Category: Politics

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Electoral Commission says it is pushing hard to boost enrolment – particularly among young people – because of the government’s changes restricting voting.

Chief executive Karl le Quesne also says he is confident contingency planning will avoid any problems with getting new digital systems – to protect against the kind of errors seen at the last election – set up in time.

Māori roll campaign to launch next week

The Commission briefed media on Thursday morning ahead of a new campaign to inform Māori voters about new rules enabling them to switch between the Māori and general role before 6 August.

Until March 2023, Māori were only allowed to switch rolls within a four-month period, once every five or six years after the census.

Enrolment packs will be sent out from Monday to about 562,000 voters of Māori descent, informing them which roll they are on and how to change rolls.

“If you don’t receive a pack by 11 April, it means you’re not enrolled or we don’t have the correct address for you,” chief advisor Māori Hone Matthews said.

“You can enrol, check or update your details online at vote.nz/enrol or call 0800 367656 for free and ask for an enrolment form to be sent to you.”

‘Let’s take enrolment to the people’

Le Quesne said the Commission was expecting to have increased numbers of special votes this election, despite changes banning prisoner voting, same-day enrolment votes, or voting if not enrolled at least 13 days before the election.

“It’s really, really hard to say, but that’s why we’re putting so much effort into enrolment and getting people to get enrolled and update their details well ahead of time,” Le Quesne said.

“We’re planning for a similar turnout rate, if not slightly higher, than the ’23 election. We have to plan for any eventuality.”

Special votes take about 10 times longer to count than standard votes.

Le Quesne previously told a select committee the changes – passed in December – would not speed up the final election results, despite government claims that was the purpose of the legislation.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon then criticised the Commission as the “slowest folk on the planet”.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has maintained the changes will keep the counting period from extending further in future, but Le Quesne on Thursday said it was “too hard to say” whether the law changes made any impact on how fast the count would be.

“At this stage, we’re still planning for 20 days,” he said, the same as the 2023 election. “If we can do it earlier, we will.”

He indicated any faster count was more likely to be the result of additional resources.

“We’ve done a lot of work looking at how we can make things go more efficiently, and that’s going to help us stay within the 20 days … if the special votes did go up to around that 700,000 mark or higher, it could take longer.”

He said the Commission would be launching its enrolment campaign in August, sending out “a heck of a lot of advertising” and using new methods to push up enrolment rates.

That includes in September setting up 10 enrolment hubs in places with a lot of foot traffic in main centres around the country – like malls and supermarkets – offering to sign people up to vote even if they belong to a different electorate.

“In the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election last year, we had some voting places in malls and supermarkets, and we found we were doing a lot of enrolment activity for people who weren’t even in that electorate,” he said.

“So it occurred to us, let’s take enrolment to the people … we’ll take enrolments anywhere, anytime.”

They would particularly be targeting young people.

“Working with schools, tertiary institutions, other venues where we know these young people, try and get that enrolment rate for young people up, it’s going to be really, really important.”

Email and text reminders will also be sent out en masse, and EasyVote cards – as well as being sent via mail – will for the first time be emailed out.

Le Quesne said the digital cards could be used either printed out or on smartphones.

The commission will also launch a $690,000 community education fund to provide grants to community groups that come up with ideas to help.

Those new measures were being done “off our own bat” as part of the Commission’s statutory role to ensure people were enrolled, with additional funding provided for that purpose.

“We’re not concerned about the workload,” Le Quesne said.

“Get enrolled, update your details by fourth of October. That means it’ll go much quicker for you in the voting place, and there’ll be fewer special votes.”

Commission confident over systems time-crunch

Le Quesne pushed back on a report from The Post published Thursday morning based on Commission documents, showing major risks around security certification for core voting systems.

The $80m modernisation programme followed a report from the Auditor-General that found the final check of official results was done under extreme pressure in the hours before being announced. That check – which normally takes two days – failed to find multiple errors.

Le Quesne said the Commission had done a “huge amount of work” to improve those processes, but he was confident everything would be ready in time.

“I’m not concerned about our preparations. We do a thorough program of testing, simulation, dress rehearsals, we build in contingency time around all of those, and we’re really confident we’re on track to deliver this year’s election,” he said.

“We’re doing simulations through April, we know we’ve got more time if we need it to do some more testing. Generally because we’ve done testing before simulation, we know things are working pretty well spot on. This is just looking for any final things we might need to fine tune – and often it’s about the training as well.”

Chairperson Simon Moore had, however, laid out just how complex delivering an election in New Zealand would be.

“I think very few people have an idea about how many moving parts there are … we have to recruit something between 25,000 and 28,000 people. We need to recruit them. We need to identify them. We need to train them. We need to send them out,” he said.

“Something like 2500 voting places – 800 during the advance voting stage – every one of those places has to be identified, has to be found to be appropriate, needs to be a place where people feel comfortable … and we need to secure short term leases for every single one of them.

