Category: Politics

Source: Radio New Zealand

Pike River families say their meeting with the Workplace Safety Minister was “a complete waste of time”.

Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse sat down with Workplace Safety Minister Brooke van Velden at Parliament on the 15th anniversary of the Pike River disaster.

“I don’t know, I’ve come out of there still feeling really unhappy because there’s just no guarantees that people who go to work are going to return home safely,” Obsorne said.

“She seemed to be focusing all the time on the employers and I sat and listened to it for a little while and then I just couldn’t stand it,” Rockhouse said.

Both women went into the meeting wanting to share their concerns that the minister’s workplace reforms were weakening safety laws and risking another disaster.

Rockhouse said she doesn’t feel reassured.

“She gave a slip service, she listened, but didn’t really say anything. You know, that sort of thing when somebody’s talking but they’re not really saying much? That’s how it felt,” she said.

“I walked out of there thinking man that was just a complete waste of time.”

The pair support the introduction of a corporate manslaughter charge and said they had found support for the idea with opposition parties and New Zealand First.

“In New Zealand, it’s real easy to pass the buck. It’s not not one person’s fault, it’s another’s, you know,” Osborne said.

“So, we just need somebody with some balls who’s prepared to really put their heart and soul into getting this health and safety legislation and the reforms working properly for all New Zealanders,”

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters on Wednesday described the Pike River mine as “a murder scene” and hinted at his dissatisfaction with relevant workplace safety settings.

He met with Osborne and Rockhouse and promised to advocate for progress on what he described as “the most unsatisfactory circumstance”.

“[The meeting went] very, very well. We laid out a plan of action and work for us to do privately, myself and my team,” Peters said.

“We were the ones that demanded an inquiry, the only party that did at the time. We think we were dramatically let down by the way the inquiry was run and we don’t give up on this. We think this is a murder scene.”

Peters would not disclose any details of his plan but his office later confirmed he was working with Pike River families on the idea of introducing a corporate manslaughter charge.

Asked if he was happy with the current workplace safety settings, he said no.

“Not on this matter, most definitely not. And I intend to make that known.”

Van Velden has been overhauling workplace safety with a mind to shift WorkSafe’s focus from enforcement, to advice and guidance.

She said there were too many people dying at work and helping businesses follow the law – as well as backing a record number of workplace inspectors – was the best way to tackle this.

She didn’t accept Osborne and Rockhouse’s concerns history may repeat itself, despite having no evidence her approach will result in fewer workplace deaths.

“You can’t really point to any particular one industry or group or bit of evidence to say this is what would end up happening in the future.

“What we have as a health and safety system, is a lot of individuals getting up every day, providing jobs and doing a lot of actions on the ground.

“There are accidents that will happen. What I’m wanting to focus on is, how do I improve the overall economy and the situation that businesses and workers find themselves in?”

Van Velden said she did not support introducing a corporate manslaughter charge, instead preferring to focus on “upfront guidance” for businesses.

“I’m asking all businesses, workers and the regulator to focus on critical risk, which is actions that could lead to death and serious injury and illness, and to stamp those out and focus our efforts there, rather than sweating a lot of small stuff.

“We know there are a lot of companies out there really fearful of what it means to comply with the law but they’re ticking boxes and I’d like people across the country to focus on action on the ground to reduce deaths on the ground.”

Justice Minster Paul Goldsmith said there were no current plans to introduce a corporate manslaughter charge as the government had a very busy legislative agenda in the justice space.

Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori all support a corporate manslaughter charge.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The government is celebrating the end of emergency housing motels in Rotorua – but Labour says it has just shifted the problem elsewhere.

Rotorua became the country’s epicentre for emergency housing.

At its peak, there were more than 240 households across 13 motels. Now there are zero families in motels.

Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka, who holds responsibility for the emergency housing portfolio, said Rotorua had become the “poster child” of a broken housing system, and its end reflected “deliberate, coordinated action”.

In 2023, National campaigned on ending emergency housing in Rotorua motels within two years.

“Rotorua whānau, businesses and mana whenua had been pleading for change for years. We listened and acted. We have restored safety, dignity and confidence to a city that was forced to absorb the consequences of a failed housing model,” Potaka said.

Referrals into emergency housing motels ended on 15 June with agencies working “intensively” to secure permanent placements.

The Ministry for Social Development and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development had worked with Visions of a Helping Hand, WERA Aotearoa Charitable Trust, Emerge Aotearoa, Ngāti Whakaue, Te Arawa, Restore Rotorua and the Rotorua Lakes Council to move every household into “stable, secure homes”.

