NZ Engine

Source: Radio New Zealand

With fuel prices nudging xxx add price in AM car dealers say it’s the final push for some people to buy electric vehicles.

War between the US, Israel and Iran has created significant disruptions to the price and supply of fuel and oil around the world, particularly due to the closure of the crucial supply route through the Strait of Hormuz.

News of petrol price instability has pushed would-be electric car purchasers into signing the deal.

Coventry Car Hybrid and Electric Car Dealers in Wellington said they sold three Nissan Leaf’s over the weekend, a simple electric vehicle.

In these cases, they said the cars sold themselves. They said people were coming in well researched and know what they wanted, some mentioning the rising fuel prices.

Down the road at Coventry Cars petrol branch, Jaden said buyers were generally heading towards hybrid and electric, but the trend could tick up when people realised just how much the cost of fuel was adding to their weekly expenses.

“In the coming weeks is really when it’s going to take effect in regards of how it’s operating. I think it’s just too soon to realise it just yet,” Jaden said.

“Because it’s only been a week and a half, two weeks. In a couple of weeks we will be able to see if that’s the way it’s heading”

The fuel prices have stopped people in their tracks for Cheye Moran at Hutt City Autoworld Lower Hutt. Those who were about to purchase a new car have pulled out.

“The cost of living is just so high at the moment, so a car is a pretty big commitment and because they are just unsure of where their fuel bills are going to end up, whether or not the cost of running the house is going to increase. And before that starts to level itself out, they are just saying it’s not imperative that they buy a car.”

Enquiries were also picking up for Joshua Schonberger from Electrify Bikes Wellington, where the average e-bike sits between $4-6k.

“We have had customers coming in and saying, ‘I bought this bike and it’s about the same price as a year’s worth of topping up my snapper card,’ so I think that’s a pretty good metric.”

Schonberger said it was still early days and expected people would increasingly consider moving to e-bikes.

But Kyle at Value Motors said purchasing a hybrid, or EV, wasn’t always the best financial move.

“It just depends on the driver what they are doing to be fair. Sometimes you’re only saving 2-3 litres per 100 kilometres. So when you sit down and work out where people are driving and what their style of driving is, it really comes down to whether they are going to save money or not. “

“We sell everything from Dodge Rams to Range Rovers, fuel in those types of vehicles doesn’t affect people really.”

He said for some people, cars were still about enjoying the ride, rather than the price of getting from A to B.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

As Muslims in Christchurch prepare to mark seven years since 51 people were murdered while worshipping at two mosques in the city, there are fears hate is again on the rise.

Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant opened fire at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre on 15 March 2019 as the congregations marked Jumu’ah – the most significant prayer of the week.

He left 51 people dead or dying in little over 15 minutes.

The now 35-year-old pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of terrorism in March 2020 and in August of that year was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

But he is now appealing his sentence and conviction, and there is a possibility of him giving verbal evidence to the coronial inquiry into the deaths of those he murdered.

Seven years on from what former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described as one of New Zealand’s darkest days, some in the community were still grieving wounds that felt fresh with little closure or solace.

Hamimah Ahmat’s husband Zekeriya Tuyan was mortally injured during the shooting at Al Noor Mosque and became the 51st shaheed, or martyr, almost seven weeks after the attack.

“Life seems to have moved forward around us,” she said.

“People seem to be forgetting March 15 and the lessons from it, while for many of us it often feels like time actually stopped on March 15, 2019.”

Rosemary Omar also lost her son Tariq during the massacre at Al Noor Mosque.

“I know it’s seven years but it does feel like yesterday and obviously some days are better than others,” she said.

“It was such a waste of such a good young man. He was just such a peaceful, kind, caring, compassionate young man that it seems very cruel that he should lose his life like that.”

Farid Ahmed’s wife Husna had left Al Noor Mosque to escort other women and children to safety.

The gunman shot her as she returned to find her husband, who uses a wheelchair.

