She had the surgery three years ago after being on the waiting list in New Zealand for years. Diabetes was a problem in her family and, having seen it kill two grandmothers and watching her mother battle it, she knew she needed to do something.
“If I didn’t do something I was going to die.”
Her GP was supportive and she made an application to her KiwiSaver provider, which was approved. The procedure meant she was now not diabetic any longer.
She had started a Facebook page, I left my stomach in Turkey, to share her story to help others. It now has about 7000 members. Many wanted to be able to tap into their KiwiSaver accounts to fund the surgery, too.
She said the bar seemed to be shifting and providers were putting more hurdles in place for people to access their money. “It’s really unfair. If your GP says it’s going to save your life, what’s the problem? It should be a no-brainer.”
She said New Zealand did not have enough space in the public system to help people with diabetes or obesity to get the treatment they needed. “The government needs to look at that so people don’t need to go overseas.
“A lot of people are against people doing this and they shouldn’t be. I have six children and three grandchildren and if I didn’t do it, I would be dead. KiwiSaver providers need to understand that and have a bit more empathy.”
She said many people contemplating surgery were trying to support families and dealing with rising costs for other essentials, like food.
Most common reason
A debt solutions charity that helps six KiwiSaver providers, including Milford Asset Management and Simplicity, with their hardship withdrawal applications said bariatric surgery was now the most common reason that people applied for their money.
Debtfix chief executive Christine Liggins said the top three reasons she saw for hardship withdrawals were bariatric surgery, a new car and the cost of living.
The number of people seeking to withdraw money from KiwiSaver on hardship grounds had increased sharply in recent years, to almost 60,000 last year.
Withdrawals for bariatric surgery would usually only be possible under significant financial hardship grounds, if it was needed to treat a medical condition and people did not have another way to pay for it.
“We know there’s a problem with bariatric surgery in New Zealand.”
She said Debtfix was working to compile data so it could show the government the problem.
“We can say, there’s a problem with health here. We need to be addressing it over there. And then it doesn’t come back and bite us when they turn 65 and they’ve no money … we need some cross party conversations and decisions so that we can actually preserve KiwiSaver for people’s retirement and not doing the here and now.”
She said it was rare to see requests for other surgeries.
“I think we just need to get a few people around and talk about hardship and how we can reduce the number of hardships, but also make hardship withdrawals actually work better for the people experiencing hardship.”
Rupert Carlyon, founder of Koura KiwiSaver.Supplied
Rupert Carlyon, founder of Koura KiwiSaver, said there was “clearly interest” in borrowing for bariatric surgery.
The scheme had had a few people asking questions recently, he said. “We haven’t paid one out.”
He said it was driven by social media and people on platforms like TikTok talking about what people needed to do to get their money out.
Kernel founder Dean Anderson said he was aware some KiwiSaver members tried to “shop around” providers to find one that would give them access.
A spokesperson for Public Trust, a supervisor for many KiwiSaver schemes, said people should talk to their KiwiSaver providers or other trusted sources of information for guidance on applying for medical costs.
“When we look at the cases we see as a supervisor, surgery and medical care are cited in a relatively small number of financial hardship applications that come to us for assessment. “
Tai Ahmu said it was important that Polynesian people in particular felt able to make their health a priority “to be there more for their grandchildren”.
She said the government and KiwiSaver providers needed to recognise the importance of whakapapa and support for people seeking help.
Giancarlo Italiano joined a growing list of coaching casualties across the A-League.AAP / Photosport
Giancarlo Italiano’s abrupt departure from the Wellington Phoenix is the latest twist in what has become a season of upheaval for A-League coaches.
Three A-League head coaches have failed to see out the 2025/26 campaign, and fewer than half of the league’s 12 clubs have the same man in charge now that they did a year ago.
Across the football world, coaches are rarely afforded patience when results are not going their way, and the A-League has proved no exception. Since the season kicked off in October, almost every month has brought at least one coaching change.
Italiano abruptly stepped down at the weekend following his side’s heavy derby defeat to Auckland FC. Italiano had been the head coach since 2023 and left without addressing the playing group.
He joined a growing list of coaching changes: Western Sydney Wanderers coach Alen Stajcic was sacked in January, while Perth Glory appointed Adam Griffiths to a permanent role in December after firing David Zdrilic in October.
Central Coast Mariners lost coach Mark Jackson to an overseas opportunity on the eve of the season in October and promoted Warren Moon from caretaker to full-time last month.
Only five clubs have the same coach in charge at this point of this season that had at this stage last year after off-season changes to the Newcastle Jets, Brisbane Roar and Adelaide United.
Wellington were the latest to be swept up in that instability. Italiano’s sudden departure left the Phoenix scrambling for a steady hand, turning once again to a familiar figure inChris Greenacre.
Wellington Phoenix’s loss to Auckland FC was the last time Giancarlo Italiano was in charge of the A-League team.Kerry Marshall / www.photosport.nz
Greenacre has been Phoenix head coach three times before in an interim capacity and knew well the “cut throat industry” that football coaching was.
“In the past it was needs must and I was kind of the quickest fix and this time it was certainly different,” Greenacre said of the call-up from the reserve team to main side this week.
“I’ve never been in a rush to get to wherever the end may be [in coaching] and I’m literally taking it day by day and that’s the truth.
“How this pans out who knows … the club have been really loyal to me and giving me an opportunity to grow and the club have been patient, but I think we’ve also been loyal to each other which is quite fitting.
“I want to be successful here whether I’m the long term answer or not, I don’t want to go anywhere else I want to be successful here and maybe that’s a point of difference.”
Despite having been in discussions with Phoenix’s director of football Shaun Gill for a while before Italiano left, Greenacre was wary that those who ran clubs could change their mind on appointments.
“I understand how football works and the sooner you get carried away with it it’ll bite you on the backside.”
Auckland FC coach Steve Corica.Kerry Marshall / www.photosport.nz
Auckland FC’s Steve Corica has been a head coach in the A-League since 2018. He arrived in Auckland for the club’s first season in 2024/25 after being fired by Sydney FC just weeks into the season prior due a run of losses.
“I don’t like any coach getting the sack, it’s always hard,” Corica said.
Corica did not think Italiano would be the last A-League coach out before next season.
He said a change of coach always had an impact on a club.
“Sometimes for the good and sometimes not so.
“It’s like players, coaches are the same, [club owners] are looking at strengthening their squad so decisions need to be made and I’m sure there’s going to be some turnaround probably next year as well.”
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New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.RNZ / Mark Papalii
Winston Peters says the “last thing we should do is go and panic” and make a classic mistake “based on blind ideology” in response to Air New Zealand’s financial loss.
But the New Zealand First leader said “politicians should know what they’re talking about” before suggesting a sale.
On Thursday, David Seymour floated the idea after the company posted a bottom-line loss of $40 million in the six months to December.
“Get woke, go broke,” he said, “We hear about electric planes, glossy reports on climate change, paper cups in the Koru lounge. What they can’t seem to do is take off and land on time.”
ACT leader David Seymour.RNZ / Mark Papalii
The Prime Minister brushed off questions about it, saying there would be no asset sales this political term.
But New Zealand First has long opposed selling off state-owned assets.
Peters took to social media to acknowledge Air New Zealand needed to start being on-time and reducing regional costs, but said calls to sell shares when the airline market was in a downturn were “economic lunacy”.
He pointed out airlines were struggling worldwide, partly because there were not enough engines for the aircraft. He said no one had said anything about selling the airline when it had posted a profit.
“Sometimes there’s a downturn, but we can get on top of it.
“We should not go back to the foolishness of Labour and National selling off assets in the past.”
Peters said the added value of Air New Zealand being “owned by us” went to taxpayers and the New Zealand economy.
If it was owned internationally, that value would go to a foreign economy and New Zealand would be used as a place for “economic exploitation”.
“It’s clear as daylight.
“The former CEO warned us of this two years ago, so politicians should know what they’re talking about.”
He said it was a conversation for the upcoming election.
Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds also rejected the idea of selling the airline.
Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds.RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
She acknowledged performance mattered and the board must be accountable for that, “but a short term loss doesn’t actually justify selling a strategic asset and a really key part of New Zealand’s infrastructure”.
“The real taxpayer risk would be losing control of regional routes and international connectivity if ownership shifted offshore.”
She also challenged the Deputy Prime Minister to explain to regional communities how selling it would guarantee connections for their region.
The Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said asset sales were the very reason New Zealanders’ bills were so high, and that privatisation enriched shareholders at the expense of everyday people.
“That’s when profit comes first – passengers, workers, and regional accessibility comes last.”
She said the Greens had always believed assets built by New Zealanders should remain in public hands.
“The Co-Deputy Prime Minister is currently selling more of the poison as though it were the medicine.”
RNZ spoke to people in Wellington on Thursday evening in the after-work rush hour.
“I think it’s important that we have an airline that works well for our country. We need to be able to get around.”
“As a consumer, it’s disappointing that they have such high air prices. I think there’s some fundamental issues around that. It’s a tough business, but privatising isn’t something that I personally or politically would ever want to see happen with an asset like that.”
“It’s our national airline, so probably it makes sense to keep it because we really can’t afford for it to go under, can we?”
“I do love flying Air New Zealand. It’s a great airline!”
“We’ve got to hold on to it. We’ve sold a lot, and it’s not really been of benefit. It’s a short term solution.”
“It depends on who’s gonna own it, right? I don’t really want someone who doesn’t give a shit about the environment, and will just keep charging high prices for flights.”
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The blobfish, which was declared the world’s ugliest animal in 2013, beat the odds to win the competition last year.Bhakti Patel
Voting for Fish of the Year opens on Saturday.
The competition run by the Mountain to Sea Conservation Trust celebrates New Zealand’s weird, wonderful, and often overlooked marine life.
Much like the well known Bird of the Year, the competition spotlights native species and raises awareness about their conservation status.
“People might not realise that so many of our fish in New Zealand are actually endemic, which means they’re found only in New Zealand waters,” said co-director of the conservation trust Samara Nicholas.
The blobfish was not a contender this year, but there were plenty of other fish in the sea.
An orange roughy.Mountains to Sea
“There’s some really interesting deep water fish like orange roughy to some of our highly threatened banded kōkopu for example,” said Nicholas.
“Then some really weird and interesting fish all in between, like the sunfish, which is the heaviest fish in the world, and the torrentfish, which is really well adapted to living in rivers where there’s high water flow.
“So it’s a great opportunity to learn more about the fish that call New Zealand home and to get engaged and excited and try and make your favourite fish win.”
Voting runs from Saturday 28 February – Sunday 15 March.
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It disrupted the transfer of radiology images – including X-rays, CT and MRI scans – for two hours across both regions.
PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons described the outage as “critical”, forcing clinicians and radiographers to text and phone each other scan results.
“The impact of clinicians needing to resort to text and phone to pass on vital information is that mistakes are more likely, it takes longer, and when you’re dealing with patients in ED or in operating theatres, time is everything.
“It is absolutely critical that these systems are of a modern standard and that these outages don’t keep happening.”
Health New Zealand said the outage was resolved quickly on Thursday afternoon, and standard back-up processes were used while it was happening.
A spokesperson said patient care was not compromised.
Fitzsimons said no IT outage affecting critical clinical information was minor.
“These are important systems that clinicians rely on, and that need fixing because they are not set up to a modern standard, and we’ve lost the experts who know how to patch them quickly.”
“More [outages] will occur, because we’ve lost the data and digital experts from Health New Zealand, after government-imposed funding cuts.”
She wanted Health New Zealand to launch a review into this outage, as it had for the [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/585415/staff-public-deserve-answers-after-major-it-outage-at-hospitals-union-says
incident on 28 January].
Health Minister Simeon Brown said he was aware of a “brief IT issue” in the northern region on Thursday.
“I want to thank staff for resolving the issue swiftly and ensuring there was no disruption to patient care.”
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The study analysed 26847 mental health callouts – or 5.7 percent of total callouts between July 2022 and June 2023.Supplied / St John
A study into thousands of ambulance callouts for mental health shows most were non-urgent, and should have been managed in the community.
It found “most callouts [89.8 percent] were of low acuity, with a notable proportion of repeat callouts, suggesting unmet need for mental health care”.
That, and the fact that many – 32.8 percent – did not need to be taken to hospital, “suggest that many mental health callouts may be managed outside emergency settings”.
The study, published in the NZ Medical Journal on Friday, analysed 26847 mental health callouts – that was 5.7 percent of total callouts between July 2022 and June 2023 – before police began to retreat from mental health callouts.
Events which counted towards the study included attempted suicide, self-harm and anxiety.
The study also showed inequalities based on ethnicity. Māori accounted for 22.1 percent of these callouts, and Pacific people for 4.6 percent.
There is a disproportionately high rates of mental health related callouts among younger Māori and Pacific people compared to younger non-Māori or Pacific people, and higher proportions of callouts in areas of lower socio-economic deprivation.
Nearly a third (30.8 percent) of mental health callouts occurred in the most deprived areas (quintiles 9 and 10), with the highest proportions among Māori (47.7 percent) and Pacific peoples (49.9 percent).
Female patients accounted for over half of these callouts across all ethnicities.
“Continued reliance on emergency services suggests inadequate access to or insufficient community-based support,” the report says.
One of its authors, Gabby Harding, a lecturer in paramedicine at Auckland University of Technology and a paramedic herself with Hato Hone St John, said the low number of people taken to hospital means many would have been referred to community-based care.
“So it suggests that people are seeking support when other services aren’t available. As we know, people ring 111 when they are at a crisis point or in distress.”
Repeat callouts, where people called back within the year, suggested there may be a gap in continuous, accessible and culturally safe care, she said.
