A specialist multi-agency family violence unit was unaware a man had been in a relationship with a woman he harassed and stalked, making nearly 600 calls to her in two weeks, before fatally stabbing her 55 times.
Corrections had asked police to check the suitability of the woman’s address for the man to live at.
On Thursday, Nathan Boulter – who had a long history of stalking and assaulting ex-partners – pleaded guilty to murdering a woman in Parklands, Christchurch, on 23 July.
The woman had been in a brief relationship with Boulter. After she ended it, he harassed, stalked and threatened her, making nearly 600 calls in two weeks, before hiding outside her home, then stabbing her 55 times with a hunting knife, as she arrived home with her children.
Do you know more? Email sam.sherwood@rnz.co.nz
Court documents revealed Boulter and the victim had been in a brief relationship, which began in May. After Boulter was recalled to prison, the woman terminated the relationship and told him she did not want any further contact from him.
He was released from prison on 7 July.
Speaking to RNZ’s Checkpoint on Friday, Canterbury District Commander Superintendent Tony Hill said, after Boulter was released, police were contacted by Corrections to check or verify the suitability of the victim’s address, which Boulter had listed.
Boulter was on release conditions at the time, which included not moving addresses without the written consent of his probation officer.
Hill said he understood police reported their view on that, and the woman had told either Corrections or police she was “not welcoming him back into the home”.
In 2016, the Integrated Safety Response (ISR) model was launched. According to the police website, the ISR is a multi-agency intervention, including police, Oranga Tamariki and Corrections, designed to ensure the immediate safety of victims and children and to work with perpetrators to prevent further violence.
“Key features of ISR include dedicated staff, funded specialist services for victims and perpetrators, daily risk assessment and triage, family safety plans, an electronic case management system and an intensive case management approach to collectively work with high risk families.”
Asked whether any risk assessment was done by the ISR team, Hill said the unit had not been notified that Boulter and the woman were in a relationship.
Hill said police would normally attend a family-harm event, do a report and it got entered into the safety response “virtual table”.
“Then all agencies report in what information they hold about the perpetrator and what information they hold about the victim, and then a risk assessment is done, the risk is determined and then the appropriate response is decided on.”
Police at the scene of the murder.RNZ / Adam Burns
Hill said, if the ISR had been involved, it “might have seen that there was some risk and a risk assessment done”.
“Of course, they can’t act if they don’t know.”
Asked if, given Boulter’s violent history and obsessive behaviour, the ISR should have been notified, Hill said it was “too early to tell”.
Hill said a Family Harm Death Review was underway to establish what information was shared and the information had been passed on to ISR.
“Naturally, you’d think that would be the right thing to do, but I think it’s really appropriate to let that run its course, before we jump to conclusions that, ‘Hey, this absolutely should have been done’.
“I’d like all these facts and info in any cases of this nature to be before them, so we can do that decision-making, and I don’t know what the circumstances or what prevented that from happening on this case.”
Asked if he believed Corrections should have notified the ISR team, Hill said he was unable to comment.
“I don’t know what information they had in front of them.”
Hill was unsure if the woman was warned by police about Boulter’s criminal history.
“I understand that our team were aware that, if you checked him online, you could find other information. It was pretty evident from the conversation that was had with her, not by police, that she was aware of his background to some degree.
“I’m not sure exactly what.”
Court documents said Boulter “developed an unhealthy fixation with the victim”.
“Once released, the defendant began a significant electronic harassment of the victim, by making 581 calls to the victim between 7 July, 2025, and 20 July, 2025, which she tried to ignore.
“In response, the victim made zero calls.”
Boulter used different cellphone numbers and social media profiles to harass, stalk and threaten the woman.
On 14 July, he sent several email messages to the woman, threatening to “chop u down to nothing” and “one two guess who’s coming to you! Your lack of human compassion and empathy will be the death of you one day soon my Lil hoe! Xxx”.
The woman began locking her front gate with a padlock to keep herself safe. She also told her friends and family of Boulter’s threats.
‘Give us the opportunity to come and help you’
Hill said police were not notified of the harassment.
“That’s probably in my mind, that’s key to this is that, while she had told family members and friends that she had reported this, she hadn’t reported anything about the online abuse that she had suffered from him.
“I think it’s really key to this is that, if you know family members are being subjected to this or you are yourself, you really need to complain to us about that, and give us the opportunity to come and help you.”
Hill said what happened was a “horrible tragedy”.
“All family-harm homicides are arguably preventable in some way and that’s what we really want to do – make sure that, if there’s a part of this that we’ve got wrong, we need to own that and make sure that we do everything in our power to prevent that from ever happening again.”
Release conditions
Corrections director of communities, partnerships and pathways David Roberts told RNZ Boulter was subject to release conditions at the time of the murder
“When he was released, we worked with police in a multi-agency group to monitor his risk and his compliance with his conditions.”
Following the murder, Corrections commissioned a review into Boulter’s management.
“Part of this includes how Corrections communicated and worked with relevant agencies, including police. This review is nearing completion.
“Once it is complete, we will be reaching out to the family of the woman to offer them the opportunity to meet with us and discuss the findings of the review. We believe providing this information to them first is the right thing to do.”
Chief victims advisor Ruth Money earlier called the woman’s death “one more example of preventable tragedy”.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it – I just do not believe that we have the system right for our highest-risk and our highest-threat prisoners and offenders.”
Money said she understood reviews were underway by police, Corrections and other agencies. She would look at each of the reviews individually, but also from a systemic lens.
“How did it work, or not? How should it have?
“Do we have the right provisions in the system to do this better and we just simply didn’t? Why not?
“Do we need to change the system somehow to make sure that this doesn’t happen again?”
Australia’s regulator has suspended use of a common pesticide used on blueberries, raspberries and blackberries known as dimethoate.
But this year-long suspension isn’t due to any new information about the pesticide itself. Rather, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) says it’s because we’re eating more berries so our potential exposure has increased.
In particular, it says children aged two to six years may be at increased risk of exceeding maximum limits.
Here’s what we know about dimethoate and whether berries are still safe to eat.
What is dimethoate?
Dimethoate is a pesticide that has been used in Australia since since 1956. It belongs to a class of pesticides that inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. This prevents the breakdown of a key neurotransmitter (chemical messenger) and so paralyses an insect’s nervous system, killing it.
Mammals, including humans, also have the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, and can be poisoned by this class of pesticide.
So careful regulation of both application of dimethoate and levels of dimethoate residues on food are required so we are not exposed to harmful levels.
The amount of maximum permissible residues depends, in turn, on how much someone is exposed to from their food.
To do this, you need to have estimates of how much residue is on food and how much food we eat.
How much is too much?
The APVMA has a maximum limit for how much dimethoate we should be exposed to from our food. This is known as the acute reference dose (or ARfD), which is 0.02 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.
This maximum dose includes a safety factor of ten. In other words, the maximum dose allowed is ten times lower than the lowest dose that has no effect.
But our dietary habits have changed. Australian consumption of blueberries, blackberries and raspberries has increased substantially since the APVMA last assessed dimethoate. Consumption is up 285–962% compared to levels considered for its 2017 assessment.
The level of residues detected are unlikely to pose a serious risk to human health, but has proposed suspension of these specific dimethoate products as a precautionary measure.
What can you do?
Don’t give up on berries. Eating berries is an important part of a balanced diet. And the APVMA is at pains to emphasise the risk of harm is low.
The simplest approach is to wash your berries. You should be washing fruit and vegetables anyway. Washing helps get rid of soil, and potentially harmful microorganisms.
Washing berries will not remove all dimethoate, but can substantially reduce the levels so you can continue to enjoy them and their benefits.
Ian Musgrave has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council to study adverse reactions to herbal medicines and has previously been funded by the Australian Research Council to study potential natural product treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. He is currently a member of one of the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s statutory councils.
On Thursday, the Liberals reversed their commitment to net zero by 2050. While it’s impossible to predict precisely what this decision means for climate action in Australia, the policies and laws already in place suggest momentum will continue.
There’s no question the climate policies of opposition parties matter – especially for investor and business confidence. But understanding the policies and laws already in place helps understand where progress will happen regardless.
Just this year, Australia published a Net Zero Plan, set its 2035 target and published six sector plans that include electricity and energy, transport and agriculture. These set out the frameworks and investments already locked in that are guiding progress towards Australia’s targets.
Existing targets
Australia has already legislated federal emissions-reduction targets, with the states and territories also having their own commitments to net zero alongside interim targets. The federal opposition reversing support for achieving the net zero goal won’t change what is already in place. In addition, most other countries are still working towards the goal of net zero by 2050.
In both the House of Representatives and the Senate, those who support climate action are in the majority – Labor, the Greens and climate-progressive independents, including the “Teals”. In the lower house they form a strong majority.
Yes, new policies and laws will be required to achieve Australia’s climate targets. However, given the current Labor government has the numbers to pass legislation through the lower house and the Senate, with the backing of the Greens, the Coalition alone won’t be able to play a blocking role.
Transition gathering steam
The economic transition from fossil fuel power generation to clean technologies is already well underway. Yes, there have been headwinds in recent years, including in the United States, but the momentum is still there. And the main Australian industry groups – the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry – are all still calling for net zero by 2050.
Industry wants consistency and clarity to help finesse their investment and business strategies. This also provides the clarity needed for long-term decisions. It’s worth noting the Department of Treasury, under successive governments, has found that action to reduce emissions and manage climate risks is more attractive to international investment and expected to lower the cost of finance.
Renewable energy is becoming much cheaper in Australia and globally, and is expected to become the majority of electricity generation within Australia as early as next year. It has already reached nearly an 80% share for short periods.
And it’s the detail of the transition that industry and investors are focused on. They want to know: is it cheaper to build renewable energy as coal-fired generators age and have to be shut down? What’s the cheapest way to provide energy in the years ahead? What about technology costs? What policies will drive investment?
There’s no question that industry and communities respond well when the major parties act together – across the different levels of government. But a multitude of factors affect investment far more than opposition policy.
Diplomatic shifts
Under the Paris Agreement, countries are expected to set interim emissions targets every five years. If countries backtrack or drop out, that can bring diplomatic and economic impacts, including with some of Australia’s key trade partners and neighbouring countries in the Pacific and South East Asia.
As an influential middle power, Australia can punch above its weight. Australia is also in the top 20 global emitters, and even moves much higher up the list if you add the emissions impacts of fossil fuel exports. So, what Australia does and says is important. At the moment the government is clear it wants to be seen as a good partner in supporting emissions reductions in the region, and that has been well received.
If Australia wins its bid to host COP31, it will need to demonstrate that a high-emitting economy is genuinely embarked on a transition. That the electricity sector is already above 40% share of renewables, at least in the connected grids, is a clear sign. The next step will be showing how Australia can make the most of its clean energy and mineral resources in a future economy that’s focused on net zero, rather than the economy of the past.
What now?
The clean energy transition isn’t only about having cheaper electricity or paying less for fuel. It’s about our health more generally. If you live in a well-insulated house that you can heat and cool at a reasonable cost, your health and welfare benefits.
For instance, our research shows that with climate-aligned home energy upgrades and appliance electrification, Australian households could save up to $2,000 a year, equating to average energy bills savings of as much as 50% per home.
The latest figures from the United Nations show how far the world has come. Without the Paris Agreement, the world was on track to reach about 4°C of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100. To date, the commitments through the Paris agreement have reduced that to projections of limiting warming to 2.3–2.8°C. This is still above safe levels, but every fraction of a degree matters, for climate damage, for our health and our wellbeing.
It’s up to everyone who thinks climate action matters to ensure the public understands the economic, short- and long-term personal benefits a planned transition will bring.
Climateworks Centre receives funding from a range of external sources including philanthropy, governments and businesses. Businesses such as mining companies and industry associations have previously co-funded Climateworks’ research on industrial decarbonisation, and may benefit from policies mentioned in this article.
Breakers guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright under pressure from Isaac Humphries of Adelaide 36ers.Photosport
NZ Breakers won’t wear the rainbow pride progress flag on their uniform during the Australian NBL’s ‘Pride Round’ early next year.
The club said it was a collective decision to not wear the logo as part of the round that recognises the LGBTQIA+ community.
“In line with the league’s voluntary participation policy to wear the patch, the players discussed the matter as a team,” the club said. “Some players raised religious and cultural concerns about wearing the insignia.
“To protect individual players from being singled out for their beliefs, the team collectively decided they would either all wear the insignia or none would.
“The club respects the human rights of all individuals, including their right to freedom of expression.”
The Breakers are the second club in the history of the Pride Round, which began in 2023, to take a full-team approach to not wearing something as part of their uniform. Cairns Taipans did the same during the inaugural round, when the players did not wear a pride jersey.
That season, the Breakers did wear a pride jersey.
Individual players have also chosen not to wear the flag over the last few years.
The Breakers said the team “are looking forward to participating in the NBL’s Pride Round”.
“The club strongly supports this event, and is open and inclusive, and will celebrate the diversity of LGBTQIA+ players, members, volunteers and supporters.
“We are committed to ensuring the Breakers are a safe, welcoming and inclusive place for all, both on and off the court.”
The Pride Round this season will be held across both the NBL and WNBL from 21 January-1 February, celebrating diversity and inclusion in basketball.
In previous seasons, players, coaches and staff have participated in ‘Pride in Sport’ training sessions to build awareness of the challenges faced by LGBTQIA+ athletes in sport, and understand the power of language to create inclusive cultures.
During this season’s Pride Round, the Breakers play four times, with three games on the road.
The Breakers host Adelaide 36ers on 23 January at Spark Arena. The NBL’s only openly gay player, centre Isaac Humphries, plays for the 36ers.
During Pride Round, basketball courts will also feature a pride progress flag on the floor.
Former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen praised the Rugby Football Union for raising the Pride flag above Twickenham for the World XV match against the Barbarians in 2023, after he had selected Israel Folau, who was sacked by Rugby Australia for his comments on gay people.
The aviation colour warning for the island remains at ‘orange’ to tell aircraft that a volcanic eruption is underway, but little or no ash is being produced.
GeoNet duty volcanologist Paul Jarvis said a steam and gas plume rose about 3km above sea level, and was visible from the Bay of Plenty coast at about 11.30am Friday.
“Webcam and satellite observations show that the volcanic ash content was minor, and the likelihood of volcanic ash reaching the mainland is very low,” he said.
GeoNet said analysis of webcam images and satellite imagery from MetServic suggested the likelihood of significant volcanic ash in the plume was minor.