“We print something like 9 million voting documents, papers for a voting population of around about 4 million. And those 9 million can’t be printed until we receive the nominations [about one month before election day].”

Le Quesne said the recruiting for those 25,000 to 28,000 roles involved interviews, criminal background checks, and follow-up monitoring.

“We really want to check that people who are working for us can be politically neutral and impartial. That’s really, really important,” he said.

“We just ask them the questions and as we go through the training, we get a sense of how people are responding … there’s a level of supervision and monitoring so we can check how people are going, and we can kind of point them in the right direction if anything’s coming up that’s not as we need it.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Explainer – It’s election year, and attacks are already starting to fly. What happens if comments about a politician cross the line?

While politicians – deservedly or not – come in for equal-opportunity bashing all over social media, their privacy and rights are just the same as anyone else’s, in theory.

The issue of privacy vs public office sparked up again in the recent storm over posts on social media by Labour leader Chris Hipkins’ ex-wife.

Last week, Jade Paul made a series of since-deleted posts on Facebook of claims about her relationship with Hipkins. The claims did not relate to any unlawful activity.

Hipkins told 1News he had sought legal advice over “the potential publication of things against me, allegations against me that are just untrue”.

“Everybody seems to be piling in on social media, in particular, and a lot of that is just absolute fabrication. It is just no basis in fact whatsoever.”

Can a politician sue for defamation?

Yes. But they may have a higher burden of proof than other defendants when it comes to proving their case.

“Politicians are defamed online a lot but there isn’t a constant stream of defamation proceedings,” said Nathan Tetzlaff, a senior associate at Auckland law firm Smith and Partners.

“The reality is that in all but the rarest and most serious cases, for a politician, making a defamation claim is less productive than the alternatives.”

Defamation law is complex, but it offers people a way to push back against false publicly published statements that they feel have harmed their reputation.

“The law of defamation does not distinguish between different plaintiffs,” Wellington media lawyer Steven Price said. “It applies equally to all.”

The burden of proof is on the plaintiff. Defences against defamation can be that the statement was truth, honest opinion or given with the complainant’s permission.

“Even if a statement goes too far and can’t be proved true or an honest opinion, there may be another layer of protection,” Tetzlaff said. “The law recognises the defence of ‘qualified privilege’ in a political context.”

Statements made in Parliament also have a unique defence, called “absolute privilege”, meaning they are typically shielded from defamation actions.

There’s also now a defence that can be used against defamation claims called “responsible communication in the public interest.”

What does ‘responsible communication’ mean?

“It means that people – journalists as well as people on social media – can defend themselves even if they’ve published untrue and harmful statements about a politician (or others), if they can show that they were discussing something of public interest and they had behaved responsibly in preparing the publication,” Price said.

Of course, that benchmark can vary from case to case.

“A lot rides on what a court decides is responsible. It’s not entirely clear what it means. But it will usually involve taking reasonable steps to verify information before publishing it, and may involve putting that information to the person being criticised first.”

Judges typically have to walk the line between freedom of speech and protecting people.

“To avoid chilling public discussion of politics, judges will try to find a balance between protecting legitimate criticism of political figures or their policies, and allowing people to get away with making false and unsubstantiated personal attacks,” Tetzlaff said.

They’re public figures. Can’t you just post whatever you like about a politician?

Politicians are people too, and have the same protections against online (and offline) harassment or threats.

“Public figures do experience a higher level of scrutiny and criticism. However, that doesn’t mean anything goes,” said Netsafe CEO Brent Carey.

“Political speech isn’t exempt from harm. Content can cross the line where it involves harassment, threats, hate speech, or coordinated abuse.”

Of course, politicians learn to expect impassioned reactions from the public, Tetzlaff said.

“Politicians are expected to be thick-skinned so statements made in the ‘rough and tumble’ of political discourse may not be considered defamatory if they don’t allege dishonourable or dishonest motives.”

What’s the down side of suing for defamation?

For one, it may give more air to claims doing the rounds.

“It will usually draw more attention to the allegations,” Price said. “Some people will delight in spreading them, and social media makes that easy.”

If opponents spread falsehoods during an election campaign, it could be difficult to get any legal redress in time.

“In a practical sense, political life moves faster than the courts, so any judgment would arrive well after the damage is done,” Tetzlaff said.

“There are lots of other reasons politicians might decide not to sue,” Price said.

“They may have relationships with journalists that they need to preserve. They don’t want to be seen as thin-skinned or heavy-handed. There may be defences in play that make a lawsuit risky.

“Good PR advice might be to deal with it and move on.”

How often have suits happened?

There have been plenty of times New Zealand politicians have sued for defamation in the past – or been sued.