Through partnership with Ngāti Whakaue, 240 affordable rental housing units were being built at Manawa Gardens.

The remaining motels were now preparing to return to commercial operations, Potaka said.

“Rotorua is finally back on the front foot, it is safer, stronger, and open for growth. Our government will keep backing Rotorua to reclaim its reputation, grow its tourism economy, strengthen its housing supply, and unlock new opportunities for the city,” Potaka said.

But Labour’s housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said the announcement was “tone deaf” and he did not know who Potaka was “trying to kid” by celebrating.

“No one is pretending that emergency housing was the solution to the housing crisis, but it’s a hell of a lot better than people sleeping on the streets. And all the minister is doing today is celebrating shifting people out of emergency housing to in front of families’ homes and businesses. That’s it, and it’s not much of a thing to celebrate.”

McAnulty said he had recently visited Rotorua and counted eight homeless people in one block of the town centre.

In January, Potaka announced the government had met its target to reduce the overall number of households in emergency housing by 75 percent five years early.

The Ministry of Social Development had also tightened the gateway for those trying to access emergency housing.

McAnulty said the government was focusing on people that had left emergency housing but did not want to talk about the people that could not get in.

“Emergency housing was only ever intended to temporarily house people while social houses were being built. But let’s look at what the government are doing. Kāinga Ora are no longer expanding their numbers. The funding that’s gone to community housing providers is a fraction of what they were getting under the Labour government, and people can’t get into emergency housing, and now they’ve closed them all together,” he said.

“It’s no surprise that homelessness is now what frontline providers are saying the worst in living memory.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand should be a rich country, but instead inequality is growing and the middle class are on the way out, British YouTuber, economist and trader Gary Stevenson says.

He told 30 with Guyon Espiner the divide between the middle class and the rich had been growing since 2011.

“I started to look at the financial situation of my friends and their families, and what I saw in 2011, was my parents’ generation, you know, ordinary people, not with exceptional jobs or degrees, owning property, buying houses,” Stevenson says.

“And then what I saw in my generation was kids with a degree, advanced education, who would never be able to own property. So what you’re seeing there is… families going from being property-owning families to non-property-owning families.”

Stevenson was a working-class kid from East London who used his smarts to win a trading game competition and score himself an internship with a leading bank. He went on to become one of the biggest traders in the world.

Now with 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube, Stevenson talks all things economics and told Guyon Espiner that New Zealand should be rich, in theory.

“You know, really, by rights, New Zealand should be a rich country, because there’s not a lot of people there, there’s a phenomenal amount of natural wealth per person, it can sustain a good quality of life for every single person in the country.

“The problem you have is, once you start cutting those taxes on the richest, the rich very, very quickly start to increase their share of the wealth, and inevitably that starts to squeeze people out.”

Stevenson said the country would see “really rapid increases in poverty” if it did not tax the rich.

“I think if you don’t do anything, if you leave the system as it is, then wealth inequality will increase very rapidly.

“What that means is the rich get richer and richer, and everybody else loses their assets. What that means is ordinary families can’t afford to buy homes, ordinary families need to take enormous amounts of debt. It means the, the bankrupting of governments, which means the shutting down of welfare states.

“I’m here to speak to the New Zealand public and tell them the fire engines are not coming.”

He doubled down and said that if New Zealand wanted to “fix the economy”, the public needed to “demand action” from politicians and themselves.

“They don’t realise that if you don’t tax the rich, the rich will squeeze you out.

“If you accept a situation where the rich grow their share every year, then, of course, your share and your family’s share will eventually be squeezed to nothing,” he said.

When asked whether there needed to be some degree of international co-ordination, Stevenson said it would help massively.

“So I’ve got to be honest, I think this will be much, much, much easier if we work together.

“These problems, which you have [in New Zealand], unaffordable housing, not enough good jobs, not enough government services, we’re seeing them here, we’re seeing them everywhere. Let’s work together and fix this together.”

Stevenson is visiting Auckland in March next year with The People’s Economist tour.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The Education Minister is promising regulatory change to address social media harm, as a petition calling for a minimum age of 16 for social media access is handed over at Parliament.

National has been keen to implement a ban, but was unable to get the support of ACT to make it a government bill.

Instead, MP Catherine Wedd has introduced it as a member’s bill, while Erica Stanford works on a wider series of regulations.

