Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Transport Agency (NZTA) is considering a U-turn on 100-kilometre speed limits put in after they were reduced by the former Labour-led government south of Levin.

Last year State Highway 1 and State Highway 57 south of the Horowhenua town had speed limits increased from 80 kilometres per hour after the transporting agency was directed to consult on the changes.

Over half of the people who submitted backed upping the speeds, but many in the local community warned against the changes, including the local council.

During the period the road has had a 100-kilometre speed limit in place one person died in a crash.

When it was 20 kilometres lower between 2020 and 2025 no one died on the road.

NZTA has since announced it had opened consultation to put the speeds back down.

It would also put up variable speed limits outside Tukorehe Marae and Wehi Wehi Marae.

Waka Kotahi director regional relationships Linda Stewart told RNZ the reversal came from community concerns.

“NZTA has received a considerable amount of feedback from the local community, iwi and freight operators that the 100km/h speed limit is not appropriate in these locations.”

Stewart said there had also been concern from the Speldhurst Country Estate on State Highway 75 and that a major expansion at the village meant it would soon accommodate more than a thousand residents.

Molly Page lived near State Highway 57 and said the speed limits should not have gone up.

“It is a dangerous piece of road and we know that because how many accidents have there been?”

Page said State Highway 57 travelled past the country estate Speldhurst which had elderly residents.

“As you get older it is just a fact that reaction times are much slower and putting that road up to 100 kilometres … it is just unsafe.”

Speldhurst Residents Committee chair Roger Parton was delighted by the proposal to change the speed limits back.

“Just watching the traffic going past at 100 kilometres and the big trucks going 90 [kilometres] and you have got people coming out of the retirement village onto the public road.

“It is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Horowhenua Deputy Mayor David Allan said the speed reductions were “better late than never”.

“It is a shame that they were reinstated to 100 kilometres in the first place, council opposed it at that time, and we welcome any proposal to reduce the speed limits.”

Transport Minister Chris Bishop told RNZ the road was and is safe, but given the scale of development happening in the area NZTA had assessed that some sections of the highway may need lower speed limits.

In July RNZ reported Ngāti Tukorehe Tribal Committee chairperson Pikitia Heke said pleas to keep the stretch of highway at the 80 kph speed limit had “fallen on deaf ears”.

At that time Alicia Miratana a descendent of Ngāti Wehiwehi and who lived in Manakau said speed affected how Wehi Wehi Marae operated.

“We have our kaumātua that no longer walk to the marae it is just too unsafe for them, we don’t allow our tamariki to walk home from the marae it is not for them. But the biggest fear we have for Ngāti Wehiwehi is that we have a kōhanga reo on our marae.”

Consultation would end 9 April.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

• Officials caution that after resignations retail crime advisory group doesn’t have security or facial recognition expertise
• Group chairman says it will deliver robust reports on these issues to minister
• Ministry of Justice says its advice still stands.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has ignored advice from officials warning the remaining members of the ministerial advisory group charged with tackling retail crime don’t have relevant expertise in matters it will issue advice about.

Three of the five members of the Ministerial Advisory Group for Victims of Retail Crime resigned late last year and early this year, leaving just chairman Sunny Kaushal and Hamilton liquor retailer Ash Parmar.

Goldsmith confirmed last month that the group, which has faced criticism for its spending, will wind up in May, four months earlier than planned.

Before then the remaining members are expected to in April deliver advice to Goldsmith about the security industry, and facial recognition technology and information sharing.

Kaushal, who owns Auckland’s Shakespeare Hotel and is an advocate for retail shop owners, says he’s confident he and Parmar can deliver robust work.

But, a 26 January briefing from Ministry of Justice officials to Goldsmith and Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee, obtained by RNZ, has raised concerns.

‘Remaining members do not hold subject matter expertise’

Group member Michael Bell quit late last year. His resignation was followed by Lindsay Rowles and Carolyn Young earlier this year.

“The three members who resigned, brought experience and expertise in the retail sector and in security and crime prevention,” the briefing said.

Young is Retail NZ’s chief executive. Officials said she brought leadership and experience to the group.

Bell, who worked for Michael Hill, was a key member of the jeweller’s security taskforce, which is “responsible for monitoring retail crime trends nationally and globally, and implementing prevention measures”.

Rowles had expertise in security and crime prevention, having formed and led Foodstuffs’ retail crime working group, which included trialling facial recognition technology

Continuing with just two group members came with a warning: “We do not consider the current membership meets the requirements established in the terms of reference, as there are no members who bring experience and expertise in security.”

