Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

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

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A small fine meted out to an Otago fisher, who killed a Hector’s dolphin then lied to officials, underscores the failure to protect endangered species, a conservation group says.

Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders uncovered the death of the dolphin – one of only about 40 left in the area – and fought through the courts to obtain the details.

Founder Christine Rose said the case laid bare a toothless system that failed to act as a deterrent to the fishing industry and also highlighted the vulnerability of relying on the industry to self-report bycatch.

The Moeraki fisher, who RNZ has chosen not to identify, was already before the court for illegal fishing when the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) discovered he had killed a Hector’s dolphin while set-netting off Otago’s coast in February last year.

The camera on-board FV Emma Jane recorded images of the net being cut and the dead dolphin sinking to the sea floor.

Neither MPI nor the Department of Conservation (DOC) brought charges over the death of the dolphin. However, MPI charged the man with failing to report the capture under the Fisheries Act.

While it is illegal to harm a protected species, commercial fishers are exempted for “accidental capture”, or bycatch.

The Ministry for Primary Industries said, although killing protected wildlife as bycatch was not an offence, it took the prosecution for failing to report the incident “due to the seriousness of the non-reporting”.

DOC said its only involvement in the case was to confirm the mammal in the camera footage was an endangered Hector’s dolphin.

Industry group Seafood New Zealand said fisheries were the most regulated and surveilled primary industry in the country and the case showed the rules were working.

Otago University emeritus professor Liz Slooten said the case proved dolphins killed by fishing gear were not always reported.

It comes as the government sought to roll back parts of the camera programme.

The current law – which had no penalty for fishing industry-related dolphin deaths – was not fit for purpose, Slooten said.

‘A dirty old shag’

After the dolphin’s death was discovered the skipper lied in his catch report, responding ‘no’ when asked if any protected species had been caught.

When fisheries officers asked about the catch he told them it was “just a dirty old shag or a seven-giller (shark)”, according to MPI’s summary of facts.

When formally interviewed he admitted to catching the dolphin claiming it was a “common dolphin”.

Another of the man’s ships, FV Triton, was caught trawling illegally days earlier near the mouth of the Ōrāri River in South Canterbury while skippered by another man.

A no trawl prohibition applied in the area from January to April to protect sea-run Chinook salmon, MPI described the fish as being at “crisis point”.

The ship’s owner said he was unaware of the no trawl areas.

He was charged with trawling inside a prohibited area.

‘Manifest injustice’

The fisher pleaded guilty to all charges last September and was fined $5000 for failing to report the dolphin’s capture, $10,000 for trawling in a prohibited area.

Both ships were automatically forfeited.

However, the man kept both ships in exchange for a fee of $14,460.

Rose said the man would be able to treat the fine and buy-back costs as the price of doing business.

“Hector’s dolphins are priceless but the court’s judgement makes dolphin lives look worthless,” she said.

Hector’s dolphins are only found in New Zealand waters and are estimated to number about 15,000, a stark decline from the 50,000 estimated in 1975.

The case showed the organisations charged with protecting threatened marine mammals were failing, Rose said.

“If this was a kiwi or a kākāpō people would be rightly outraged. But, because it’s a dolphin, we only know about it because of the persistence of groups like ours.”

Rose learned of the death after spotting a reference to unreported bycatch in a presentation from MPI.

The dolphin’s death was not initially reported on DOC’s database, though it had since been added with a note that “due to an ongoing compliance investigation, this incident was not reported publicly until January 2026”.

The court did not impose any suppression orders and ordered the release of the information to Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders last month.

“When he was finally prosecuted, as we find out from the district court records, it turns out he’s got a history of breaking the law and despite the fact he’s been fishing for 40 years he pretends to not know what the rules are,” Rose said.

“The fine he gets for all of this is only $5000 and forfeiture of his boat but in the meantime he’s able to buy that boat back and can be right back out there fishing.”

MPI’s 2023-24 South Island Hector’s bycatch reduction plan annual report noted that on at least four occasions the same fishing boats killed more than one Hector’s dolphin in a 12 month period.

MPI director of science and information Simon Lawrence said when Fisheries New Zealand finds evidence of breaches of fisheries rules it took a range of actions from education to prosecution.

Prosecution decisions were made based on Crown Law guidance, he said.

DOC biodiversity system and aquatic director Kirstie Knowles said DOC became aware of the dolphin’s death in April when Fisheries New Zealand asked for confirmation the footage showed a Hector’s dolphin.

