damage to its infrastructure.

Before the overnight attack, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said she was looking at targeted, temporary support for some households if the Middle East conflict worsened.

She said the help could be available, for example, to a cleaner needing to drive to work early in the morning when there was no public transport – a proposal welcomed by E tū union member Ayesha Paki.

She has a 30-minute drive, six days a week, to her job at Auckland Airport.

“Everything is expensive and now the petrol has affected all of us cleaners and low pay workers. We are so worried,” she said.

Willis said the government was “anticipating, and to the extent possible mitigating the impact on the New Zealand economy, including what could potentially be acute cost of living pressures for some households”.

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

More to come…

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A Jetstar plane swerved off the runway after landing at Christchurch because the pilot accidentally put the thrust lever on to full power causing the plane to accelerate, investigators say.

Passengers aboard the Airbus A320 plane travelling from Auckland reported a bumpy and “frightening” landing on 31 May 2024, although no one was injured.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC)’s report out on Thursday put it down to an accident but also noted a lack of proper training from Jetstar.

Chief investigator of accidents Louise Cook said during the flight one of the plane’s three hydraulic systems failed and the plane lost the ability to use its nosewheel to steer.

The crew followed standard operating procedures and continued with the flight to land at Christchurch where they planned to use differential braking to steer off the runway onto the rapid exit taxiway.

The landing went well until the crew lost directional control and the plane veered off the taxiway, hit an aerodrome signboard and continued across the grass until stopping back on the main runway, Cook said.

“The crew did a great job of landing the plane, had they stopped and then been towed off there would’ve been no issues,” she said.

“But they were trying to do the right thing and clear the runway so that other planes could use it, and so used the rapid exit way, and as they went to do that that’s when the pilot thought they were putting it into idle but in fact put the thrust lever forward into climb and full power.”

Cook said the pilots were likely so focused on making that exit they missed important cues that the position of the thrust levers was not as intended.

“On the face of it, this option appeared safe and achievable to the pilots because Airbus documentation, repeated in Jetstar’s Flight Crew Techniques Manual, provided no guidance on use of differential braking specifically for steering off the runway via a rapid exit,” she said.

A Jetstar spokesperson said the airline had since changed its guidance to flight crews.

“We’ve worked closely with the regulator and Airbus to fully understand what occurred and have strengthened our procedures to help prevent a recurrence and ensure the ongoing safety and resilience of our operations,” Jetstar said.

TAIC said Airbus had accepted the commission’s recommendation to revise aircraft manuals and instructor guidance to mitigate the risk that other pilots might move the thrust levers while on the ground to an unintended position.

Airbus planed to do this in April and May 2026, it said.

“This accident also highlights the importance of maintenance engineers conducting a detailed inspection of new parts for potential damage before installation. In this case, a titanium hydraulic pipe was just 1mm out of shape – slightly oval, not round. It is very likely the deformity occurred when the pipe’s packaging was damaged in transit between Airbus warehouses in 2015,” the commission said.

“The damage was not detected before or after installation and failed after 18 months of service.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

[brightcove]https://players.brightcove.net/6093072280001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6391056234112

When Auckland couple Sue and Tony Kerr first opened their door to a homeless teenager as part of an organised programme to shelter young people in crisis, they were nervous about how it would go.

They are retired and worried the generation gap might prove problematic, that their home cooking would be left uneaten and that their things might be stolen.

“I was worried about security, needlessly, and that they might take anything that was precious to us and we haven’t found that was an issue,” Sue said.

“They always joined us for dinner … ate lots of vegetables so it was fine.”

They are one of six host homes in west Auckland in a programme called The Safety Net, who house homeless rangatahi to get them off the streets while more permanent housing is found.

It was working so well the programme was looking to expand into other parts of the city.

A recent report by youth support organisation Kick Back found teen homelessness was getting worse, with 22 percent of young people sleeping rough when they first sought support.

The Kerrs lived in Hobsonville and in between grandchildren’s visits they had so far had eight young people stay.

“It’s definitely given me more compassion and understanding about the problem and the need. If you can just help them this short time, all eight of them have apparently been helped into better accommodation. It’s just great to know we’ve helped.”

They had been hosting homeless young people for over a year – often for just a week at a time – one young man even stayed during Christmas 2024.

“I was putting up the Christmas tree which of course our sons always used to do … and I asked him if he’d like to join in and he had never decorated a Christmas tree before and I thought that is so sad he loved doing it, he was very proud of the outcome.”

They first heard about The Safety Net through their church, had a spare room and said they strongly felt it was something God wanted them to do.

Tony said having young people stay had opened his eyes to their struggles.

“The benefit has been benefiting them. It’s given me greater insight into what goes on that we didn’t have before.”

Josh Hendry oversaw The Safety Net and said since it began two years ago they had found stable housing for 36 rangatahi who were hosted by families short-term, just a few nights or a week.

He said often teenagers had left home due to a family breakdown, whether that was violence or substance abuse or even just a lack of beds for families living in poverty.

Hendry worked closely with his brother Aaron who ran the youth advocacy organisation Kick Back, helping young people off the streets.

“There’s very little youth specific housing for our young people but one significant gap that we’ve seen is for 16 and 17 year olds, where their reason for experiencing homeless might be to do with a family breakdown for a variety of reasons.”

He said it could take up to eight weeks for a young person in that situation to access government support, through the Youth Payment.

“In the meantime, how do we expect a young person to access housing when they can’t actually have the financial support when they need it.”

He said The Safety Net had six host homes, which included families, couples and singles, and wanted to expand in other suburbs by partnering with organisations. It was funded through grants and the hosts were volunteers.

Hendry said there was an extensive sign-up for host families to ensure they matched the tikanga of the programme, as well as police and reference checks.

He said they took care to match young people with suitable host homes, ensuring ongoing support for both the young person and hosts who also came from a variety of backgrounds.

“One of the big concerns is people have a lot of stigma around our young people and they’re actually just like any other young person. The potential with The Safety Net is we can intervene early, we can prevent our rangatahi from having a long term experience of homelessness, from experiencing all of the trauma that comes with that.”

Hendry said all the young people who were in education and hosted in homes were able to maintain their schooling, more than 80 percent had been housed and 30 percent had safely reconnected with whanau.

“We’ve seen amazing outcomes for our young people. When we provide an immediate safe, supportive caring place for our young people right when they need it most the ability to really change the trajectory of where that could have gone.”