The B416 group, which has been advocating for a ban, presented the petition, which contained around 45,000 signatures, to Wedd and Stanford.

B416’s chief executive Nicole Green said parents, teachers and clinicians were all grappling with the harm.

“New Zealand does lag behind in legislation in this area, so we have a lot of work to do,” she said.

Olivia Lakeman, 18, who handed over the petition, said she was 14 when she first started seeing eating disorder and self-harm content online.

“Now that I’m aware of it, I can kind of work around the algorithms. But when you’re 14, and that’s what all your friends are watching, it’s kind of difficult to get out of it yourself.”

Lakeman said there would likely be ways to get around the ban, but it was still worth pursuing.

“Having that restriction means that even if it helps just a small group of people stay safe from that harm, that change is so important.”

Accepting the petition, Stanford said she likened the social media problem to cars.

“We had cars that were not powerful, that were slow, that drove on the roads. But the more powerful, the faster and the more dangerous they got, the more safety measures we added in,” she said.

“We now have in the hands of our children a device that is more powerful than we have ever known, and there are no protections.”

Wedd said she felt emotional as she addressed the petition’s handover, saying it was a “powerful message” to protect children.

“This is a really important move. We’re seeing governments from around the world moving and I’m really proud that our government is taking a lead.”

Wedd’s bill was drawn from the biscuit tin ballot in October, but with ACT unlikely to support it, the bill would require support from the opposition to go through the legislative process.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said his party would support the bill at its first reading.

“We think there’s a lot more work to do to get the details of this right, we have offered to work with the government on that,” he said.

“We do want to see a solution here. I think we can all see that there’s a problem.”

ACT instead requested an inquiry into digital harm, which was recently heard by Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee.

Leader David Seymour said he hoped the select committee’s findings would inform any future work, as well as any lessons learned from Australia’s upcoming ban.

“The problem is massive, parents are hugely concerned about young people on social media, predatory behaviour, inappropriate content, addiction to doomscrolling, these are massive problems but a ban is too simple as a remedy for that.”

Green acknowledged there were people opposed to a ban, and that there would likely be bumps along the road if and when it was implemented.

“It will be a bit of a long road to get it right, but I don’t think that should stop people from trying. I think our kids are worth too much to say, ‘do you know what? This is too hard, let’s not even try at all’.”

Stanford has also been tasked with exploring options for legislation and implementation of possible restrictions, and expected to announce in the “near future” exactly what that bill would look like.

“We’re looking at a really clever, world-leading approach at how we protect our kids. And we are going to need a regulator. We are going to need a Child Protection Act. And we are going to need some form of a ban,” she said.

“Social media companies love bans, because they know that kids will get around the bans and continue using it anyway, and they don’t have to change their behaviour. What we’re working on is how do we make social media companies change their behaviours?”

According to a RNZ-Reid Research poll from June, 57.8 percent of New Zealanders support a ban.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has declared the soaring prison population to be a “good thing”, characterising it as the price of restoring law and order

He also conceded the government was running behind on its promise to boost police numbers by 500, despite previously insisting the target would be met by next week.

Facing reporters at Parliament on Tuesday, Luxon was questioned about the prison muster, which has surged to record highs and is now nearing 11,000 inmates.

“Absolutely, that’s a good thing,” he said. “Yep, good thing.”

Luxon said the coalition would not ease up on criminals or adjust policy simply because the costs were rising.

“I understand… the financial implication of… restoring law and order in New Zealand, but we make no apologies about that,” he said.

“The cost will be what the cost will be.”

Luxon said he took a “different approach” from the former Labour government which set a target of reducing prisoner numbers by 30 percent.

“Yes, we have a high prison population. Yes, we’re investing in more prisons and more prison capacity. And it’s pretty simple, we do not want people in the community [committing crimes].”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins told reporters the ballooning muster should be “an area of concern” for all New Zealanders.

“Previous National governments have admitted that locking people up doesn’t reduce crime. [Former prime minister] Bill English called it a moral and fiscal failure.

“We need to be focused on how we reduce crime, not locking more people up for it.”

Finance Minister Nicola Willis said she was confident the government could manage the cost pressure.

“Our government campaigned on keeping New Zealanders safer, and that means locking up dangerous criminals,” she said.

“We are doing that, and that is an appropriate price to pay for New Zealanders’ safety.”

Where are the 500 new cops? “We’re not going to rush it”

Luxon maintained the government was still committed to its “stretch goal” of 500 extra police, but played down expectations of when it would happen.