As a Fisheries investigation was already underway, DOC did not open a separate investigation under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Knowles said.

The High Court found in 2024 DOC’s approach to prosecution and investigation were unlawful and lacking.

Rose claimed DOC and MPI were failing in their duties.

“MPI are protecting the fishing industry, they’re not upholding the rules. DOC are nowhere to be seen. They should have been prosecuting this under the Marine Mammal Protection Act,” she said.

“Both these agencies that are supposed to be upholding the law and the flourishing and preservation of the marine environment and these protected species are missing in action.”

Less than a fifth of on-board footage monitored in last quarter

Before the introduction of on-board cameras, the industry reported one or zero Hector’s dolphins deaths in nets or trawls between 2014 and 2022.

But 15 deaths were reported or observed in the first year on-board cameras were rolled out.

A 2025 MPI report said about 30 percent of footage had been reviewed since 2023.

Figures for the quarter to September 2025 showed only 18 percent of footage was reviewed.

Seafood NZ chief executive Lisa Futschek said the Otago case showed the system was working.

There were clear rules on reporting, she said.

“We have a robust system. We need to work within it, and we do, and for those who don’t there are clear consequences which is what happened in this case,” Futschek said.

There were limits on the number of dolphins the fishing industry could kill in certain areas.

Those limits protected endangered species, Futschek said.

In the South Island the limit was 47.5 dolphins per year, but last year only seven were killed by the industry, Futschek said.

“So whilst even one capture is too many, we are still doing really well when it comes to making sure that particular species continues to thrive,” she said.

However, in the East Otago region the limit is two deaths per year.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A small fine meted out to an Otago fisher, who killed a Hector’s dolphin then lied to officials, underscores the failure to protect endangered species, a conservation group says.

Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders uncovered the death of the dolphin – one of only about 40 left in the area – and fought through the courts to obtain the details.

Founder Christine Rose said the case laid bare a toothless system that failed to act as a deterrent to the fishing industry and also highlighted the vulnerability of relying on the industry to self-report bycatch.

The Moeraki fisher, who RNZ has chosen not to identify, was already before the court for illegal fishing when the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) discovered he had killed a Hector’s dolphin while set-netting off Otago’s coast in February last year.

The camera on-board FV Emma Jane recorded images of the net being cut and the dead dolphin sinking to the sea floor.

Neither MPI nor the Department of Conservation (DOC) brought charges over the death of the dolphin. However, MPI charged the man with failing to report the capture under the Fisheries Act.

While it is illegal to harm a protected species, commercial fishers are exempted for “accidental capture”, or bycatch.

The Ministry for Primary Industries said, although killing protected wildlife as bycatch was not an offence, it took the prosecution for failing to report the incident “due to the seriousness of the non-reporting”.

DOC said its only involvement in the case was to confirm the mammal in the camera footage was an endangered Hector’s dolphin.

Industry group Seafood New Zealand said fisheries were the most regulated and surveilled primary industry in the country and the case showed the rules were working.

Otago University emeritus professor Liz Slooten said the case proved dolphins killed by fishing gear were not always reported.

It comes as the government sought to roll back parts of the camera programme.

The current law – which had no penalty for fishing industry-related dolphin deaths – was not fit for purpose, Slooten said.

‘A dirty old shag’

After the dolphin’s death was discovered the skipper lied in his catch report, responding ‘no’ when asked if any protected species had been caught.

When fisheries officers asked about the catch he told them it was “just a dirty old shag or a seven-giller (shark)”, according to MPI’s summary of facts.

When formally interviewed he admitted to catching the dolphin claiming it was a “common dolphin”.

Another of the man’s ships, FV Triton, was caught trawling illegally days earlier near the mouth of the Ōrāri River in South Canterbury while skippered by another man.

A no trawl prohibition applied in the area from January to April to protect sea-run Chinook salmon, MPI described the fish as being at “crisis point”.

The ship’s owner said he was unaware of the no trawl areas.

He was charged with trawling inside a prohibited area.

‘Manifest injustice’

The fisher pleaded guilty to all charges last September and was fined $5000 for failing to report the dolphin’s capture, $10,000 for trawling in a prohibited area.

Both ships were automatically forfeited.

However, the man kept both ships in exchange for a fee of $14,460.

Rose said the man would be able to treat the fine and buy-back costs as the price of doing business.

“Hector’s dolphins are priceless but the court’s judgement makes dolphin lives look worthless,” she said.