He said the government’s proposal to give police more power to move on those rough sleeping or begging in public, from the age of 14 years old, was concerning because young people travelled to the city to access support.

“A lot of the young people we work with, even out west, will go to the city centre to get support so they’ll go to places like the Front Door or Rainbow Youth.

“The Safety Net is a direct solution to that. Rather than punishing people for being in the situation they’re in, if we actually provide them support we can really see that change.”

No longer homeless

Late last year, Tina spent two weeks living in an alleyway while still attending high school because she had been kicked out of home.

She is 17 years-old and said it was a sensitive situation and she spent a few nights staying with a friend but was too ashamed to ask for help.

“I was very ashamed and embarassed to tell people that I was quite homeless during that time.”

So she sought shelter where she could hide – no one knew she was there.

“I was staying in my alleyway for two weeks and then that’s when I got tired of living that kind of life, I really did need help so I went to my school teacher and told her what happened and that’s when I found out about The Safety Net.”

Tina was placed with a host home where she stayed a few nights.

“I actually opened up to them, the host family that took me in. They were very sweet I loved them I really miss them as well.”

She said The Safety Net helped her to find a flat and she was now studying at tertiary level.

“It helped me build so much confidence in myself and now I’m doing everything that I love to do … I’m happy where I am now.”

Tina wanted to encourage other young people struggling with homelessness to ask for help.

“It’s always good to ask for help, it’s the bravest thing that you could do. One of the bravest things that I have accomplished was to ask for help and I stopped being embarassed.”

Another 17 year old, Mae, left home to escape escalating domestic violence last year and sought refuge at a hospital’s emergency department.

She said they let her sleep on a bench for a few nights while a social worker tried to find her somewhere to go but there was a lack of housing.

“The options were that I would have to sleep on the street and risk my safety or I would have to go back to the house I left and pretty much go through hell again.”

Mae said The Safety Net stepped in and gave her hope – she spent her first night with a host home in her room because she was so nervous but quickly found her feet.

“Being in a stable environment, it made me realise what I went through at my old house wasn’t normal. I realised what safety feels like and it was actually the first time I relaxed,” she said.

Mae was now living in stable housing with others her age, studying at tertiary level.

“Honestly it’s healing, I can imagine if I hadn’t have left home I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have now.”

The hosts

In the last year, Ottolien Pentz had hosted six young people in her spare room, usually for less than a week each time.

She fostered about 25 children when her own were growing up and said teenagers were actually easier to have because they could voice their thoughts.

Each time she got a knock at her door, Pentz knew the young person would be feeling nervous about staying with a stranger.

“Most of them after a little [while] would say ‘I thought it would be really scary and I wondered if I would be safe’ and it’s a lovely surprise that they were safe and that there’s goodness in the world.”

Pentz said The Safety Net helped her as a host to set reasonable boundaries and whare rules that she talked the teenagers through when they arrived.

And she told them she would like them to rest and think about their next step, what they would like out of life.

“One of them said I felt cared for for the first time … and that I’m valuable enough that I can want good things,” Pentz said.

“Just for a few days there was none of the negative things in life. That’s what makes me sad, some people’s lives are in such a discombobulation that simple things are big things.”

Sue and Tony said they could get called at short notice to host a young person and that had been challenging because they liked to plan ahead.

But they wanted to help the teenagers who had no-one else to rely on – they said one of their sons experienced mental health issues and would unlikely have survived had it not been for their stable family home.

“It’s just tragic really, one young person said that at home they didn’t get enough food … they didn’t on the whole talk about the worst of the trauma but it is just so sad,” Sue said.

Hendry said they would like more host homes to come on board because having a stable roof, even for a few nights, gave young people a fresh perspective.

“One young person told me how she’d stayed in her room all night but she’d just stayed awake listening to the whanau laughing and having fun in the kitchen, because for her that was something she hadn’t really experienced.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Health researchers are calling for policy changes to combat air pollution in Auckland, saying traffic is silently killing locals.

More than 700 Aucklanders die every year from air pollution from traffic, compared to 2000 deaths nationally, according to a new report by the University of Auckland.

It’s similar to the number of people who die from smoking cigarettes, with almost 4000 more ending up in hospital, the report said.

Dr Jamie Hosking, a public health researcher at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, said petrol and diesel burn produce the gas nitrogen dioxide and small particles of soot, smoke, dust and chemicals.

“Those particles are really, really fine, so we can’t see them,” Dr Hosking told Morning Report. “But because they’re so fine, they get right down into our lungs and cause damage there, and can even get through into our bloodstream and cause inflammation there and give us problems such as heart disease, strokes, lung cancer and in our kids, asthma as well.”

Dr Hosking said it is really difficult for individuals to combat air pollution.

“We can’t avoid breathing in polluted air. The solution here is with our councils and with the government,” he said.

The report outlines several solutions on both a national and city level, such as investing in better public transport, raising vehicle emission standards, improving air quality monitoring and introducing equitable congestion charges.

Dr Hosking said central cities around the world, such as London, have implemented low-emission zones, which means only the cleanest cars can come into central city areas.

“That’s been really effective at lowering air pollution and giving them cleaner air,” he said.

“That’s really good for people’s health and something that we could be putting in place in Auckland.”

The report would be presented to Auckland Council’s Transport Committee, where researchers will call for urgent action towards the city’s air pollution.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Health New Zealand (HNZ) has been warned that keeping financial control is “one of the thorniest” aspects of the government’s rapid push to devolution.

The government blamed loss of financial control when it sacked the central agency’s board two years ago.

Health Minister Simeon Brown on Tuesday promised regions and districts would get more say over budgets and hiring from 1 July so that decisions on medical care were made closer to the patient.

Late last year he ordered HNZ to decentralise rapidly, and this week he said, “This is the most significant structural change our government is making to improve how the health system operates.”

But the latest HNZ internal report on devolution said “people capability is an extreme risk” in the finance and operations area, with centralisation diverting resources.

“Many local teams are under-resourced in financial management,” said the report done in January for a new devolution committee.

Brown on Wednesday said there was a “huge” amount of work underway to build back the local leadership disempowered by over-centralisation.

“We are making sure we’ve got the capability around operations, around finance, human resources, all of those things are being looked at.”

The January report by consultants Deloitte laid that out, he said.

The report has not been publicly released though RNZ has seen parts of it.