She said it was an opportunity to develop links between ambulances and community-based mental health services.
Ambulance services could refer people back to community services, but people’s access would still rely on those services being available, which was different by area.
Recommendations from the report
The study says future mental health policies should make it a priority to ensure appropriate systems, services and support for Māori and Pacific peoples were in place.
It also points out that addressing socio-economic determinants of mental health, like financial strain, unemployment and poor access to healthcare services, could improve people’s mental health.
“Addressing these issues requires comprehensive policy changes and a targeted approach to mitigate stressors such as racism, socio-economic inequities, stigmatisation and systemic barriers to healthcare,” the study says.
Wellington City Mission says sometimes people just need to talk
Pip Rea from the Wellington City Mission said people experiencing mental health distress could be having suicidal thoughts or a panic attack, and at that point, “they don’t know where to go, they don’t know what to do”.
“Something that’s ingrained in us as New Zealanders is to call 111, ask for an ambulance, and they will help us, they will know what to do – and so that’s what people do.”
Often by that stage, people had tried places like their GP or talking to someone, and had reached crisis point.
She said the City Mission had a good relationship with Wellington Free Ambulance, meaning people could be redirected to their Crisis Cafe, which was open all hours.
“A community, peer-led response – that’s what works, not a clinicalised model such as ED.”
It also meant repeat callers had somewhere else to go, rather than calling 111 in future.
Their service was “not over capacity, but we definitely are busy”, with numbers increasing month-on-month. In the Crisis Cafe’s first 11 months of operation, they had had more than 750 people through the doors, she said.
Wellington City Mission had a good relationship with Wellington Free Ambulance and people could often be redirected to their Crisis Cafe, Pip Rea said.RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Minister says people reach out for loneliness and stress – issues which are ‘serious’ but ‘non-urgent’
The Minister for Mental Health, Matt Doocey, said his office’s own work had shown similar trends to this recent study.
“When we started working toward a mental health response to 111 calls, we started by examining the data. What we found was that a significant number of calls were being coded as “1M” by police, a category used for mental health,” he said.
People were reaching out, some repeatedly, for issues like loneliness, stress about housing or finances, or other social challenges.
“While these are serious and important issues, they are not always situations requiring an immediate response,” Doocey said.
He said this data backed the need for the government’s rollout of mental health co-response teams, which would work alongside police or ambulance staff to respond to 111 calls.
“I recently visited a co-response team who spoke about the value of having a joined-up response, particularly in dealing with repeat callers, as they know the person well and can respond accordingly,” he said.
Matt Doocey said his office’s own work showed similar trends to the study’s.RNZ / Mark Papalii
Health NZ says more work to do, but investment is being made
Health NZ national director for mental health and addiction Phil Grady said the agency was committed to providing faster access to primary and specialist mental health and addiction services while growing the mental health workforce to meet increasing need.
Investment so far included:
The $10 million Mental Health Innovation Fund, aimed at supporting faster access to a greater range of community-led support, like Ki tua o Matariki to run peer support groups for expectant mothers aged 15-24 in Auckland.
A $61.6m investment, announced in late 2025, to expand crisis recovery cafés and peer support in emergency departments.
Money from Budget 2025 was being used to roll out co-response teams and expand telehealth capacity.
$3.5m annual funding boost to specialist mental health services for infants, children and teens in Tairāwhiti, Counties Manukau, and Waitematā.
Uptake was increasing for community-based services, with the Access and Choice programme having provided more than a million sessions since it began in 2020.
An additional 6072 people had received specialist services compared to the previous year, Grady said, and an additional 557 full-time-equivalent mental health workers had been recruited since March 2023.
“This is promising – but we know there is more to do, and we remain committed to improving services to meet the needs of communities,” Grady said.
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Housing market confidence continues to improve.RNZ
Housing market confidence continues to improve, though house price growth is expected to remain subdued.
“Indeed, we anticipate only muted house price growth in 2026. High inventory levels and some headwinds for housing demand are likely to temper house price growth,” the latest ASB Housing Confidence report said.
ASB chief economist Nick Tuffley said the results suggested confidence had moved past its weakest point, even if a strong price upswing was unlikely.
“House price expectations have clearly rebounded after a soft patch through 2025,” Tuffley said.
“However, high levels of housing supply and only moderate demand are likely to keep price increases relatively subdued through the first half of 2026.”
He said the outlook on interest rates was another reason why price growth would remain in check.
“With inflation ending 2025 above the Reserve Bank’s target band and mortgage rates already edging higher, people are now anticipating further increases this year,” Tuffley said.
“The switch over the quarter to fewer people expecting declining rates and more expecting higher rates was marked.”
However, the survey found rising optimism throughout the country, led by the South Island with a net 36 percent expecting house prices to rise over the coming year.
Auckland recorded the largest quarterly improvement, with net house price optimism rising to 33 percent.
“From a buyer’s perspective, prices are stable, supply is at a 10-year high and mortgage rates are still relatively low,” Tuffley said.
“However, rising expectations for both house prices and interest rates could prompt some buyers who have been sitting on the sidelines to act sooner rather than later, to avoid getting priced out.”
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Did ex-president Rodrigo Duterte’s actions merit an ICC trial? Here is how the prosecution, the victims’ representatives, and the defence are presenting their cases during the pre-trial at the International Criminal Court. Report compiled by Rappler.
The team of prosecutors, victims’ representatives, and the defence are laying out their cases aiming to prove — or challenge — whether Duterte’s actions warrant trial.
After this pre-trial hearing, the ICC judges may decide whether there is enough evidence to move forward to a full trial, a process that could define Duterte’s legacy and signal accountability.
The defence team, so far, has painted a portrait of a president who was tough, outspoken, and misunderstood, but whose actions, they argued, were within the law.
Rappler has highlighted some of the most striking statements from the sessions. This will be updated as the confirmation of charges progresses and ends tomorrow.
Day 1 — February 23, 2026
Deputy ICC prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang delivers his team’s opening statement. Image: Screenshot from ICC/Rappler
“Mr Duterte’s criminal plan and his intent were no secret. He not only shared them with his co-perpetrators and members of the [Davao Death Squad], but also made them abundantly clear to the general public in the numerous public statements that he made time and again.
“His intent and knowledge are shown by the multiple statements that he made throughout his mayoral and presidential tenure promising to reduce crimes by killing alleged criminals, promoting the common plan, and urging the police and even members of the public to kill alleged criminals.”
— Deputy ICC prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang on how Duterte’s public speeches demonstrate his intent and knowledge in promoting drug war killings
Victims representative: Filipino lawyer Joel Butuyan delivers his opening statement on behalf of the victims of Duterte’s drug war during the first day of confirmation of charges hearing. Image: Screenshot from ICC/Rappler
“The arrest and detention of Mr Duterte has not stopped impunity in the Philippines. The virus of impunity that he spread all over the country has become a cancer that has metastasised, infecting millions of Filipinos. Mr. Duterte has created clones of himself. He converted millions of peace-loving citizens into bloodthirsty disciples who have become converts to the belief that violence and killings are valid solutions to societal problems.
“The killings masterminded by Mr Duterte continue to have consequences for the victims, even to this day, because of his clones. These mini-Dutertes harass, threaten, or commit outright violence against the victims and their families.”
— Lawyer Joel Butuyan, ICC-appointed common legal representative for victims, on the culture of impunity in the Philippines and the continuing threats faced by families of drug war victims
“If the charges are not confirmed in this case, one of the gravest concerns of the victims is that Mr Duterte will return to the Philippines as a conquering hero. He will resume preaching his gospel of impunity. In fact, if Mr Duterte could threaten to slap the judges of this court — which he did while he was president — this chamber should imagine the kind of terror-filled threats and the violent actions that can easily be used against the victims if the suspect walks free from this court.”
— Lawyer Joel Butuyan, ICC-appointed common legal representative for victims, on the potential risks if Duterte is not tried in court and punished.
Lead defence counsel Nicholas Kaufman delivers the defence team’s opening statement. Image: Screenshot from ICC/Rappler
“Rodrigo Duterte was, and will always remain, a unique phenomenon. His style of statesmanship was novel and unpalatable to many. His expletives and hyperbole grated, while his honesty and wild popularity irritated. He spoke openly from the heart, sincerely and truthfully. And what a contrast between him and his successor in Malacañang. For [Duterte], his word was his word, and the people knew it. For President Bongbong, his was for the wind and the people will not forget it.”
— Lead defence counsel Nicholas Kaufman on Duterte’s style of leadership and his contrast with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
“[Duterte]’s rhetoric was calculated to arouse fear and obedience, to instill fear in their hearts, and to inculcate a respect for the law in their minds. Nothing more, nothing less. That was his intent, and it was not criminal.”
— Lead defence counsel Nicholas Kaufman on Duterte’s use of rhetoric to enforce law and order.
Senior trial lawyer Julian Nicholls of the ICC prosecution team during the first day of the pre-trial hearing on Monday, February 23. Image: Screenshot from ICC/Rappler
“The reality is that Mr Duterte’s message was clear, and it was understood by the perpetrators, and it was followed. That message was: commit murder at my direction, and I will protect you, I will pay you, I will promote you. That’s what happened.
“And I’ll say this as well, your Honours, for purposes of this confirmation hearing, disregard every speech ever made by Mr Duterte. Throw them all out. There is still ample evidence of substantial grounds based on the other evidence which we have put on our list of evidence. And the evidence as a whole, when you weigh it together, will show that what [Nicholas Kaufman] said is not correct, that Mr Duterte intended for his subordinates to follow the law and that he was interested and that his speeches were simply bluster.”
— Senior trial lawyer Julian Nicholls of the ICC prosecution team, on why evidence beyond his public speeches demonstrates intent to commit killings.
Day 2 — February 24, 2026
Prosecution trial lawyer Edward Jeremy presents witness evidence on Day 2 of Rodrigo Duterte’s pre-trial proceedings. Image: Screenshot from the ICC/Rappler
“Mr Duterte goes on to comment on extrajudicial killings. And as he does so, your Honours will note the nonchalant, casual manner in which he draws his finger across his throat . . . And in this opulent, gilded presentation room, the officials laugh along with their president while he boasts about his skills in extrajudicial killing. Outside, on the streets of the Philippines, the bodies pile up.”
— Lawyer Edward Jeremy of the ICC prosecution team, on the behaviour of Duterte during public speeches that were shown in the confirmation of charges hearing
“And in the face of this public outcry, Mr Duterte was forced to temporarily withdraw police from drug operations . . . And this led to a reduction in the frequency of killings. In announcing this temporary withdrawal, Mr Duterte sarcastically stated that he hoped that this would satisfy ‘bleeding hearts and the media’. And, in this way, he publicly communicated that this was not a genuine effort to prevent crime, but rather a temporary attempt to placate public criticism. And less than two months later, Mr Duterte decided to once again scale up operations.”
— Lawyer Edward Jeremy of the ICC prosecution team, on Duterte’s response following the killing of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos
Robynne Croft of the ICC prosecution team discusses the charges against Duterte. Image: Screenshot from ICC/Rappler
“From everything you have heard over the past two days, there can be no doubt about Mr Duterte’s knowledge and intent. He intended that the crimes would be committed and he was aware that they would be committed as a result of implementing the common plan . . . Mr Duterte knew because he himself established the DDS to kill people. He repeatedly broadcast his intention to implement the common plan nationally if elected president. He made it clear that this would involve killing.
“Once he was president, he moved his trusted co-perpetrators from Davao into key national positions. And as the number of killings rose, Mr Duterte persisted with the common plan. He praised the 32 killings in a one-time big-time operation in Bulacan. He publicly named so-called high-value targets. He promised to protect police and as your Honours have heard, Mr Duterte has admitted to many of these things.”
— Lawyer Robynne Croft of the ICC prosecution team, on the deliberate orchestration of drug war killings and the role of the Davao Death Squad and national officials in executing the common plan.
Paolina Massida, OPCV principal counsel, speaks on behalf of the victims. Image: Screenshot from ICC/Rappler
“We speak for families who cannot be here, mothers who buried their sons, children who lost their parents, the spouses who now raise families alone, and communities that have lived for years under fear and silence and that continue to bear the consequences of violence that swept through their neighborhoods like a storm. These victims appear today before you not as mere statistics or distant figures or images in reports . . . but as human beings whose rights under the Rome Statute have been violated in the most profound ways.”
— Paolina Massida, principal counsel of the Office of Public Counsel for Victims (OPCV), on what the families of drug war victims had to go — and are going — through.
“The shooting could happen immediately, behind closed doors or in the street, or the victims would be taken away by the gunmen, only for shots to be heard minutes later and the body to be discovered by local residents. At times, bodies were dumped elsewhere, sometimes with hands tied or heads wrapped in plastic. Relatives typically found them after being alerted by policemen or by the neighbors.”
— Paolina Massida, OPCV principal counsel, on the pattern of killings during Duterte’s drug war.
“In other cases, victims tried to seek justice. They went to the police, to local officials, to government agencies. They filed reports, they asked for investigation, they begged for answers. Their pleas were ignored, their complaints were dismissed, their testimonies were doubted. In some cases, the very people they approached for help were the same ones involved in the violence. They were left with no path forward. No institution was willing to hear them, no authority was willing to protect them, no system was willing to acknowledge what was happening.”
— Paolina Massida, OPCV principal counsel, on the systemic failure in the Philippines to provide justice or protection for drug war victims.
“The victims have waited years for this moment. They have been silenced, stigmatized, and denied justice in their own country. Today, they stand before you with the hope that justice long denied may finally be within reach. This [ICC] is their last refuge. And today, on their behalf, we ask this chamber to affirm that their suffering matters, that their rights matter, and that the rule of law extends even to the most powerful by confirming all the charges against Mr Duterte and committing him to trial.”