Hector’s dolphins are only found in New Zealand waters and are estimated to number about 15,000, a stark decline from the 50,000 estimated in 1975.

The case showed the organisations charged with protecting threatened marine mammals were failing, Rose said.

“If this was a kiwi or a kākāpō people would be rightly outraged. But, because it’s a dolphin, we only know about it because of the persistence of groups like ours.”

Rose learned of the death after spotting a reference to unreported bycatch in a presentation from MPI.

The dolphin’s death was not initially reported on DOC’s database, though it had since been added with a note that “due to an ongoing compliance investigation, this incident was not reported publicly until January 2026”.

The court did not impose any suppression orders and ordered the release of the information to Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders last month.

“When he was finally prosecuted, as we find out from the district court records, it turns out he’s got a history of breaking the law and despite the fact he’s been fishing for 40 years he pretends to not know what the rules are,” Rose said.

“The fine he gets for all of this is only $5000 and forfeiture of his boat but in the meantime he’s able to buy that boat back and can be right back out there fishing.”

MPI’s 2023-24 South Island Hector’s bycatch reduction plan annual report noted that on at least four occasions the same fishing boats killed more than one Hector’s dolphin in a 12 month period.

MPI director of science and information Simon Lawrence said when Fisheries New Zealand finds evidence of breaches of fisheries rules it took a range of actions from education to prosecution.

Prosecution decisions were made based on Crown Law guidance, he said.

DOC biodiversity system and aquatic director Kirstie Knowles said DOC became aware of the dolphin’s death in April when Fisheries New Zealand asked for confirmation the footage showed a Hector’s dolphin.

As a Fisheries investigation was already underway, DOC did not open a separate investigation under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Knowles said.

The High Court found in 2024 DOC’s approach to prosecution and investigation were unlawful and lacking.

Rose claimed DOC and MPI were failing in their duties.

“MPI are protecting the fishing industry, they’re not upholding the rules. DOC are nowhere to be seen. They should have been prosecuting this under the Marine Mammal Protection Act,” she said.

“Both these agencies that are supposed to be upholding the law and the flourishing and preservation of the marine environment and these protected species are missing in action.”

Less than a fifth of on-board footage monitored in last quarter

Before the introduction of on-board cameras, the industry reported one or zero Hector’s dolphins deaths in nets or trawls between 2014 and 2022.

But 15 deaths were reported or observed in the first year on-board cameras were rolled out.

A 2025 MPI report said about 30 percent of footage had been reviewed since 2023.

Figures for the quarter to September 2025 showed only 18 percent of footage was reviewed.

Seafood NZ chief executive Lisa Futschek said the Otago case showed the system was working.

There were clear rules on reporting, she said.

“We have a robust system. We need to work within it, and we do, and for those who don’t there are clear consequences which is what happened in this case,” Futschek said.

There were limits on the number of dolphins the fishing industry could kill in certain areas.

Those limits protected endangered species, Futschek said.

In the South Island the limit was 47.5 dolphins per year, but last year only seven were killed by the industry, Futschek said.

“So whilst even one capture is too many, we are still doing really well when it comes to making sure that particular species continues to thrive,” she said.

However, in the East Otago region the limit is two deaths per year.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

More than 3000 New Zealanders are in the Middle East as the Iran war continues.

The US and Israel have been bombing Iran for almost one week, with Iran launching retaliatory strikes on US and Israeli bases across the Middle East.

Travel warnings are in place, and most flights in and out of the region are not operating.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said 3171 New Zealanders were registered with its service SafeTravel in the region.

That included 1,893 in the UAE, 411 in Qatar, 401 in Saudi Arabia, 120 in Egypt, 42 in Jordan, 72 in Kuwait, 55 in Bahrain, 30 in Iran, 12 in Iraq, and 83 in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 38 in Oman, and 14 in Lebanon.

However, it expected the actual number of New Zealanders in each country to be higher.

Defence Minister Judith Collins previously told Midday Report on Thursday, two NZDF planes would be leaving New Zealand in the coming days.

“We’re not saying exactly where they’re going to be, for obvious security reasons, but we will be saying to people, if you want to leave, we’ll get you out of the region into a safer region…. but we won’t be bringing back the thousands of New Zealanders who we know are in the region all the way back to New Zealand.

“We’ll get you to a place where you can be safe and you can get commercial flights.”

The government is urging New Zealanders in the Middle East to register on SafeTravel in preparation for evacuation.

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