‘Clearly underpowered’

Former HNZ Te Whatu Ora board chair Rob Campbell expressed serious misgivings.

“They quickly need to get some financial resources into those regions and districts which are clearly underpowered in this respect,” Campbell said on Wednesday. “That’s the first thing they have to do.”

The devolution plan puts executive regional directors in charge of rebuilding the capability but at a time when money was exceedingly tight said the report.

“The financial challenges are going to increase in 2026/27, meaning there will be even more pressure on financial controls to reduce the deficit …. from $200m to breakeven.

“Currently there will be little to no capacity remaining within the baseline next year without significant productivity improvements and prioritisation decisions,” it said.

Campbell said it was an unenviable task.

“They’re being told they’re getting more autonomy. The truth is they’re really not, and they don’t have the money to do that anyway.”

‘Fully coming into effect’ on 1 July

The devolution report contains self-assessments by Health NZ’s various business units showing some progress, and a lot of risks, around devolving key clinical and service decisions back to the four health regions and 20 districts.

One section on “reduced financial visibility” said, “One of the thorniest aspects of devolution is financial control – ‘who holds the purse strings’ and how to prevent overspending or inequities.”

Financial visibility was fragmented across 20 health boards before 2022’s centralisation, then smeared after it by “confusion … and weak controls” at Health NZ Te Whatu Ora. It then began its nosedive towards a forecast billion-dollar-plus deficit.

The centralisation also pulled experience and skills into the centre in Wellington, the report said.

This was compounded by hundreds of cuts to support jobs since 2024 in a savings drive.

The January report outlined “critical” current gaps and “staff churn” in the workforce, such as in data and digital, analysis and finance, that supports the frontline doctors and nurses.

Under a heading ‘Options to accelerate devolution’ it said, “There is a risk of not understanding cost structures or nuances between districts, further compounding the risk that pushing the funding allocation and management of each region and district to the lower levels quickly may result in loss of financial visibility across the sector again.”

It said some fixes might take 18 months to three years.

However, Brown said on Tuesday the changes underway would “ensure a nationally planned, locally and regionally delivered health system, will come into effect on 1 July”.

Hospitals would be able to recruit and deploy staff without central sign-off but with delegated budgets and responsibility to meet targets in the district or region.

On Wednesday Brown reiterated the 1 July delivery date.

The Deloitte report talked about the many initiatives being done by HNZ “to make sure that districts and regions are ready for 1 July when the devolved operating model … is fully coming into effect”, he said.

“Of course there’s risks in changing an operating model but at the same time the last government … left local clinicians not able to make some of the key decisions.”

Globally, health ran better when a devolved operating model split decision-making between national, regional and local levels, Brown said.

New policy on who decides what

The devolution plan depended on four executive regional directors at the top being “best placed to manage performance and build capability, which can vary significantly between districts”.

Already, a new policy on who gets to decide on hiring and firing, and on spending, was being rolled out.

Papers RNZ has seen showed the policy was approved by the board in December.

They showed there must be consultation with the regional or national head of human resources for all hires, or for creating new positions within budget; and to create any new positions outside budget needed “consultation/approval” from either of these heads or from the executive leadership team.

Campbell said, “You start off looking like they’ve got a lot of power, and then when you really read through it, they don’t.

“Even on items that are within budget and full-time equivalent allocations, there is a need for … consultation, and in a hierarchical organisation like this consultation means getting approval.”

The biggest difference was a bigger regional element compared to what HNZ was building at the time he was sacked in 2023 for a political attack on National’s water infrastructure policy.

Yet it was “still very tightly controlled” and regional and district managers were “in a no-win situation”, Campbell said.

‘Divergent approaches’

In addition to lack of finance staff, the January report added “fragmentation” to the hurdles for devolution.

“Without strong governance structures and clear national guardrails, regions and districts risk adopting divergent approaches, weakening system-wide alignment and equity in service delivery,” it said.

Those governance structures were still being set up.

Campbell said good governance meant having a business model everyone grasped. “People throughout the organisation still find it very hard to understand what the responsibility for particular issues is.”

The report said Health NZ had had to build national financial guardrails after its lurch towards a big deficit.

“If HNZ devolves too quickly or carelessly, they risk losing the opportunity to use its current … structure and scale” to address system problems, it said.

On the plus side, devolution could help districts take more responsibility for day-to-day spending and not expect topdown bailouts, citing how Australian state hospitals used to have a “rollercoaster of budget blowouts and rescues”.

Brown’s plan retained the Wellington-based bureaucracy for strategy, planning, policies, standards and system integration.

However, the report said many of the national plans existed in name but “have not yet been developed or published, and the decision-making framework to support accountability is still developing”.

Building districts’ financial capability an ongoing focus – HNZ

Late on Wednesday Health New Zealand told RNZ that according to the Deloitte report the agency’s budgeting, planning, reporting, and performance management disciplines had been strengthened since a review of financial management at the end of 2024.

“These improvements have ‘reduced the risk of a loss of financial control levers’,” it quoted.

Building financial capability of districts and regions was an ongoing focus, said executive national director of strategy performance improvement, Jess Smaling.

“Regions and districts will have clear budgets, and delegated authority to make decisions based on the unique local needs,” she said in a statement.

“Budgets will be based on expected activity to meet those local needs, within the resources available to Health New Zealand.”

A national funding board and human resources oversight committee had been replaced by four regional investment committees and “people and culture committees”, along with a national version of that to consider human resource policies so there was national consistency.

A new national investment committee would make funding decisions above the authority of the four executive regional directors.

“Hiring decisions will be made in the regions and districts, within available budgets,” said Smaling.

Those within existing FTE and budget would only require the approval of the hiring manager’s immediate manager.

Decision-makers using delegated authority had to stay within approved budgets and limits, and comply with Health NZ policies and legislation, she added.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

An immigration adviser caught selling a fake job at her husband’s company in taped phone conversations – after he lost his first fake job there – has lost her licence.

Heidi Castelucci, also known as Qian Yu, coached a migrant in how the $70,000 scam would work and how to hide it from authorities, the immigration advisers’ complaints and disciplinary tribunal ruled. Five other complaints from visa applicants against her have also been upheld by the tribunal, which described it as a “concerning pattern of behaviour”.

She worked at Auckland firm Liberty Consulting, trading as Liberty Immigration, but the Chinese migrant’s job was a visa facade and was terminated.