“It was a dreadful day,” he said.

“For a moment I was thinking it was the end of the world for me. The world was becoming a very narrow for me. I was feeling that I was going to be sinking – swallowed by the earth.”

But the terrorist’s bullets did not just touch 91 people, they tore through the lives of thousands who felt the loss and pain of those killed or maimed.

The shuhada – or martyrs – left behind 34 spouses, 92 children and more than 100 siblings.

Rosemary Omar said the legal process surrounding her son’s death had felt overwhelming at times.

“I think we’ll never move on,” she said.

“I think it’s more a case of learning to sit with Tariq’s death next to me. It’s also more a process as well of appreciating having Tariq for 24 years rather than everything being sort of focused on how he died. And it’s very difficult as the anniversaries approach to actually stay in that moment of gratitude because everything’s sort of thrown up in the air and all these appeals obviously don’t help.”

She believed the terrorist’s appeals were motivated by the intent of further traumatising survivors and victims’ families.

“It’s quite disturbing and he’s sort of mocking everybody by basically breathing,” Omar said.

She hoped the coronial inquiry into her son’s death might result in some positive change.

However, she was cynical about the process especially after the government ended its formal response to the Royal Commission into the attacks with many recommendations scrapped.

Politicians seemed to have used the community for photo opportunities when it suited them but had now moved on, Omar said.

“I don’t believe they have any concept of what families have been through,” she said.

“There appears to be no compassion.”

Federation of Islamic Associations spokesperson Abdur Razzaq said hate crime was on the rise.

“We are tracking, according to police statistics, about three hate incidents recorded per week,” he said.

“That’s a level that we haven’t seen anywhere in the past. Last year, they recorded once over 150.”

Three people had been arrested in recent months for planning or discussing harming the Muslim community, Razzaq said.

There was also an alarming level of Islamophobia online, he said.

Hamimah Ahmat said while most New Zealanders remained quietly supportive of the community, she agreed hate was growing and had experienced it herself.

“Just two years after March 15, I was taking a walk … and a car passed by me and the hooligans shouted ‘go back to your country’.”

It was alarming to have come so soon after the terror attack.

There were also still ongoing and concerning reports of Muslim women having their hijab pulled by strangers as well as an increase in anti-migrant rhetoric, including by some politicians, Ahmat said.

“I would say my experience generally – generally – has been has been great but it’s hard because it just takes one or two incidents to bring us back to that anxiety again,” she said.

She had been involved in a lot of work to foster and improve social cohesion following the shootings.

She believed the government should back a national unity week to coincide with the anniversary of 15 March.

“It’s about our national security,” Ahmat said.

“What are we doing in terms of making sure communities are resilient? How are we ensuring that we respond compassionately and with sensitivity to voices that try to divide us? How do we acknowledge that New Zealand is not predominantly white, that it is made-up of many different peoples, many different countries, with many different cultures?

“Assimilating is not the answer to it. It is about accepting that we are all different and we can all make New Zealand great by being different and being unique.”

Farid Ahmed had a similar mindset and hoped by living as an example to others he could foster love and kindness in the community.

Ahmed moved the world when he publicly forgave his wife’s killer only weeks after the shootings.

“I decided with my 15-year-old daughter that the quickest way of healing for us is to offer forgiveness so we will have the freedom in our hearts from anger, from retribution, from hatred, and we could use our clean heart to work for peace and harmony and love,” he said.

“It is not an easy journey but it is possible that we can carry the grief and at the same time we can choose to overcome it by contributing in love and compassion towards others.”

That philosophy allowed him to live a happy life despite the enormity of his loss.

“From time to time, because of the love, I cry for my wife. When I reflect on the good things that I had, time to time I cry. But every cry I had gives me double motivation to do something better because if she was here she would have wanted me to do this sort of good thing,” Ahmed said.