Suggestions for a way forward included terminating the group as soon as possible; letting it run until September as planned; appointing new members to the group to replace the three who resigned; or winding it up early after it delivered in April reports on the security industry and facial recognition technology and information sharing.

This is the option Goldsmith chose, announcing on 10 February the group would continue with its current work before winding up in May.

“We consider there are two primary risks with proceeding on this basis. The first is that the advice provided by the MAG will be on behalf of the two remaining members and will not reflect discussions and endorsements of a fully constituted membership with a breadth of expertise and experience required by the terms of reference,” the briefing said.

“This is particularly important given that the remaining members do not hold subject matter expertise relevant to the areas covered by the reports – security industry, FRT, and information sharing.”

Chairman says advice will be robust

Kaushal told RNZ he was confident the group would deliver robust advice about the security industry and facial recognition technology.

He said all the group’s proposals were developed after at least two rounds of feedback from the likes of the retail sector, government agencies, local councils and non-government organisations.

“In the case of our FRT advice, we’ve consulted with privacy experts, the Privacy Commission, UK regulators, and FRT service providers both in NZ and the UK, along with retailers and sector groups,” Kaushal said.

“In the case of our security industry advice, we’ve consulted widely across the sector in New Zealand, with regulators here, and with industry bodies in Australia and Canada, along with retailers and sector groups.

“Our policy process is robust. It involves the MAG developing both an issues paper and an options paper – both of which are consulted on before final advice is prepared. We contract with experienced policy professionals to support the MAG in developing its advice.”

Kaushal said he was working with ministers on making sure the group’s remaining advice was balanced and considered a full range of sector views.

He said the group’s record spoke for itself.

“In just 18 months, we have delivered substantial and measurable progress in strengthening law and order. Through the ministerial advisory group, I have led seven major legislative-ready reform proposals.

“Four have already been accepted by the government to progress into law, including the Crimes Amendment Bill currently before Parliament.”

That bill includes extended powers for citizens’ arrests.

Goldsmith was asked about officials’ concerns about the expertise of the group’s two remaining members. His office said he had nothing further to add.

Ministry deputy secretary, policy, Caroline Greaney said: “The advice given stands, and the ministry has nothing further to add regarding that.

“An approach to mitigating some of these concerns is being worked through now, but at this point there is nothing more to say.”

New Zealand Security Association chief executive Gary Morrison said it was “reasonably relaxed” about the change in group personnel, and it had given feedback about facial recognition technology 8-10 months ago, before the resignations.

The association dealt with advisers to the group and Morrison had found they’d taken a balanced approach to issues.

‘Not played out as I hoped’

Bell’s resignation letter said that due to the significant time commitments of his job as Michael Hill national retail manager, he couldn’t focus enough on the group’s work.

Rowles was stepping down after his appointment as Mitre 10 chief executive, a position beginning this month.

Young’s letter said she decided to resign after consulting with the Retail NZ board.

In a covering letter to justice secretary Andrew Kibblewhite she thanked ministry officials for their support, but added: “… it certainly has not played out as I had hoped and it is disappointing that we haven’t been able to do more meaningful work with this group.”

She later told RNZ the group was a “very unpleasant environment” in which to work.

The group was supposed to operate for two years to September. It has an annual budget of $1.8 million, paid for from the proceeds of crime fund.

It has delivered advice to the minister on issues such as tougher penalties for shoplifters, strengthening trespass laws, and introducing new citizens’ arrest powers.

But, it has faced criticism about its value for money, including the $230,000 Kaushal invoiced for work in its first 12 months, which was allowed under the group’s payment guidelines; the central Auckland office space it rents for $120,000 a year; and the $24,000 spent on 22 well-catered stakeholder engagement meetings around New Zealand.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Questions have been raised about TVNZ’s editorial independence after its chair discussed a news story with Broadcasting Minister Paul Goldsmith, media commentator Tim Murphy says.

TVNZ chair Andrew Barclay rang the minister after Goldsmith and cabinet colleague Mark Mitchell expressed dissatisfaction with a 1News story about gang numbers.

Goldsmith appointed Barclay to the public broadcaster’s board in September.

The story, about gang members now narrowly outnumbering police officers, aired on 1News last Thursday.

The report aired the same day the latest Crime and Victims survey showed 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime in the year to October 2025 compared to the previous survey in 2023.

Barclay spoke with Goldsmith over the phone before 1News ran a second story with a more positive angle.