“Ms Yu then persuaded the complainant to resign on the basis he would be re-employed as a manager at twice the salary. This role also did not exist. He had to pay an unlawful premium for the position. He would pay his own salary and tax. He would have to find other employment to support himself and his family, as well as fund the premium (the Tribunal assuming he would be repaid his salary).

“Ms Yu coached him regarding this arrangement, including advice to hide it. All of this was unlawful, as she well knew. The gravity of the misconduct here is at the upper end of serious. The integrity of the immigration system is compromised by fake jobs. They strike at the heart of the system and public trust in it. The involvement of a licensed adviser in creating such a scam is to be condemned.”

The man signed a new employment contract with the agency, whose owner also runs the New Zealand Language Institute and Foreign Exchange Program, as a $100,000-a-year business development manager, being told he would pay $70,000 for the company to support his residence visa – that he could fund through cash-in-hand jobs elsewhere.

He paid one $7500 instalment for the non-existent job before raising the alarm and leaving New Zealand with his children. The tribunal said a fee of $2000-$4000 would have been reasonable for immigration advice for his work visas, but in all he paid $25,588.

Castelucci/Yu had not responded to any of the allegations, but when the tribunal turned to considering penalties she expressed deep remorse, and pointed to “a concentrated period of profound personal, medical and psychological collapse”.

“The extenuating circumstances advanced appear to have occurred after she set up the scam with the fake job,” the tribunal concluded.

“The public need to be protected from advisers who conceive arrangements themselves to exploit clients and the immigration system. Her dishonesty here warrants cancellation of her licence on its own. Despite one belated letter acknowledging her wrongdoing and expressing remorse, the tribunal is not persuaded she has ‘turned a leaf’.”

She received abusive and threatening messages and phone calls when the offending became public, she said, and been forced to repay fees when other migrants became aware of what she had done.

Publicity from the case had already severely damaged her professional reputation, her licence was suspended, many clients terminated retainers and she suffered substantial loss and medical fees.

The tribunal fined her $4000 and noted it could only cancel her licence for a maximum of two years, with the registrar of immigration advisers deciding if she could be relicensed.

Job tokens

The migrant’s employment advocate May Moncur said lifetime bans should be available for cases involving dishonesty. “I think if it’s a character issue, two years is too short. I would say a life ban would be more appropriate. And also that would send a message. When the deterrent is severe enough, that would deliver a strong message.”

Jobs were still being sold via ‘tokens’ INZ gave to companies that gained accreditation to recruit migrants.

“The worst I’ve seen, you know, agents, these kind of proxies, recruited probably dozens or even a hundred workers. I don’t know what kind of penalties or sanctions they are subjected to. It’s very disappointing, actually, that they’ve made millions in illegal incomes, and New Zealand benefited nothing.

“Those migrants, they paid a huge premium to come to New Zealand, hoping to have a genuine employment but ended up with no job, no income, and not only themselves, also their family members were affected by such a scam.”

It also created a distorted economy, with tax revenue losses from workers being paid under the table.

“It really undermines the real employment opportunities, because some companies, they could make a profit out of selling job tokens, which is still going on nowadays.

“Some people may think naively this has nothing to do with them and they are not in the immigration sector. It’s not good for anyone. It’s really affecting everybody in New Zealand.”

One recent example was a woman charged almost 200,000 RMB ($49,000) for a job, she said.

“I’m still being approached by some migrant workers and I understand there are licensed immigration advisors who are actively involved in the recruitment process and outside their immigration services and all responsibility, they are acting as proxies to charge illegal premiums.”

The Registrar of Companies has initiated action to remove Liberty Consulting, an immigration firm based in the North Shore suburb of Rosedale, from its register. A new company set up by Castelucci’s husband last year, Global Pathways Consulting, operates from the same address.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Too many rules, too little judgement – why one Kiwi professor says the country is strangling itself with red tape.

Professor Natasha Hamilton-Hart has a simple rule for stupid rules: get rid of them.

She says the country’s love for red tape is making life harder and society less effective.

So, she’s written a book about it.

It’s aptly called Stupid Rules: Reducing Red Tape and Making Organisations More Effective and Accountable.

She tells The Detail that modern workplaces are trapped in a culture of compliance that replaces judgement with bureaucracy.

“We have too many stupid rules, which are the rules that regulate when we really should delegate authority, and if we actually ceded a little discretion to authority, we would paradoxically have more freedom, and we would get more of what we want,” she says.

In this episode, Hamilton-Hart, who is a professor in management and international business at the University of Auckland, gives examples of both personal and professional experiences.

The personal: volunteering with a conservation group, helping teams to get rid of pest plants in urban areas.

“The first time I did this, headquarters sent us this health and safety form which had a matrix on it, and you were supposed to list every conceivable adverse event, and then you were supposed to attach a probability of it happening and how serious it would be if it did happen.

“And when you start thinking about it, well, actually, people could injure themselves pretty badly if you take them gardening, they might even have a heart attack.

“The point was, if you took it literally, and go, ‘we are not taking a defibrillator out with us on our weeding expedition, so if someone had a heart attack, actually they would probably die,’ we wouldn’t have been able to do it at all.

“So obviously I was supposed to lie when I filled out this paperwork,” she says. “But that’s kinda ridiculous, that has gone overboard.”

Changing a hyphen

Her professional experience included a hyphen in a name on a university website, which was wrong.

“I thought, ‘no problem,’ I got my office manager to send the web people a note and say, ‘can you take the hyphen out?’.

“This had to get escalated to the head of administration in my faculty, because I was told that the rule book said the hyphen had to be in there.

“I’m pretty sure the rule book doesn’t have naming rights over study centres.”

She says rule books can become shorter and more effective if companies, sectors, governments, and organisations cede authority to people in a hierarchy or empower them to decide what is appropriate.

She points to General Motors, which once had a clunky employee dress code that grew to 10 pages long.

But when Mary Barra became vice president of global human resources in 2009, she replaced the whole thing with two words: “dress appropriately”.

Hamilton-Hart says this sort of change achieves two things: it makes common sense and requires authority.

Employees gain more discretion, but managers will have to step in when someone gets the dress code wrong.

And this is what the book is about.

“What inspired me, if inspired is the right word, was actually coming back to New Zealand after many, many years away, and mostly working in Southeast Asia, where, whatever else they suffer from, tends not to be stupid rules. And coming to New Zealand and thinking, why can’t we get things done?