On Sunday he would mark 15 March at the public service in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens and by giving away 150 cakes to his community, each with a message of love and hope.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Nick Brown has a real thing about lowered kerbs.

Where the average person might see a nice, smooth vehicle entrance to a driveway, Brown – head of intelligence for Auckland Council’s Healthy Waters team – sees a flood risk.

“Every time you reduce the height of your vehicle crossing, you’re reducing the capacity of the [gutter] channel to take water, and potentially inviting more water to flow across your property than otherwise would.”

It is a cloudless day in west Auckland, but this part of the city was among the worst-hit during the Anniversary Day floods in 2023.

Climate change-induced extreme weather is now striking the country with alarming frequency, and many New Zealanders are in harm’s way.

Data published by Earth Sciences New Zealand last year shows there are already 750,000 people at risk from a major rainfall or river flooding event.

That number will rise steadily to more than 900,000 with 3°C of additional warming.

The government has promised legislation this term that will start to set out how whole communities can adapt to the effects of climate change, but has not yet announced how this will be funded.

In the meantime, RNZ has invited Brown and his colleague Nancy Baines on a house tour, to identify how people already living in flood-prone houses might limit the worst effects when the next weatherbomb hits.

Earth Science New Zealand urban aquatic scientist Annette Semadeni-Davies says it’s not possible for individual households to fundamentally change the risk to their homes.

“If you live on the flood plain, there is not much you can do when the river floods as an individual except try to minimise the impacts.”

And when it comes to extreme rainfall, public drains can’t take all of the stormwater, Nick Brown says. “They’re for day-to-day events.

“When you get really extreme rain it’s the ground surface that the water is meant to flow across on its way down to the streams and ultimately the coast.”

What it is possible to do in many cases, though, is encourage the water to move around, rather than through your house.

“People are quite tempted to try and stop the water coming onto their property,” Brown says.

“[But] it’s going to keep trying to find the lowest point in the terrain to flow down, and so you must allow the water onto your property where it’s entering, and it’s got to allow it to exit when it’s exiting.

“Your job, as a homeowner, is to try and help the water get from one side of your property to the other without causing you damage.”

Letting the water flow

Before Brown even gets in the gate, he’s looking uphill and downhill, imagining where the water might flow.

The lowered kerb he’s spotted has a mitigating feature: the start of the driveway rises to a slight, “quite beautiful” hump.

“It’s really fortunate it does rise up and most of the water stays on the road, because if we look at the layout here, it’s sloped steeply down towards the garages,” Brown says.

Brown and Baines squint up at the roof line next, pointing out the gutters and downpipes: gutters should be clear of leaves and downpipes need to be securely connected to gutters at the top and drains at the bottom, to stop water pooling or back-flowing into the roof cavity.

So far, so easy.

Next, Brown points out the external heat pump unit, which is sitting at ground level.

“That’s not ideal, because any water there is going to destroy the unit, and that’s the majority of the cost of an air conditioner or heat pump,” he says.

Raising it up onto a stable platform is a low-cost, relatively simple job for a tradesperson to complete.

Something that’s harder to reverse, but good to avoid, is landscaping that leaves the entrance to a house level with, or lower than the ground.

“You really want to be stepping up into your house,” Brown says.

“If you’re walking straight from the flat, from outside to inside, that’s a pathway for water to get into your house.”

Flood hazard maps published by many councils, including Auckland, can now help people spot overland flow paths, Brown says.

It’s also possible to just look for the high and low points, and avoid placing any obstacles in that path, he says.

“If you build, if you put a structure, any kind of landscaping that can obstruct the water, it can then either direct the water into your house or it can stop the water flowing past your house and it can build up.”

Raised garden beds, sheds, decks and even large pot plants can all be culprits.

“There’s some properties that are always going to flood, and others that might flood depending on your decisions.”

Brown points out a fence running across the bottom of the garden.

“If it was a solid fence it would impound water, and so water would build up behind it – and if it builds up high enough, then it can flood back through a home.”