Goldsmith, who is also the Justice Minister, confirmed he had spoken to the 1News journalist after the first story aired.

“Just like I often do when I’m not happy with a story, I ring the journalist and give them the benefit of my opinions,” he said.

Goldsmith then said he had a “very short” call from the chair of TVNZ’s board “on a range of matters”, and the story came up in passing.

He “absolutely” did not bring the story up himself and he did not discuss editorial matters with Barclay, Goldsmith said.

“It’s not appropriate for me to be talking about political discussions and editorial matters with the board, and I haven’t,” he said.

Newsroom co-editor Tim Murphy told Midday Report running the second 1News story following those events gave the impression TVNZ was trying to make up for upsetting the government.

However, there were still many unanswered questions.

“The independence from ministers and the government of the day is really important for TVNZ and RNZ particularly, but how much went on and where and by whom I think we’re yet to find out,” Murphy said.

“Probably we’ll have to rely on the Official Information Act among other things to really know quite how involved or otherwise political interests were.”

It would be unusual for TVNZ’s chair to ringing the Broadcasting Minister about the broadcaster’s coverage, he said.

“The chair and the minister talk and that’s sort of the line of authority if you like, but not I think when the minister has been complaining so loud himself under his other portfolio,” Murphy said.

Barclay ought to have been aware of the “twilight zone of politics and media and journalism ethics”, he said.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell took to Facebook to express his frustration with the story after 1News’ gangs report.

Mitchell said it was “absolutely unbelievable” that, on a day the government had announced fewer victims of violent crime and a reduction in serious repeat youth offending, 1News “chose instead to engage in unbalanced journalism by running a story about gang membership with none of the context around the outstanding work our police are doing in cracking down on gangs in New Zealand”.

Five days later, 1News ran a second story reporting on the crime statistics the government had announced the previous week.

Mitchell again raised what he said was an “unbalanced” report during Question Time on Wednesday.

Labour’s police spokesperson Ginny Andersen then asked Mitchell whether he, any member of his office or any person acting on his behalf made contact with the TVNZ board regarding the report.

Mitchell said he had received a call from a “senior” TVNZ person to apologise after his Facebook post but he had not contacted anyone at TVNZ. He also confirmed the person he spoke to was not a member of the public broadcaster’s board.

A TVNZ spokesperson said the organisation’s political editor had contacted Mitchell’s office after the gang numbers story to advise the victims of crime data “should have been included”.

The spokesperson said the story was then reviewed internally and an editorial decision was made to run a follow-up story “incorporating those figures to ensure balanced coverage and to aid audience understanding around the use of differing crime statistics”.

The board chair and the minister talked regularly, TVNZ said.

“TVNZ’s Board Directors also take an interest in how editorial standards are maintained. But editorial independence is of paramount importance to us and operational decisions on how stories are covered are our own.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Flood-hit residents on Wairarapa’s south coast are demanding action after a creek burst its banks during torrential rain.

Low-lying homes in Whāngaimoana Beach were inundated when a severe storm swept across the lower North Island last month, closing roads, cutting power to thousands, and severing communities.

Locals say heartache could’ve been avoided if the stream bordering their properties had been dug out.

They’ve called on the council to open it to the sea so that it can drain during heavy rain, but the council says it’s not its responsibility.

Emergency operations says multiple warnings were issued about the flood risk and has signalled that flood mitigation will form part of its recovery work.

‘The water would’ve just buggered off’

Sections of the Whāngaimoana stream run through private property, including an identified and protected wetland, before hitting the beach, which is publicly owned.

When it breached its banks on Monday, 16 February, Adam Mazzola and his son were forced to evacuate as the water rose by up to half a metre inside their home.

They’ve been living elsewhere ever since, and Mazzola said they wouldn’t be returning to the 100-year-old bach – it’s too damaged.

A Givealittle page has been set up to help him “get back on his feet”.

Mazzola said it was important to know who was responsible for the stream and wanted to see a machine on standby to dig it out in the future.

“It [flood mitigation] could have saved our place and others if it [the stream] was cleared out and maintained,” he said.

Neighbours Jason Statham and Mellisa Tipene highlighted the same issue when RNZ visited.

Tipene said their property had flooded a “handful of times” in the past decade and believed opening up the stream at the beach would reduce the frequency.

“If they open up a mouth like Lake Ferry out the end there, so the water can release itself, you wouldn’t have it backing up and coming in here … and constantly flooding your yard that you work hard to… beautify.”

Statham said the rain warnings came well in advance of the downpour and thought there should have been some proactive flood mitigation.