After about 30 minutes, the plume returned to a more typical altitude of about 1km or less.
“While the plume was highly visible from afar, this does not reflect a significant change of activity at the volcano,” Jarvis said.
“The height that a volcanic plume can reach is determined by a combination of the volcanic activity and atmospheric conditions.”
Bay of Plenty currently has a severe thunderstorm watch, which affects how easily volcanic plumes rise through the atmosphere.
“Given the current atmospheric conditions and the volcanic activity level over recent weeks, it is possible further visibly impressive plumes may be observed,” Jarvis said.
If wind blows the plume towards the Bay of Plenty coast, residents may smell sulphur odours.
“However, at the current level of activity, there is a very low likelihood of ash falling to the ground at the coast,” Jervis said. “The level of volcanic activity would have to escalate significantly for this likelihood to increase.”
GeoNet monitors the island by remote cameras, satellite imagery and periodic observation, and gas flights.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Multiple schools and early learning centres in the Australian Capital Territory have shut on Friday after asbestos was found in coloured sand used for children’s art and sensory play. At least one school in Brisbane has also closed due to potential exposure.
On Thursday, WorkSafe ACT issued a contamination notice after laboratory testing confirmed traces of chrysotile, a type of asbestos, in Kadink Decorative Sand.
It follows a recall notice by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for Educational Colours Rainbow Sand (1.3kg), Creatistics Coloured Sand (1kg) and Kadink Sand (1.3kg) in various colours. This was because of a different type of asbestos, tremolite.
The sand subject to the recall was manufactured in China and sold by several Australian retailers, including Officeworks and Woolworths.
Parents will understandably be feeling worried about kids’ potential exposure to asbestos, which has been banned in Australia since 2003. But the risks in this case are low. Here’s what you need to know – and how to get rid of contaminated sand safely.
Information about which kind was found in these sand products differs according to the agency issuing the alert:
the ACCC recall says the products “may contain tremolite asbestos”
WorkSafe Qld says they “contain a low level of tremolite and/or chrysotile asbestos”
WorkSafe ACT says its testing (of Kandink Sand) found it “contains chrysotile”.
Fortunately, the most dangerous type – crocidolite asbestos or “blue” asbestos – has not been reported as a contaminant.
According to the ACCC, the recalled products have been sold throughout Australia between 2020 and 2025. But if regular testing has occurred it’s likely the contamination is more recent, and could be limited to a single batch. However we do not have the information at this stage.
How could it end up in sand?
The children’s play sand was manufactured overseas, and we don’t know how it was contaminated. But there are several possibilities.
If the sand was taken from a beach then it is unlikely to be contaminated with asbestos. But if the sand was manufactured by crushing rocks, then potentially asbestos – which is a naturally occurring mineral – could have been in the source product.
Asbestos is still used as a heat-shielding material or as a building product in many places in the world. So it’s also possible the processes used to dye the sand could also be another potential source of contamination.
What are the health risks? Are kids more vulnerable?
Asbestos is most dangerous when it becomes airborne and can be inhaled, for example during demolitions and renovations of older homes, where it was a common building material.
Inhaling any form of asbestos (fibres, dust, microparticles) can cause mesothelioma – a cancer that affects organ tissue, particularly the lungs – as well as lung cancer and asbestosis, a chronic lung disease that causes shortness of breath.
There is no safe level of exposure. However the risks increase with the amount you’re exposed to.
This means a small amount can be dangerous. But those who encounter asbestos once or twice in small amounts have a far lower risk of developing health complications, compared to people continually exposed to large quantities, as we’ve seen in the construction and mining industries.
We don’t have much research about the impact in children. But we know the younger someone is when exposed, the greater the risk is they will develop cancer or asbestosis. This is because the health effects can take decades to develop. So younger people have a higher chance of living long enough to see them emerge.
So, what is the risk?
WorkSafe ACT hasn’t released the levels it found through lab testing. But a statement on its website says: “The risk of exposure to traces of chrysotile is low.” This suggests very low levels were found.
The potential of exposure should be taken very seriously, as asbestos can be deadly. But it is not a cause for panic; the risk in this case is low.
Remember, it is likely everyone has been exposed to asbestos at some point, but most of us report no health complications as a result.
How should I dispose of the sand safely?
Detailed instructions are available at WorkSafe ACT.
You should wear:
disposable gloves, tucked into cuffs, and any gaps sealed with tape
a P2-rated face mask (not a standard dust mask)
protective eyewear.
When disposing of the sand:
do everything you can to prevent dust or fibres becoming airborne
carefully double-wrap the sand, its container, and related materials in heavy duty (200-micron) plastic bags
seal with tape and clearly label the package as asbestos waste.
Information about asbestos disposal in your state or territory is available at the Asbestos and Silica Safety and Eradication Agency website.
An Eskdale house where a family was rescued from their ceiling cavity.Alexa Cook / RNZ
A witness at the inquest into 13 deaths linked to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawke’s Bay has warned the coroner that more people will be harmed, unless local councils set alert levels for rivers, so everyone knows when an evacuation is needed.
More than 30 witnesses were giving evidence in this part of the inquest, and Gale was the first person not employed by a local council, MetService or emergency services during the cyclone to take the stand.
He told the coroner no-one was any safer today than they were during Cyclone Gabrielle, because local authorities still had not set ‘trigger levels’ for Hawke’s Bay’s rivers, where if the water reaches a certain point, people are evacuated.
“Without a plan, everyone is going to fail again and again, and someone else will be harmed,” Gale said.
The coroner asked: “So a plan for those in the control room, as such, setting out to them what river levels mean, but also for residents?”
“Yes,” Gale replied. “I’d go as far as saying it needs to be automated to a certain point – ‘at this level, you do this’. Then there is no human error.”
Dane Gale of Eskdale Holiday Park.RNZ / REECE BAKER
Gale said his own early warning system had been tested many times by varying sized floods and it had never failed to work.
The system has a float valve, which measured the river’s level and set off an alarm in his home, when the Esk River reached 3.6m high, with another alarm sounded at 4.6m.
“People shouldn’t be caught out by a flood,” Gale said. “It takes hours for it to flood, but no-one can do anything about it, if they don’t have a trigger point.”
He addressed the coroner directly, voicing concern about future flood risks, saying nothing had changed since the deadly cyclone, when hundreds of people weren’t evacuated in time.
“I don’t think anyone in Hawke’s Bay is any safer in a Gabrielle event than before, because you can’t get harmed in a flood, if you’re not in it – just like you can’t get harmed in a car crash, if you don’t hop in a car,” Gale said.
A report after the 2018 Eskdale flood recommended a text alert system for residents and had been discussed several times throughout the inquest.
“Pretty much everyone agreed that that was a good idea,” Gale said.
He told the court there was an expectation the regional council could implement such a system, but that still hadn’t happened.
Daniel Gale’s ‘early warning system’ was dug out of the silt after Cyclone Gabrielle. It has a float valve which alerts him when it is triggered by set river levels.Alexa Cook / RNZ
Gale highlighted the alert systems used in the United States in Florida, where millions of people were evacuated before major storms.
Coroner Woolley nodded, telling him she had experienced that system firsthand.
“In the States, you get sent messages based on your location on Google Maps. I recently was in the States and got an alert – I think they have good systems.
“It’s probably a worthwhile thing to think about.”
Woolley thanked Gale for giving evidence.
“It’s very valuable for me to hear from people who were on the ground, so thank you very much.”
‘It was so obvious what was coming’
During the coronial inquiry, the court has heard from local council and civil defence staff.
Hawke’s Bay Regional Council hydrologist Craig Goodier was the flood forecaster during the cyclone and, in his evidence said it was “unlikely” they could have forecast the magnitude of flooding.
When Gale saw the Esk River rising on Monday, 13 February, and an updated MetService forecast of 250-350mm rainfall in the ranges, he knew from past experience the valley would flood up to the railway line, as it had seven years previously.
At about 6.30pm, the second alarm went off on his early warning system, telling him the river had reached 4.6m.
“I was getting frustrated that no action had been taken by anybody and yet here we are, watching a cyclone coming… it was so obvious what was coming,” he said.
Carnage caused by Cyclone Gabrielle in Esk Valley.Alexa Cook / RNZ
Gale said he rang and texted Esk Valley residents he knew could be in harm’s way, and then contacted Civil Defence to ensure it was aware of the flood risk.
“I’m thinking, ‘Why is nobody coming out and telling these people?’ I’m ringing these people and they haven’t heard anything, so I rang Civil Defence on the radio, as I knew I’d get straight to them.
“I’m trying to say, ‘Hey, the river is really cranking up now’. I said, ‘The river is rising really rapidly’ and the single response was, ‘We’ll pass it on’.”
“I saw that and thought, ‘Oh well, these guys are doing their job, they’re going to tell people to leave’, and as we know, they didn’t.”
Gale’s voice shook as he talked about how hard it was reflecting back on his decision not to post his own evacuation warning in the community Facebook group.
“Had I told our community, perhaps it would have changed things.”
The coronial inquest will continue in March next year, with more than 15 witnesses still to give evidence.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Analysis by Keith Rankin.
Labour Party Policies
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Last month the New Zealand Labour Party announced two policies: a second sovereign wealth fund, and a capital gains tax on non-owner-occupier real estate. For me, both are worrying, representing further steps in the financialisation of an already over-financialised economy. Then yesterday, I heard a story (Report highlights benefits of Kids KiwiSaver scheme, RNZ 13 November 2025) about a group philosophically in tune with the Labour Party lobbying for compulsory KiwiSaver accounts for children; accounts to be opened at birth (and presumably, for those not born in New Zealand, from the date of their being granted permanent residence) and subsequently subsidised. Further promotion of KiwiSaver would be a third financialisation policy.
To understand the issues that I am concerned about – issues about capitalism as understood by mainstream western parties including, indeed especially, Labour parties – a useful metaphor is a ‘mansion’. Our mansion has four spaces: a downstairs commons, a mezzanine, an upstairs casino, and – at the top – a penthouse. The spaces become progressively less inclusive with their elevation.
We note that Aotearoa New Zealand has, since the mid-1980s, become the world’s poster-child for neoliberal finance capitalism. And many, including myself, would argue that New Zealand’s relative (and now absolute) economic decline since the 1980s has been due to its even greater commitment – compared to other western capitalist nations – to the neoliberal financial project.
The Mansion
Money circulates in the downstairs commons (the real economy where goods and services are demanded and supplied) and the upstairs casino (where existing assets are traded, and where derivative assets are created). The casino has an exclusive penthouse annexe – an upper casino – for high rollers.
To our metaphorical mansion we may add a mezzanine, consisting of the government and the banks. We can think of these as regulating the flows of money between the commons and the casino. Money is a special kind of asset – a liquid asset – which flows throughout the mansion, facilitating all the different kinds of trade which take place there. The mezzanine is an active mediator; a pump, a valve, and a sump.
Markets in the commons are primary markets; places where goods and services are produced and bought. Markets in the casino are secondary markets; the casino is a place of trading and speculative gambling. The mezzanine connects the two principal spaces within the mansion.
Though I’m mainly concerned here more about the normal casino, not the penthouse, there is a narrative common among many Labour policy people – many of whom are nine-percenter elites, people in the political class who are not one-percenters – that the ills of society can be placed upon the one-percenters, the penthouse dwellers. These Labour people want the penthouse to be super-taxed, regarding the penthouse as both a fount of grabbable wealth and a place of entitled behaviour. Tax the bads, not so much the goods; and tax capital, not labour. They say. Tax the high-rollers and the landlords. The one-percenters have become a scapegoat for capitalism’s economic failings, allowing the nine-percenters to bask in a bourgeois bubble of self-declared virtue.
Generally, a policy of taxing ‘bads’ for the purpose of raising public revenue must be a policy of supporting those bad activities in order to protect the bad revenue stream. (An ideal tax on bads will generate zero revenue, because it will eliminate those bads.)
While the mansion is a metaphor for a nation’s grand economy of outputs, markets, and money, we note the complication that money also comes and goes through the front and back doors; out of and into other nation’s economies. (While this complication is not unimportant, we can pull away from this by considering the global economy as a complex of commons, casinos, and mezzanines; but no entrances or exits. The global economy is a closed economy. For my purposes here, so is the mansion economy.)
Relationship between the Commons and the Casino
When inequality is high or growing, more money flows from the working classes to the top-ten percent – the ten percenters – than flows the other way; the casino grows faster than the commons. Much of that money being pumped upstairs is profits, royalties, rents; including managerial ‘profits’ in the form of oversized salaries and bonuses. This is income saved rather than spent, meaning it migrates from the commons into the casino.
A significant proportion of income goes into the mezzanine: taxes, savings, debt-repayments, interest payments. Banks and governments then make key decisions about cycling such income back (ie downstairs) into the commons – the economy – or forward (ie upstairs) into the casino. Or it may sit, parked, in the mezzanine.
Thus, the mezzanine has monetary conduits into both commons and casino. Governments spend and save and borrow. When borrowing, governments issue new bonds which are subsequently traded in the casino; but the money raised is generally spent, by the borrowing government, into the commons. Banks may lend to either the commons or to the casino. When, in the judgement of the banks, the economy of the commons is not looking too flash, the profit-seeking banks will lend less to the commons (meaning lending less for the purpose of spending, including genuine investment) and more to the casino (meaning lending more for the purpose of ‘investing in’ existing assets or new derivatives).
We note that, through the processes of production and commerce, economic wealth – useful stuff – is created in the commons. And through the processes of saving and asset trading, financial wealth is created in the casino. The two forms of wealth, commonly conflated, are fundamentally different from each other. Economic wealth – actual wealth – includes both hens and their eggs. (Not golden geese nor golden eggs!) Financial wealth is claims on actual wealth (or on other claims). Gold – except in its industrial and dental and purely artistic uses – is an example of financial wealth; a claim on economic wealth, as are all forms of money. Traded artworks, too, are financial wealth.
We note that employees within the finance sector themselves operate in the commons economy, selling and buying goods and services; albeit, financial services.
Circular Flow
In traditional economic description, the injection of investment spending (controlled mainly by banks) offsets the outflow of saving. And the injection of government spending offsets the outflow of taxation. This is known as the circular flow, and was modelled in the 1950s by the hydraulic moniac machine, invented by the economist Bill Phillips who had worked as a teenager in the early 1930s on the Waikaremoana hydroelectric scheme. (Detractors of descriptions of economies which emphasise the circular flow over the price mechanism, may refer to Phillips’ hydraulic Keynesianism.)