“Why can’t we build buildings that don’t leak? Why can’t we have finance companies that don’t go bankrupt? Why is it so hard to actually deliver the stuff that people want delivered?

“There is no disagreement – we want better hospitals, we want better schools, we want to raise literacy rates, but we don’t seem to be able to do it.

“And I know there will never be just one reason, but I sort of got curious about what stops organisations delivering on their purpose.”

She says she discovered a “flight from authority” in recent decades, which has stripped organisations of command capacity and resulted in workplaces where employees tick boxes rather than exercise initiative.

She says the answer isn’t to abandon rules altogether – but to rethink how organisations govern themselves.

That means trusting expertise, strengthening leadership authority, and holding people responsible for outcomes rather than compliance.

In other words, fewer rules – but clearer responsibility.

She says if nothing changes, the country could be left with more bureaucracy, less effectiveness, and a system where everyone follows the rules, but nothing works quite as it should.

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

You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.

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– 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

The executive director of the Firearms Safety Authority has been cleared of misconduct following an employment investigation in relation to disgraced former Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming.

The investigation says that given the knowledge Angela Brazier had when providing a reference check for McSkimming, it would have been “prudent” for her to disclose the fact he was receiving harassing emails and that there was a police investigation.

However, the investigation found there were “shortcomings” in terms of how the Public Service Commission (PSC) obtained the reference check and that Brazier’s conduct did not bring police into disrepute and therefore could not be considered to amount to misconduct.

Speaking to RNZ, Brazier says the investigation was “another waste of taxpayers’ money” and wants police to publicly clear her name.

• Do you know more? Email sam.sherwood@rnz.co.nz

The Independent Police Conduct Authority’s report recommended employment investigations against three staff – former Assistant Commissioner Paul Basham, Detective Superintendent Chris Page, and Brazier.

Police Commissioner Richard Chambers engaged Kristy McDonald KC to lead the investigations.

The investigation into Brazier – who announced her retirement in January – related to a reference check she provided to the Public Service Commission when McSkimming was vying for the role of Interim Commissioner in 2024.

The IPCA said that when the Public Service Commission approached her for a reference check, she knew McSkimming had an affair, that he was being “harassed” with emails from the woman and that former Deputy Commissioner Tania Kura had informed McSkimming that she had to investigate him as part of the police response.

However, Brazier told the PSC she had nothing relevant to disclose. She told the IPCA she did not think her knowledge was relevant to PSC’s question.

“[Brazier’s] disclosure was inadequate in light of her knowledge at the time,” the IPCA said.

RNZ has obtained a copy of the McDonald’s investigation report, dated 19 February.

In the report, McDonald said Brazier declined to be interviewed but did provide additional information she requested, including her response to the draft IPCA report.

McDonald said the reference obtained by the PSC on 8 October 2024 was part of what the PSC described as a “shortened version of their vetting process”.

“Following Commissioner Coster’s resignation in 2024, an interim Commissioner needed to be appointed. By convention the longest serving statutory Deputy Commissioner is appointed, which in this case would have been Mr McSkimming.”

She said McSkimming went through a “thorough vetting process” run by PSC when he was appointed statutory Deputy Commissioner in 2023. This included full reference and probity checks.

However, when considering McSkimming for interim Commissioner the PSC took a “shortened version”.

This was for several reasons including that McSkimming had been deputy commissioner for about 18 months and had already been interim Commissioner on several occasions and “by convention” was the person who was going to be appointed to the role.

“Mr McSkimming had recently been thoroughly vetted when appointed as a statutory Deputy Commissioner. Therefore, there was an anticipated inevitability of Mr McSkimming’s appointment which impacted the manner in which the probity checks were undertaken.

“As a result, the normal checks were not conducted in an in-depth way as would typically be done. For example, only three references were obtained and they were from people nominated by Mr McSkimming.”

McDonald said the PSC’s focus was whether anything had occurred in the 18 month period from when McSkimming had been vetted for his current role.

“This context coloured the approach PSC took to the appointment process, including the reference obtained from Ms Brazier.”

As part of her investigation, McDonald interviewed the PSC employee who took the reference check from Brazier. McDonald said she understood the employee was not interviewed by the IPCA.

The employee confirmed she called Brazier on 8 October 2024 and asked Brazier if she was able to provide a reference check for McSkimming. Brazier agreed and the interview was then carried out.

“As such, Ms Brazier did not have time to reflect on matters that she may have wished to discuss,” McDonald said.

The reference checking process took up to 7 minutes, McDonald estimated, finishing at 1.45pm.

The employee did not tell Brazier she should provide “full and frank answers” at the beginning of the interview.

“In response to the Integrity Question Ms Brazier stated: ‘Nothing that I am aware of that would impact [Mr McSkimming’s] ability to do the job or bring the agency or the NZ government into disrepute’.”

McDonald said all of Brazier’s answers were brief, and that the employee did not ask any follow up questions “to try to illicit more information from Ms Brazier”.

McDonald said it was “clear that there were shortcomings in terms of the way the reference was obtained from Ms Brazier”.

This included that the employee did not read the PSC script that interviewers typically read out at the beginning of reference interviews.

The script used by the employee did not include any statements designed to encourage Brazier to provide “fulsome responses.”

Asked why this was, the employee told McDonald she believed the interview with Brazier was “an open and closed reference check”.

“The PSC Employee stated that: given that Mr McSkimming was the longest serving Deputy Commissioner he was the obvious candidate for the interim Commissioner role; that she did not think that there was anything wrong with Mr McSkimming; and that her job was to see if Mr McSkimming still met the fit and proper person test – having been found to satisfy this requirement in 2023.”

The employee also said that the then Assistant Commissioner at PSC had already spoken to Coster before Brazier was contacted to provide a reference. Coster had told the PSC about McSkimming’s affair, and that the woman was being prosecuted for harassment of McSkimming, McDonald said.

McDonald said a manager at PSC said that if this information was known by the employee, then they ought to have asked further questions of Brazier given her “short but caveated response to the integrity question”.

McDonald said in response to her draft findings, the PSC said the employee could not have known that information at the time she called Brazier. This was because the PSC said Coster was interviewed only shortly before Brazier was spoken to. Following her final report, McDonald issued an addendum which said while additional documents provided by the PSC showed when the interview with Coster began, it did not say when it ended.