“It’s taking longer than we had hoped for,” he said. “It’ll be what it will be.”

That’s a far cry from his confidence one year ago when Luxon repeatedly insisted the target would be hit within two years of taking office.

“We’re going to do it,” he told RNZ at the time. “Judge me by the results when we get there.”

Under the National-NZ First coalition agreement, constable numbers were meant to reach 10,711 by 27 November 2025.

RNZ has asked the police for the latest count.

In early December 2024, police bosses told MPs meeting that goal on time would be “very, very challenging” and a mid-2026 deadline would be “more accurate”.

In May, Police Minister Mark Mitchell said he would not get “hung up on a date”.

And on Tuesday, Mitchell again downplayed the timing.

He said he “was not going to be held to a time”, stressing standards were more important than speed.

“We’re not going to rush it. We’re going to take our time, and we’re going to have a full focus on standards,” Mitchell said.

“We have committed 500. We have funded 500. We’ll deliver 500.”

NZ First leader Winston Peters also shrugged off the deadline: “It’ll take a bit longer, but we’ll get there.

“Maybe… two or three months too late, but that won’t matter.”

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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 petition calling for the government to urgently fix the health system – which organisers estimate is New Zealand’s longest petition ever – has been delivered to Parliament.

Unfurled across Parliament’s lawn, the petition stretched down the steps, and past the Cenotaph.

Patient Voice Aotearoa spokesperson Malcolm Mulholland estimated it was 276 metres long, stretching a few metres beyond the length of the Suffrage Petition.

Mulholland said it weighed somewhere between 150 and 200 kilograms, and said it “quite literally” felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

“I can’t lift it myself, I need more help. But for me, the first part of the journey feels over.”

The 90,000 signatories were signing up to what Mulholland called the Buller Declaration – an assertion that the health system is in crisis, that Māori, rural, and low-income populations are disproportionately impacted, that the government must act urgently to address the crisis and meet its Treaty of Waitangi obligations to protect Māori health, and that it must allocated additional resources to train, recruit, and retain more nurses, doctors, and specialists.

“The call was made that our health system is broken, and because it is broken, people in Buller are missing out on the health care that they need, and in today’s age that is just unacceptable,” Mulholland said.

“It should be the priority of any government, regardless of colour, be they blue or red, that they look after the health of their people.”

Mulholland said his travels around the country had made him realise that what he at first thought was just a Buller problem was then a rural problem, then a Māori problem, then everyone’s problem.

The petition was also supported by groups such as the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, and the New Zealand College of Midwives.

It was accepted by MPs from the Greens, Labour, and ACT.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters watched from a distance, but the Health Minister was absent.

Simeon Brown said he had a Cabinet committee meeting and so could not attend the petition handover, but he accepted there were “significant” challenges in the health system.

“I accept that too many people are waiting too long to be able to get the care they need. I hear the concerns of New Zealanders every single day, I meet with staff on the front-line when I’m visiting hospitals on a regular basis, and I’m focused on making sure we address these issues,” he said.

“We’re investing record funding into our health system, we are hiring more doctors, more nurses, and we’re focused on reducing those wait-lists which is why we reintroduced those health targets.”

Mulholland was not disappointed with Brown’s absence, saying it was more important that “the people” were present.

For now, the petition will stay in Green MP Hūhana Lyndon’s office.

But Lyndon was keen to get the petition into Te Papa, to serve as a constant reminder to whoever is in power of the importance of the health system.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Senior minister Chris Bishop is rejecting criticism over a funding decision shifting Kāinga Ora money to a walking and cycling bridge in his electorate that he campaigned on, which the government cancelled.

Bishop – the minister for housing and transport, and Hutt South MP – agreed in March this year to Lower Hutt City Council’s request to reallocate funds earmarked for stormwater upgrades for the CityLink Bridge, a project he campaigned on.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins criticised the move, saying it did not pass the “sniff test” and was a “questionable and unaccountable” shifting of money.

The bridge between Melling Railway Station and Lower Hutt city centre was part of the wider RiverLink project.

The money was part of Kāinga Ora’s Infrastructure Acceleration Funding agreement with Lower Hutt City Council, designed to support housing developments by upgrading water infrastructure in the city.

Bishop said shifting the funds was a “pragmatic decision” driven by Lower Hutt City Council.

He said the council had come to him having identified an “underspend” with the infrastructure money and asked to transfer that to the CityLink Bridge.