The main impetus to economic growth – growth of activity in the commons – occurs when injections slightly exceed outflows; creating excess demand. (This is refuted by the neoliberal advocates of supply-side economics, who believe that growth is natural regardless of demand, but may be hampered by price distortions and other cost impediments.)
Other injections into the commons from the mezzanine or the casino include dissaving – ranging from the withdrawal of money from savings’ accounts to the sale of assets for the purpose of buying goods or services – and new consumer debt. Consumer debt can take place through the wealth effect, meaning that people with increasing financial wealth are encouraged to borrow against that collateral in order to purchase goods and services in the commons.
Price inflation can stimulate the spending of money parked in the casino or the mezzanine. With inflation, the purchasing-power of money erodes, creating incentives to spend it ‘downstairs’. But inflation also creates incentives to deploy money ‘upstairs’, by buying non-money assets with expected returns above the rate of inflation.
Goods’ types
The ‘bread and butter’ of developed, industrialised, economies is the production of ‘wage goods’, essentially meaning the goods and services that working class people buy; indeed many fortunes have been made from selling wage goods, especially addictive goods, which enjoy economies of scale. The most important wage goods are food, rental housing, clothing, transport, basic personal services, and entertainment.
The wealth effect, however, tends to favour ‘bourgeois goods’ over wage goods; in that sense we may say that money from working-class taxes and savings is ‘laundered’ through the casino, re-emerging in the commons as discretionary middle-class spending. Another part of the economy, which connects the commons directly to the penthouse, is known as conspicuous consumption – ‘vanity goods’ – basically spending which can only be undertaken by aristocrats and other one-percenters; think the ‘gilded age’.
A fourth category of consumer goods produced in the commons are military goods, built by the military-industrial complex, and principally facilitated by governments.
A fifth category is ‘illicit goods’ – goods and services which are either illegal outright, or are otherwise disreputable; the most obvious examples are the consumption of illicit drugs and sexual services. An important and understudied aspect of this fifth category is the extent that elites and counter-elites – the ten-percenters – generate demand for illicit goods. Economic theory treats illicit goods as any other type of consumer goods.
In addition to consumer goods, in the circular flow there are investment goods, which are important for economic growth. Investment goods become, for general purposes, the built environment. The demand for investment goods is largely derived from the demand for wage goods.
The two main threats to the sustainability of capitalism are excess flows – net flows – from the commons to the casino; and spending flows from the casino to the commons which undermine the demand for – and hence production of – wage goods. Capitalism is at its healthiest when workers are also consumers; and when workers don’t have to incur debt in order to buy wage goods.
When outflows into the casino exceed injections into the commons
This is a state of systemic unbalance, likely to happen when wages fall behind productivity; ie likely to happen when the incomes of the upper income-decile increase the most. The casino gets more populated with money, with the commons less populated. More play for some, and less pay for others!
Such unbalance leads to a form of structural recession; a shrinking of the real economy as the financial emporium upstairs expands. In such a structural recession, the commons starve – or at least suffer malnourishment – whereas the casino bloats and inflates.
The attraction of the casino is ‘financial return’, which has two components. The first component is yield, which is revenue extracted from the commons by asset-holders participating in the casino. The second component is capital gain, which derives when demand for existing assets exceeds the supply of existing assets, pushing up the exchange prices of those assets. This quest for – indeed the gamble for – capital gains is the reason why it is appropriate to call the upstairs financial room of the mansion ‘the casino’.
Government policies which facilitate flows of revenue into the casino from the commons are policies which fuel the capital gain process, by generating excess demand for existing claims; in effect creating more claims by making claims more valuable. The capital gains process gives the illusion of wealth-creation; but it is really the creation of financial bloat or inflated wealth, of excess claims. It occurs when speculation gives – at least in the short term – better returns than investment in the commons. It increases the claims on real wealth of the casino class vis-à-vis the incomes of the commons class of mainly working people.
What happens most of the time, however, is that financial wealth is not spent on goods or services; rather it is left in the casino, to inflate. Inequality begets inequality. When capital gains are the norm, the casino operates as an alternative form of compound interest. Regular compound interest occurs when interest yields outpace consumer price inflation; interest payments augment financial wealth while draining the commons of demand for goods and services. Casino compounded interest occurs when capital gains exceed inflation. Leveraged compound interest occurs when casino punters borrow money to buy assets; while risky, the growth of financial wealth made possible substantially outpaces the more ordinary and passive forms of accumulating compounded claims. When leveraged compound interest is taking place, banks in the mezzanine look to upstairs-lending instead of downstairs-lending for more of their profits.
Capital gains, and Labour policies.
We in New Zealand have become most familiar with real estate as the asset class which generates capital gains; so it is that asset class for which there has been most agitation – especially from the established ‘Left’ – for a capital gains tax.
The Labour Party is proposing a capital gains tax on ‘investment property’ as a future revenue source. To achieve revenue from such a tax, there have to be such capital gains, and therefore that part of the casino needs to be nursed to convert this problem into a solution.
Yet, in the casino at present – especially in New Zealand – capital gains are being made from just about every category of financial assets other than real estate. And Labour has no plans to impose a capital gains tax on any of these others: shares, bonds, gold, crypto-currency being the main types. Labour also plans to exempt owner-occupied housing, creating disincentives to labour mobility (homeowners moving to other locations, renting out the family home). But they do not plan to exempt young aspirants to property-ownership who can most easily get onto the property ladder by buying (and letting) houses in towns or suburbs other than where they live and work.
NZ real estate is too overpriced relative to financial fundamentals at present and in the foreseeable future; substantial capital gains seem unlikely to restart so long as the commons is in the doldrums. Though it seems that northern European nations, which kept a lid on property prices in the 2010s, are now ‘enjoying’ the financialisation of housing.
An unremarked-on form of capital gain taking place at present is in the bond market, especially government bonds which are regarded in many jurisdictions as risk-free. When interest rates fall steadily – not too fast, not too slow – then bond prices increase for a period of years; especially the prices of ‘long-dated’ bonds. (Though New Zealand has a rather thin government bond market, given its official aversion to government debt. This chart shows yields on US 30-year bonds; these bonds can be expected to generate large capital gains when interest rates finally fall in the United States.) Falling interest rates do not necessarily restore the downstairs-upstairs balance, boosting consumer spending, as most commentators suggest. The revival of the commons needs to be kick-started by spending – such as government spending – not merely by cheaper debt. As well as stimulating the market for bonds in circulation, lower interest rates create the expectation that banks will lend more funds into the casinoand thereby further boost the prices of financial assets.
If governments tax some forms of capital gain, but not others, they simply distort the financial marketplace, creating more ‘investment’ in those classes of assets not subject to the tax.
Replenishing the Commons
Money that flows into the casino and stays there is effectively withdrawn from the real economy, so the commons need to be replenished by the mezzanine with new money. In essence, that process of replenishment is known as quantitative easing; it’s essentially a process of expanding government debt – creating new liabilities on governments’ balance sheets and new assets on banks’ balance sheets. The requirement is that the new money is lent into the commons, and in the process spent in the commons; not lent into the casino or left in the banks’ sumps.
Super-Inflation
In near-normal times, replenishing the commons depleted of money maintains that normality, and therefore minimises financial risks. It’s normally OK if money – effectively play-money – circulates in the casino, so long as that money doesn’t interfere with vital markets such as the housing market. But such monetary bloat acts like a Sword of Damocles dangling over the commons.
A super-inflation problem comes when there is a sudden and unexpected cascade of reactivated money descending from the casino to the commons. When there is panic in the casino – as there was in 2008 – the mezzanine may replenish the casino with money, in the hope that the panic will ease and the money in the casino will stay in the casino. That’s what happened at the end of the 2000s, indeed with a degree of deflation; yet there was plenty of scaremongering that dramatic inflation might be a consequence of the monetary easing which took place then.
The principal Sword of Damocles which we face today is the world’s corporate casino-dwellers – the many private and public pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds.
Sovereign Wealth Funds
Sovereign wealth funds are funds which ‘invest’ public savings in the global casino. Some such funds may have restrictions placed upon them; these are usually funds which seek to promote certain sectors of the real economy, and are sometimes nationalistic in nature. This is the kind of second fund proposed for New Zealand, and is similar to sovereign wealth funds promoted by Roger Douglas in 1973, and the fund promoted by certain elements of the First Labour Government in 1937. (New Zealand’s present sovereign wealth fund is commonly known as the Cullen Fund, a superannuation fund, and is scheduled for liquidation in the coming decades.)
Countries for which sovereign wealth funds are appropriate are mainly those with large stocks of in-demand export commodities. The obvious examples in recent history are those of the oil-producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Norway; these countries have had large trade surpluses. Another country famous for its sovereign wealth fund is Singapore, which also has had large trade surpluses. Singapore borrows money, in Singapore’s own currency, to fund its fund. Singapore has a huge pool of private savings, which are channelled into that country’s public ‘investment’ fund.
New Zealand is the very opposite; it’s a country with a very long history of current account and trade deficits. The New Zealand government, like the Singapore government, effectively borrows to fund its fund. The new Labour-proposed fund is intended to divert certain monies (profits of publicly owned businesses) into this new fund – money that would normally be spent into the real economy and thereby supportive of the commons – and shunt it into the casino. It has been conceived of as a magic-money tree – a compound interest scheme – which will create future financial wealth. In reality, it will simply augment the Sword of Damocles which is already hanging over the economies of New Zealand and like countries.
Likewise KiwiSaver, which is a set of private pension funds, made semi-compulsory, shunting lots of money into the casino, and funded by incomes which could otherwise be being spent into – supporting – the commons. KiwiSaver breaks two of the most commonsensical rules of monetary literacy. It requires working-class New Zealanders to save money while simultaneously incurring debt, and requires them to prioritise this building of casino assets over their paying down mortgage and other personal debt. In addition, it requires New Zealanders to hope that their KiwiSaver balances will outpace inflation; indeed the balances are outpacing inflation in part by policies which boost the casino at the expense of the commons – hence facilitating structural recession – and which require Kiwi savers to take on systemic risks in order to achieve those above-inflation returns.
Magic Money Trees?
For modern mercantilists, the metaphor for money – as a strictly finite commodity – is ‘gold’. (In the mercantilist epoch in the past – the era of merchant capitalism in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries – the practical metaphor for money was silver.) The mantra of contemporary mercantilists is that “money doesn’t grow on trees” or that there is “no magic money-tree” or that there are “no money-making pixies”.
The mercantilists lampoon the idea of a magic money-tree, while themselves upholding their own implicit (compound interest) concept of a magic-money tree. (The different placements of the hyphen are so important here.)
The people who really promote the casino at the expense of the commons are the ones who believe that money has magic powers. In the end, money can only buy what is being produced at the time that it is spent. If there is a future cascade of casino-money landing in an economy which is in a state of collapse – and it was a near-run thing after 2008, and after 2020 – then saved money will become close to worthless. The only thing that will matter in a collapsed economy is the capacity of the commons to produce the necessaries of life.
The neoliberal financial project is a political programme of liberal-mercantilism; the conflation of private-property interests, governments that support those interests, and the fairy-tale view that wealth and claims on wealth are the same thing. This magic-money view is predicated on the idea that whole societies can become wealthy by destructively mining the world’s resources in order to create claims on the world’s resources. It is a project of linear economics in a world in which real and sustainable economies must, by the very nature of life, be circular. Money’s power lies in its circulation, not its extraction.
Intergenerational Equity
Intergenerational equity is not achieved by funding the casino and the magic-money tree of enhanced compound interest. This is what the ‘financial literacy’ industry claims. Through this approach, the young of today can only expect to be dumped-on tomorrow. Intergenerational equity is achieved by investing in a sustainable commons, not in magical compound interest.
The Global Arms Race
What seems to be happening is that, in addition to boosting the casino, western capitalism is becoming increasingly devoted to militarising the commons, and to forcing non-western countries to do likewise. A degraded militarised commons, with more guns and less butter, is – among other things – a second Sword of Damocles poised over us all. Yet our political classes are conspicuous in the lack of attention they are paying to the problems of militarisation and unsustainability, and most of the rest of us are too busy making ends meet or looking the other way.
Conclusion
The future of western capitalism depends on its investment in – support of – the commons, not the casino. While the casino may operate in parallel to the economy, largely as a sort of irrelevance, it also imposes a kind of severe danger – an avalanche risk, if you will – to the real economy upon which we all (including our elites and would-be elites) depend. The heightened risk is that the casino has been and is being supported by governments – indeed Labour governments – at the expense of the increasingly impoverished commons. The mansion depends on its lower floor; not its superstructure.
*******
Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Warriors fans are at fever pitch.NRL Photos/Photosport
NZ Warriors will create history, when they host North Queensland Cowboys at Christchurch’s new indoor stadium, which opens next year.
The Warriors’ other landmark home fixture outside Auckland will see them host the Dolphins on Anzac Day in Wellington.
The Warriors’ opponents for the two big games were confirmed on Friday, with the release of the 2026 National Rugby League draw – the club’s 32nd season in the competition.
After hosting Canberra and Newcastle in the first two years of their partnership with Christchurch, the Warriors will create history with the first NRL match in the city’s One New Zealand Stadium.
Following home-based Anzac Day fixtures against Gold Coast Titans in Auckland in 2024 and the Knights in Christchurch this year, the Warriors take the occasion to the capital’s Sky Stadium.
The Warriors launch their season with back-to-back Friday night home games against top eight opponents at Go Media Stadium, the first against the Sydney Roosters on 6 March and the second against NRL minor premiers Canberra Raiders on 13 March.
Warriors chief executive Cameron George said they were excited to build on three seasons of outstanding fan support.
“This is a great chance for us all to get together again, pack the place out and give the team the best possible start to the year.
“We’re especially excited about playing the Dolphins on such an important day in our first Anzac Day match in Wellington and the first NRL game at One New Zealand Stadium in Christchurch is going to be a fantastic occasion for everyone.”
After three years of sustained sellout crowds in New Zealand, more are anticipated, as the Warriors head into a campaign that brings some of the NRL’s leading sides to Go Media Stadium.
As well as the Roosters and the Raiders in the opening two rounds, the Warriors host Cronulla Sharks and Penrith Panthers in Auckland.
The draw has handed the Warriors a challenging opening phase to the season, as they take on four of 2025’s top eight sides in the opening four rounds, with back-to-back away trips to meet the Sharks and then Melbourne Storm.