“Given the above and the fact that when I interviewed the PSC Employee she repeatedly stated that she already knew, at a high level, about the disclosures made by Commissioner Coster prior to her interviewing Ms Brazier, it is possible that [a manager at PSC] had already spoken to the PSC Employee about those disclosures before the PSC Employee interviewed Ms Brazier.”

Regardless of whether or not the PSC employee knew about the discussion before calling Brazier, it did not “materially alter” her findings in relation to Brazier’s conduct.

McDonald said the employee had only recently started conducting reference interviews and had done about 15 previously which were “for very different roles”.

“The PSC has now changed the manner in which it obtains references, including how it asks integrity questions and has provided additional training to interviewers. The PSC Employee confirmed that the manner in which she conducts reference interviews now is significantly different to the way she approached Ms Brazier’s interview.”

McDonald concluded that given the knowledge Brazier had when providing the reference it would have been “prudent” for her to disclose the fact that McSkimming was receiving harassing emails and that there was a police investigation into those emails – even if she believed that investigation looked at him as a complainant.

“Such information was still relevant contextual information. Given Ms Brazier’s work experience, having worked in senior positions for the Police for over twenty years, she ought to have understood the relevance of such information.

“I have considered, in light of the factual findings I have made, whether Ms Brazier’s conduct could be viewed as amounting to a breach of the Police Code of Conduct by bringing Police into disrepute. My recommendation is that it does not.”

McDonald said while Brazier “could have been more forthcoming”, there were several “highly relevant” factors.

This included that the PSC employee did not advise Brazier of the expectation to provide full disclosure of any relevant information she may have at the start of the interview, and that they did not do any follow up questions.

“Ms Brazier was not given advanced warning of the interview and it is likely that she did not have time to prepare or reflect on matters that she may wish to discuss.”

McDonald also noted that the IPCA did not interview the PSC employee as part of their investigation.

“And, therefore, did not take account of the manner in which the interview was conducted before making its findings against Ms Brazier.”

On 27 February, Brazier received a letter from police confirming that Deputy Commissioner Mike Pannett had accepted McDonald’s recommendation that Brazier’s conduct did not amount to a breach of the Police Code of Conduct and was not misconduct. He also agreed no further action was required.

Brazier told RNZ the investigation was a “waste of taxpayers’ money”, but was “pleased” when she read that the report cleared her of any misconduct but was not surprised as she did not think she had done anything wrong.

“I was annoyed that the IPCA hadn’t interviewed the person that did the reference check with me… they basically made their decision without any facts about what the referee process was.”

She said the IPCA report and the subsequent fallout had a significant impact on her.

“It impacted on the way I felt about the organisation, it impacted on my health and wellbeing, because it was publicised and my name was in the media, and that would have made it very difficult for me to find another job in the public sector whilst I had an under investigation against my name, even though there was nothing to it.

“It also meant that my team will have been questioning what my involvement was. It had wide-reaching impact, unfairly.”

After announcing her retirement, Brazier told RNZ she felt “targeted” by police leadership. She said this week she stood by those comments.

“It’s been completely unfair. I’m not the only person that’s been targeted. If you were to look at the number of people that have left, kind of under a cloud, I guess, over the last 18 months, then, yeah, a lot of people who have worked very hard and have been very credible and trustworthy individuals have left.”

Brazier her reference check was done “very quickly with no prior notice”.

“It was not a thorough interview in terms of a reference checking process for a senior role. So I think that they should have owned that from the outset, but instead they try and point the finger at me.”

She said that when she was interviewed by the PSC there was nothing she thought that would or could prevent McSkimming doing the job at the time.

“If they had asked me if he had had an affair, I would have been very clear, because my choice then would have been tell the truth or tell a lie, and I would have told the truth without question of a doubt.

“But it wasn’t. It was never tabled in that way. So I didn’t feel that it was, it was an important element of his ability to do the job, because he had been a statutory deputy for a number of years and had regularly covered for the commissioner, so he had no issues with doing the job, in my mind, even though he’d had an affair, but it was so long ago.”

In a statement to RNZ on questions about the investigation into Brazier, Deputy Commissioner Mike Pannett said police had the same privacy obligations as any other employer and therefore could not provide any information or comment.

“As previously announced, Ms Brazier is retiring from her position at the New Zealand Firearms Safety Authority in April.”

Police said two of the investigations being carried out by McDonald remained in progress.

“Police will not be commenting on the findings.”

Brazier is “unhappy” police won’t publicly confirm she was cleared of misconduct.

“They could have said there was no finding of misconduct or no breach of the Code of Conduct about me… I’m happy for them to say that, because it’s my privacy that apparently they’re trying to protect. So I don’t see why they couldn’t say that… they’re choosing not to.”

She believes police have not given thought to her being a “loyal, hardworking, trustworthy employee”.

“They have just gone about carte blanche doing an investigation on this and on that, without actually considering me as a senior member of police for over 20 years with no history of ever having any sorts of issues, they just went straight to investigation.”

A Public Service Commission spokesperson told RNZ the matter was “thoroughly and independently examined by the IPCA”.

“The IPCA found that disclosures made to the Public Service Commission during the 2024 interim Commissioner appointment process were inadequate and fell well short of what would reasonably be expected in a process of that significance.

“Separately, inquiries made by the Public Service Commission to the IPCA confirmed that a complaint was under active consideration at the time. As a result, Mr McSkimming was not recommended for appointment to the interim role.”

The PSC also commissioned an independent review by Miriam Dean KC into its reference checks and probity processes for senior Police appointments such as the Police Commissioner and Deputy Police Commissioners.

“The Commission accepted the findings of the Dean Review in full and has implemented improvements to strengthen its appointment processes and disclosure requirements.

“Ms McDonald carried out a confidential employment investigation for Police into the conduct of one of their former employees. Any findings or actions are therefore a matter for Police.”

A IPCA spokesperson told RNZ that in drafting their report, they relied on the file note of PSC’s reference check with Brazier.

“We also had access to Miriam Dean KC’s report, which had considered the way PSC conducted reference checks. Further, we relied on the evidence of Ms Brazier, including her submissions during our natural justice process. She did not deny the non-disclosure.”

The spokeperson also referred to paragraphs of the report in which Brazier “provided us with reasons for why she did not disclose relevant information”.

“We have not seen the employment investigation report.”