That was something both of them witnessed after the January 2023 floods, Baines says.

“We had properties that flooded inside that wouldn’t have flooded if they hadn’t had a solid obstruction on the downstream side.

“Something else that we observed was those solid fences, the water building up so high behind them that the fence then catastrophically failed and collapsed, and caused a really big wave over the property below with all that extra energy, which was really damaging.”

It might not be necessary to replace an entire fence, Brown says.

“You can do something pretty easily – you just want an opening at the bottom of your fence. Some people find that difficult with dogs and trying to contain them, but something like having chicken wire along the bottom to keep your dogs in that lets the water through is a great start.”

When water is an uninvited guest

There may be no way to stop water coming inside a house, Baines says.

That’s where preparing well in advance can help limit the damage.

“[There are] really easy things that anybody can do – it doesn’t matter if you’re renting, doesn’t matter if you’re on a budget – and that is where you’re storing things.

“All of your like precious things, high up, not just your electronics and your expensive things, but your family photos – what is the stuff you’re going to really miss if it’s damaged?”

Another easy thing that anyone can do, if bad weather is forecast, is to move cars parked in low-lying garages or dips in the street uphill beforehand.

“For many of us and many renters, your car is your biggest asset – it’s what gets you to work, it’s what helps drop the kids, and losing that is huge.”

The Building Research Association (BRANZ), together with councils and universities, has been researching how people can limit flood damage inside their homes.

Senior materials scientist Katy Stokes says it often comes down to what materials people choose to use.

“Things like kitchens and bathrooms are notoriously expensive when you do a renovation, and the same happens if you’re flooded and those need to be replaced,” she says.

“So if you are looking at already renovating those rooms, actually replacing your lower cabinetry with things that are more water-resistant, like a solid wood instead of an MDF or a particle board-type product.”

Like Baines, she advocates lifting up what you can – appliances, cabinetry, and even electrical outlets.

Floor coverings are another thing to consider when it comes time to replace them.

Carpet can easily trap moisture – so in rooms that don’t need it, she suggests hard floor surfaces, with rugs for warmth instead.

Conversely, avoid hard surface outside, Stokes says.

Using grass, gravel, and other permeable surfaces for driveways and patios, instead of concrete, can help to control and absorb the flow of water.

Much bigger structural renovations could include upgraded drainage systems – but Stokes warns that protecting against a flood isn’t as simple as lifting the foundation of a house.

“One of the challenges that we have in New Zealand … is that we are highly seismic.

“One of the concerns is if you lift a house without considering the engineering aspects, you may run into problems.”

Escape from disaster – or face it head on?

There is a more drastic solution if your house is at high risk of flooding, Sandeeka Mannakkara says.

“Relocation … can be considered a resilience behaviour.”

Planned relocation for some communities is already on the cards, including in South Dunedin, but individual households who have the financial ability to do so might also choose to move out of harm’s way, she says.

However, that won’t be an option for every family or community.

“With climate change, more and more of our communities are becoming hazard-prone, so we are going to reach a point where we can’t relocate our way out of it,” Mannakkara says.

“Now is the era of being able to live with hazards and risk, so this is where resilience comes in – which is your ability to face something, to cope with it, to adapt quickly and recover and bounce back.”

Councils and central government should still be working on broader adaptation projects to protect people, she says.

“But the easiest, lowest-hanging fruit is actually getting people themselves – local communities, households – to build up these individual resilience measures.”

Mannakkara and her colleagues have been funded by BRANZ to collate local and international research about what helps to build climate and disaster resilience among communities, and what helps and hinders efforts to do that.

“There’s a lot of research that finds that … when a hazard event occurs, it’s that household-level resilience that helps tip that balance towards whether you’re badly affected or whether you can cope in that moment.”

Neighbours and communities who get to know each other are not only more resilient – they’re also more likely to want to stay, she says.