Home start for Warriors women
A round one standalone home game in Hamilton is a key feature of the NZ Warriors’ draw for the 2026 NRLW season.
The schedule sees the Warriors kickstarting their season on 5 July against Canterbury Bulldogs at FMG Stadium Waikato, the team’s home away from home.
In three visits to the venue, the Warriors attracted the biggest crowds seen for standalone NRLW games, peaking with more than 7000 for their encounter with ultimate premiership-winning Brisbane Broncos.
The Warriors women will play three matches at Auckland’s Go Media Stadium.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Spoonley, Distinguished Professor, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University
A year after the 2023 census, changes were already taking place in New Zealand’s population that meant the data was in danger of being superseded.
Fertility was continuing to decline, the number of immigrants arriving was beginning to climb, there was an exodus of New Zealand citizens, Māori made up more of the population and Asian communities were continuing to grow.
Eighteen months on, we need to revise the picture again. As is often the case with New Zealand, a period of supercharged population growth fuelled by immigration has been followed by a slump.
In the year to February 2024, StatsNZ was reporting immigrant arrivals at an all-time high of 253,200, with a net gain for the year of 130,900.
In 2023, only two OECD countries, Canada and Iceland, exceeded New Zealand’s population growth. Other countries actually saw population decline, notably Germany and Japan.
The latest data shows a major reversal in both immigration numbers and therefore population growth. In the year to September 2025, arrivals were down at 138,900, and the net gain was 12,400.
Population growth was tracking at 0.7%, so the same as the overall average for the OECD.
More are leaving – or not staying
Not only are there fewer arrivals, but the number leaving New Zealand has spiked.
Overall, departures are now tracking at 126,400, up 10% on the year before.
What is concerning are the number of New Zealand citizens leaving. For the 12 months to September 2025, 72,700 left, with an overall net loss of 46,400.
The last time we saw such figures was at the back end of the Global Financial Crises in 2011-12. Then, 72,401 New Zealand citizens left, with an overall net loss of 44,385.
But non-New Zealand citizens are also leaving in greater numbers. The 2025 figure is up by 17% on the year before.
It’s most likely that economic circumstances, combined with the opportunities available elsewhere (especially on the other side of the Tasman), are a major contributor to these outflows.
Stagnation, even depopulation
This drop in immigrant numbers, combined with migrant departures, has reinforced an important dynamic – migration is crucial to both the population growth of the country but also that of cities and regions.
In the year to June 2025, natural increase now makes a more significant contribution to population growth (21,000 per year), while net migration is now down at little more than 12,000 per year.
Population growth is now confined largely to the regions with major cities –Auckland, Waikato and Canterbury. Wellington and Taranaki are experiencing population stagnation (no growth), while Nelson, Marlborough, Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay have seen population decline.
Selwyn District remained the fastest growing( 2.4%), while Hamilton was the fastest-growing city (1.4%).
But this is a bit misleading. If Auckland is divided into local boards, then Papakura leads annual growth in New Zealand (2.6%). Henderson-Massey and Howick are also growing at close to 2% per annum.
Overall, low migration means little growth, no growth or population decline for many of New Zealand’s regions and centres. The centres that are growing benefit from both natural increase combined with ongoing immigrant arrivals, albeit at much reduced levels.
Hamilton, for example, has recently gained from immigration (up by 1,900) and natural increase (up by 1,500) despite around 800 people leaving for other parts of New Zealand.
Auckland as the source of internal migration
It’s become a common narrative that people are pouring out of Auckland and contributing to population growth in the rest of the country. There was some truth to this, especially as we emerged from the COVID years and remote working became a thing.
Between 2018 and 2023, 135,000 people left Auckland for other regions. The largest number went to Waikato, followed by Northland and Canterbury.
In the year to June 2023, the net loss from internal migration as people left Auckland for other centres and regions was 11,200. Now that outflow has decreased significantly and is currently tracking at 3,200, a drop of over 70%.
Anticipating what will happen from here is something of a fraught exercise. What we can say is that the elements contributing to population growth, stagnation or depopulation remain volatile.
Paul Spoonley received funding from MBIE to look at New Zealand’s future population as part of a project labelled Nga Tangata Iho Mairangi.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Delyse Ryan, National Course Coordinator of Creative Arts, Senior Lecturer in Drama, Australian Catholic University
Andy Phillipson
The Australian premiere of Circa’s Wolf at Brisbane’s Queensland Performing Arts Centre was a breath-holding whirlwind of primal excitement. In two 40-minute acts, Director Yaron Lifschitz took us on a journey of savagery, survival and togetherness.
Circa is an edgy contemporary circus company that offers audiences a boost of adrenaline through well-crafted acrobatic skill, as well as insightful critiques of humanity.
There are deep lessons once you scratch the surface of Wolf – a masterful piece that examines animal urges, as well as solitary survival, sexuality, nurturing, pack mentality and communal responsibility.
Incredible human sculptures
The audience enters the QPAC Playhouse to comical video images of wolves, including 1930s Disney illustrations, stop-motion animation and vintage Shirley Temple footage – all gesturing towards different cultural representations of Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.
The curtain opens with the stage fully obscured with haze and, through the dense fog, we see a body hanging from a rope and one lone wolf at a back corner of the stage. It watches, waiting, ready to pounce; the predatory theme is immediately obvious.
CAP. Andy Phillipson
What unfolds is a dynamic physical show that is driven by raw, animalistic imagery.
Strap work and trapeze artists pepper the show, as bodies gnaw and snarl at them from below. We see feats of incredible physical prowess, and an exploration of the wild nature of wolves.
The humans-as-wolves towers elicits the largest gasp from the opening night audience. More and more bodies climb up on shoulders before, finally, the tower collapses and the entire cast tumbles expertly across the stage. The patterns created by the whirlwind of bodies are mesmerising.
Groups of bodies dance to shift into position to create human sculptures. When the team is clustered together, hands or feet simply spring up when required to help performers springboard to their next feat. The performers must act as a pack for the survival of all the members.
Wolves climb up and cling to each other and then pounce at their prey across the stage, landing from the heights of other performers’ shoulders.
Andy Phillipson. Andy Phillipson
A roiling romp
Circa has perfected the art of the inaudible landing. Even from tremendous heights, the acrobats land with silent precision.
The stark white wall and stage-covering mat provide a minimalist set design which prioritises the visual importance of the performers’ movements. Their silhouettes and shadows offer a perfect background for the ever-morphing sculptural patterns they create using their bodies.
Wolves move in and out of the stage – establishing dominance over the prey – and transform from individual beasts into a collective pack. One body-sculpture features a wolf holding four other performers on his shoulders, but it is not complete until two more cling around each leg: a feat worthy of the pack leader.
Another notable scene is met with roars of laughter; several wolves engage in rather comically represented sex, while another tries to get into the action by climbing on top of them and squeezing in between their bodies. The absurdity escalate as the stage fills with wolves on the sexual prowl, swapping partners and roiling with copulative pleasure.
Electronic beats
The second act starts with the full company eyeballing the audience and huffing and puffing together. The imagery is powerful, and the energy palpable. The collective gasping for air is supported by the beats of the electronic music. DJ Ori Lichtik’s meticulous beats match the rhythm, leading us into the wild world of the wolf pack.
Designer Libby McDonnell’s costumes create a distinct design for each wolf, with personalised black and nude patterns in the lycra showcasing the individuality of each member of the pack.
At the end, the production receives a very worthy standing ovation from a full house.
Delyse Ryan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on November 14, 2025.
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Growing local opposition to seabed mining decision has forced Cook Islands delay, says Greenpeace Asia Pacific Report Greenpeace has heralded the Cook Islands delay on a decision over whether seabed mining can go ahead until at least 2032 as “evidence of the growing opposition” to the destructive industry in the Pacific. Greenpeace Aotearoa campaigner Juressa Lee said the decision was “a win for the moana and the Pacific Peoples”
What should you do if you find a meteorite? Space rock experts explain Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heather Handley, Senior Curator, Geosciences, Museums Victoria Research Institute; Monash University NASA / Ron Garan On Sunday November 2, people in eastern Victoria witnessed a bright streak across the sky followed by a loud sonic boom that felt like an earthquake. The event was captured by security
Sussan Ley buries Liberal commitment to net zero, but offers a fig leaf to moderates Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Opposition Leader Sussan Ley announced on Thursday that the Liberal Party was dropping its commitment to net zero and said a future Liberal government would repeal Australia’s present legislated 2030 and 2050 targets for reducing emissions. After a meeting of
How Pacific nations plan to go from spending up to 25% of GDP on fossil fuels to running on 100% renewables Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wesley Morgan, Research Associate, Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney Respond Global, CC BY-NC-ND Picture dusk falling somewhere in the Solomon Islands. A fisher’s skiff glides home using a whisper-quiet electric outboard motor. In the Cook Islands, a big battery steadies the island grid. In
Timor-Leste’s Xanana Gusmão pays tribute to journalist Robert Domm over independence struggle Pacific Media Watch Timor-Leste Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão has paid tribute to the “courageous and determined” contribution of Australian journalist Robert Domm to the struggle of the Timorese people in gaining independence from Indonesia. He died last Friday. Domm was remembered for meeting in secret with the then Timorese resistance leader Gusmão in
Victoria’s groundbreaking treaty could reshape Australia’s relationship with First Peoples Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Harry Hobbs, Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney The first treaty between Indigenous peoples and an Australian government has been signed into law. It is difficult to overstate the significance of Victoria’s treaty. So, what is the treaty, will other states and territories follow suit, and how could this
A severe thunderstorm warning has been issued for central Hawke’s Bay, Hastings and Wairoa, with torrential rain and flooding possible.
MetService said its weather radar has detected severe thunderstorms near Tiniroto, Hangaroa, Te Reinga, Ruakituri, Tahunga, Tikokino, Bridge Pa, Maraekakaho, Pakipaki, Te Hauke, Pukehou, Poukawa and Gwava.
The weather is moving towards the southeast and expected to hit just before 3pm, with torrential rain that could cause surface and flash flooding.
Someone working near Te Reinga said thunderstorm clouds were building and thunder had been rumbling loudly for several minutes.
“These thunderstorms are expected to be accompanied by torrential rain and hail,” MetService posted on X. “Hail can cause damage to crops, orchards and vines, and may make driving conditions hazardous.”
Severe Thunderstorm Warning
Area: Central Hawkes Bay, Hastings
Forecast: At 02:15 pm, MetService weather radar detected severe thunderstorms near TIKOKINO, BRIDGE PA, MARAEKAKAHO, PAKIPAKI, TE HAUKE, PUKEHOU, POUKAWA and GWAVAS.
The Chain Hills Tunnel opened in the 1870s as a single railway line, before being decommissioned more than three decades later.RNZ / Tess Brunton
The government is investing $2 million to help extend a cycle trail linking Dunedin to Mosgiel, using historic railway tunnels.
Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston announced the boost for the Dunedin Tunnels Trail on Friday, saying it would attract more visitors to Otago and transform Dunedin into a premier cycling destination.
The funding is part of the government’s major events and tourism package, and will go towards Stages 2 and 3 of the project to extend the trail to Fairfield, Abbotsford and Green Island, which are expected to be finished in 2027.
A 1.55km section from Wingatui through the Chain Hills Tunnel is close to opening.RNZ / Tess Brunton
The project is being co-funded by the Dunedin City Council.
The Dunedin Tunnels Trail Trust is developing the trails in partnership with the council, and is close to opening a 1.55km section from Wingatui through the Chain Hills Tunnel and a few hundred metres into the native bush beyond.
The trail will go to Kaikorai Valley and through the Caversham Tunnel into the city as part of Stages 4 and 5, eventually spanning 15km between Mosgiel and Dunedin on mostly flat terrain, and connecting to the region’s wider network of Great Rides.
“We are proud to support projects that deliver real economic impact and can get underway immediately,” Upston said. “I’m looking forward to seeing this one take shape.
“There’s a real sense of momentum building across our cycling network and tourism sector.”
Work is underway to prepare the Chain Hills Tunnel to reopen.RNZ / Tess Brunton
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ihsan Yilmaz, Deputy Directory (Research Development), Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation & Research Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Deakin University
Warnings this week from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) about sabotage threats marked an important shift in tone.
And they raise important questions about how the Australian government should respond.
Breaking from past practice, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said Chinese state-linked hackers have scanned, mapped and in some cases infiltrated Australian critical infrastructure.
According to Burgess, these groups are no longer focused on stealing information. They are preparing to disrupt or shut down key systems in a future crisis.
For many years, ASIO avoided naming specific countries in public. For the first time, Burgess described Chinese hackers trying to gain access to telecommunications, energy and transport networks. He said high-impact sabotage is now a real threat.
The new message names the state actor directly, as well as the potential for devastating consequences.
The many forms of hard and soft power
To understand why this matters, consider how China’s activities abroad have changed over time.
Past debates in Australia often centred on China’s soft power, or the ability to win influence through “attraction and persuasion”, and sharp power. This involves using covert influence, political pressure and media manipulation to shape public opinion without using force.
China uses soft power as a form of influence.
Burgess described something different. This threat does not involve persuasion or interference in debate. It is about the ability to disable telecommunications, shut down water systems, interrupt electricity supplies or damage the financial system.
This is preparation to use coercion during a crisis. One can imagine a scenario where Australia’s ability to respond to a blockade or invasion of Taiwan is hampered by a shutdown of critical infrastructure.
Burgess is therefore right to highlight the seriousness of the threat. China has shown that control of digital systems is central to geopolitical competition. Maintaining access to foreign infrastructure is a strategic advantage. As Australia becomes more reliant on digital networks, weaknesses in those systems become national security concerns.
The risk of digital authoritarianism – at home
There is, however, a second issue that deserves attention. In responding to foreign cyber threats, Australia risks adopting some of the very same digital tools used in authoritarian states such as Russia and China.
Burgess’ warning suggests this model is being exported. The aim is to control digital life at home, but also to gain the ability to interfere with digital systems overseas if needed.
These proposals are framed as necessary for public safety. Yet they show a willingness to extend state power deeper into digital life.
Earlier analysis of sharp power in Australia showed the country’s institutions can be both robust and unusually willing to grant the state wide authority.
Burgess’ speech at a business conference reinforces this trend. He addressed government agencies but also corporate boards, telling them national security is now their responsibility, as well.
Much of Australia’s critical infrastructure is owned or operated by private companies. Expecting these companies to act as extensions of national security policy risks blurring the line between public and private roles.