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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 Jetstar plane swerved off the runway after landing at Christchurch because the pilot accidentally put the thrust lever on to full power causing the plane to accelerate, investigators say.

Passengers aboard the Airbus A320 plane travelling from Auckland reported a bumpy and “frightening” landing on 31 May 2024, although no one was injured.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC)’s report out on Thursday put the accident down to pilot error but also a lack of proper training from Jetstar.

Chief investigator of accidents Louise Cook said during the flight one of the plane’s three hydraulic systems failed and the plane lost the ability to use its nosewheel to steer.

The crew followed standard operating procedures and continued with the flight to land at Christchurch where they planned to use differential braking to steer off the runway onto the rapid exit taxiway.

The landing went well until the crew lost directional control and the plane veered off the taxiway, hit an aerodrome signboard and continued across the grass until stopping back on the main runway, Cook said.

“The crew did a great job of landing the plane, had they stopped and then been towed off there would’ve been no issues,” she said.

“But they were trying to do the right thing and clear the runway so that other planes could use it, and so used the rapid exit way, and as they went to do that that’s when the pilot thought they were putting it into idle but in fact put the thrust lever forward into climb and full power.”

Cook said the pilots were likely so focused on making that exit they missed important cues that the position of the thrust levers was not as intended.

“On the face of it, this option appeared safe and achievable to the pilots because Airbus documentation, repeated in Jetstar’s Flight Crew Techniques Manual, provided no guidance on use of differential braking specifically for steering off the runway via a rapid exit,” she said.

A Jetstar spokesperson said the airline had since changed its guidance to flight crews.

“We’ve worked closely with the regulator and Airbus to fully understand what occurred and have strengthened our procedures to help prevent a recurrence and ensure the ongoing safety and resilience of our operations,” Jetstar said.

TAIC said Airbus had accepted the commission’s recommendation to revise aircraft manuals and instructor guidance to mitigate the risk that other pilots might move the thrust levers while on the ground to an unintended position.

Airbus planed to do this in April and May 2026, it said.

“This accident also highlights the importance of maintenance engineers conducting a detailed inspection of new parts for potential damage before installation. In this case, a titanium hydraulic pipe was just 1mm out of shape – slightly oval, not round. It is very likely the deformity occurred when the pipe’s packaging was damaged in transit between Airbus warehouses in 2015,” the commission said.

“The damage was not detected before or after installation and failed after 18 months of service.”

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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 Employment Relations Authority found Fire and Emergency (FENZ) breached good faith and its duty to consult under its collective agreement with unions in how it handled its restructure proposal last year.

FENZ proposed in November last year to cut 140 positions and make changes to 700 roles.

Of these, both the Public Service Association (PSA) and New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFA) said 97 non-firefighting roles would go, and 66 significantly changed.

The ruling released on Wednesday found FENZ did not consult early enough to allow for consultation on whether the change should occur and the reasons for the change.

“After consultation commenced, FENZ has not demonstrated it engaged with the unions motivated by a desire to reach consensus or used genuine effort to respond to the views of those being consulted, when the unions communicated with FENZ about its views on the process FENZ had adopted,” said the ruling by authority member Sarah Kennedy-Martin.

She found that FENZ breached its statutory obligation of good faith, saying the timing of the release of the consultation document happened when PSA was tied up with bargaining, and NZPFA was having its annual conference.

Kennedy-Martin said this was not conduct aimed at “maintaining a productive employment relationship”.

The authority member said all parties agreed that the issue of compliance orders could be reserved, and FENZ indicated it would consult with the unions in accordance with the authority’s conclusions.

In a statement to RNZ, FENZ acknowledged the decision.

“We acknowledge the findings that we could have done more in regards to consulting with the unions. We are now considering the findings and working through what this means for our next steps”.

Unions vindicated, want to see FENZ and govenrment commit to no job losses

PSA’s national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said the ruling was damning for FENZ, and a significant victory for all FENZ workers.

“FENZ worked up a sweeping restructure in secret for months, then gave unions 24 hours’ notice before dropping it on the whole organisation including during the NZPFU annual conference and while PSA bargaining was under way. The authority has confirmed that was unlawful,” she said.

“What we now need to see is FENZ and the government take this proposal off the table, to commit to investing in FENZ, and to guarantee that no one will lose their job,” said Fitzsimons.

The roles affected by FENZ’s proposal included critical expertise, such as training for firefighters and volunteers, and roles helping communities understand fire prevention work, said Fitzsimons.

“These job losses are dangerous for all New Zealand,” she said.

NZPFU’s national secretary Wattie Watson said the madness of the restructure had to stop.

The union said some workers have had to live with the uncertainty of their future employment repeatedly, during FENZ’s rollercoaster of restructures since its establishment in 2017.

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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 woman who works overnight shifts as a cleaner at Auckland Airport says she is feeling the effects of surging petrol prices.

The Finance Minister said she was looking at targeted, temporary support for some households if the Middle East conflict worsened.

Nicola Willis said the help could be available, for example, to a cleaner needing to drive to work early in the morning when there was no public transport.

E tū union member Ayesha Paki had a roughly 30-minute drive, six days a week, to her job at Auckland Airport.

“Everything is expensive and now the petrol has affected all of us cleaners and low pay workers. We are so worried,” she said.

Paki, who worked 10pm to 6am shifts, said it was a very tough time.

“Petrol is going up everytime I go in my car,” she said.

“We are renting and we have to pay the bills, electricity, put the food on the table, it’s hard for us.”

Paki said any government support would be appreciated.

“If our wages go up it will be easier for us. That’s why we fight for our Fair Pay agreement but then they scrapped it, and we cleaners are suffering and struggling.”

On Monday, Willis said the government was “anticipating, and to the extent possible mitigating the impact on the New Zealand economy, including what could potentially be acute cost of living pressures for some households”.

“From the government’s point of view, we need to ensure that any support we provide to households is temporary, is targeted and is timely,” she said.

Willis said official advice was that reducing fuel excise would “send the wrong signal” and not be sufficiently targeted.

Willis said her household would not need as much help financially as others, using the example of a South Auckland airport cleaner who could not take the bus to work.

“We need to make sure that we have in mind those New Zealanders who face the most acute cost of living pressures rather than having blanket responses which tie up a lot of others.”

She would not give a price petrol would have to reach at the pump before the government would take action, saying prices had been higher in the past.