— Paolina Massida, OPCV principal counsel, on the appeal of victims for accountability.
Filipino lawyer Gilbert Andres, ICC-appointed common legal representative for victims, discusses the plight of the victims. Image: Screenshot from ICC/Rappler
“Mr Duterte’s drug war campaign targeted the very humanity of the victims, of their families, and of their communities. In Filipino, the indirect victims expressed this in one sentence: ‘Inalisan kami ng dangal.’ We were stripped of our dignity.”
— Lawyer Gilbert Andres, ICC-appointed common legal representative for victims, on their dehumanisation and targeting during Duterte’s drug war.
Sir Richard Taylor has been honoured in Los Angeles tonight. File picture.RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Wētā Workshop co-founder Sir Richard Taylor has been recognised for his contributions to the visual effects industry at the 24th Annual VES Awards on Thursday night in Los Angeles.
Global professional honorary society the Visual Effects Society (VES) awarded Sir Richard the VES Visionary Award. Previous recipients include Christopher Nolan and J.J. Abrams.
“I’m honoured by this recognition from the Visual Effects Society, a community of artists and practitioners that I feel blessed to have been a part of since its inception,” Sir Richard said.
“I accept this award on behalf of all of our crew at Wētā Workshop, whose work has always been in creative service – using practical effects, design, and physical craftsmanship to help expand what’s possible in collaboration with VFX and film-making teams around the world.”
He said the award reflected the dedication, ingenuity, and generosity of spirit by the many artists who had joined him on his journey over the past 38 years.
He said he was incredibly grateful to the VES for celebrating the creative and collaborative journey of him and his colleagues and their efforts to bring imagined worlds to life.
The VES Visionary Award recognises an individual who has uniquely and consistently employed the art and science of VFX to foster imagination and ignite future discoveries by way of artistry, invention, and groundbreaking work. The society selected Sir Richard Taylor for his undeniable impact on the VFX industry as co-founder of the Wētā companies.
Wētā Workshop has provided the design and physical effects for more than 160 films, including the globally acclaimed The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Avatar trilogies, as well as Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong, the Thor series and Black Panther.
It has won five Academy Awards across three disciplines, special effects makeup, VFX, and costume design. Sir Richard has also received four BAFTAs and more than 35 national and international awards for his work within the creative industries.
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In the current furore about the fate of the ISIS brides, one would have expected we might have heard some strong advocates from the Labor left in caucus publicly arguing for their repatriation.
It’s the sort of issue that decades ago would probably have galvanised left wingers in the parliamentary party, who’d have been appalled at the Albanese government trying to prevent the return of Australian citizens. But the few Labor MPs being cited as concerned are strictly anonymous.
It’s the latest instance of how the caucus, and particularly the left, has mostly taken a vow of public silence. Unity and discipline are the watch words of the Albanese government, their importance reinforced in periodic lectures from the leader.
In face of such warnings, caucus members are afraid to rock the boat by public disagreement (Albanese wasn’t previously a left factional enforcer for nothing). On top of this, last term a very thin majority acted to keep people in line; this term, the massive majority has made backbenchers feel a special obligation to their leader. Many of the newer members are community-focused and not especially ideological. Also, there are still memories of the consequences of fractures in the Rudd/Gillard years.
Albanese boasts he has the most diverse caucus ever. More than half its members are women, and multiple ethnic backgrounds are represented. Presumably, there is a broad church of views. But in public the congregation doesn’t vary from the words on the hymn sheet – talking points regularly prepared for them.
The public silencing of the caucus, and its left in particular, has been gradual over the years. Under various leaders from the right, including Bob Hawke, the left was vocal; under a PM from the left, it is docile. Former senator Doug Cameron, once a left firebrand, says, “a left leader has neutered the caucus left, and left them mute and subservient”.
This has come as the PM and ministers flood the media. If Albanese misses more than a day or two in public, we conclude he must be hiding.
Behind the scenes the troops are carefully managed. Opinions are expressed at factional meetings. Albanese meets regularly with the factional conveners. He has two staff in his office whose jobs are to liaise with caucus members.
The changes in the media in recent decades have also made many caucus members risk averse. Internal division was always a good story for journalists. But now the 24 hour news cycle, with its elevation of the most trivial disputes, the growth of outrage as a lucrative journalistic brand, and the damage social media can do to a politician, all help the Labor party keep its people in line (it has been another story with the Liberal and National parties).
Of course there are exceptions to generalisations. The obvious one to the Labor backbenchers’ silence is former industry minister Ed Husic. Even as a minister Husic tested the limits, but now he speaks out whenever he wants.
But that’s against the background of having been dumped by the right faction in the post election reshuffle. Just as hopes of promotion can tie tongues, so demotion can loosen them spectacularly, as many a leader on both sides of politics has found.
There have been various minor instances of caucus members speaking out (such as right winger Mike Freelander) but they are few and far between.
Another big exception to Albanese’s disciplined caucus was senator Fatima Payman. But this was in a separate category because it involved crossing the floor (on a pro-Palestine Greens motion), which is a mortal sin under Labor rules. She was suspended and eventually jumped to the crossbench.
Labor’s rank and file is more radical than the parliamentary party. That means the party’s triennial conferences have to be carefully orchestrated, although the teeth of these gatherings had been pulled years ago. This year the party’s 50th national conference will take place in Adelaide in late July. It will be more a festival than, as claimed on the party’s website, its “highest decision-making forum”.
The lowering of dissident voices within Labor makes the government’s task easier, but may come with costs – beyond the obvious one of limiting public debate.
The sudden surge of support for One Nation is mostly hitting the conservative side of politics, but holds possible threats for Labor. A big factor in this growth is that people are increasingly disillusioned with the major parties.
In 2007 Labor had 43.38% of the primary vote; at the 2025 election it had 34.56%
People see the majors as professional political machines spouting lines. They come across as inauthentic, and the absence of transparent internal debate and differences is one aspect of that. This has contributed to the present popularity of disruptors, as varied as One Nation and teals.
A former convener of the caucus left faction, Julian Hill, now assistant minister for citizenship and multicultural affairs, this week delivered some pointed advice to the broad left of politics.
“Proudly embracing modern Australia means not shying away from love of our country, traditions and common symbols”, he said in his McKell Institute speech. “Inclusive patriotism helps to combat and blunt the rise and threat of right-wing authoritarianism and exclusive nationalism.”
He advocated “embracing Australia Day for as long as there is no consensus to change the date, as a day to reflect, celebrate and be proud of our country and our complex history.
“Accepting that the day will mean different things to different people. Many decent, good Australians love Australia Day and a public holiday before the school year kicks off. Many of us like to don Aussie garb and people don’t want to be sneered at for loving Australia.
“Why on earth would we cede our flag, our national day and institutions as propaganda for extremists and the hard right?
“We can all mark Anzac Day, and treasure our British Parliamentary democratic inheritance alongside Indigenous history and culture, and celebrate new people taking Australian citizenship as a welcome act of patriotism. And you can also disagree with anything I’ve said, agreeably.”
Hill’s advice to progressives sounds eminently sensible. But there is another point to be made. The political extremists in our community are not just on the right – there are plenty on the left too.
If left wingers on the caucus backbench remain silent in public on issues they care about, in the name of party unity, they may be ceding ground – for example among young voters – that extremists further out on the left flank are only too willing to occupy and exploit.
The woman reportedly disrupted a Qoran recitation night session at a musalla (a small prayer room) near her villa on Gili Trawangan123RF
A New Zealand woman who reportedly disrupted a mosque prayer session being played over a loudspeaker in Indonesia could face deportation.
According to the South China Morning Post the woman disrupted a Qoran recitation night session at a musalla (a small prayer room) near her villa on Gili Trawangan due to the noise.
It said she was unfamiliar with the traditional celebrations that could last until midnight and a meeting had since been held with her to provide understanding.
However immigration officials said her tourist visa expired in January, which could be grounds for deportation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says it’s providing consular assistance to a New Zealander in Indonesia.
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Police were called to a property on Hoani Street in the suburb of Northcote about 9.30pm on 18 February after an altercation.
Four people were injured.
One was in a critical condition and police said that person had now died in hospital.
Detective Inspector Nicola Reeves said the individuals involved were associated with Black Power and Mongrel Mob, but to date the investigation had indicated this was not a gang-motivated attack.
It appeared to be an isolated incident between specific individuals, Reeves said.
Reeves warned any form of retaliation would not be tolerated.
“Anyone considering taking matters into their own hands should expect an immediate and firm response.”
There was no information to suggest there was any ongoing risk to the wider public, she said.
Police would maintain a visible presence in the area.
Superintendent Jason Guthrie, Southern District Commander said the 46-year-old was arrested in Fraser’s Gully after his attempts to avoid Police, during which Police fired a shot which did not injure anyone.
“The man faces charges of assaulting Police, failing to stop for Police, driving a motor vehicle in a dangerous manner, and driving while disqualified third and subsequent.”
Officers involved in an operation to locate the man had seen him at a commercial premises on Kaikorai Valley Road at about 6pm and tried to apprehend him.
Police had been looking for the man in relation to a series of offences in the Otago coastal area over recent days.
Guthrie had previously said the man had fled in the vehicle but was later found in Brockville where police successfully deployed road spikes.
The man fled into the bush but was found soon after by a police dog team in the Fraser’s Gully area.
Earlier on Wednesday, police had cordoned the area near Three Mile Hill and Brockville as officers searched for the man.
He is due in Dunedin District Court tomorrow and an investigation into the events of Wednesday night remains ongoing.
The incident will also be referred to the Independent Police Conduct Authority as is standard procedure when a police firearm is used.
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NZPork has previously warned that local producers were struggling against a flood of lower-welfare imports.123RF
Farmers are renewing calls for the Government to enforce the same animal welfare standards that local pig farmers face on imported pork.
A group of farmers, pork producers and advocates wrote to the Prime Minister and government ministers this week, calling for a “level playing field” among locally-produced and imported product.
The pork industry has wanted this for years now, with industry group NZPork warning that local producers were struggling against a flood of lower-welfare imports.
NZPork estimated that more than 63 percent of pork consumed in Aotearoa came from countries like United States, Spain, Germany and Canada.
In some of these countries, farmers still used sow stalls (narrow cages for pregnant pigs) which New Zealand banned, and had smaller space requirements or longer periods allowed for sows in farrowing crates (that have just given birth to protect the piglets).
It came after last year’s controversial move by the Government to allow farmers a decade grace period before enforcing stricter welfare regulations.
Waikato dairy farmer Walt Cavendish was about to transition his Matamata farming operation into free range pork farming.
He signed the letter addressed to the Government, having said farmers, consumers and the animals deserve high welfare standards.
“New Zealand led the way in 1999 with the Animal Welfare Act. It was a world leading piece of legislation,” he said.
“We made quite a clear decision as a country that animal welfare matters. And we seem to have gone down the road of insisting on that for our farmers, but not insisting that for our imports.”
“For these family farming families, they’re trying to compete with product that would just not be allowed to be farmed here.”
Cavendish had met with officials on the matter previously, and said New Zealand could legally enforce what was called a public morals exemption on importers
“The biggest argument that’s put is the trade implications.
“They’re just so nervous about it.
“Everyone keeps using the trade argument.”
But he said it would be unlikely that those exporting nations would take retaliatory action in response, considering the New Zealand market’s small scale.
“It’s just an argument to try and stop this going further, and that’s why I’m quite firm that the public morals exemption is our best way forward.
“And realistically, with such a low amount of the export from these countries, that they’re hardly going to worry about it.”
He believed people’s fears that pork prices would go up even further if we ditched imports was a “false narrative”, as the national pig herd would likely increase to meet demand.
“Because ultimately, you would be able to produce more, so the cost of production would go down.
“We don’t really feel that the price will go through the roof at all, and there are examples that Animal Policy International have done in their research, where we’re talking peanuts, you know, very little. We’re talking cents, not dollars, in relation to the price adjustment per kilogram of pork.”
But he acknowledged it was a significant concern for cash-strapped consumers, though many of them were passionate about animal welfare.
“One of the big things I get from people that comment to me is their fear of the price going up, because they can’t even now afford a lot of the meat products on the shelf.
Trade minister Todd McClay said if New Zealand introduced requirements based on our methods of production, this could potentially undermine our efforts to prevent other countries from applying unjustified measures that could impact negatively on our agricultural exports.
“Last year animal product exports worth $42 billion reached plates around the globe, making up more than half of our total goods exports.”
“New Zealand is a global leader in farmed animal welfare standards, which underpin our trade reputation and the high quality of our global exports.”
McClay said New Zealand works with other countries to improve animal welfare standards through our membership in the World Organisation for Animal Health and through bilateral collaboration.
“It is important to recognise that different countries have different production systems. Approaches to caring for animals are adapted to local conditions and applying the same standard can sometimes result in different welfare outcomes.”
Food and Agriculture Organization’s latest statistics show New Zealand imported more than 47,000 tonnes of pork in 2023.
The “Fair for Farmers” campaign was launched at the Northland Fieldays in Dargaville today that ran into Saturday.
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When a war ends and peace agreements are signed, most people assume the danger is over. But for many communities around the world the danger remains in the ground, waiting.
Landmines and other explosives left behind after a conflict can stay active for decades – buried in the paths to school, in the fields that feed families and in the areas where children play.
In some countries, such as Laos and the Solomon Islands, bombs from conflicts decades ago still injure and kill.
This quiet danger isn’t a distant problem. Today, at least 57 countries are contaminated by landmines and other explosive ordnance, including mortars and grenades.