We need to protect democratic norms
This shift is not necessarily improper, but it does carry risks. A defining feature of digital authoritarianism is the merger of state security priorities with corporate behaviour. If this boundary weakens, Australia could slowly move toward practices it has long opposed.
It is possible to strengthen national resilience without taking this path. A democratic society can defend its networks and deter cyber threats while maintaining openness and accountability.
Burgess is correct that Australia faces a serious and evolving challenge. China’s cyber operations reflect wider geopolitical changes. But an effective response requires protecting both infrastructure and democratic norms.
Australia needs a balanced and sophisticated response.
Stronger cyber defences are necessary, but they must come with clear limits on state power, transparent rules for data access and protections for speech.
China’s cyber operations, which are part of a wider strategic contest, are indeed a serious threat. But if Australia reacts by expanding security powers without restraint, it risks weakening the freedoms it aims to defend.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Universities could lose access to more than 1000 journals. (File photo) Photo: 123RF
Thousands of academics and students in New Zealand and Australia are poised to lose access to critical research journals next year.
Negotiations between the Council of Australasian University Librarians and academic publishing giant Elsevier have broken down in what academic described as universities’ “battle of the century”.
The council announced on Friday, it had “paused” talks with Elsevier over a contract covering all of the two nations’ universities.
“CAUL has paused discussions with Elsevier after both parties were unable to reach agreement on major commercial terms, including pricing, agreement structure and inclusion of gold open access journals,” it said in a statement.
One New Zealand university told its staff all universities in New Zealand and Australia would “lose some degree of access” to Elsevier’s 1600 titles from the start of next year.
Another said New Zealand’s eight universities spent $30-million a year on journal licences and about half of that sum went to Elsevier.
Academics told RNZ universities were playing hardball and the negotiations were a “battle of the century” with publishers.
CAUL also announced it had sealed a deal with another of the major research journal publishers, Taylor & Francis.
“The agreement means that all Australian and New Zealand university research published by Taylor & Francis can be freely accessed by members of the public,” it said.
“The deal with Taylor & Francis is the first to be struck under CAUL’s new negotiation framework, established in response to mounting pressure on university budgets and growing concern about the rising cost of open access publishing.”
Universities New Zealand chief executive Chris Whelan said universities wanted a better deal from the various publishing companies.
“Until now, each individual university across Australasia, Australia and New Zealand, has had their own licence agreement with the big academic publishers. What we’ve been doing is entering into collective negotiations to see if we can get a better return for taxpayer funds,” he said.
Whelan said universities had individual contracts with Elsevier so the expiry of the contracts would affect each institution differently.
“It’s highly likely that some universities will be losing access to Elsevier journals from the start of the new year, others will have as part of their agreement continued access on some sort of basis,” he said.
Whelan said the universities wanted free public access to the research their taxes had funded.
“We have a mutually-beneficial relationship with these publishers. We need them to be able to publish and for other researchers to be able to access knowledge and build on it so they play an important part in the research ecosystem,” he said.
“But on the flip side, their research is hidden behind paywalls. If you’re a member of a university community your library will have a have a licence to access it. But members of the public generally can’t see behind those payrolls. So there’s a lot of research that ultimately has been paid for by New Zealand.”
Association of Scientists co-president Troy Baisden said the negotiations were the battle of the century for universities, whose staff wrote, edited and peer reviewed articles for various journals, often for free.
Association of Scientists co-president Troy Baisden said universities would play “hardball”. (File photo) Photo: Waikato University
“The cost of library subscriptions to these major journal houses is one of the most broken issues that universities face. It was built up in the 20th century and needs to be fixed in some way in the 21st century,” he said.
“Universities are going to play hardball, and they’ve had a long-term plan to try to get these costs under control.”
Baisden said New Zealand universities already had a system for ensuring the public had free access to their research.
But he said universities and academics were tied into the journal-publishing world because publication in prestigious journals helped with international rankings and promotion.
Elsevier and the Council of Australasian University Librarians (CAUL) have been engaged in constructive discussions to establish a new agreement that supports the research communities of Australia and New Zealand, Elsevier said in a statement to RNZ.
“As these negotiations are currently on pause, we appreciate CAUL’s message to institutions to work directly with us to ensure continued reading and publishing access into next year. As with all our customers, we remain committed to finding sustainable solutions that meet their needs. We value our long-standing partnership with CAUL and look forward to continuing to work with them in the future.”
While these sagas dominated headlines Parliament continued to consider legislation, with four government bills completing their legislative journeys this week. Two of the four enjoyed relative consensus across the House – the other two not so much.
Third readings this week
A third reading is the last stage of debate that a bill undergoes in the House before it heads off to be confirmed as law.
The Medicines Amendment Bill passed its third reading on Wednesday morning during an extended sitting. It seeks to increase the accessibility of medicines to New Zealanders by (among other changes) employing “the rule of two”, whereby if a medication is approved for use in two recognised overseas jurisdictions it can be fast-tracked for approval here.
In charge of the bill was Associate Minister of Health David Seymour, who in giving the bill a sort of farewell to the House, noted that it was a rare instance in which parties were in agreement.
“This has been a collaborative effort,” the ACT leader said. “I note that the rule of two was campaigned on by all three coalition parties and so far has had support from every party in this Parliament. It’s a very good example of how politicians can actually hear people’s concerns in the community, formulate a solution, stay the course, implement it confidently, and make New Zealand a better place to live, one step at a time.”
Another third reading this week was the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill, which may be better known as the congestion charging bill. Like the Medicines Amendment Bill, it enjoyed relatively smooth sailing through the House, with Labour calling it a “very good bill”.
Differences emerge
That sense of legislative kumbaya wasn’t to last though as the House got to another two third readings, which this time made for fiery debate between government and Opposition.
The first of those two bills was the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No. 2) which gives effect to new government education policy in the form of putting educational achievement at the centre of decision-making. It was the amendments added in the committee stage though that had the Opposition riled up.
Stanford had her Cabinet colleague Minister for Vocational Education Penny Simmonds filling in for her during the third reading.
“This government considers that it is unreasonable to expect elected parents, who volunteer their time, to discharge the Crown’s legal responsibilities in respect of the Treaty. Instead, the government believes that it is the Crown’s responsibility to support Māori educational success,” Simmonds explained.
Amendments are put forward during the committee stage, which is a bill’s penultimate hurdle in the House before royal assent (when it is signed into law). Labour’s Willow Jean-Prime argued that making these further changes after the time for engagement with the public (select committee submissions) had been and gone was “a travesty”.
“The two amendment papers tabled by the minister last week in the committee of the whole House stage of this bill did not go through a select committee process, so the public did not have an opportunity to make submissions on the proposed changes to remove the section regarding Te Tiriti o Waitangi for boards or the changes to the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand,” Prime said.
“Now this is a travesty, because what we have here are two really significant changes which, as I just said, have had no consultation, no select committee process, and, actually, very little debate.”
The last third reading of the week was David Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Bill, which is probably the most contentious of the four bills to finish up their legislative journey this week.
It seeks to limit future lawmakers from introducing what Seymour considers unnecessary red tape into legislation, prioritising private property rights.
A version of the Regulatory Standards Bill has been something ACT had been keen on for over a decade, so when getting up to speak on it, Seymour may have been pinching himself at finally seeing shepherding it through its last hurdle in Parliament.
VNP/Louis Collins
“The Regulatory Standards Act means that politicians need to at least be open and honest about the impacts that they have on individuals when they pursue their goals,” Seymour declared.
“That is what we need to be doing in this Parliament. It is a movement towards a more civilised society where adults treat each other respectfully. That is something that I look forward to implementing over the next six months as this bill comes into force. I am very proud to stand behind it.”
“The danger of this bill is how eye-wateringly boring and technical it is, so that most of the general public aren’t necessarily paying attention to the consequences of this bill,” Paul told the House on Thursday.
“They’d be forgiven for thinking that it was just a boring old bill, because the ACT Party can’t get it by standing on what they really want, so they couch it in legal and technical and constitutional terms to try and get their foot in the door-just like a cockroach. That’s how a cockroach lives, isn’t it? In the dark, in the night-not in broad daylight, being clear about the intentions of what they hope to achieve.”
The Regulatory Standards Bill now just awaits royal assent, which is the process whereby the governor-general signs a bill into law. This is likely to happen next week.
To listen to the audio version of this story, click the link near the top of the page.
RNZ’s The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament’s Office of the Clerk.
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Police say they did attend and disperse a crowd in Welcome Bay on 1 November after multiple complaints, though not immediately.RNZ / REECE BAKER
Police say a delay in responding to reports of disorder in Tauranga earlier this month was due to being busy elsewhere.
On the evening of Saturday 1 November, police said they received multiple reports of a large group of people on a street in Welcome Bay.
One request came from Tauranga City Council’s noise control team which asked for assistance.
“Our contracted Noise Control officers received three complaints on Saturday, 1 November and attended Victory Street to assess the situation. Due to health and safety concerns arising from the large number of people present, Noise Control requested Police assistance to serve an Excessive Noise Direction,” said the council’s general manager regulatory & community services Sarah Omendsen.
However, she said police did not attend while council staff were still there.
The New Zealand Herald reported the disorder calls as relating to a “massive brawl”.
Police told RNZ they did eventually attend and disperse a crowd, though not immediately.
“Police will prioritise events based on risk, and attendance or non-attendance, will reflect that risk,” a spokesperson said.
“In this case, while we were unable to respond immediately due to another serious disorder incident, we gathered appropriate resources, attended the scene and dispersed the crowd.”
Omendsen said police were the ones who needed to deal with events that got out of control or caused problems for neighbours.
“Residents experiencing public disorder are encouraged to report it directly to police, who are responsible for and best equipped to respond to these types of incidents.”
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Tremolite – a naturally occurring asbestos – had been found in samples during lab testing.Supplied / Product Safety NZ
Nearly 60 schools and early childhood centres have contacted the Ministry of Education over possible asbestos contamination from recalled coloured play sands. Here’s what we know.
What is the product that was recalled?
The sand is brightly coloured and used for play, craft and classroom activities. The recalled products are:
Creatistics Coloured Sand
Educational Colours Rainbow Sand
Tremolite – a naturally occurring asbestos – had been found in samples during lab testing. Asbestos contamination had been found in similar products in Australia.
How dangerous is tremolite asbestos?
Inhalation of asbestos fibres is associated with an increased incidence in a number of respiratory diseases, including asbestos, mesothelioma, pleural and lung cancers, ABC Australia reported.
MBIE said while testing of New Zealand product is ongoing, as a precautionary measure, the company Educational Colours has issued a recall notice.
“Asbestos is a serious health hazard and we are working with Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora, the Ministry of Education and WorkSafe to provide guidance for consumers and educational facilities which may have bought these products.”
What shops stock the sand?
The sand was sold at
Paper Plus
Hobby Land
NZ School Shop
Office Products Depot
Discount Office
Acquire
It was also sold at Qizzle, Modern Teaching Aids, Creative Classrooms Ltd and ACME Supplies.
MBIE said it may have also been sold online.
The sand was sold at a number of stores as well as online.Supplied / Product Safety NZ
How long has it been on shelves?
“At this stage we do not have enough information to quantify how widespread the use of the product is in schools and early learning services,” Ministry of Education head of operations and integration Sean Teddy said on Thursday.
How is it being handled?
Earlier this week the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) said people needed to stop using the products immeidately.
“We urge anyone who has bought these products, either for personal use or potential use in a school or other setting to act immediately,” said Ian Caplin, MBIE product safety spokesperson.
“Stop using the sand, contain it, secure it in a safe place and arrange for safe disposal through licensed professionals, a list of these is available on the WorkSafe website.”
Caplin said people should avoid trying to clean any loose particles themselves
“It’s not a question of hoovering it up and chucking it in a waste bin, call an expert.,”
RNZ had been in touch with a number of asbestos removal firms who said they had been notified of the product by WorkSafe, and were awaiting further information before formulating plans to address potential contamination.
What should parents do?
Stop using it immediately
Place the sand in a sealed container and store it securely away from people.
Do not dispose of it in general waste. WorkSafe strongly recommends engaging a Class A licensed asbestos removalist for safe disposal. A list of licensed removalists can be found on the WorkSafe website.
Once secure, it encourages people to reach out to the supplier to organise a refund under the Consumer Guarantees Act.
What should schools and ECEs do?
“We’ve been contacted by around 30 schools and 30 early childhood services from around the country, and we are working with them to validate if the product they have on site is the product that is being recalled, as well as if the product they have is in active use or not,” Teddy said.
If the product is in a sealed container move it to a secure location away from people.
If the sand is currently being used in your facility, please instruct everyone to leave the area, block it off and make sure it is not accessible.
Do not vacuum or sweep floors where there is sand, or attempt to clean it up.
Contact a licensed asbestos assessor or removalist for immediate advice and support on your specific situation. Details of Class A licensed removalists are available in the Asbestos Removal Licence Holders Register.
Do not return to the affected area until the extent of contamination is established, and after the area is remediated by an expert.
If individuals are currently using the sand, they should put it down and relocate to a sand-free, well-ventilated area.
If an educational facility has identified that the sand has been used at their facility, they should notify Ministry of Education that the sand has been used on site, and detail the actions that have been taken so far.
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A reading above 50.0 indicates expansion in the BNZ-Business New Zealand PMI, in October the score rose by 1.3 points to 51.4.123rf
Manufacturing activity expands, rises 1.3 points to 51.4 – above 50 is expansion
Four of five sub-indexes also in expansion – employment still contracting
Manufacturing expanded four months in a row, first time in three years
New Zealand’s manufacturing sector expanded for a fourth consecutive month in October, led by a rise in new orders and improved demand.
The BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance Of Manufacturing Index (PMI) for October rose by 1.3 points to 51.4 from 50.1 in September.
A reading above 50.0 indicates expansion.
BNZ senior economist Doug Steel said the lift to 51.4 from September’s 50.1 was not large, but was moving in the right direction.
“The October result sees the PMI now boasting four consecutive months above the break even 50 mark for the first time in three years.”
BusinessNZ director of advocacy Catherine Beard said that after two months of flatlining activity in the sector, at least October showed more signs of life.
“Four of the five sub-index values were in expansion during October, lead by New Orders, which showed its highest level of expansion since August 2022.”
Production and Finished Stocks also rose, but Employment remains in contractionary territory at 48.1.
Steel said manufacturers were still shedding workers and employment was usually the last sector to rise in an economic recovery.