“I am working with the Treasury and we will have a range of options,” she said, which would be discussed with Cabinet. She said whatever the government did would have to be prudent and not contribute to inflation.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Hopes of retaining an 18-hole golf course in Takapuna have been sunk – but 12 holes could still be on the cards for the golfers.

Auckland Council is turning half of the existing 18-hole golf course at AF Thomas Park into a floodwater catchment, aimed at mitigating the city’s increasing flood risks.

The Wairau area on Auckland’s North Shore has been hit hard by floods, and the council has said its decision was about “saving lives, protecting homes and businesses, and strengthening the city against flood risk”.

But thousands of people have signed a petition to keep the 18 holes on the course – with supporters including Hall of Fame golfer Dame Lydia Ko.

The council decided last year to push ahead with plans to reduce the course to nine holes.

But Takapuna Golf Course is taking another swing at the proposal, and has come up with a plan to give the council the area it needs for the wetland, while squeezing 12 holes into the remaining space.

Takapuna Golf Course head greens keeper Stephen Dowd told Checkpoint the three extra holes would make a big difference, and followed moves in Europe and the United States towards 12-hole golf.

“It just gives us a more meaningful round of golf. We can play two sixes, which you can associate with playing two nines, and it can be more like a normal round of golf, rather than just playing nine holes, and it lets us operate pretty much as we are now. We can sell an extra tee-off time in the morning for a couple of hours, so people can play the other six.

“It just lets us operate and then we can continue to provide more affordable golf to as many Kiwis as we can, and get more people on the course.”

Dowd said the golf course had not yet seen the council’s full proposal, but they were confident they could make the 12 holes work.

“We just have to come up with our own plan. They’ve seen our plan and we believe some of them actually like it.

“We anticipate the wetland will take up around a third of the course. So we need about 22 hectares of the rest of the course.”

He said they were working with a designer and were trying to accommodate other peoples wishes that they wanted extra recreation on the course.

“If we want more land, it won’t be very much more, only two or three more hectares.”

The local community board will discuss the new proposal at a meeting next week.

While the golfers had fought to keep the 18 holes, Dowd said they had accepted that the course needed to change.

“Obviously, the flooding was a massive issue and that was last year’s fight, we made the decision last year that we needed to start working with the council.

“And we think this is a good plan that accomplishes all their goals, while leaving meaningful golf on Takapuna Golf Course for our 100,00 users we get every year.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

• Ministry of Education pauses reviews and changes to rural school bus routes.
• Officials to review policy and consult with schools and communities.
• Changes already brought in won’t be reversed.

Rural families worried about whether their children are still eligible for government-funded buses to school can for now breathe a sigh of relief.

The Ministry of Education confirmed it’s pushed pause on reviews into compliance with rules such as attending the closest high school while it reviews its transport assistance policy.

It’s a welcome decision for regions where changes were due to soon take hold, but has left those already affected feeling frustrated.

Grateful for pause

Tairāwhiti farmer Toby Williams’ two sons attend Gisborne Boys’ High School.

Changes to take effect in the Gisborne region from the second term of the school year are now on hold.

But before the ministry backdown this week, Williams was worried about how his boys and dozens of other teens in the area would get to school from next term. They were ruled ineligible for ministry-funded services to Boys’ High.

“We’re really grateful to the ministry for pausing these changes for us and giving us that bit of extra time to work with them and the schools and the transport providers to be able to provide some routes that work for the community, but also work in terms of being cost efficient and affordable for the government.”

Williams’ 17-year-old son Tristin was stressed about passing his driving test, in case he had to get himself and younger brother Jackson into town, 30 minutes away, each day for class.

Williams wonders why rules most people didn’t know about were suddenly being enforced after being overlooked for so long.

“This bus has run for 40 years and must have been through multiple iterations of reviews. There were 50 kids on the bus.

“It was funny how the bus suddenly needed such drastic changes in our region. Parents were left a bit dumbfounded by the whole thing.”

Changes won’t be reversed

The ministry reviewed more than 250 routes, out of about 1400, throughout the country.

Although it’s paused making new changes, it won’t undo those it’s already made, it confirmed to RNZ on Wednesday.

In Manawatū, Nikita Walker helped organise a user-pays service for children from the towns of Rongotea and Tangimoana to get to school in Palmerston North.

The ministry said a school in Foxton is closer, so it will only put on buses there despite previously funding students on the Palmerston North service for decades.

“It’s just hugely disappointing. There are a lot of us who are really in hard times, financially, and we’re all struggling to be able to afford these term passes.”

The user-pays service cost more than $500 a term, she said.

“There has been a drop off in numbers due to the prices. Some people were able to just manage to get by with doing a few concession cards to get on the bus, however, long term it’s just not doable.”

Becs Barr’s petrol bill has tripled to more than $300 a week this year now she has to drive her son Murphy to and from school in Palmerston North from their Horowhenua home.

She’s also unhappy changes already implemented will stay.

“I find that quite bizarre. It should be the same for everybody. All our children should get to school.

“It seems crazy that there are decisions they’ve made for term two that they’re going to put a hold on, but they can’t reverse decisions for term one.”

Thorough review needed – principal

The ministry has said reviews were a routine, ongoing part of its work, but now said it was reviewing its transport assistance policy so changes were “lasting and reflect up to date policy settings”.

“Education minister Erica Stanford has been discussing current transport settings with the ministry for some time and, based on our advice, agreed last week to initiate a policy review,” said James Meffan, the ministry’s group manager for school transport.

“We’ll work with schools, communities and transport providers, and we’ll keep people updated on next steps.”

Gisborne Boys’ High School headmaster Tom Cairns said the ministry needed to come up with something that worked in the regions.

“I think the policy certainly needs to be reviewed and I think it needs to be far more comprehensive than the current review, which was, ‘We’ve got a policy from 1908. We have to enact it.’

“There needs to be some community consultation for it to be purposeful and there was none of that.”

He said schools were just told what was happening for the now-paused changes to the Gisborne region, with no chance to have a say.

“I believe there needs to be a thorough look at it. The untidy bits based around arbitrary geographic locations of schools need to be done away with.”

About 300 students at Palmerston North Boys’ High School are affected by bus eligibility changes brought in this term.

Rector David Bovey said some were finding it hard to get to school.

“The fact that they’ve stopped to have a look at it now is possible, of course, but I’m hoping that will be expanded to looking at the areas where the changes have already been made.”

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