At the same time, some governments are stepping back from the Landmine Ban Treaty, the first comprehensive treaty aimed at eliminating landmines in conflicts. Decisions made in parliaments today can translate into hazards underfoot for years to come.
Our new research is aimed at understanding the ongoing risk landmines pose. The study is the world’s largest analysis of landmine and explosive ordnance casualties. And the data allows us to answer critical questions: who dies from these weapons, and why?
What do the numbers tell us?
In our study, we analysed 105,913 casualties across 17 conflict-affected countries, using operational data. These are the real world operational records routinely collected by national mine action authorities, the UN and other humanitarian organisations.
These records let us see what communities are facing without adding any burden to these often stretched services.
Across all settings, the case fatality rate was 38.8%. Put simply: for every ten people injured by landmines or other explosive ordnance around the world, nearly four die. This is extraordinarily high.
For comparison, the fatality rate for blast injuries among military personnel or civilians treated in well-resourced trauma centres is around 2%.
The gap highlights the brutal disparity between those who are injured in environments with functioning surgical and trauma care and those who are not.
Not all explosive threats are equal, either.
Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were the most lethal weapon type in our analysis.
IEDs are increasingly used in many modern conflicts and are often remotely detonated to maximise casualties. Their explosive force and unpredictability cause devastating injuries that many local health systems are simply not equipped to manage.
Understanding who dies, and why, is essential to preventing future deaths.EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
Who is most affected?
Although most casualties from landmines and explosive ordnance are men, women had significantly higher odds of dying from their injuries. This likely reflects unequal access to health care, delayed treatment, and social barriers that limit mobility and decision making in many conflict-affected settings.
Children’s risks are different – they are both vulnerable and resilient.
Children are particularly at risk of detonating landmines when playing, when caught up in active conflict, or simply as bystanders.
The reason is often tragic. Children tend to play together in groups, meaning when one child encounters an explosive remnant, several are injured at once.
Yet, overall, children in our data were more likely to survive their injuries than adults, perhaps because they sustain different injury patterns or receive care sooner when adults rush to assist.
But survival is only the beginning. Children may need multiple surgeries, new prostheses as they grow up, long-term rehabilitation and lifelong disability support. These are needs that many health systems struggle to meet.
Age also shapes outcomes. The highest odds of death were observed in adults aged 45–64. Older people may have pre-existing health issues and face greater barriers to reaching medical care, yet their needs can often be overlooked.
The human cost of explosives
The impact of landmines and explosive ordnance extends far beyond immediate injuries. These injuries disrupt people’s daily lives in ways that can entrench communities in poverty.
There are ways to mitigate the impacts of landmines and explosive ordnance, though. This is a preventable public health crisis.
Our findings highlight the urgent need to strengthen emergency, critical and surgical care in conflict-affected areas to reduce preventable deaths.
Reliable pre-hospital care, transport and basic surgical care saves lives. So does long-term rehabilitation and disability support, especially for children who will live with the consequences of these explosive weapons and injuries for decades.
As old conflicts continue and new ones emerge, explosive ordnance keep contaminating the places where people live, play, work and travel.
Understanding who dies, and why, is essential to preventing future deaths and ensuring that peace, when it comes, offers real safety.
Health NZ says the outage was resolved quickly without affecting patient services.123rf.com
Auckland and Northland hospitals were hit by an IT outage on Thursday afternoon.
Health New Zealand says the outage affected the transfer of radiology images at hospitals across Auckland and Northland for two hours.
The Public Service Association said the outage was “major”, and the system affected manages all medical images including x rays, CT and MRI scans.
National Secretary Fleur Ftizsimons said it’s the second critical failure in less than a month and put patient safety at risk, after clinicians were forced to use pen and paper throughout the night in late January.
“The PACs system impacted by the outage is a critical function of our hospitals which clinicians rely on to access images so they can assess and treat patients needing urgent treatment in EDs, in operating theatres and elsewhere.
“The outage means clinicians and radiographers must communicate by text and phone to pass on vital information from scans.
“Without a doubt this will slow down treatment, compromising care,” Fitzsimons said.
Fitzsimons said the government needs to immediately review funding for health digital services and IT infrastructure.
A Health New Zealand spokesperson said the outage was resolved quickly without affecting patient services.
“During the outage standard back-up processes were used for the reviewing of radiology images.”
The spokesperson said services were fully restored within two hours and patient care was not compromised.
AA chief policy and advocacy officer Simon Douglas told Checkpoint the government was trying to address the fact that there were now more drivers, more cyclists, more scooter riders and cities were increasingly more densely packed.
“So just a bit of a reset of the rules of the game so that everyone’s on the same page around some of these points of rub is a really good idea.”
One of the rules proposed by the government was to introduce a mandatory passing gap of between one and 1.5 metres, depending on the speed limit, to give motorists clearer guidance when passing cyclists and horse riders.
It is already recommended that motorists do not pass a cyclist closer than 1m, but Douglas said currently there was no enforceable rule around the correct distance for a driver to pass a cyclist.
“So what this gives us the opportunity to do is to say very very early in teaching young drivers to drive, there’s a rule that says that there’s a passing distance, a minimum passing distance.
“Setting that up as a rule, as an enforceable rule, really just says ‘you know we’re serious about this, this is one of those things that you need to learn to put into practice as a courteous driver’.”
It would be useful for everyone to know there was no equivocation about this in terms of whether it was a rule or a recommendation, he said.
“So we see it as a way of clarifying, removing doubt and just a way to help enforce good etiquette from a very early age.”
Another proposal is to require drivers travelling under 60km/h to give way to buses pulling out from bus stops.
Douglas said a recent AA survey found that about half of respondents thought you had to give way to a bus that was pulling out but the other half either thought you did not have to give way or didn’t know.
“At the moment the law isn’t, doesn’t say that a bus has right of way,” he said.
Driving was a complex task, he said.
“You’re in that moment where you’re think ‘well the bus is pulling out, does he or she have the right of way, do I scamper in front of them, do I wait behind them?’”
Currently some of the time there was a lack of certainty around what the rule was, he said.
Douglas acknowledged that sometimes people were just not driving courteously.
“One of the things about this set of rules is that it will give the opportunity for enforcement behaviour.
“So if you’re not giving a cyclist the right distance or you’re not letting the bus go past and there’s a police officer nearby, it gives them a tool and they will undoubtedly be able to levy a fine.”
That way drivers do not need to make a decision about how to act, he said.
“You just know, the bus has right of way, I will let the bus in.”
The government is consulting on two packages for rule changes, the first focuses on lane use and everyday road rules, while the second focuses on heavy vehicles.
Other proposed changes in its first package include allowing e-scooters to use cycle lanes, allowing children up to age 12 to ride their bikes on footpaths and clarifying signage rules so councils can better manage berm parking.
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Nitrous oxide has legitimate medical and catering uses, but if inhaled recreationally, the gas can have dangerous long-term side effects like nerve damage in the brain and spinal cord.Phanie via AFP
Police are warning that problems around the huffing of nitrous oxide products or nangs have escalated to where people are “playing chicken” and seeing whether they can drive without blacking out after inhaling the gas.
Nitrous oxide, known as laughing gas, has legitimate medical and catering uses – including being used to whip cream.
However, if inhaled recreationally, the gas can have dangerous long-term side effects like nerve damage in the brain and spinal cord.
And while it is illegal to sell for huffing or recreational purposes, a Checkpoint investigation previously found stores were selling large canisters of the gas, which contain hundreds of hits, with virtually no questions asked.
Tusha Penny, assistant police commissioner of road policing, told Checkpoint police had seen drivers huffing from balloons in eight districts across the country. She also said she had been sent a message from a road user in a rural area who had seen a driver huffing from a balloon on the road.
“It has gone from just individual-use, sitting behind a shop and huffing, [to] getting in a road and almost playing chicken to see whether you can black out and still drive the car,” she said.
“That has really escalated the potential for harm.
“We really want parents and people on the road to ring us, to let us know.”
These cases were still under investigation, she said.
“If we look at the Bay of Plenty, for example, since New Year, we know there’s been some absolutely fantastic work when they’ve highlighted this.
“There’s been an investigation done and a number of drivers have actually been prosecuted and are being dealt with at the moment.”
Despite that, Penny said police had decided to focus on “education” when it came to retailers selling nitrous products illegally.
“What we’re now asking them to do is work with us because we cannot have this amount of community harm that could happen from the illegitimate sale of this item.
“We’re sitting down, we’re giving them the letter, but we’re really explaining it to them,” she said.
“That is the approach we think is best to take at the moment around prevention for a short time, engagement, asking people to work with us.”
When asked how many prosecutions of retailers allegedly selling nitrous oxide products illegally police had taken, Penny was unable to say.
“We’re being really clear on the enforcement approach that we’re going to take, and then we will move to enforcement.”
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Mitch Barnett celebrates a Warriors win with young forwards Demitric Vaimauga and Tanner Stowers-Smith.NRL Photos/Photosport
Young NZ Warriors forward Jacob Laban recalls the day grizzled veteran Mitch Barnett drew a line in the sand for the Auckland club still chasing its first NRL crown.
“I felt like Barney, from the start, when he first came over, he set the expectation,” Laban told RNZ. “I still remember him, I think it was 2023, walking off the field and saying how he was disappointed in how everybody’s fitness was.”
Barnett had already logged 128 first-grade games for Canberra Raiders and Newcastle Knights, when he arrived at Mt Smart, so he had a fair idea of the standards required from the Aussie league competition.
“Everyone was making bad ‘Broncos’ times, stuff like that,” Laban continued. “He said he wanted the club to be in a better place before he leaves.
“Fast forward to now and everyone’s fit so far, and he’s put massive effort into that.”
In fact, coach Andrew Webster has singled out his players’ off-season fitness regime for special praise, as they prepare for the coming 2026 season.
“Over the Christmas break, they made a pact to each other that they would go away and enjoy the break, but come back fit and hit their targets,” Webster said. “This is the first time I’ve seen every single player do so and I’m really impressed with that.”
This week, the club announced Barnett, 31, would cut short his stay, leaving at the end of the season for personal reasons – his child’s medical needs – with a year still on his contract.
“I had to put my family first and they [the club] know the detail of the situation,” Barnett said. “They have been very supportive of it, but it hasn’t made the decision any easier.”
The clock on his time at the Warriors is now ticking loudly and those around him are taking stock of how their co-captain has impacted their lives.
Warriors forward Jacob Laban celebrates a try for the Warriors.Photosport
When Barnett first signed in 2022, he was serving a six-game suspension for raising an elbow on an opponent in a tackle and may not have seemed an ideal addition to an ill-disciplined team already lurching through its worst-ever campaign.
In his first season, he helped them to within a game of the NRL grand final – the furthest he had progressed in his career – and while subsequent bids have fallen short, on a personal note, the front-rower has earned representative honours with New South Wales and Australia during his tenure on this side of the ditch.
Regardless of how his final season here pans out, Barnett – along with fellow veterans James Fisher-Harris and Kurt Capewell – will have already left his mark through the incredibly talented forwards the Warriors now have on their roster.
Capewell’s future with the Warriors is also uncertain, with his current contract ending this season.
Over the past couple of years, they have helped develop players like Laban, Leka Halasima, Demitric Vaimauga, Tanner Stowers-Smith and Eddie Ieremia-Toeava, who have shown their abilities in first grade and earned long-term contracts with the club.
“He’s been huge,” front-rower Tanner Stowers-Smith, 21, told RNZ of Barnett. “He’s one of the players I model my game on, just being tough as and doing all the dirty stuff that some people don’t want to do all the time – he’s always someone you can rely on.
“He’s personally helped me a lot with learnings and not just me, but the other young boys in the team. He’s so knowledgeable and he shares all he knows – all the tricks around the game and ways you can get through stuff.
“He’s got a lot of tricks in his book – he’s a real master of the dark arts.”
When Barnett’s 2025 season ended prematurely with ruptured knee ligaments, Stowers-Smith was one to seize the opportunity that presented itself, debuting against the Dolphins in May, logging 13 appearances and signing a contract extension through 2028.
Tanner Stowers-Smith takes stock during the pre-season trial against Manly Sea Eagles.Kerry Marshall / www.photosport.nz
In two pre-season trials, he has shown his readiness to step up to the next level, leading his team in running metres and tackles against Manly Sea Eagles.
While some may seek a like-for-like replacement for Barnett on the open market, ultimately, his successor may already wear a Warriors jersey.
“It’s pretty crazy to think where I was 12 months ago,” Stowers-Smith said. “I never thought about how far I could go in a year’s time, but the team’s done a lot of work and the boys have helped me along, so I’m definitely feeling a lot more confident.
“I base my game around effort areas and working hard, but I want to bring a bit more attacking flair, which comes down to my confidence and backing my ability with the ball.
“Maybe getting my hands on the ball a bit more, which I’ve been doing in the pre-season, has helped me a lot.”
Stowers-Smith hacked 10 seconds off his 1.2km Bronco time over the summer, which also helped.
Like Barnett, Laban’s 2025 season also ended early, when he was the victim of a hipdrop tackle from Dolphins veteran Felise Kaufusi that fractured his leg.
He narrowly lost a race against time to return for the reserves’ NSW Cup championship run, but has also reported back for duty in good nick, taking 15 seconds off his Bronco and scoring a try for the Māori against Indigenous in their pre-season All Stars clash.
“I felt like I was finding my groove into first grade, getting a bit more experience behind me, but unfortunately it was cut short,” Laban, 21, said.
“I didn’t go into much of a dark place, but I felt like I missed out on a lot in terms of the boys rocking up to games and me seeing them out there.
“It just sucked – I felt left out, but my mental health was pretty good and I just pushed through it.”