“They should have been down there two days before it happened and opened up the mouth, and I don’t think that [the flooding] would have happened, the water would’ve just buggered off,” Statham said.

“But they didn’t do that. They warned us and all that, but they didn’t do f*** all.”

Property owners responsible for flood protection – council

While surveying the damage to her backyard, local Terry Shubkin told RNZ that more than one home in the lower section of the street flooded when the stream burst its banks.

Shubkin said flooding in the settlement was increasing in frequency, with the latest inundation on par with a “one-in-50-year flood” that hit in 2004.

She said she’d been pushing the Greater Wellington Regional Council [GWRC] for help on-and-off in the years since, but “the response I get is, ‘It’s not our problem.'”

Shubkin said the council put up a drone after “much nagging” last year and found willows and sediment were clogging the stream in places, but she said that was only part of the problem.

“The creek doesn’t actually flow out to the ocean; it closes off,” she said.

The regional council’s director of delivery, Jack Mace, said the council does carry out flood protection work in the area, but unfortunately, the creek falls outside its remit as set out in the Lower Wairarapa Valley Development Scheme.

The scheme from the 1960s is set for review in the next two to three years and covers building and maintaining stop banks, floodways, and drainage, as well as the opening of nearby Lake Ōnoke / Lake Ferry.

A council spokesperson said following the drone flight, recommendations were made to the landowner with the willows.

They said while Greater Wellington has powers to intervene in waterways – such as opening stream mouths – it won’t at Whāngaimoana because the creek doesn’t meet its criteria for management.

“Private landowners have a responsibility to protect their land from flooding unless there is a relevant river management plan/scheme in place.

“For this creek and community, the best opportunity to advocate for Whāngaimoana to be included in a river scheme is in the review of the Lower Wairarapa Valley Development Scheme.”

Mace said the regional council understood the impact of severe flooding on rural communities and believed it would take a long time for the region to fully recover.

“Our focus now is on stabilising river corridors within the scheme while we work to understand the extent of the damage and what may be required long term.”

Flood mitigation to be considered

Wairarapa Emergency Operations Centre said it was advised by the regional council that “Whāngaimoana was vulnerable to flooding if the stream breached its banks and sea swell backed up flood water” on Sunday, 15 February at 8.47pm.

A spokesperson for the office said staff followed up with residents as soon as it was safe to do so the next day, and noted that public advisories about the flood risk in low-lying areas – including an emergency mobile alert – were issued prior to and during the storm.

They said support agencies had boots on the ground in the immediate days after the flooding in Whāngaimoana and confirmed one family was still being “actively supported”.

“Regarding the clearing of streams and flood mitigation, we don’t have the necessary information to comment specifically about this situation at the moment, but this will form part of the recovery office’s work with impacted communities.”

In addition to immediate repairs, the recovery office – recently established by the South Wairarapa District Council – would focus on what communities needed to build resilience in the medium to long term.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Health NZ says an initiative to give patients in the Greater Wellington region petrol vouchers to drive to Whanganui for an MRI scan is working to bring waiting lists down.

Hundreds of patients in the region had been offered $150 petrol payments to travel out of the district to get the diagnostic procedure faster.

There had been criticism of the scheme – with the senior doctors union claiming it offered people the chance to buy their way up the public wait lists for MRI scans.

But Health NZ Capital and Coast group director of operations Jamie Duncan told Checkpoint that was not the case.

“We’re providing support for people that have the ways and means to access the scans in Whanganui. I think the impact here is twofold. Clearly those people get access to a scan, but what it does do is it frees up capacity locally on our MRI scanners for those people who aren’t in a position to travel,” he said.

Duncan said 288 patients had taken the opportunity to travel to Whanganui with a petrol voucher.

“What that means locally is from September our waiting time for a scan was approximately six months in Wellington, now just over six months later the wait time is closer to three to four months,” he said.

“It’s having a significant impact in improving access locally.”

The target wait time was six weeks for an MRI scan.

“We still know we have a ways and means to go to hit that target but you can see on that trajectory we’re moving there quite quickly,” Duncan said.

Duncan said the scheme was about improving overall access to MRI scans.

“There are other things we’re doing locally to improve access, we’re outsourcing to private providers, we’re employing more radiology staff in the public system to increase access to public MRI, we’re working weekend shifts to improve access as well,” he said.

Duncan said there were seven public MRI machines in the central region, with Whanganui being one of those.

There were two in Wellington Hospital and one in Hutt Valley Hospital.

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