“It’s actually pretty straightforward – the council asked for it, we agreed.”

He said the government had agreed to a similar request Hamilton City Council made last year, asking if money allocated for a cycleway could be put into water infrastructure instead.

Asked whether he should have recused himself from the Lower Hutt decision, Bishop said it was not unusual to make decisions impacting multiple portfolios and electorates.

“I don’t think there’s a conflict there.”

But Hipkins slammed the move as a “very questionable process”.

“It certainly doesn’t pass the sniff test in terms of having one minister, moving money from one portfolio that he’s responsible for, to another portfolio that he’s responsible for, for a project which he campaigned on in his own electorate, which his government cancelled.”

He said the government should not be re-allocating money away from stormwater upgrades to “prop up” a project it cancelled.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he backed Bishop’s decision as “pragmatic”.

“Also he took advice from the Cabinet Office and acted accordingly on that advice.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Police Minister Mark Mitchell has showered the police commissioner Richard Chambers with praise, saying a few “minor infractions” should not detract from his “phenomenal” performance in the job.

On Tuesday morning, RNZ revealed Chambers took a “very brief dip” at Oriental Bay on 1 August despite a tsunami advisory being in place. He was with FBI Director Kash Patel at the time after an early morning run.

Chambers last week also admitted he had recently been ticketed for going 112km/h in a 100km/h zone.

Speaking at Parliament on Tuesday, Mitchell acknowledged the swimming incident was “not good enough” but stressed Chambers thought the warning had been lifted.

“Yes, he shouldn’t have been in the water, and that’s why he called me and apologised and said, you know, that was an oversight on his part.”

Mitchell said Chambers was the “best guy, without a doubt, to be leading” the police service, and he had great admiration and respect for him.

“These were minor infractions, and he rang me and informed me of both of them straight away and made an apology,” Mitchell said.

“He is a man packed full of integrity. He is deeply engaged with his front line and understands what they need and how to support them. And he’s also got a very good strategic mind on him.”

Chuckling, Mitchell said he had endowed Chambers with a new nickname – “Speedy Gonzales” – following his speeding ticket.

Chambers earlier told RNZ he went for the mid-winter swim just after 7am believing the tsunami advisory had been lifted. He said he apologised to Mitchell after later discovering the advisory had not been lifted until about 8.30am.

“It is not usual for me to ignore such warnings,” Chambers said.

The advisory was issued the day before by the National Emergency Management Agency after an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s remote east coast.

Mitchell said the advisory was necessary and extremely serious.

“Every morning, at about six o’clock, there are a whole lot of people that come down to the beaches to enjoy nature, to go for a walk, take their dogs for a walk.

“And at that stage, we still weren’t 100% sure that we weren’t going to have… massive tidal movements on the beaches, and had we had one of those, then people could die.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Labour has been gaining ground in opinion polls, leading on issues from the economy and healthcare, but a new survey suggests voters are split on its capital gains tax proposals.

Leader Chris Hipkins announced last month the party would campaign on the tax covering just property – excluding the family home and farms – to help fund three free doctor visits for everyone.

The party overtook National on perceptions of its ability to manage the economy in Monday’s Ipsos poll, putting it on top for 15 of the top 20 issues for New Zealanders.

And a Curia-Taxpayers Union poll on 12 November had the coalition holding on to power but Labour gaining two points following its capital gains tax announcement.

A NZ-Herald-Kantar poll of 1000 potential voters published on Tuesday showed an equal split between supporters and opponents of the party’s capital gains tax policy, though with Aucklanders more likely to oppose it.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Labour has been gaining ground in opinion polls, leading on issues from the economy and healthcare, but a new survey suggests voters are split on its capital gains tax proposals.

Leader Chris Hipkins announced last month the party would campaign on the tax covering just property – excluding the family home and farms – to help fund three free doctor visits for everyone.

The party overtook National on perceptions of its ability to manage the economy in Monday’s Ipsos poll, putting it on top for 15 of the top 20 issues for New Zealanders.

And a Curia-Taxpayers Union poll on 12 November had the coalition holding on to power but Labour gaining two points following its capital gains tax announcement.

A NZ-Herald-Kantar poll of 1000 potential voters published on Tuesday showed an equal split between supporters and opponents of the party’s capital gains tax policy, though with Aucklanders more likely to oppose it.

Listen to Chris Hipkins on Morning Report in the link at the top of this page.

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