Seeing his mentor going through a similar process with his knee no doubt helped that mindset.
Barnett now faces a final examination – four days of testing in Sydney – before confirming his comeback to play in the early rounds.
Mitch Barnett’s 2025 season ends with a knee injury against South Sydney Rabbitohs.Anthony Kourembanas/NRL Photos
The Warriors open their schedule with home games against Sydney Roosters and Canberra Raiders, and Barnett’s next outing will mark his 50th for the club.
Perhaps when disappointed fans see him run out onto Go Media Stadium with his family for that milestone, they will better understand why he’s leaving.
His teammates are already determined to send him out a winner.
“If that doesn’t give you any more motivation to win a premiership, I don’t know what will,” Laban insisted.
“He’s done so much for the club, and he’s helped myself and definitely other players, we sort of owe it to him.”
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Air New Zealand CEO Nikhil Ravishankar (left) says the airline was dealt ‘tough cards’ as Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour calls on the government to sell its stakes in the airline.RNZ/Supplied
Air New Zealand chief executive says the airline has been dealt ‘tough cards’ and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says the government should be backing the airline’s future but the Deputy Prime Minister continues to question their priorities.
The airline’s CEO Nikhil Ravishankar is carrying out a strategic review in the face of rising costs and told Checkpoint the airline is designed to grow but that hasn’t happened.
“The airline is designed to grow and for the last six years, we haven’t been able to do that.”
This comes after Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour earlier renewed his call for the government to sell its 51 percent stake in Air New Zealand after it reported a significant half-year loss.
The national carrier posted a $40 million loss for the six months ended December compared to a $106 million profit for the same period the year before.
The airline is still blaming severe disruption caused by delays to unscheduled engine maintenance grounding up to eight planes, as well as fuel and operating costs.
Seymour told Checkpoint the airline has placed too much “emphasis on politics” and is not reliable or affordable.
“The drumbeat of frustration from New Zealanders who are saying, look, we’re generally frustrated with the idea that things don’t work and cost too much,”
“And it seems that its distractions into various political projects over the last few years has started to come home to roost.”
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said in a social media post calls for the government to sell its shares in Air New Zealand while the airline market is in a downturn is economic lunacy.
Peters said the airline needs to start being on-time, and getting regional costs down. He said as the majority shareholder, the government should be backing its future rather than dragging it down, and hocking it off.
In response to the high costs of tickets Ravishankar said they are the result of increasing costs especially in fuel prices and engine maintenance.
However, Ravishankar told Checkpoint he was confident customers are not bearing the full weight of inflation when buying tickets.
“Since 2019 the cost that the airline bears has gone up north of 40 percent and our domestic airfares have gone up 32 percent.
“If you compare that with general CPI, general inflation, which has been around 29, 30 percent our fares have gone up a couple of percent over inflation, but our costs have gone up significantly more than that.”
When it came to Seymour’s comments that the airline was focusing on the wrong things such as electric planes and climate change reports, Ravishankar said he believed the airline was focused on the right things.
“It’s not distracting us from focusing on what’s important to our customers, which first and foremost is safe, reliable, and on-time performance, and that’s what we’re focused on delivering.”
“We are an airline that is globally extremely well-respected and people in the industry realise the tough cards we’ve been dealt.”
Ravishankar said matters of ownership were not for him to comment on as that was a question for the airline’s board.
Seymour has in turn said that many airlines have faced high costs and challenges especially after Covid.
“People are shopping around and finding that they can do better with the competitor… it seems that in the rest of the world, they have managed to navigate the challenges more competently.”
“And my charge is that if Air New Zealand was not distracted by its various projects of trying to become a biofuel producer, for example, they might be focussing more on taking off and landing on time.”
Ravishankar was currently carrying out a strategic review, which he said was drive by issues such as rising costs and falling profits.
“We need to tighten our belts and also in terms of looking into our capital management framework.”
Air New Zealand is also expecting to receive two of its 10 new 787 aircraft by the end of June, providing widebody capacity growth of 20-25 percent over the next two years.
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All motorists know what it is like learning to drive – the endless attempts to parallel park, the grinding gears, the lurches and the stalls.
Now one instructor believes he has found a way to confine those teeth-clenching experiences to the past, with a virtual reality programme that can help teach learners to drive without even getting into a car.
Ashley Gore runs VR lessons in Auckland and Napier through his company MintEDVR, and is now hoping to expand his virtual driving school across the country.
When he first came across virtual reality technology five years ago, Gore started thinking about its implications for learner drivers and the huge number of people who fail their tests, often multiple times.
“[In one year] 46,000 fails, 7000 failed because they didn’t stop at a stop sign, 37,000 drove too slow on their practical licence, let’s get rid of all these thousands of people who don’t have a license.”
The set up looks identical to one used while playing VR video games, consisting of a headset that covers the eyes with two small controllers held in each hand.
Once the headset goes on, the user is in the driver’s seat.
Ashley Gore creator of MINTEDVR, a virtual reality tool for learner driversEvie Richardson
But with joysticks instead of pedals, and no actual steering wheel to grab onto, it is a system quite different to traditional car controls.
However, Gore said most people catch on quickly.
“Couple of sessions, it’s just familiarisation, it’s a bit like when you jump into a different car, if you’re used to driving a small hatchback and then you jump into a ute, just the whole dynamics, the controls are a bit different.”
There are different scenarios available to practice things like right-hand turns, parallel parking and T-intersections, along with the rest of the skills needed to pass a practical licence test.
While the simulation features other cars on the road, road signs and markings, and all the buttons and the lights you’d find in and on a real car, the scenery resembles something closer to a video game than real life.
At around $15 per lesson, it is a cheaper option than practical driving lessons, which Gore hopes will make the tech more accessible, not just for first time learners, but also people wanting to brush up on their skills.
The VR tracks the users movements, picking up on errors such as failing to stop, driving too fast or slow, or forgetting to check a blindspot.
RNZ / Evie Richardson
Although it offers virtually every experience you get while being in a car, Gore said it is not a replacement for driving.
“The VR is there and it plugs and plays anywhere in your driving journey, and it’s never going to replace driving on the road.”
However, Gore said he believes the VR training should count towards the driving hours learners are recommended to undertake before their practical test.
“I would like to see the hours that you do in VR count towards your driving hours because you are learning, you’re getting important skills, you still need that experience on the road but I think it should count.”
While Gore is now marketing his technology to driving schools across the country, AA spokesperson Dylan Thomsen said the organisation is tentative.
“The thing you need to spend lots of time doing is actually driving a real car in the real world, and that is the major thing that people need to put the time into, but we certainly see potential for the tech to work as a nice additional practice tool.
“Those hours of practice should be for hours spent in a real car actually driving in the real world, that is the key thing.”
The New Zealand Transport Agency told RNZ there is no substitute for on-road training and experience.
“Our position is based on evidence which shows that learners do not gain the same level of skill or competence in a simulated environment, without real-world experience, and there is potential for over-confidence which can lead to novice and learner drivers being at greater risk of crashes.”
It said it is not possible to replicate the complex real world driving environment using a simulator.
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Over two thousand new homes are planned in a new neighbourhood, named Te Awa Lakes.Supplied/Hamilton City Council
Growth in Hamilton is leading the council to consider lowering the speed limit on part of a major city road.
Up to 2,500 new homes are planned for the northern end of the city in a new neighbourhood, called Te Awa Lakes.
Hamilton City Council has asked for feedback on lowering the 80 kilometre-an-hour speed limit to 60 km/h for a 460-metre section of Te Rapa Road.
As part of the approved development, the Te Awa Lakes developer was required to install a signalised pedestrian crossing on Te Rapa Road at their cost.
Council’s Network & Systems Operations Manager Robyn Denton said the road is an arterial route in a semi-rural area; but that is changing.
“People can already see a lot of earth works in there, but they are going to see buildings and that sort of thing,” she said.
The new homes would increase the number of people walking, cycling, and catching the bus in the area.
“The whole area will get busier,” sad Denton.
The council was looking for community feedback on the lower speed limit.
It consulted recently on other speed limit changes and Denton said Hamilton residents had shown they are thoughtful and engaged when it comes to considering the impacts.
“We found that people had thought about the issues and weren’t highly emotive about it but actually put some good, reasoned thought to us which was really useful for helping us and our elected members make decisions,” she said.
Denton said change was to be expected given that Hamilton was the country’s fastest growing city.
“This is one of the many things that happen in a growth city… we’re trying to respond at an appropriate time to get the right sort of outcome for those people who are moving into that area,” she said.
Public feedback would be presented to the council’s Transport Subcommittee in late May and if supported by elected members the proposal would then require approval from the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.
The public had until 9 April 2026 to have their say.
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The Otago Regional Council is aiming to deliver an overall zero percent rates rise in the upcoming financial year.
The council has been preparing a draft annual plan which will be put up for adoption in April.
The Long Term Plan forecasted a close to nine percent increase for the same year.
Chairperson Hilary Calvert said councillors sought to keep rates as low as possible while protecting the environment and providing public transport.
“We’re confident we can deliver for Otago’s people and environment within the zero-budget increase proposed,” she said.
“Factors helping to reduce rates include cost savings and efficiencies in work programmes, extended timeframes for some work and finding alternative revenue sources.”
A directive from the government to pause planning work meant that the council would spend less than expected this financial year and would use some of the surplus to pay for work next financial year.
The average residential property in Dunedin, Clutha, Waitaki and Central Otago would see a slight rates drop, but Queenstown Lakes properties would see an increase due to a public transport rate, Calvert said.
Councillors have opted not to consult the community on this annual plan, saying no significant changes had been made to what was consulted on in the 2026/2027 year of the Long Term Plan.
Child poverty activists say families are having to make impossible decisions and go without life’s essentials following the release of new Stats New Zealand data.
The statistics agency said one in seven kids are living in material hardship, according to research conducted between July 2024 and June last year.
Child Poverty Reduction Minister Louise Upston has said reducing child poverty was a priority and that the government is making changes to improve the lives of families.
Advocates were calling for change after the latest data on child material hardship did not show a statistically significant difference compared to 2024 and 2018.
But it did show a statistically significant increase compared to 2022.
The Children’s Commissioner said the data shows there are 47,500 more children in material hardship in 2025 than there was in 2022 (169,300 compared to 121,800).
Children’s Commissioner Claire Achmad said affected kids were going without key life essentials.
“I’m talking about things like access to fresh fruit and vegetables, being able to go to the doctor or the dentist, being able to have a good bed to sleep in.
“I think we can all agree no child in New Zealand should be going without these things.”
Dr Achmad said half of the children in poverty had parents that were in work – so it was important people have pay that can lift kids out of deprivation.
She said child poverty needs to be a priority for successive governments.
“Children cannot wait for our economy to improve. Children get one chance at childhood, and we’ve got to act and get this right now.”
Child Poverty Action Group communications manager Isaac Gunson said some families were being forced to make ” impossible decisions”.
“They are paying power and rent so they can keep the lights on and keep a roof over their head, and they are going to see if there is anything for them at the foodbank.
“No one in this country should be having to make decisions like that.”
Social advocate and BBM founder Dave Letele said there needed to be change.
Social advocate and BBM founder Dave Letele.RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Unless support was provided, Letele said the conditions kids lived in would deteriorate.
“The New Zealand that our grandkids grow up in will be even worse. It is going to be seen more unsafe.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the current stats weren’t good enough.
“We want to see a reduction in child poverty, but I also have to acknowledge it has been an incredibly difficult time.”
Luxon said it was important the economy was run well for low-income New Zealanders.
Upston said reducing kids’ material hardship was a priority in the government’s child and youth strategy.
Upston said they have made a number of changes to improve the lives of Kiwi families such as the in-work tax credit and introducing their FamilyBoost policy for childcare.
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As Iranian and US diplomats meet in Geneva for crucial negotiations to avoid a potential war, opposition groups in exile are sniffing an opportunity.
The Islamic Republic faces its greatest political crisis since its inception. US President Donald Trump is threatening an imminent attack if Iran doesn’t capitulate on its nuclear program. And anti-regime protesters continue to gather, despite a brutal government crackdown that has killed upwards of 20,000 people, and possibly more.
Talk of a future Iran after the fall of the Islamic regime has grown increasingly fervent. And buoyed by cries heard during some of the protests in Iran of “long live the shah” (the former monarch of Iran), the voices of royalists in the Iranian diaspora are everywhere.
But is a return of the shah really what Iranians want, and what would be best for the country?
Supporters of Iran’s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, attend a demonstration in Toronto on February 14 2026.Kamran Jebreili/AP
What are the monarchists promising?
Iran’s monarchy was ancient, but the Pahlavi dynasty that last ruled the country only came to power in 1925 when Reza Khan, a soldier in the army, overthrew the previous dynasty.
Khan adopted the name Pahlavi, and attempted to bring Iran closer to Western social and economic norms. He was also an authoritarian leader, famous for banning the hijab, and was ultimately forced into exile by the British following the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941.
His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, attempted to continue his father’s reforms, but was similarly authoritarian. Presiding over a government that tolerated little dissent, he was ultimately forced out by the huge tide of opposition during the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Now, the exiled crown prince, 65-year-old Reza Pahlavi, is being touted by many in the diaspora as the most credible and visible opposition figure to be able to lead the country if and when the Islamic Republic collapses.
In early 2025, the NUFDI launched a well-coordinated and media savvy “Iran Prosperity Project”, offering what the group claimed was a roadmap for economic recovery in a post-Islamic Republic Iran. Pahlavi himself penned the foreword.
Then, in July, the group released its “Emergency Phase Booklet”, with a vision for a new political system in Iran.