Manufacturers were also less negative above the future, the proportion of negative comments fell in October to 54.1 percent, down from 60.2 percent in September and 58.1 percent in August.
Manufacturers reported a lift in orders and improved demand, helped by seasonal activity, new customers/products, and signs of economic confidence returning.
Many also noted better efficiency and productivity, with process improvements and automation supporting stronger sales and output.
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Police will start testing for THC, methamphetamine, MDMA and cocaine using the new oral-fluid testing devices.
Director of road policing Superintendent Steve Greally said Australian-based company Pathtech Pty Ltd would supply the devices, as well as oral fluid collection kits to collect samples to be sent for laboratory analysis.
The Securetec DrugWipe 3S devices were used in police jurisdictions throughout Australia, as well as other overseas nations.
The DrugWipe detects the presence of drugs in saliva at or above a threshold that detects current or recent use.
Drivers will take an initial swab test, with a positive result triggering a second test. If confirmed, the driver faces an immediate 12-hour driving ban, and their initial sample is sent to a laboratory for evidential testing.
Greally said it followed an extensive global procurement process, and Pathtech had “extensive knowledge” of introducing drug detection equipment across Australia.
“Many countries, including New Zealand, have seen a rise in the number of drivers testing positive for drugs in recent years, and the direct correlation to the number of people being seriously injured or killed on our roads,” he said.
“The focus now shifts to the implementation and our processes as our staff prepare for this crucial change.”
Police Conduct Association founder Shannon Parker says the move to bring in an Inspector-General is a knee-jerk reaction.RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
An advocate supporting people with complaints about police misconduct says bringing in an Inspector-General is a knee-jerk reaction that may not make much difference.
The government revealed on Tuesday it plans to set up an Inspector-General of Police as part of the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA), which will be expanded to become an Inspectorate, with additional resourcing and powers.
The National Integrity Unit in Police has also been bolstered with six additional investigators, and a lawyer has been tasked with investigating current police employees involved.
The complaints are thought to have been made by a woman 20 years younger than McSkimming, who he had an affair with.
The founder of the Police Conduct Association, Shannon Parker, told Nine to Noon host Kathryn Ryan she set up the NGO after her own difficulties making a complaint about police.
“I found the process very difficult, and basically didn’t know what I was doing, and I felt that many people would have the same problem,” she said.
Jevon McSkimming.RNZ / Mark Papalii
She said the move to bring in an Inspector-General was a knee-jerk reaction and several avenues for investigating police conduct already existed: the IPCA; the Police Professional Conduct Group inside police; and the National Integrity Unit also within police.
“In my mind, all [were] set up for the purpose of protecting the police reputation as opposed to protecting victims of police conduct … I can’t see how an Inspector-General of Police is going to make any difference if you put that person sitting at the IPCA.”
She said the IPCA had admitted there were times it could have stepped in sooner or done more to prevent the McSkimming scandal, and an Inspector-General would only know what they had been notified of.
“If someone’s instructed not to forward an email on, not to notify someone, how is it going to have made any difference? … he only knows what he knows. He only knows what he’s notified of.
“What’s the difference between that and any other avenue they already have for communicating anonymously?
“I think it’s another thing that’s going to cost a lot of money that is not going to offer the victims or complainants of police misconduct any value.”
She said the internal groups like the Professional Conduct Group sometimes referred complaints back to the police district the complaint originated from – and whether they were acted on often depended on “how much that person is willing to do”.
The problem with the McSkimming case was the correct processes were not followed, and Parker questioned whether having an Inspector-General would affect that.
The same was true of the idea of setting up an anonymous portal for complaints.
“We’ve got whistleblowers process, anyone can set up an anonymous email … they could have gone to CrimeStoppers, again that’s anonymous.
“I’m not saying that they should have to, or that that should be what they should have done – but I’m saying there’s already ways and means of doing that.”
Public Services Minister Judith Collins speaks after a damning report into police conduct, with Police Commissioner Richard Chambers in the background.RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
More resources for IPCA a ‘great next step’
Parker said the IPCA only investigated a small portion of the complaints they received, with many instead being sent back for police to investigate themselves.
More detailed investigations by the IPCA were typically only undertaken for very serious cases like police shootings, fatal pursuits, and sexual offending, she said.
“Other than that, they are usually left with the police.”
She said some complaints were only successfully raised because the complainants had “pushed and pushed” and asked further questions.
“The bulk of those, if I’m honest, have actually only been taken seriously or relooked at after we have gone to the media and it’s got – or about to get – public attention. And that concerns me. That shouldn’t have to happen.
“It makes me wonder how many people just give up at the starting gate … because it’s too stressful, it’s too hard, or they just don’t know what to do next.”
Another difficulty with the IPCA was any complaint made would automatically be notified to the police.
Greater powers for the IPCA would be “a great idea and would be a great next step”, she said, but the priority was more resourcing.
“They are very limited in what they can do, and I do understand that … but I think they definitely need greater resourcing.
“In some cases I know that they would like to take things further and they just can’t – but not having the time and the resources to be able to go through these with a finer-toothed comb definitely has a big impact.”
She said complainants sometimes filed “incredibly long” complaints with irrelevant details that could take up police and IPCA time, and which may be exacerbating problems with ignored or lost complaints.
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Luftwaffe means Air Force in German.Samantha Gee / RNZ
Low-flying military aircraft have been seen around the country over the last week, with a deployment from the German Air Force setting up in Woodbourne, near Blenheim, where its members are training with the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
The joint exercise, Tūhono Rangi, involves German military aircraft doing formation and low-altitude flights and deploying parachutists and cargo around the country.
The German Air Force has brought two A400 planes from the Air Transport Wing 62 and a Airbus A330 and A321 from the Special Mission Wing to New Zealand.
Colonel Markus Knoll, who is piloting one of the Airbus A400 aircraft, said the six-day journey from Germany via Europe, the United States and Fiji, was a dream come true for a pilot.
Once arriving in New Zealand, he said they were able to fly the A400s in their full tactical spectrum.
“In Blenheim, we’ve got, from our point of view, a very short runway, so we have to take care to do some short field landings, we do some low-level flying that’s unique, we can go down to 300 feet (91m) AGL (above ground level), we’re not allowed to do this in Germany, only 500 feet (152m) AGL.
The Germans were working closely with the RNZAF Combat Support Squadron (CSS) from Base Ohakea, and Knoll said they were developing interoperability, which would allow them to work together on operations in the future.
The cockpit of a German Air Force A400 during a training exercise in NZ.Samantha Gee / RNZ
Over the next week, working alongside the New Zealand Army at Waiouru, they will practice dropping containers of kit and supplies in various locations.
“We’ve done these airdrops over the Gaza Strip for humanitarian relief, and now we have to train the four crews we’ve brought with us to use our newest software in the A400 so we can do some automatic drops.”
The joint military exercise is called Tūhono Rangi.Samantha Gee / RNZ
The German Air Force first visited Base Ohakea last year as part of the Pacific Skies exercise, marking the first time operational German and Spanish military aircraft had come to New Zealand.
Knoll said that was the beginning of a partnership between the two countries, with the current mission an invaluable chance to work together.
“We learn a lot from each other – in the military world nowadays you’re never ever on your own, you’re always in a ‘coalition of the willing’ or NATO, together with partners.
“New Zealand is one of the partners and if we train together, if you get used to each other, if our tactics fit with the others – that’s great, we are stronger together.”
German Air Force Colonel Markus Knoll flew one of the A400s to New Zealand, a journey that took six days.Samantha Gee / RNZ
Operation squadron leader Matt Williams led the exercise to mount and deploy from Ohakea to Woodbourne, ensuring all capabilities could be deployed effectively through military air assets, then set up again in location, operational and ready to support.
He said they did not often get a chance to operate with aircraft like the A400.
RNZAF pilots were able to sit alongside the German pilots in flight to gain an understanding of the systems and processes they used, while also helping them to understand New Zealand’s unique flying environment.
Flight Lieutenant Shane Leaming is a security forces officer in combat support services.Samantha Gee / RNZ
Around 60 Air Force personnel came down from Ohakea to support the mission, including Flight Lieutenant Shane Leaming, a security forces officer.
“New Zealand is very far away from the centre of the world where the big militaries are, such as Europe and America, so it’s very cool when a detachment of them comes all the way to New Zealand just to fly in our airspace and work with us.”
A German Air Force A400 flying across the Tasman Sea.Samantha Gee / RNZ
His work in combat service support involved leading security forces teams to protect aircraft and military bases in scenarios during the exercise.
“For my teams to practice their flyaway techniques and procedures, one of the hardest things for us to access is actually having ready access to an aircraft because our planes are so busy – so having the Germans here willing to fly four flights per day that my team can jump on, and we have a scenario that is safe but also tests us, that’s the best part.”
Inside a German Military A400 aircraft.Samantha Gee / RNZ
Corporal Ezra Te Awe Awe, a logistics specialist in the air movements team, said it was the first time he had worked with the German Air Force. He had been loading and unloading passengers, signing off pre-flight paperwork, securing cargo and marshalling the aircraft in and out.
“Being able to marshal them in, it’s different to what we usually do with our aircraft. Working with A400s, you don’t really get to do that in New Zealand.”
Corporal Ezra Te Awe Awe, a logistics specialist in the air movements team.Samantha Gee / RNZ
The German military aircraft will be visible in the skies for the next week, until exercise Tūhono Rangi concludes.
As nearly half of all Australians say they have recently used artificial intelligence (AI) tools, knowing when and how they’re being used is becoming more important.
Consultancy firm Deloitte recently partially refunded the Australian government after a report they published had AI-generated errors in it.
A lawyer also recently faced disciplinary action after false AI-generated citations were discovered in a formal court document. And many universities are concerned about how their students use AI.
Amid these examples, a range of “AI detection” tools have emerged to try to address people’s need for identifying accurate, trustworthy and verified content.
But how do these tools actually work? And are they effective at spotting AI-generated material?
How do AI detectors work?
Several approaches exist, and their effectiveness can depend on which types of content are involved.
Detectors for text often try to infer AI involvement by looking for “signature” patterns in sentence structure, writing style, and the predictability of certain words or phrases being used. For example, the use of “delves” and “showcasing” has skyrocketed since AI writing tools became more available.
However the difference between AI and human patterns is getting smaller and smaller. This means signature-based tools can be highly unreliable.
Detectors for images sometimes work by analysing embedded metadata which some AI tools add to the image file.
For example, the Content Credentials inspect tool allows people to view how a user has edited a piece of content, provided it was created and edited with compatible software. Like text, images can also be compared against verified datasets of AI-generated content (such as deepfakes).
Finally, some AI developers have started adding watermarks to the outputs of their AI systems. These are hidden patterns in any kind of content which are imperceptible to humans but can be detected by the AI developer. None of the large developers have shared their detection tools with the public yet, though.
Each of these methods has its drawbacks and limitations.
How effective are AI detectors?
The effectiveness of AI detectors can depend on several factors. These include which tools were used to make the content and whether the content was edited or modified after generation.
The tools’ training data can also affect results.
For example, key datasets used to detect AI-generated pictures do not have enough full-body pictures of people or images from people of certain cultures. This means successful detection is already limited in many ways.
Watermark-based detection can be quite good at detecting content made by AI tools from the same company. For example, if you use one of Google’s AI models such as Imagen, Google’s SynthID watermark tool claims to be able to spot the resulting outputs.
But SynthID is not publicly available yet. It also doesn’t work if, for example, you generate content using ChatGPT, which isn’t made by Google. Interoperability across AI developers is a major issue.
AI detectors can also be fooled when the output is edited. For example, if you use a voice cloning app and then add noise or reduce the quality (by making it smaller), this can trip up voice AI detectors. The same is true with AI image detectors.
Explainability is another major issue. Many AI detectors will give the user a “confidence estimate” of how certain it is that something is AI-generated. But they usually don’t explain their reasoning or why they think something is AI-generated.
It is important to realise that it is still early days for AI detection, especially when it comes to automatic detection.
A good example of this can be seen in recent attempts to detect deepfakes. The winner of Meta’s Deepfake Detection Challenge identified four out of five deepfakes. However, the model was trained on the same data it was tested on – a bit like having seen the answers before it took the quiz.
When tested against new content, the model’s success rate dropped. It only correctly identified three out of five deepfakes in the new dataset.
All this means AI detectors can and do get things wrong. They can result in false positives (claiming something is AI generated when it’s not) and false negatives (claiming something is human-generated when it’s not).
For the users involved, these mistakes can be devastating – such as a student whose essay is dismissed as AI-generated when they wrote it themselves, or someone who mistakenly believes an AI-written email came from a real human.
It’s an arms race as new technologies are developed or refined, and detectors are struggling to keep up.
Where to from here?
Relying on a single tool is problematic and risky. It’s generally safer and better to use a variety of methods to assess the authenticity of a piece of content.
You can do so by cross-referencing sources and double-checking facts in written content. Or for visual content, you might compare suspect images to other images purported to be taken during the same time or place. You might also ask for additional evidence or explanation if something looks or sounds dodgy.
But ultimately, trusted relationships with individuals and institutions will remain one of the most important factors when detection tools fall short or other options aren’t available.
T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.
Aaron J. Snoswell receives research funding from the Queensland government. Aaron previously received research funding from OpenAI to develop new evaluation frameworks for measuring moral competence in AI agents.
James Meese has recieved and presently receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He has previously received funding from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network and Meta.
But figuring out the age of wild animals is not easy, especially for dolphins.
Common dolphins in the wild. Auckland Whale and Dolphin Safaris, CC BY
Until recently, researchers had to slice the teeth of dead dolphins and count growth layers, much like tree rings.
This method becomes more problematic in older animals because teeth wear and the growth layers sit closer together, which can lead to dolphins’ age being underestimated. It is obviously also impossible to extract teeth from living dolphins.
In our new research, we linked DNA markers with known tooth ages of dead dolphins to build the first molecular “epigenetic clock” for common dolphins (Delphinus delphis).
This allows scientists to estimate the age of living common dolphins from just a skin sample, opening a new window onto the lives of these iconic animals.
But this research also raises two key questions: could the limitations of tooth-based ageing affect the accuracy of the clock, and does DNA degradation in dead animals influence the age estimates? Our work addresses both concerns.
How DNA becomes a clock
New DNA-based techniques are transforming how scientists estimate age by reading tiny chemical changes in DNA that change predictably as animals grow older.