One particularly notable case was former Prime Minister David Lange, who sued for defamation after a 1995 article in North & South magazine that suggested he had been too lazy for parts of the job. After several years, the Court of Appeal ruled in the case of Lange v Atkinson that journalists had a defence of “qualified privilege,” and that they could criticise politicians on the basis of “honest belief”.

“Historical examples, including David Lange’s unsuccessful action against a journalist, illustrate that even serious-sounding claims can fail where the court considers the publication to be opinion, fair comment, or part of legitimate public debate,” Tetzlaff said.

“The Lange case went on for years and ended up with the courts creating a new defence that undermined his lawsuit,” Price said. “On the other hand, Robert Muldoon is said to have brought 18 defamation cases and won 15 of them.”

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters lodged defamation proceedings in 2017 against then-Mediaworks morning TV host Mark Richardson over comments Richardson made about him.

Former Conservative Party leader Colin Craig also took up numerous unsuccessful defamation claims over sexual harassment allegations.

It’s harder for politicians to sue these days, as it probably should be, Price said.

“Colin Craig probably does not look fondly on his experiences with defamation law, though he had some successes.”

“The main change is that the key question has moved from ‘is it true?’ to ‘was it responsibly published?’ which is a tougher and more uncertain standard for politicians mulling a defamation stoush.”

Politicians from all sides of Parliament have also faced comments that escalate into abuse and threats, such as former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. In 2018, Ardern’s partner Clarke Gayford engaged lawyers to deny rumours that were circulating about him being under police investigation, which police also denied.

Former Green MP Benjamin Doyle, New Zealand’s first non-binary MP, resigned from Parliament last September, calling it a “hostile and toxic place”.

They had resigned citing concerns for their well-being after death threats and abuse. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters and others had amplified social media posts about Doyle’s personal social media accounts.

“Social media is not held to a different standard so defamatory statements made on social media are actionable,” Tetzlaff said.

Could Doyle have sued for defamation over some of the comments made online?

“I can’t speak generally because it depends on the wording of the particular posts,” Price said.

“Some may be protected under a defence of honest opinion, for example. Some struck me as pretty extreme, and I think it would be hard to defend those with defences of truth, honest opinion, or responsible communication.”

Tetzlaff said many social media posts can fall in the grey areas of opinion, insult or hyperbole rather than actionable fact.

If you’re standing for office this year, what can you expect?

Candidates do have recourse over false information, Carey said.

“Candidates can report harmful content to platforms, and make a complaint to Netsafe under the Harmful Digital Communications Act.”

Under the Harmful Digital Communications Act, online content or messages that intentionally causes severe emotional distress can be illegal.

“Netsafe can assess the situation, work with platforms, and support resolution. If there are threats or safety concerns, it should also be reported to police.”

Netsafe has also worked with the Ministry of Women to produce a “Free to Lead” Toolkit aimed to support women in public profiles who typically face the highest rates of abuse.

Political passions are sure to boil over in the months before November’s election, but Carey cautioned that it’s still best to think before you post a particularly hot take that might cross the line.

“Sharing content that is abusive, misleading, or designed to cause harm can still breach platform rules or New Zealand law,” he said.

“A good rule of thumb: pause before sharing – if it targets a person in a way that could cause harm or spreads false information, think twice.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

We’ll be livestreaming the announcement above. This story will be updated.

The Education Minister is set to reveal details about the process to replace NCEA in secondary schools.

The announcement is confirmation of a government proposal to abolish all levels of NCEA, as it looks to replace it with a new system.

Erica Stanford says the consultation process is now under way for the next six weeks, so the public can have their say.

It’s the latest in a raft of changes that have shaken up the education system and curriculum.

Stanford is making an announcement about 9.15am on Thursday.

It’s expected she’ll outline more details about the changes.

We’ll be livestreaming the announcement at this top of this page. This story will be updated.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Advocacy groups are supporting the government’s U-turn on minimum size limits for commercial fishers, but still want the government to consider killing the Fisheries Amendment Bill entirely.

Meanwhile, Seafood New Zealand says it is ironic the change has resulted in an outcome that is “not great for the environment”, and doesn’t provide the incentive to avoid catching small fish.

The Fisheries Amendment Bill – as drafted – would have ditched most commercial size limits, effectively allowing commercial vessels to land and sell baby fish, including snapper and tarakihi.

Recreational fishers argued the changes would decimate future populations.

Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has argued the change would prevent wastage, but was forced into a major U-turn over his plans.

As recently as Monday, he was entirely unapologetic about the change, describing critics as just “noisy voices”. But on Wednesday, coalition parties announced on social media that they had listened to public feedback and would no longer proceed.

ITM Fishing Show host Matt Watson told RNZ’s First Up it was a start and called it a “win” for demonstrating what “people power can do”.

However, he said while the bill had “one of the terrible things taken out of it”, it hadn’t been “thrown out”.