Although the document is mostly written in the language of international democratic norms, it envisions bestowing the crown prince with enormous powers. He’s called the “leader of the national uprising” and given the right to veto the institutions and selection processes in a transitional government.
One thing the document is missing is a response to the demands of Iran’s many ethnic minority groups for a federalist model of government in Iran.
Instead, under the plan, the government would remain highly centralised under the leadership of Pahlavi, at least until a referendum that the authors claim would determine a transition to either a constitutional monarchy or democratic republic.
But students of Iranian history cannot help but note echoes of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had promised a more democratic Iran with a new constitution, and without himself or other clerics in power.
After the revolution, though, Khomeini quickly grasped the reigns of power.
Online attacks against opponents
Pahlavi and his supporters have also struggled to stick to the principles of respectful debate and tolerance of different viewpoints.
When interviewed, Pahlavi has avoided discussing the autocratic nature of his father’s rule and the human rights abuses that occurred under it.
But if Pahlavi tends to avoid hard questions, his supporters can be aggressive. At the Munich Security Conference in February, British-Iranian journalist Christiane Amanpour interviewed the crown prince.
Christiane Amanpour’s interview with Reza Pahlavi.
After the interview, Amanpour’s tough questions resulted in an explosion of anger from his supporters. In a video that has been widely shared on X, royalists can be seen heckling Amanpour, saying she “insulted” the crown prince.
In online forums, the language can be even more intimidating. Amanpour asked Pahlavi point-blank if he would tell his supporters to stop their “terrifying” attacks on ordinary Iranians.
While saying he doesn’t tolerate online attacks, he added, “I cannot control millions of people, whatever they say on social media, and who knows if they are real people or not.”
As I’ve noted previously, the monarchist movement also talks as though it is speaking for the whole nation.
But during the recent protests, some students could be heard shouting: “No to monarchy, no to the leadership of the clerics, yes to an egalitarian democracy”.
The level of support for the shah within Iran is unclear, in part because polling is notoriously difficult.
A 2024 poll by the GAMAAN group, an organisation set up by two Iranian academics working in the Netherlands, attempted to gauge political sentiment in Iran. Just over 30% of those polled indicated Pahlavi would be their first choice if a free and fair election were held.
But the poll doesn’t indicate why people said they wanted to vote for him. It also showed just how fragmented the opposition is, with dozens of names getting lower levels of support.
Would Pahlavi make a good leader? For many critics, his behaviour, and that of his supporters, call into question the royalists’ promises of a more liberal and tolerant Iran.
An Australian teenager who died after eating beef sausages on a camping trip has been confirmed as the nation’s first death from a tick-induced meat allergy.
New South Wales Deputy State Coroner Carmel Forbes today ruled Jeremy Webb died in 2022 from an anaphylactic reaction, which triggered an asthma attack.
This makes the teenager only the second person in the world confirmed to have died from “mammalian meat allergy”, after the 2024 fatal case of a man in the United States.
Here’s what you need to know about how tick bites can lead to a meat allergy.
How can ticks cause this?
In Australia, it’s mainly the bite of the eastern paralysis tick (Ixodes holocyclus) that causes mammalian meat allergy.
The tick’s saliva naturally contains a sugar molecule called alpha-gal, short for galactose-α-1,3-galactose, a sugar not normally present in humans.
So when a tick bites, alpha-gal enters the blood stream and in some people prompts the body to produce molecules associated with an allergic response (known as IgE antibodies). So their body is “primed” for an allergic reaction, but doesn’t have one straight away.
But when a person later eats substances containing alpha-gal – meat, products containing gelatine such as lollies, or certain medicines – this can trigger an allergic response hours later.
This can range from hives, gut symptoms (such as cramping and diarrhoea), to a severe anaphylactic reaction that affects the respiratory and cardiovascular systems.
Who’s at risk? Are cases rising?
While this latest Australian case involved a teenager, mammalian meat allergy typically occurs in older age groups.
In research that colleagues and I have just concluded and will be submitting for publication shortly, we’ve found that mammalian meat allergy peaks in Australians aged 45–75.
It’s mainly the eastern paralysis tick (Ixodes holocyclus) that causes mammalian meat allergy in Australia.Alex Gofton, Author provided (no reuse)
Females are at increased risk, accounting for about 60% of cases, but we don’t know what’s driving that.
Our analysis of 11 years of data to 2025 also showed that annual case numbers remained relatively stable until 2020, but have since grown rapidly, on average 22% year on year.
By 2024, we saw 787 people nationwide testing positive to alpha-gal antibodies.
But most (we estimate about 90%) of that increase is down to greater awareness and more testing for mammalian meat allergy.
Only about 10% is due to a real increase in disease prevalence. We don’t exactly know why this is happening. But hypotheses include a run of mild summmers/wet winters leading to higher tick numbers, or greater exposure to ticks as people move to the bush or urban fringes.
In our study we saw cases from every state and territory, although 96% of cases occurred within Ixodes holocyclus endemic regions along the east coast.
What was remarkable, though, was the extreme geographical clustering of cases in specific high-risk regions.
Hinterland regions of south-east Queensland and northern NSW, the northern beaches regions of Sydney, and NSW south coast in particular had disproportionately high case numbers.
Not just allergies
Exposure to alpha-gal may have other effects, other than triggering an allergic reaction from eating meat.
We’re working with Australian Red Cross Lifeblood to analyse blood from 5,000 donors, including from high-risk communities. We’re aiming to see if exposure to alpha-gal from tick bites might put certain people at higher risk of cardiovascular disease later in life.
The hypothesis is that exposure to the alpha-gal allergen leads to low-level inflammation of the plaques associated with coronary artery disease.
But we haven’t started analysing those samples, so it’s early days yet.
A number of remand prisoners at Papua New Guinea’s Bomana Prison have been injured in a confrontation with Correctional Services officers.
Port Moresby General Hospital has confirmed to local media that nine inmates were rushed to hospital, and that two are in a critical condition.
Sources at the maximum security prison in Port Moresby told RNZ Pacific that on Monday officers conducted a standard activity in a cell block where they ordered 62 men held on remand to vacate their cells and allow a search.
The stated objective of the search was to locate contraband, specifically mobile phones.
However, the inmates allege that officers destroyed property belonging to remandees, including “essential legal and court documents, clothing, bedding, and various personal necessities”.
An injured inmate at Port Moresby’s Bomana Prison. Image: RNZ Pacific
They also claim officers misappropriated property, including food rations.
When the inmates subsequently protested about their belongings being destroyed or taken away, a confrontation resulted.
Officers responded ‘violently’ They claim officers responded violently, called in off-duty officers for reinforcement and brutally assaulted most of the 62 remandees with bush knives, iron bars and other instruments.
A source within PNG’s Correctional Services has confirmed to RNZ Pacific that a confrontation took place between inmates and officers.
Acting Correctional Services Commissioner Bernard Nepo also confirmed the incident to The National newspaper, but did not address the circumstances around the injuries.
RNZ Pacific spoke briefly with the Minister for Corrections, Joe Kuli, who said he was not aware of the incident, but that he would seek information from officials.
Port Moresby General Hospital . . . confirmation to local media that nine inmates were rushed to hospital. Image: RNZ Pacific
RNZ Pacific has sought comment from Correctional Services.
The inmates are seeking intervention by higher authorities over what they describe as “inhumane treatment” and misconduct by Correctional Services officers.
Many of the inmates are being held in prolonged pre-trial detention. Due to a backlog in PNG’s court system, some remandees wait years in prison before going to trial.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The arrest and charging of British-Fijian publisher Charlie Charters has pushed Fiji’s anti-corruption watchdog into fresh controversy.
Charters’ arrest by police last weekend has raised sharp questions about whistleblowers, due process, and political pressure in the Pacific island nation.
The 57-year-old appeared in the Suva Magistrates’ Court on Monday charged with two counts of aiding and abetting.
The Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) alleges he helped an officer of the commission unlawfully release official information, which was then posted on his Facebook account, “Charlie Charters”.
In a statement, FICAC saID the first charge related to posts made between 2 November and 14 December 2025. The second related to a post on 2 February 2026.
Under section 13G of the FICAC Act, it is an offence for an officer or former officer to divulge official information without written authorisation.
Charlie Charters speaking outside the court. Video: FijiVillage News
Section 45 of the Crimes Act states that a person who aids and abets an offence is taken to have committed that offence and is punishable accordingly.
Stopped at airport Charters was stopped at Nadi International Airport on Saturday while travelling to Sydney.
He reportedly declined requests from FICAC officers to reveal his sources and spent two nights in custody before being granted bail.
The court imposed strict bail conditions, including surrendering his travel documents and a stop departure order.
The Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) headquarters in Suva, which is at the centre of a growing legal and political dispute. Photo/Supplied
A non-cash bail bond of $2000 was set with a surety. The matter has been adjourned to March 2.
FICAC said it had not issued a public comment earlier because the matter was under active investigation.
“It would have been inappropriate and contrary to established investigative practice to discuss a live investigation while inquiries were continuing, irrespective of commentary circulating on social media,” the statement read.
“The matter is now properly before the court and will proceed in accordance with due process.”
Agency challenged But Charters’ lawyer, Seforan Fatiaki, has strongly challenged the agency’s actions.
He has publicly alleged that the arrest and detention were aimed at forcing his client to reveal his source instead of pursuing a genuine criminal investigation.
Charlie Charters’ lawyer, Seforan Fatiaki . . . claims his client’s arrest and detention have been aimed at forcing him to reveal a source. Image: PMN News
“It was made clear that Mr Charters’ arrest and detention were carried out for the sole purpose of extracting that information from him,” Fatiaki said.
“If Mr Charters will not volunteer that information, FICAC cannot lawfully use its powers of detention and arrest to pressure him into giving it.”
Fatiaki described the actions as a gross misuse of FICAC’s statutory powers, particularly the prohibition on departure from Fiji.
The case comes at a sensitive time for FICAC. Fiji’s Judicial Services Commission is reportedly of the view that the appointment of the agency’s current head, Lavi Rokoika, was not legal.
Appointed after sacking She was appointed last May after the sacking of former commissioner Barbara Malimali.
The High Court has since ruled that Malimali’s removal was “unlawful”.
Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has sought to distance his government from the unfolding saga.
“We will not interfere [with FICAC],” Rabuka told reporters in Suva.
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . the government “will not interfere” with the work of Fiji’s anti-corruption agency. Image:/ Fiji govt/PMN
He acknowledged Fiji does not have a whistleblower policy but said it needed one. Rabuka added that questions remained about “how do we know that the whistleblower is genuine and the facts that they raised are factual”.
As the case heads back to court next week, many in Fiji and across the Pacific will be watching closely.
For some, it is about whether anti-corruption laws are being upheld. For others, it is about whether those who publish leaked information can do so without fear of being forced to reveal their sources.
Republished from Pacific Media Network News with permission.
Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith said the settlement included an agreed historical account and redress for historical breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi.RNZ / Mark Papalii
Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana and the Crown have signed a Deed of Settlement for historical claims dating back to 1866.
Representatives from the Crown, including Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith and the various hapū of the rohe gathered at Tuai to commemorate the settlement process finishing after six years of negotiation.
In a statement, Goldsmith said the settlement included an agreed historical account and redress for historical breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi which caused significant harm to generations of Ngāti Ruapani.
The settlement package includes:
$24 million in financial redress;
An undivided half share of Patunamu Forestry Ltd;
Four commercial redress and two cultural redress properties; and
Approximately 12,000 hectares of land added into Te Urewera.
Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana chair Kara Puketapu-Dentice said Waikeremoana, like other parts of Te Uruwera, carried a complex and deeply painful history.
“The hapū of Waikaremoana and the wider Te Urewera experienced invasion, displacement, and the systematic loss of land and livelihood.”
The settlement also included an apology for the Crown’s breaches, including those inflicted during its campaigns against the tipuna of Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana and other Tūhoe hapū in Waikaremoana.
These included attacks on kāinga at Te Kōpani in 1866, the displacement and starvation of hapū, and the coerced acquisition of around 178,000 acres of land under threat of confiscation which left the hapū virtually landless by 1895.
Puketapu-Dentice said he welcomed the opportunity to formally acknowledge his people’s history and bring closure to a process which required them to repeatedly recount those experiences.
“It allows us to recognise the truth of what occurred, while creating space for future generations to focus on rebuilding and renewal.”
Around 3500 descendants of Ngāti Ruapani, Ngāti Hinekura, Whānau Pani, and Ngāi Tarapāroa hapū maintain their connections to Waikaremoana and the wider Te Urewera, remaining centred around Waimako and Te Kuha marae.
“This settlement provides a foundation for the hapū of Waikaremoana, alongside other Tūhoe hapū, to restore their presence and strengthen their communities,” Puketapu-Dentice said.
“We have much to rebuild over the generations ahead. This settlement enables us to focus on restoring our relationship with our whenua, supporting our whānau, and ensuring that Waikaremoana continues to sustain future generations.”
In a statement, Minister Goldsmith said the long-awaited agreement acknowledges the past and looks to the future.
“It is a privilege to sign the Deed and deliver the Crown apology to Ngāti Ruapani in their rohe,” he said.
“A key feature of the settlement is the return of Crown-owned land into Te Urewera, reflecting a central aspiration of Ngāti Ruapani to restore their connection with Te Urewera.
“While no settlement can fully remedy the injustices of the past, this agreement represents an important step forward. I hope it will support Ngāti Ruapani to achieve their cultural and economic aspirations for future generations to come,” Goldsmith said.
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Dave van Zwanenberg, left, and Craig Stevens.Supplied
The wives of two firefighters killed in a landslide during Cyclone Gabrielle have recounted the moment they learned their husbands had died.