Researchers have studied these DNA patterns in hundreds of mammal species and developed epigenetic clocks – reliable tools that estimate age without having to remove teeth or use invasive methods.
The yellow dots mark individual growth layer groups (similar to tree rings) in a common dolphin tooth, each representing one year of age. Massey University, CC BY
While epigenetic clocks are now emerging for dolphins, these DNA changes have only been studied in a few species so far. Until now, no epigenetic clock has existed for common dolphins – one of the world’s most widespread dolphin species.
This is because scientists first need skin samples from animals whose ages are already known to build these clocks.
A handful of studies used tooth ages from dead dolphins, but this has historically raised questions about the effect of decomposition, and also whether errors in tooth ageing older animals may affect accuracy of the DNA clocks.
To address these concerns, we analysed 75 common dolphins that had stranded or been accidentally caught in fishing nets in New Zealand. For each animal, we counted growth layers in teeth to determine age and used a skin sample to measure DNA markers at almost 38,000 sites across the genome.
We combined these data to build a model that estimates age from DNA to create an epigenetic clock for common dolphins.
Putting the clock to the test
Our clock can predict age to within about two years, although estimates became less precise in older dolphins.
This brings us back to our key question: is this due to less accurate tooth ageing in older animals, or because DNA breaks down after death?
In our study, the clock tended to underestimate the age of older dolphins. However, if tooth ageing were the problem, we would expect the opposite — that the DNA clock would give older ages than tooth readings.
This makes dental ageing errors unlikely. We also tested whether skin decomposition affected age estimates, and found no effect.
We built the first DNA-based age clock for common dolphins, addressing issues of tooth ageing and postmortem samples for clock calibration. Massey University, CC BY
Why then are older dolphins underestimated? This is a biological effect seen in many species. The DNA changes that track age become more gradual later in life, which means the clock has fewer signals to work with.
It’s not caused by teeth or decay, but because ageing slows naturally at the molecular level.
A game changer for dolphin conservation
Our findings address longstanding concerns about whether tooth ages are reliable to calibrate epigenetic clocks. We show the method is genuinely robust, even when using stranded or by-caught dolphins.
This means DNA age clocks can be built for animals whose ages are only known from tooth readings. This is important because for many dolphin species, tooth records from dead animals are the main or only method scientists have to determine an individual’s age.
A common dolphin entangled in fishing line. Massey University, CC BY
This molecular clock is a major step forward for conserving common dolphins.
Scientists can now determine age from minimally invasive biopsy samples and, in turn, estimate survival and reproductive rates in free-ranging wild dolphins.
Common dolphins are one of the most widespread dolphin species on Earth and have long been considered abundant. But they face significant human pressures globally and are increasingly vulnerable.
In New Zealand and across Australasia, they are among the most frequently caught dolphins in fisheries bycatch. Experience from other regions such as the Mediterranean Sea shows that even “common” species can decline rapidly under sustained pressures such as overfishing, pollution and habitat degradation.
Being able to accurately estimate age from a small skin sample means scientists can better understand how long common dolphins live, when they reproduce and how many young survive. Such information is critical for protecting populations before they decline.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
I sat in a cafe listening to one man telling another how to get more out of his workers — “his team”, kind of the way people talked about workhorses until some of us read Black Beauty and learned that sentient creatures have feelings, both animals and people.
I hope that people will wake up to the need to unite, to pull together. The best decluttering is decolonising.
Maybe Zohran Mamdani’s win is a sign that will herald a new era, an era when socialists can beat “the money men”. Maybe it’s time when we will all wake up to a different possibility. Maybe other values will be recognised.
Virtues do not come from wealth. Capital, capitalism (the key is in the word) is a system of exploitation. It was designed by merchants to make some rich and keep others poor. That’s the system.
Maybe you were not taught that? Of course you were not taught that. Think about it.
I listened to William Dalrymple being interviewed by Jack Tame last Sunday and I thought Jack — who I used to respect a lot before he failed to tackle genocide with Israel’s representative for genocide here in Aotearoa — I thought he, Jack, looked like a possum in the headlights when Dalrymple said that Donald Trump had a precursor in Benjamin Netanyahu and called genocide a genocide.
I like to think Jack and others like him (because I have been like them too) will learn to learn about the history of all people and not view history as an inevitable story of winners and losers.
Winners are exploiters The winners are exploiters and if we want to save the planet we need a massive game change.
The legacy of colonisation. Video: TVNZ Q&A
Look at the stats of the land that was taken for expansion and how that expansion was used to justify the extermination of one people to prop another people up. The stats, the real statistics show who was there before, show people lived on the land with the land and the waters.
Capitalism is a system of expansion and exploitation. It flourished for a while on slavery and it flourished for a while on settler colonialism, and it flourished for a while on keeping workers believing the story that they were working for greater glory when their take home pay did not equal the value of their labour.
And there is a difference between guilt and remorse. We can learn from the latter. The former, guilt, stagnates, it leads to defence and offence.
We need to recognise that we don’t need to prop up a dying system that flourishes on making some weak and others stronger.
We need to learn to change — those of us who were wrong can admit it and go forward differently. We can realise that they system was designed to make us fail to see the threads that connect all people. We can wake up now and smell the manure among the roses.
Good shit helps things grow, bad shit is toxic contaminated waste that turns things inwards, makes them gnarly.
Monsters are connected Unfortunately, those who behave like monsters are connected not just to some of us but all of us.
We need to open our minds and our hearts to a different our value system. We need to decolonise our senses.
If you defend a bad system because right now you are one of the few on a decent pay scale then you are part of the problem. You are the problem. You have been conned. A system is only fair if it is fair for all people.
Learning history gives us a map said Dalrymple (author of The Golden Road which tells the story of how great India was BEFORE it was stolen by Britain — how that country gave the world numbers and so much more) and we need to learn how the map was drawn.
As someone who reads history to write history, I encourage us all to read widely and deeply and to research so that we do not stop thinking and analysing, and so we can tell wrong from right.
Do not be neutral about wrongs as some historians would suggest. It is more than OK to call a wrong a wrong. In fact it is vital. Take a new lens into viewing history, not the one the masters have given you.
We miss seeing the world if we look fail to think about who drew the map, how it was drawn up by men who carved up the world for the Empires intent on creating a golden age by enslaving most of the people to prop up those at the top.
World map’s curling edges We need to look under the curling edges of the world map drawn up by the exploiter. We need to find find the stories of those who were exploited and who had been part of the creation story of this planet before they were exploited.
Those of us who are descendants of colonisers also — many of us — descend from those who were exploited.
The stories of British workhouses, of the system of exile via banishment, of the theft of women’s rights, of the extreme brutal forms of punishment, the stories of the way the top class pushed down and down on the people of the fields and forests and forced them to serve and serve, these real stories are less well known than the myths.
Myths like the story of King Arthur are better known.
Some myths have been created as a form of propaganda. We need to unpick the stories that were told to keep us stupid, to keep us ignorant.
It is time to stop following the trail of crumbs to Buckingham Palace, or at least to see where the trail really leads — to pedophiles who preyed on others, to predators — not just one but many, to people brilliant at reconstructing themselves — creating some fall guys and some good guys and making some people villains.
That story is a lie that protects and processes dysfunction.
Acting on the truth Blaming one part of the system prevents us from realising and acting on the truth that the whole system is one of exploitation.
This was always a horror story disguised as a fairy story. One crown could save so many poor. The monarchy is not a family that produced one disfunctional person it is the disfunction.
It promotes the lie that one group of people deserve wealth because they are better than another. What a sick joke.
So let’s back away from societies made by men who want to profit from others and get back to nature.
Let’s look on nature as a sister or mother — a sister or mother you love.
Let’s look at the so called natural disasters like climate change. Look at how they have been created by “noble men” and “noble women” and ignoble ones as well. Disasters that can be averted, prevented.
Who suffers the most in a natural disaster? Not the rich.
How do we heal? So how do we hope and how do we heal? We see the change. We be the change.
Personally, for my mental and physical health I’ve been sea bathing, dipping in the sea. I join a group of mainly women who all have stories, and who plunge into nature for release and relief, to relieve ourselves from the debris. Uniting in nature.
I’ve learned that every day is different. The sea is always changing. No two waves are the same and they all pull in the same direction.
We are part moon, part wave, part light, part darkness. We are the bounty and the beauty. I do have hope that we will all unite for common good. Sharing on common ground. The word Common is so much better than Capital.
If you are working for the kind of people that are discussing how to get more out of you for less, then unite.
And if you know people who are being exploited in any way at all unite with them not the exploiter. Be the change.
By helping each other we save each other. And that includes helping our friend and exploited lover: Nature.
Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author ofThe Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.
England have been installed as favourites by some local bookmakers for this weekend’s crunch match with the All Blacks at Twickenham. However, Scott Robertson isn’t reading too much into it as his side prepares for what’s being billed as the biggest game of the end of year tour.
“We’re just looking for a result,” he said when asked if the All Blacks were aiming for a statement performance.
“You look at these games, how tight they are in the margins, and there’s two quality teams both got clear DNA, how they want to play. Discipline, keep trusting ourselves and keep playing is the key.”
Robertson has made several changes to his team, most notably shaking up the loose forwards by bringing back Simon Parker to start at blindside.
“He’s a big body, he’s physical and Wallace (Sititi) will come on obviously…we still have to make our tackles and turn the ball over, whatever the style of game is, he can add to it.”
All Blacks Cam Roigard and Wallace Sititi celebrate at full-time after George Ford of England misses a drop goal attempt at the final whistle during All Blacks v England.Bob Martin/ActionPress
When asked for an assessment of England, Robertson was surprised and amused to learn of the ‘Pom Squad’ nickname that Steve Borthwick’s bench has earned. Props Ellis Genge and Will Stuart, hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie and loose forwards Tom Curry and Henry Pollock will be presumably injected in the second half, in a plan that has been likened to the Springboks’ successful switching of starting players to impact roles in recent years.
“Wow that’s catchy,” said Robertson.
“That’s innovation, isn’t it? The finishing of test matches is critical…(we’ve got to) bring all we need to make an impact.”
Of course, there was the inevitable question about the haka, but in the English media’s defence, the topic of how the home side should issue a response was far more thoughtful than last year’s eruption of controversy.
“We welcome that, respectfully. There’s always rules of engagement around it, but they know what we’re going to do,” said Robertson.
England players approach the New Zealand team as they perform the Haka.James Crombie / www.photosport.nz
England coach Steve Borthwick will be looking to reverse a run of three narrow defeats to the All Blacks, including a dramatic 24-22 result in the same fixture last year. He hinted at a kick-heavy game, having identified that Robertson’s gameplans have relied on Beauden Barrett and Damian McKenzie’s boots a great deal.
“Every game it has spiked how much they have kicked. Last year at Twickenham, they came and the first thing they did is go ‘right we are kicking this ball’,” Borthwick told media this week.
“It is that tactical element of it and it will be interesting to see if that’s what Scott Robertson has asked his team to do.”
Scott Barrett addresses the All Blacks.ActionPress
Team lists
England: 1. Fin Baxter, 2. Jamie George, 3. Joe Heyes, 4. Maro Itoje (c), 5. Alex Coles, 6. Guy Pepper, 7. Sam Underhill, 8. Ben Earl, 9. Alex Mitchell, 10. George Ford (vice-captain), 11. Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, 12. Fraser Dingwall, 13. Ollie Lawrence, 14. Tom Roebuck, 15. Freddie Steward
Bench: 16. Luke Cowan-Dickie, 17. Ellis Genge, 18. Will Stuart, 19. Chandler Cunningham-South, 20. Tom Curry, 21. Henry Pollock, 22. Ben Spencer, 23. Marcus Smith
All Blacks: 1. Ethan de Groot, 2. Codie Taylor, 3. Fletcher Newell, 4. Scott Barrett (c), 5. Fabian Holland, 6. Simon Parker, 7. Ardie Savea, 8. Peter Lakai, 9. Cam Roigard, 10. Beauden Barrett, 11. Leicester Fainga’anuku, 12. Quinn Tupaea, 13. Billy Proctor, 14. Leroy Carter, 15. Will Jordan
The survey showed a rise in new orders and production, but a further weakening of employment.123rf
Manufacturing sector activity expanded in October thanks to higher new orders and improving demand.
The BNZ-Business NZ Performance of Manufacturing Index rose by 1.3 points to 51.4 in October, although it was still below its long-run average of 52.4.
A reading over 50 was regarded as expansion in the sector.
The survey showed a rise in new orders and production, but a further weakening of employment.
BNZ senior economist Doug Steel said the lift to 51.4 from September’s 50.1 was not large, but it had moved the right way.
He says Friday’s result was the fourth consecutive monthly expansion, something that had not happened for three years.
The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) said people needed to stop using the products immediately.Supplied / Product Safety NZ
The Ministry of Education says nearly 60 schools and early childhood centres have contacted them over possible asbestos contamination from recalled coloured play sands.
Rainbow sand from Educational Colours and coloured sand from Creatistics were recalled because Tremolite – a naturally occurring asbestos – had been found in samples during lab testing.
Head of operations and integration Sean Teddy said schools were told not to attempt to clean it up, but leave the area and close off access to affected spaces.
“We’ve been contacted by around 30 schools and 30 early childhood services from around the country, and we are working with them to validate if the product they have on site is the product that is being recalled, as well as if the product they have is in active use or not.
“We will have a better understanding of the number of schools and early learning services affected by the recall, and how they are responding, by the end of the day Friday.”
Earlier in the week the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) said people needed to stop using the products immediately.
“We urge anyone who has bought these products, either for personal use or potential use in a school or other setting to act immediately,” said Ian Caplin, MBIE product safety spokesperson.
“Stop using the sand, contain it, secure it in a safe place and arrange for safe disposal through licensed professionals, a list of these is available on the WorkSafe website.”
Caplin said people should avoid trying to clean any loose particles themselves
“It’s not a question of hoovering it up and chucking it in a waste bin, call an expert.,”
The sand was sold at Paper Plus, Hobby Land, NZ School Shop, Office Products Depot, Discount Office, Acquire, and Qizzle, Modern Teaching Aids, Creative Classrooms Ltd and ACME Supplies.
MBIE said it may have also been sold online.
RNZ had been in touch with a number of asbestos removal firms who said they had been notified of the product by WorkSafe, and were awaiting further information before formulating plans to address potential contamination.
A law change passed this week means that pharmacists who own or invest in a pharmacy will be able to become prescribers from February next year.123RF
The chair of the Independent Pharmacy Group says it is unlikely pharmacists will be ready to start prescribing medicines from the moment a new law comes into effect.