“The higher the sense of community feel that people have and the stronger the social networks, that increases the likelihood of people investing their time, effort and money to improve flood resilience.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

While the surging number of beneficiaries is plain to see, there is a struggling layer of people who feel out of sight: the “invisible unemployed”.

They have too much to qualify for a benefit, but not enough to make ends meet.

Paul, 58, who lives in Upper Hutt, worked in a library but was made redundant in November.

” almost immediately went to WINZ [Work and Income] to get registered and found that due to the level of my wife’s income and also our current assets, I was not eligible for any form of support.”

His wife earns $66,000.

The Ministry of Social Development website said a married, civil union or de facto couple without children did not qualify for Jobseeker Support if they jointly earned more than $1039 weekly (before tax).

They could not get the accommodation supplement, because they had more than the limit of $16,200 in the bank.

Paul was disappointed and frustrated.

“You … work, you pay your taxes and you do what everybody says you should, which is save money and be careful with it.

“And then when you are made redundant through no choice of your own and you’ve still got as many bills to pay, but your income is more than halved, you find out that until you’ve reduced your assets down to a very low level, you’re not eligible for any support at all.”

Paul said Work and Income said it could help, if they had less money in the bank.

But he said he and his wife had worked hard to save that money and did not want to “fritter it away”.

“Unexpected things happen and you sometimes need reserves if big bills come along,” he said.

Paul was also ineligible for the Community Services Card, which helps with the cost of health care and public transport.

Even that would be a huge help, he said.

The job hunt was proving difficult and in a tight labour market, Paul found himself unable to secure interviews for roles he was “highly qualified” for.

He was also studying part-time towards a Bachelor of Counselling, but because he was halfway through his second year, he was unable to switch to full-time – meaning he could not get Studylink support.

In the meantime, Paul said: “We’re stuck in this limbo land of having too much but not enough.”

Emma-Jean Kelly was a senior historian at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage in Wellington until August last year, when she was made redundant.

Her husband’s salary, about $80,000, meant she did not qualify for a benefit.

“Despite earning ‘too much’ we still have a mortgage, rates, we have financially supported my 89-year-old dad for many years, helped out other family during their difficult times, cost of living is crazy … our small savings will be exhausted soon,” she said.

“I wonder how many more invisible unemployed there are like me?”

When Kelly was working, she ate and drank at Wellington’s cafes and restaurants, went to plays and gigs, supported local journalism through subscriptions, bought New Zealand books at Unity Books and shopped for gifts, supplies, clothes and accessories in town.

“I can do none of those things anymore, impacting on other people’s income too.”

Budgeting service struggling to help

Financial mentor Heather Lange who managed Family Finances Services Trust in Upper Hutt knew the “invisible unemployed” well.

Lange said the number of homeowners seeking her organisation’s budgeting advice spiked from four in the year to March 2023, to 39 the following year, and 40 last year.

The same pattern was true of people approaching the trust after losing their job: 18 in 2023, 49 in 2024, and 65 last year.

Often, for people like Paul or Kelly, there was not much the service could do aside from help comb through spending and identify any non-essentials to cut back on.

“It certainly doesn’t feel very great working with a family who are thinking, surely there must be some help and having to say, ‘no, you earn too much to get any help’,” said Lange.

Lange said more people were doing a KiwiSaver hardship withdrawal to cover the gap – but that was only enough money for three months.

While she would “always argue” for benefit thresholds to increase, Lange said housing costs were the biggest problem.

Some of her clients’ mortgage or rent payments were so high that a single income could not cover them, let alone any other costs.

“We’ve just normalised spending a huge portion of your income on housing, and so even taking a couple who earn a really good income, you shouldn’t really be paying more than about a third of that good income in housing costs,” she said.

“If it wasn’t that everybody was having to spend so much on their housing, the crunch wouldn’t feel quite so awful.”

The Minister for Social Development Louise Upston has been approached for comment.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

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