Volunteer firefighters Dave van Zwanenberg and Craig Stevens were buried while responding to slips on Muriwai’s Motutara Road on 13 February 2023.
Stevens was freed from the pile but later died in hospital, while van Zwanenberg was found dead after two days of searching.
A coronial inquest into their deaths is being held in Auckland.
Van Zwanenberg’s wife, Amy, said she first heard that her husband was trapped as she was preparing to evacuate their home at about 2.45am on 14 February, several hours after the slip fell.
“I had just started to pack the car to leave when members from FENZ (Fire and Emergency NZ) arrived to tell me what had happened. They were fairly vague on details other than that Dave was missing. They were searching for him and conditions were obviously incredibly challenging,” she recounted.
“Under an hour later I was told that they had called off the search due to the severity of the conditions, high risk to search personnel and low chance of Dave’s survival.”
She said the following days were extremely difficult.
Dave van Zwanenberg with his children.Supplied / van Zwanenberg family
“We spent that night in an odd sort of horrific limbo without much hope but the distressing thought of Dave, whether alive or dead, alone in a pile of mud and rubble still waiting to be found,” she said.
“You can imagine how difficult and heart-wrenching that was to explain to our six-year-old son.”
Van Zwanenberg’s body was recovered on 15 February, two days after the slip.
“I was told at about 10.45am on the 15th of February that a body dressed in FENZ uniform had been located and later that day this was officially confirmed as Dave,” van Zwanenberg said.
“I was told I was not allowed to see or touch him, which was very hard to hear, but I was granted the privilege to go to the site and say goodbye from the outside of the undertaker vehicle. On its departure, men and women who’d been involved lined the exit in a guard of honour, an incredibly touching salute.”
Amy van Zwanenberg said she was proud of her husband’s work as a volunteer firefighter, which he did alongside working as a vet.
Amy and Dave van Zwanenberg.Supplied / van Zwanenberg family
“While adjusting to life without Dave has been very painful and my two young children are now growing up without their dedicated father, a life-long loss, they can be proud of who he was and the respect he’s been given even in death,” she said.
Steven’s wife, Lucy, echoed that sentiment.
“When Craig left [that day] both his mum Marianne and I talked about how proud we were of him being out there in the cyclone helping the community,” she said.
“I never saw him conscious again.”
Stevens died in hospital on 16 February, three days after the slip, surrounded by his family.
Craig Stevens is survived by his wife Lucy and his two children Kauri and Tai.Supplied via NZ Herald
“Finding out Craig wasn’t going to make it and then having to tell the boys they were going to lose their dad was the hardest and most distressing moment of my life,” Lucy Stevens said.
She described Stevens as a perfect husband and father.
“My six-year-old said the other day, ‘I at least needed one dad, and that one was perfect.’ The deep loss of their perfect dad and my loving husband and partner in life will remain with us forever.”
Stevens’ mother, Marianne, was visiting Muriwai from the United Kingdom when Cyclone Gabrielle hit.
Lucy Stevens read a statement written by Marianne to court.
“As a mother every fibre in your being wants to protect your child, and I was unable to do that,” she said.
Coroner Erin Woolley was visibly emotional as she thanked the women for giving evidence.
“I’m always grateful when family members have the courage to give evidence. I find it moving just listening to you so I admire you for having the ability to do that and thank you very much for doing so,” Woolley said.
The Cyclone Gabrielle inquest will move into its next phase in mid-March, with a focus on the events in Hawke’s Bay.
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Another bank has adjusted down its long-term rates, but borrowers deciding whether to take a longer term will need to weigh up a few factors.
BNZ said it was reducing its three-year rate by 10 basis points to 4.99 percent, its four-year rate by 36 basis points to 5.19 percent and its five-year rate by 40 basis points to 5.29 percent.
It comes after Westpac last week said it was trimming the same terms.
It was the first bank to move after the latest official cash rate (OCR) announcement.
The Reserve Bank indicated it expected to raise interest rates a little faster and earlier than previously forecast – but not as quickly as markets had priced in.
Wholesale markets fell as a result.
Commentators said it could be good news for borrowers and should mean a temporary end to the increases in home loan rates seen in recent weeks.
Mortgage adviser Glen McLeod, head of Link Advisory said, with longer term rates starting to come back down, he was beginning to see more interest in longer term fixed rates, but it was still a relatively small portion of clients.
“Part of my role as an adviser is to explain the pros and cons of where those rates currently sit and how suitable each option is for an individual client. I talk clients through what each rate term could mean in the current environment, where we are in the interest rate cycle, and what is likely to happen based on the best economic information available.
“From there, I look at different borrowing strategies and match them to the client’s goals. The key thing is ensuring clients fully understand the risks and what they are ultimately signing up for. Longer term rates can be appropriate in some situations, but it really depends on the person’s circumstances and risk profile.”
ANZ said in its latest Property Focus report that it was worth remembering that all rates out to two years are now below 5 percent whereas in late 2023 they were all above 7 percent.
“Given that, and our expectation that the next move in the OCR is likely to be up, we still see merit in fixing for longer at current rates, with the 18-month to three-year part of the mortgage curve likely appealing to many borrowers.”
They said four- and five-year rates were above where they expected one- to three-year rates to top out next year.
“From a pure cost perspective (that is, disregarding the value of certainty), one might only be inclined to fix for four or five years if you expect one- to three-year rates to rise above 6 percent over the next two to three years.
“That is possible, but it is not what we expect. Taking all of that into consideration, the 18-month to three-year part of the curve looks like the sweet spot, offering a good mix of certainty and low cost.”
The Fiordland Wapiti Foundation has a track record of two decades of deer management with volunteers within a zone known as the Wapiti Area.Supplied
A community conservation effort is hoping to fund a new processing facility for wild deer in the deep south.
Deer numbers have been exploding in Fiordland National Park following the decline of viable commercial and taxpayer-funded helicopter operations over many decades.
The deer have been ravaging the bush and the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation hopes its planned abattoir in Te Anau will save precious bush and provide an outlet for culled deer.
General manager Roy Sloan said hunting is costly and this initiative could support it by selling meat to the market.
The Fiordland Project estimates that venison sales will help fund deer control operations in the National Park at a greater scale than is currently possible.
A helicopter operation collecting wild deer in Fiordland National Park.SUPPLIED / Mark Hollows
“It’s a charitable trust; we’re getting donations from various building companies around the country” Sloan said.
“Our goal is to raise $3 million to build this plant.”
The group of hunters and conservationists is confident funding can be secured.
Sloan is thrilled with the level of support shown for the project so far, with $2 million raised.
A number of tradies and professionals, including electricians and architects, have pledged their time to the project.
Plans of the building, seen by RNZ, show areas for skinning and boning, packaging and processing, and a chiller.
“We know that it’s costly to do deer recovery. We we know that the government can’t afford it, and we know that DOC can’t afford it,” Sloan said.
And while he admits it’s a gamble, he said the risk of a community model might just pay off.
A helicopter hunts deer above the snowline.SUPPLIED / Mark Hollows
“‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ That in five years we fall over. ‘But what’s the best that can happen?’ We could be still going and solve these problems.”
The Fiordland Wapiti Foundation also maintains a number of back-country huts in the area, including Fiordland National Park’s oldest hut.
How did wapiti become pests?
wapiti are similar to red deer, but more pale and much larger and heavier
The first wapiti were introduced into New Zealand in 1873, primarily for hunting
By the 20th century, wild deer had spread throughout the forests, feeding on young trees, shrubs, ferns and ground cover plants
From the 1920s, the government employed cullers to control deer populations
In 1966 the first live deer were captured from the wild by helicopter
By the 21st century, populations of wapiti and red deer have created major ecological problems
Deer remain a pest species, significantly impacting native ecosystems
The owner of a business operating out of Lyall Bay says the partial lifting of the rāhui on Wellington’s South Coast has come as a “positive shock”.
The rāhui was put in place on the stretch of southern coast from Ōwhiro Bay to Breaker Bay after the Moa Point wastewater plant failed, leaving up to 70 million litres of raw sewage flowing into the sea each day at the beginning of the month.
Lyall Bay beach in Wellington on Friday.RNZ/Bill Hickman
‘Suddenly it’s all good’
Owner operator of Wellington Sauna Project mobile saunas, Johan Balzer, said the “sudden” lifting of the rāhui caught him off guard.
“All of the information that we were being fed, it was looking like it was going to be months and months. So, in my mind, I was thinking the worst,” Balzer said.
“Suddenly, it’s all good, which is great and it’s fantastic – and I can’t wait to get back there myself – but I have a feeling that there’s going to be a lot of people who [might] wait a while, a few weeks, to see what it really is like,” Balzer said.
Balzer said he had previously based his sauna in Lyall Bay or Evans Bay ahead of the shutdown.
His customers typically took a plunge in the ocean to cool down and cleanse after a sauna session at the beach.
Balzer said there was an immediate 50 percent reduction in bookings in the week following the failure, despite the fact he could still operate from Evans Bay.
“Wellingtonians are a bit divided. I was looking at all the data, checking out LAWA and NEWA and they were saying that Evans Bay was good but it would still have people that – despite that information – just didn’t want to go in the ocean. But at the same time, you’ve got a lot of loyal daily swimmers out at Hataitai and they didn’t seem to be concerned,” Balzer said.
Wellington mayor Andrew Little swims at Lyall Bay after announcing the lifting of a swimming ban.RNZ / Mark Papalii
“We have to be realistic and practical about what we’re asking people to do. Conditions can change rapidly. There are areas where the risk remains higher, such as near the short outfall pipe at Tarakena Bay,” he said.
“A risk remains, but monitoring results so far show that it is low and it is now up to people to decide how they respond to the current information,” Little said.
Owner of Dive Wellington, Dave Drane, said he was leaving it up to diving students to decide whether they wished to swim, but his staff were happy to dive on Friday.
“[Tertiary students] will be diving across the road in Taputeranga Marine Reserve today. I’ve left it up to them, it’s their personal choice whether they want to get in the water or not. But they’re all keen to get in and see the reserve again,” Drane said.
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Samson Aruwa on the seat dedicated to Sophia Crestani in Dunedin.RNZ / Tess Brunton
A man who carried Sophia Crestani away from a deadly stairwell pile-up and helped free at least 30 others at a Dunedin student party says the night is burned in his memory.
Samson Aruwa carried the 19-year-old University of Otago student away from the five-to-six people-deep pile at the overcrowded party in October 2019 after managing to free himself while wearing a moon boot.
CPR was carried out on Crestani outside but she could not be revived.
Aruwa said it was an honour to receive the award but also a sense of melancholy.
Sophia Crestani.Facebook
“There was like a lot of tragedy surrounding that night. I don’t think I go a day without thinking about it at least once. It’s kind of burned in my memory. It’s like my Roman Empire,” he said.
“It wasn’t just me there that night. There were a lot of people there that had, like, a significant hand in helping out.
“Without the other people helping me, we wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere near as many people out as we did.”
Aruwa became a nurse after the deadly party and although his career choice was more about following in the footsteps of his mother, the events of that night gave him more confidence.
“I know how I’ll act in an emergency and I know that I’ll be trying to find the best solution,” he said.
Chambers said the party resulted in tragedy but the situation could have been much worse if it was not for Aruwa’s selflessness.
Richard Chambers with Samson Aruwa.RNZ / Tess Brunton
What Aruwa did on that night was remarkable, showing exceptional courage and acting selflessly in the face of a life threatening crowd crush, he said.
“It was a chaotic evening and to do what you did for those that were tangled in what was an absolute mess that night was just absolutely remarkable.”
Maggot Fest at the Manor was heaving with hundreds of people and there was only one exit after tenants sealed up the other doors.
The stairs were jam-packed and the door was a bottleneck when people started to fall.
As some remained behind locked doors, Aruwa was trying to pull people out of the pile-up.
The seat dedicated to Sophia Crestani.RNZ / Tess Brunton
Crestani’s mother, Elspeth McMillan, said she believed there would have been more dead and injured party-goers without Aruwa’s act of courage.
She criticised the tenants – whose name are suppressed – saying it was not safe or responsible for some tenants to at times remain in secured rooms and let their party grow on its own, saying more active oversight might have led to the party being controlled or shut down before it became critical.
Sophia Crestani’s parents Bede Crestani and Elspeth McMillan.Tess Brunton/RNZ
Crestani’s father, Bede Crestani, said Aruwa showed dignity and courage despite chaos from all sides as more people tried to enter the party while people were being crushed.
“His courage was bigger than his stature. We have to contrast that on the night to the tenants. They were absent. They were on the stairs. They did nothing. They were derelict,” he said.
“They were weak people.”
McKenzie said there was evidence that some of those in closed off rooms knew people were asking to be let in and being in their rooms did not absolve them of responsibility.
Bede Crestani also commended Aruwa’s courage at the inquest.
“Didn’t matter what anybody said, what anybody thought. He was saying it. He stopped the court. It just shows the courage. It was a breath of fresh air and it put truth to lies,” he said.
“This is a courageous man in many ways.”
He thanked Aruwa for the care he showed his daughter, saying he was true to his values despite being under immense pressure.
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
The Morgan and YouGov federal polls have the Coalition gaining from One Nation since Angus Taylor replaced Sussan Ley as Liberal leader. Unlike the DemosAU and Fox & Hedgehog polls that I reported Tuesday, these two polls have Labor clearly ahead of the Coalition and One Nation after preferences.
Whereas the combined primary vote for One Nation and the Coalition was 49% in both DemosAU and Fox & Hedgehog, it was just 44.5% in Morgan and 46% in YouGov.