Around 100 pharmacist prescribers currently work in GP clinics, hospices, and hospitals.
Under a law change passed this week pharmacists who own or invest in a pharmacy will be able to become prescribers from February next year.
But Clive Cannons, who also owns Clive’s Chemist in Wainuiomata, told Morning Report it was unlikely to be in place on 1 February.
“There will be extra training, there’ll be extra competencies to take on board, so there is going to be a little bit of a lag time,” he said.
Cannons said the law change was a good opportunity for the profession and would free up GPs’ time for more complex cases.
“There are a lot of conditions that can be treated safely in pharmacies, such as strep throat, skin infections, ear infections, things like that that don’t need oversight as much, and then we can refer to GPs when it is beyond our scope,” he said.
GP unsure about 12 month prescriptions
From 1 February New Zealanders would also be able to receive 12-month prescriptions for their medicines, which the government estimated could save patients up to $105 per year in reduced GP fees, although patients will still have to pay the $5 prescription charge every three months.
Christchurch GP and chair of the General Practice Owners Association Dr Angus Chambers said there was a lot more to safe prescribing than people realized, and it wouldn’t always be possible to prescribe 12 months.
“Some [prescriptions] require routine monitoring,” he told Afternoons.
“We’ve got a system where sometimes the patient needs to be reviewed six monthly, yearly, or sometimes even two yearly. But every time you do that prescription, every three months, you’re checking the file,” he said.
Chambers said that could entail checking relevant blood tests had been taken, recall systems and letters that had come in from other sources.
“There’s a lot of housekeeping that gets done each time.”
Chambers was concerned expectations had been built high for the 12 month prescriptions, and that doctors and reception staff would get grief from patients if a 12 month prescription was declined.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Kami co-founders Hengjie Wang and Alliv Samson with their award.SUPPLIED
The co-founders of education technology platform Kami have been named EY entrepreneur of the year, with a fast growing global business expanding in more than 180 countries, except New Zealand.
Kami was co-founded in 2013 by chief executive Hengjie Wang and chief operating officer Alliv Samson, after developing their first interactive educational tool while still in university.
Samson said the company was still just getting started, with long-term plans to continue.
“We’re still scratching the surface,” Samson said. “There’s still a lot of classrooms out there that need help, including New Zealand.
“One of the biggest challenges that we see in Education NZ is we don’t have really good structure in ways on how we use technology in the classroom, and we can see how progressive the other countries are, but unfortunately, we’re really lacking here in New Zealand, and that’s something that we would love to see change.”
Wang said he would use the win to discuss the issue with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon who spoke about the importance of technology and entrpreneurship at the annual awards gala.
Kami will be competing with the other country winners at EY’s Global event to be held in Monaco, June 2026.
Category winners
Alliv Samson and Hengjie Wang (Kami) Alliv Samson and Hengjie Wang, Kami
Kate Gatfield-Jeffries (Moodi), Young Entrepreneur
Chris Benham (The Village Goldsmith), Product Entrepreneur
The complaints related to customer service, skill and care, disclosure and misleading advertising. (File photo)123RF
The Real Estate Authority is fielding a record number of complaints about real estate salespeople amid challenging housing market conditions.
The authority’s 2025 annual report noted a 35 percent increase in formal complaints in the year to June 30, to 487.
It said 9 percent of licensees subject to complaints had findings of misconduct or unsatisfactory conduct made against them.
The authority said complaints related to customer service, skill and care, disclosure and misleading advertising.
Poor communication was also a common theme.
But the authority said many did not raise issues that justified strong regulatory intervention.
Chief executive Belinda Moffat said the results indicated that most real estate licensees were maintaining high standards of professional conduct.
“REA is holding to account those who don’t.”
But she said the increase in consumer dissatisfaction needed to be a focus for the industry and said some cases raised complex and serious matters.
“Licensees are expected to maintain high standards and to have the skills to navigate challenging market conditions. Fairness, transparency, skill and care are critical expectations of the conduct regulatory system we oversee.”
She said the increase in complaints highlighted the complexity of the real estate transaction process.
The provision of quality information was important to support good decision-making, she said.
There are 15,692 people with active real estate licenses in New Zealand including 12,300 sales people, 1930 individual agents and 605 branch managers.
But that is almost three times the number of monthly residential property sales.
There were 6346 sales across the country in September, according to the Real Estate Institute.
“We were particularly pleased to see the 18 percent increase in branch managers this year given the important role they play as supervisors of salespeople,” Moffat said.
In 2023, there were 15,870 licences, down from 16,902 in September 2022.
The Ministry for Primary Industries says it’s stepping up the number of people on the ground.
“This week we introduced additional teams to methodically check common nesting areas close to where hornets have been detected in Glenfield and Birkdale,” Biosecurity New Zealand north commissioner Mike Inglis said.
“We are stepping up our numbers on the ground to widen the search as required, and have more than 20 focused on enhanced searches and more than 100 staff across MPI involved in this response,” he said.
Traps are being checked each day, but so far no hornets have been found in them.
Five of the seven queens showed evidence of nesting.
MPI said its response included:
Setting more than 180 traps in targeted areas where females have been found. Every trap is checked daily. No hornets have been found in traps to date. Additional traps are being added in areas where queen hornets are found, so the number of traps will continue to increase.
Introducing protein bait traps alongside existing traps.
Establishing a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of independent scientific experts with expertise in the biology, ecology, and management of social wasps. The TAG has been considering options for ongoing work.
Encouraging public surveillance, including sending staff into the community to raise awareness. This weekend, staff will again be at local markets to share information about the hornet.
The public are begin urged to report suspected hornets or nests but only if they have a specimen, or a clear photo, or have spotted a possible nest.
How to make a report
By going to report.mpi.govt.nz
By calling Biosecurity New Zealand’s exotic pest and disease hotline on 0800 809 966.
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New Zealand’s changing demographics in recent years is being reflected in the rising demand for Indian fashion.
The demand has been fuelled by a fast-growing Indian population, which has overtaken the Chinese community to become the country’s third-largest ethnicity, according to the 2023 Census.
Numbering almost 300,000, the Indian community loyally patronises specialist fashion outlets selling sarees, salwar kameez (top and trousers), Patiala suits, lehengas and kurtas throughout the country.
Outlets selling Indian footwear items such as mojaris, juttis and Kolhapuri chappals are also proving popular.
But non-Indian consumers are also bolstering the growing trade in ethnic garments, buying items as part of Indian festival celebrations, corporate events or Bollywood-themed parties.
A number of Indian fashion outlets can be found in South Auckland neighbourhoods such as Papatoetoe.RNZ / Blessen Tom
Not surprisingly, most of the outlets selling Indian fashion and ethnic wear can be found in Auckland, where almost 60 percent of the country’s Indian community resides.
One such outlet is Sona Sansar in the South Auckland neighbourhood of Papatoetoe, which is owned and operated by Harish Lodhia, who is also the honorary consul of Fiji in Auckland.
Naveen Talwar, manager of Sona Sansar, said he had witnessed a shift in consumer purchases as affordability in the Indian community increased.
“Increasingly we are seeing customers demanding designer sarees, and those are made from expensive silk. This is bound to happen as buying power of the community sees an uplift,” Talwar said.
“During the months of September and October, which coincides with Navratri and Diwali, demand for chaniya choli [designs] increases quite a bit.”
Chirag Ahuja, owner of AkarshanRNZ / Blessen Tom
Chirag Ahuja, owner of fashion outlet Akarshan in South Auckland, moved to New Zealand from northern India in 2007.
“I have seen a sea change in customer demand over my time in New Zealand,” Ahuja said.
“We started modestly selling readymade suits. Then, as demand increased, we gradually grew,” he said.
“Today, we have the entire range of Indian ethnic wear, from Patiala suits to Kanjivaram sarees,” he said.
“We also sell imitation jewellery, which has proven quite popular with customers not wanting anything valuable but still desire a smart look.”
TS Batra, owner of Batra’s Fashion VillaRNZ / Blessen Tom
Nearby Ahuja’s shop is Batra’s Fashion Villa, a multiple outlet store selling everything from shoes and jewellery to leather materials and clothing.
“We have been in Papatoetoe for over two decades now. Apart from the usual stuff, we also have a bridal studio that gets quite busy during the wedding season,” said TS Batra, owner of the business.
“We import everything from various parts of India, as every region has its own distinctive taste. We get stuff from Mumbai, Surat, Delhi and, of course, Punjab.
“We also sell Indian palazzos and a Pakistani suit range. We even have ladies’ size 64, which is very difficult to find in any other shop here.
“I would say the main base of our shop is Fiji-Indian customers.”
Mahesh Kumar, owner of RoopdarshanRNZ / Blessen Tom
Mahesh Kumar owns Roopdarshan outlets in the Auckland suburbs of Papatoetoe and Mt Roskill.
“Our family immigrated from Gujarat in India to Fiji, where we had a retail clothing business. Then I moved to Auckland in 1997,” Kumar said.
“Noticing there were no shops here selling Indian stuff, we started with a 60-square-metre space that was open only on weekends,” he said.
“Now with the growth in population and the subsequent demand, we have four stores.”
Kumar also expanded to Melbourne last year.
“Our most-selling items are sarees and salwar kameez,” Kumar said.
“Our low margins and huge variety have generated customer loyalty over the years, which I feel is the reason for our rapid expansion.”
AZA is a fashion store in Papatoetoe.RNZ / Blessen Tom
Indian fashion outlets in Auckland also appeal to Indo-Fijian customers, as well as those in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities.
“Other ethnicities are slowly warming up to Indian ethnic wear in a testimony to the country’s multicultural nature,” Ahuja said.
“We see such customers shopping around for Indian clothes during Diwali and Eid, or when they get invited to Indian homes for dinners or celebrations.”
Indian ethnic items were also in demand for people attending corporate events or Bollywood-themed evenings, Kumar said.
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Overall visitor arrivals were 3.43m for the year, an increase of 197,000 from the prior year. Aside from Australia, the biggest increases were from the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan.
Sudima Hotels chief operation officer Les Morgan told Morning Report business had been good with winter meeting their expectations and good growth continuing.
“Australians especially but all markets are up, maybe with the exception of the Chinese which remains flat.”
The level of domestic activity was harder to measure, but New Zealand corporate clients tended to be travelling and attending conferences a bit more in the last quarter, he said.
But internationally conference numbers were down 12 percent which may be why tourism levels were not back to where they once were, he said.
Queenstown and Christchurch were performing well in terms of tourist numbers, he said.
“Christchurch is looking really good, I’ve recently come back from a sales mission in China and the interest in Christchurch is very strong, people are looking to extend stays there, Rotorua’s been solid – the exception is Auckland for reasons we all know, but the rest of the country is looking great.”
It was likely there would be days over the summer where places like Queenstown and Christchurch were at capacity, he said.
Auckland’s issues included the lack of major events, the fact that the domestic economy was still flat, “and from a hoteliers point of view there’s a huge increase in inventory” which made it tough, he said.
“I think the summer will probably see occupancy levels around the mid 70s [percent], so still plenty of capacity in Auckland.”
The industry largely supported the introduction of a bed tax in Auckland, he said.
“Hoteliers in the last few years we have come around and believe a bed tax is potentially the way forward but we’ve got some concerns about how that might be implemented.”
Morgan said for the first time in four or five years the industry was feeling very optimistic.
The tourism industry was hoping for a big improvement in the short to medium term with the New Zealand International Convention Centre in Auckland and the economy slowly recovering but steadily, he said.
“I think the most pleasing thing is that, you know post GFC [global financial crisis] tourism really bounced back and kind of caught us by surprise, put all sorts of pressure on infrastructure and our communities and we’re not seeing that.
“I think the recovery’s is nice and slow and steady and we’re much more planned and you know I think that gives us a great deal of confidence that things are going to be great.”
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Allan Bunting will leave his post as post as Black Ferns head coach as New Zealand Rugby announces a recruitment process following a review into the failure to defend their World Cup crown.
Bunting said he won’t seek reinstatement after his three-year tenure ended with a third placing at the World Cup, having lost to Canada in the semi-finals.
Bunting said he could still reflect on his time with pride.
“It’s been an absolute honour to lead the Black Ferns in this position. I’m incredibly proud of what we set out to achieve together, from building connections, growing the depth of our wāhine, and enhancing this group to represent Aotearoa with mana on and off the field,” the 50-year-old Bunting said.
“I care deeply about women’s rugby in Aotearoa. Over the past 14 years, I’ve been honoured to contribute across both the sevens and fifteens programmes, experience pinnacle events such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, World Series and World Cups. To have played a role in the growth of the women’s game during this time has been a privilege.
“What I value most are the connections I’ve made and the people who I’ve met throughout my journey. I’m energised for the next chapter and look forward to new opportunities to lead, grow and contribute within high performance sport.”
A long-serving assistant and then head coach of the successful Black Ferns Sevens, Bunting succeeded Wayne Smith as Black Ferns “Director of Rugby” in February 2023, in the wake of their World Cup triumph in Auckland.
His announcement came as NZR said it wanted to appoint a new head coach by Christmas “marking the next chapter in the evolution of the women’s game”.
In a statement, NZR’s general manager of rugby and performance, Chris Lendrum, said an “extensive review” of the Black Ferns future programme had highlighted a need for change
He said while progress had been made on and off the field, “the team ultimately fell short of their goal of winning the Women’s Rugby World Cup”.
“Following a thorough review process post the Women’s Rugby World Cup, we are now inviting applications for one of the most significant leadership roles in New Zealand sport,” Lendrum said.
“We are heading into an incredibly exciting four-year cycle of the professional women’s game, with a new competition calendar and the first Women’s British and Irish Lions tour in 2027. A robust process to ensure we find the best candidate to take the Black Ferns forward is imperative.”
Liana Mikaele-Tu’u.www.photosport.nz
Lendrum paid tribute to Bunting.
“We entrusted the Black Ferns programme to Allan in 2023 because he is a proven winner with a track record of creating conditions for success in the women’s game, and empowering our wāhine toa to represent our nation with pride and authenticity. His Black Ferns have done just that,” Lendrum said.
“The positive impact he has had on the women’s game is immense. He has been a part of the growth of our women’s pathways and the development of players, while remaining focused on a culture which nurtures and supports people to thrive.
“The Black Ferns have reached a new level of professionalism in their approach to a high-performance environment. Allan and his team have delivered a strong foundation for the next four-year cycle.”
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