Essential is the other new poll, and that gave the Coalition its first lead over Labor after preferences in a poll since the May 2025 election. Essential’s respondent preferences favour the Coalition more than other polls that use respondent preferences.
After the five federal polls this week, analyst Kevin Bonham’s two-party aggregates that use 2025 election preference flows have Labor leading the Coalition by 53.3–46.7 and One Nation by 53.4–46.6.
YouGov poll
A national YouGov poll for Sky News, conducted February 17–24 from a sample of 1,500, gave Labor 29% of the primary vote (down one since the February 3–10 YouGov poll that was taken before the Liberal leadership spill), One Nation 24% (down four), the Coalition 22% (up three), the Greens 13% (up one), independents 6% (up one) and others 6% (steady).
By respondent preferences, Labor led One Nation by 56–44, a one-point gain for Labor. They led the Coalition by 53–47, a one-point gain for the Coalition.
Anthony Albanese’s net approval was up four points to -14, with 54% dissatisfied and 40% satisfied with his leadership. Taylor’s initial net approval was -5 (38% dissatisfied, 33% satisfied), a large improvement on Ley’s -40 net approval. Albanese led Taylor as better PM by 45–34 (47–25 against Ley).
Cost of living was rated the most important issue by 41%, followed by housing affordability and immigration each on 10%. Respondents were asked which of the Coalition, One Nation, Labor or the Greens they preferred to handle various issues.
Combining Labor/Greens against Coalition/One Nation, right-wing parties led on cost of living by 35–34, on housing by 33–32 and on immigration by 48–28. However, these leads are far narrower than in the recent DemosAU poll, where the right led by double digit margins on all these issues.
By 60–40, respondents in this poll did not want immigration restricted from terror-controlled regions. This contrasts with the Fox & Hedgehog poll, where by 59–17, respondents supported an immigration ban from “high risk” areas.
Essential poll
A national Essential poll, conducted February 18–22 from a sample of 1,002, gave Labor 30% of the primary vote (down one since the late January Essential poll), the Coalition 26% (up one), One Nation 22% (steady), the Greens 11% (up two), all Others 7% (steady) and undecided 4% (down two).
By respondent preferences, the Coalition had its first two-party lead in any poll since the 2025 election (by 48–47). Essential did not report a two-party estimate for its January poll, which was about the same on primary votes for Labor.
By respondent preferences, the Coalition had its first two-party lead in any poll since the 2025 election.Bianca De Marchi/AAP
Essential’s respondent preferences have been weaker for Labor than applying the 2025 election preference flows to the primaries, which would give Labor above a 51–49 lead. In contrast, Morgan has generally had better respondent flows to Labor than the 2025 election method.
Albanese’s net approval was up six points since January to -6, with 48% disapproving and 42% approving. By 53–12, respondents thought Australia was becoming more divided over more united, with 35% staying about the same. By 36–32, respondents thought social cohesion in Australia was strong rather than weak.
Morgan poll
A national Morgan poll, conducted February 16–22 from a sample of 1,649, gave Labor 31% of the primary vote (down one since the February 13–16 Morgan poll taken after the Liberal spill), the Coalition 24% (up 0.5), One Nation 20.5% (down one), the Greens 12.5% (steady) and all Others 12% (up 1.5).
By respondent preferences, Labor led by 54.5–45.5, a 0.5-point gain for the Coalition. By 2025 election preference flows, Labor led by 54–46, a 0.5-point gain for the Coalition from my estimate of the previous poll).
Morgan shows gains for the Coalition from One Nation since Taylor replaced Ley. In the Morgan poll taken before the spill, One Nation led the Coalition by 25–20 on primary votes.
WA DemosAU poll: Labor way ahead
A Western Australian state DemosAU poll, conducted February 12–23 from a sample of 969, gave Labor 36% of the primary vote (down five since the November DemosAU poll), the Liberals 21% (down nine), the Nationals 4% (down two), One Nation 17% (not asked previously), the Greens 13% (steady) and all Others 9% (down one).
Labor led the Liberals by 57–43 after preferences, a one-point gain for Labor.
Labor Premier Roger Cook’s net positive rating was down two points to +6 (34% positive, 28% negative). Liberal leader Basil Zempilas’s net positive was unchanged at -3. Cook led Zempilas as preferred premier by 43–30 (47–34 previously).
WA Greens leader Brad Pettitt was at -14 net positive and WA One Nation leader Rod Caddies at -17.
Tasmanian EMRS state poll
A Tasmanian EMRS state poll was reported by Bonham. Conducted February 16–19 from a sample of 1,000, it gave the Liberals 29% of the vote (down eight since November), Labor 23% (down two), the Greens 15% (down two), independents 15% (down four), One Nation 14% (not previously asked) and others 4% (down one).
Tasmania uses a proportional system for its lower house elections, so a two-party estimate is not applicable. One Nation’s 14% is ten points below its federal support in this poll.
An ABC investigation has unearthed horrifying vision of gay and bisexual teenagers being beaten unconscious in Sydney. The teenage boy perpetrators are reported to be supporters of Islamic State (IS).
The ABC journalists consulted and interviewed me for the piece, including showing me all the videos they’d obtained. The vision was sickening – but not surprising.
My research examines how people and communities become targets when otherwise distinct extremist ideologies converge around a perceived common enemy.
We are seeing ideological convergences across Islamic extremist, far-right and other grievance-based movements that frame both Jewish Australians and LGBTQIA+ people as threats. Antisemitism will be under the microscope during the royal commission, while Victoria is holding a parliamentary inquiry into attacks against LGBTQIA+ people.
With that in mind, the attacks in Sydney are not merely an abhorrent anomaly. Incidents like these are foreshadowing future, more severe violence, unless something is done to curb it.
Reviving thousands of years of hate
Violent, homophobic attacks are unfortunately nothing new, including in Australia.
In the 1980s and ‘90s, dozens of gay men were murdered in Sydney by youth gangs, who would lure the men to secluded places.
Some were mistakenly labelled as suicides. As a result, a lot of perpetrators were never held accountable.
This, combined with the stigma attached to being LGBTQIA+ in Australia, and policing strategies that members of these communities felt unfairly targeted them, led many to distrust law enforcement.
There’s good reason for this. History is littered with examples of discriminatory policing, including the 1994 raid on a Melbourne gay nightclub, where patrons were subject to invasive strip searches, and the violence that ended the first ever Sydney Mardi Gras in 1978.
This bred reluctance to report hate crimes to police. It’s likely there were many more instances of violence than we know about.
Since then, there’s been a seismic shift in attitudes toward LGBTQIA+ people, both in policing and in the community. But now this history is butting up against today’s violent forces, putting LGBTQIA+ communities under threat again.
In the current political climate, the recent attacks in Sydney will be seen by some as another instance of Muslim communities being targeted based on a very small minority of adherents, coming as it does after the Bondi terror attack and headlines around ISIS brides. Australian Muslims would likely be angry and disgusted by the actions of these youths.
But importantly, these developments are part of a broader story about Islamic State’s reawakening the world over, especially in Australia: a country that’s contributed a lot of fighters and sympathisers to the IS cause.
Australia was one of the Western countries that produced the most young men per capita to fight for IS in the 2010s. The men were very active in both recruitment of other fighters and in some of the worst atrocities, such as the young son of an Australian jihadist being photographed holding a severed head.
The same jihadist, Khaled Sharrouf, also kept Yazidi women as sex slaves.
Some men were stopped from leaving the country and were instead violent in Australia. Teenager Abdul Numan Haider was fatally shot in 2014 after threatening counterterrorism police with a knife.
Late last year, the Bondi terror attack brought this history back to the fore. The alleged attackers had an IS flag on their car.
An IS resurgence puts LGBTQIA+ Australians at particular risk. IS believes homosexuality is punishable by death, and has a track record of throwing gay men from roofs.
A harbinger of what’s to come
Islamic State has long found its recruitment power in young, disenfranchised men and boys attracted to ideas of dominance and strength. The videos of the Sydney attacks show this in practice.
The boys, acting in the name of IS, continue to kick their victim once he’s unconscious, shouting slurs and threats.
Their willingness to use almost deadly force for a prolonged period of time shows a desensitisation to violence. Combined with their words during the attacks and their clothing, we can also see a high level of religious motivation.
The perpetrators, five of whom have been convicted for the bashings, are reported to be adherents to so-called “hate preachers”. These preachers are anti-Jewish, anti-gay and promote violent jihad.
Under this influence, and the belief that LGBTQIA+ people are subhuman, the attackers think they can operate with moral impunity, and to a degree, criminal impunity.
But it’s not just Islamic extremism driving rampant homophobia. Extreme-right groups such as the National Socialist Network have targeted pride events and drag story time with threats and intimidation.
Based on research and the extremism I study online, authorities should be seriously concerned about these sorts of hate crimes towards LGBTQIA+ people. Against the backdrop of tight law enforcement, resourcing, and the potential breakdown of protective procedures and policies related to the Bondi attack, these incidents require urgent attention.
Crucially, those communities targeted must be listened to, for they are intimately aware of the threats they face and potential security solutions.
Having hard conversations
We need to reach men and boys susceptible to being radicalised by IS before we see more mass violence. Casting a light on the issue is an important first step.
Then we need to stop hate preachers, cutting off the violence at the source. Proposed new laws in New South Wales will help, but the severity of the issue calls for a broader conversation.
Hate preachers operate in plain sight, often carefully calibrating statements to avoid hate speech legislation in public, while inciting hate privately. They target and groom young men, susceptible to narratives offering empowerment, perceived morality, strength and belonging through action.
Many more actors spreading hate operate in the shadows, often online and anonymously. The current political climate makes this a tricky discussion, especially as these issues are too often used for political advantage in bad faith, but we need to consider how to unmask these people and stop them spreading hate.
Little can be achieved while hate speech issues are weaponised for partisan advantage or reduced to culture war theatre. What is unfolding is not a symbolic debate but a security issue with immense human consequences.
The patterns are visible. The ideological convergence is documented. The grooming pathways are known.
If we continue to treat these incidents as isolated flare-ups rather than early warning signals, we will miss the opportunity to intervene before the violence escalates. That means bipartisan leadership, sustained resourcing for prevention and intelligence, and the courage to confront both online radicalisation and offline enablers without fear or favour.
A Fairlie farmer who ended up with a shattered leg after a farm accident has spearheaded a fundraiser to get his local town a new helipad.
It was a normal day on farm for Andrew Hurst, he’d just returned from a bull sale when he was driving a two-wheeler round his farm.
In a split second he was under a Hilux that he had not seen coming from the other direction.
He was airlifted to Christchurch where he spent weeks in hospital undergoing over 10 surgeries to put his leg back together.
Hurst credits the skill and speed of the rescue helicopter with saving his leg and after recovering he quickly went about fundraising $90,000 for a new helipad.
“I felt Fairlie needed something better than just a piece of grass to land on.”
The Westpac Rescue Helicopter is flying into Fairlie on Thursday to officially open the new helipad.
Hurst said it had been a real community effort, with the local Lions Club, companies the Fairlie Community Board, and the Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue Trust getting involved.
He admitted building the helipad was more complex than he first anticipated.
“Initially I thought I’d just be able to go down with a digger, scrape a bit of grass off and pour some concrete.”
“It turns out there’s a lot more involved in a helipad than that! But the helipad is as good as it could ever be, I’m stoked with what the community has achieved.”
Hurst said he would hate to think the rescue helicopter couldn’t help someone because it couldn’t land.
“This new helipad is on an IFR route, which means helicopters can fly here in low cloud or more adverse weather conditions.”
“We are a small, rural community, the rescue helicopter is the fastest way we can access critical care – the helipad will save lives,” he said.
Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue Trust chief executive Christine Prince said the Fairlie community has shown an extraordinary level of commitment and heart throughout the helipad project.
“This helipad is a meaningful investment in the future health and safety of Fairlie which will benefit families for generations.”
She said the opening of the helipad is part of a major transformation of the region’s rescue helicopter service, known as MISSION 2026.
The Trust has purchased three state-of-the-art H145 rescue helicopters for the Canterbury West Coast region.
The first of these helicopters is now in service, with work underway to make the other two mission-ready.
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Portia Woodman-Wickliffe has again announced she is bowing out of the international stage.Photosport / Masanori Udagawa
The greatest of all time is hanging up her black jersey, again.
Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, who came out of retirement for last year’s Rugby World Cup, has announced she is bowing out of the international stage.
She leaves an incomparable legacy behind.
Woodman-Wickliffe was a Rugby World Cup winner in 2017 and 2022, a Sevens World Cup champion in 2013 and 2018, an Olympic gold and silver medallist and Commonwealth Games gold and bronze medallist.
Whether in sevens or 15’s, Woodman-Wickliffe has lit up fields around the globe with her raw pace, power, and inexplicable eye for the try-line.
She walks away as the highest try scorer for the Black Ferns in both codes.
The Black Ferns confirmed the news on social media.
“I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to represent my country, my iwi, my hapū and my whānau one last time on the World Cup stage, a moment I will cherish forever. As I step into this next chapter of my life, I feel both excited and a little nervous, but I’m ready.”
Woodman-Wickliffe was named World Rugby’s Sevens Player of the Year in 2015, Women’s Player of the Year (XVs) in 2017 and in 2020 was named as the top women’s sevens player of the past decade.
The Woodman family name carries with it a bit of weight on the rugby field.
Not only did Portia grow up with an All Black father Kawhena, her uncle Fred Woodman played in two tests in the infamous 1981 series against the Springboks.
Arguably, Woodman-Wickliffe’s high-water mark in the 15-a-side code was during the 2017 Women’s Rugby World Cup, in which she scored a tournament-record 13 tries.
Eight of them came in one match against Hong Kong.