“There is a lot more stuff in there that is equally as bad, if not worse.

“There’s still legalised fish dumping in there. There is still reduction in fines for fishes that overfish their quotas, there’s a removal of environmental considerations, and it does nothing to move us away from destructive fishing methods.”

He called on New Zealanders to “stay vigilant”.

LegaSea – a non profit organisation dedicated to restoring the marine environment – said the minimum size limit proposal was just clickbait.

Project lead Sam Woolford told RNZ the change was too little too late. He said if there was an issue with the amount of fish being caught, or the techniques being used, that should be dealt with first, rather than legislating an outcome.

“It’s completely unacceptable that it’s taken this huge public outcry for the government to pay attention.

“It’s particularly unreasonable they think removing one small aspect of this legislation is going to placate New Zealanders.”

The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) was also concerned with other changes included in the bill, including the siloing of environmental considerations.

ELI director research and legal Dr Matt Hall said as a whole, the bill systematically weakened sustainability provisions in the current Fisheries Act.

He said the bill could lead to impacts of fishing on the ecosystem being ignored, the use of non-regulatory measures to potentially justify higher take, and the strict limitations on judicial review of fisheries decisions.

Hall said the changes were contrary to New Zealand’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

But Seafood New Zealand chief executive Lisa Futschek told RNZ she was disappointed because the proposal would have strengthened the incentives for commercial fishers to avoid catching small fish.

“We don’t want to catch small fish, our processors don’t want to process small fish, and this proposal would have provided incentives not to catch small fish.”

She said the change would have meant those catching small fish would have needed to balance that fish against their quota: “In other words, they would have to pay for it.

“As it turns out, removing that clause means that the status quo remains. That is, fishers that catch small fish, return them to the sea, as they were required to do under the legislation – and they don’t pay for it.”

She said the proposed changes were “net positive for the environment and for sustainability of our resource”.

Asked about the coalition referencing feedback it had received in making the decision, she said fisheries and seafood were “a very emotive topic”.

“They are part of our culture and our heritage, and understandably, people are passionate about it, and they want to have their say in this situation.”

She said the level of disinformation around what the clause was seeking to achieve led to a whole range of speculation around the motives behind the change, “which were frankly wrong”.

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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 Education Minister is set to reveal the education system that will replace NCEA in secondary schools.

The announcement is confirmation of a government proposal to abolish all levels of NCEA, as it looks to replcae it with a new three tier qualification system.

Minister Erica Stanford says the consultation process is now underway for the next six weeks so the public can have their say.

It’s the latest in a raft of changes that have shaken up the education system and curriculum.

Stanford is making an announcement about 9.15am on Thursday.

It’s expected she’ll outline more details about the changes.

We’ll be livestreaming the announcement at this top of this page.

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

The Greens have launched their housing policy for the election, promising legislation to limit rent rises at 2 percent a year.

No-cause evictions would also be scrapped, and a rental Warrant of Fitness and register of landlords and property managers introduced.

Investment in building public housing and ending homelessness would also be increased.

The ‘A home for everybody’ policy was launched by the party co-leaders and local MP Tamatha Paul at a rental home in Wellington on Wednesday afternoon.

Co-leader Marama Davidson said with rental costs increasing from 19 percent of incomes in 1988 to 30 percent in 2022, it was time for housing to be treated as a human right.

“In a country like Aotearoa, with our wealth of resources and skills, there is no excuse for people to go without a decent home, let along any home at all.”

Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the Greens would build tens of thousands more public homes and support councils and community providers to do the same, stimulating local economies and creating jobs while curbing homelessness and waiting lists.

“This isn’t rocket science,” she said. “Mass building of public housing almost 100 years ago led to decades of stable, affordable homes for New Zealanders.

“Other countries have shown how sensible, practical policies to strengthen renters’ rights and common sense tax settings to stop housing being treated as a state-sanctioned casino means more affordable homes.”

A policy document outlined:

• A Renters’ Rights Bill to cap rent increases at no more than 2 percent a year, end no-cause evictions, and bring in a Rental Warrant of Fitness
• Create a national register of all landlords, property managers and boarding houses, introducing accreditation and regulatory compliance
• Build tens of thousands more public homes, and increase long-term funding for councils and community housing providers
• Invest in domestic pre-fabrication and offsite manufacturing
• Ensure Kāinga Ora and community housing providers have enough funding to build enough accessible housing to meet the needs of disabled people, including stronger regulation for universally designed house building
• Create a ‘Duty to Assist’ law placing a legal duty on agencies to ensure people have the housing they need
• Reverse the government’s changes to emergency accommodation eligibility, and ensure same-day emergency housing is available until the person has access to suitable housing without going into debt
• Increase funding for mental health, alcohol and addiction, budgeting, food and other community services
• Ensure planning laws enable house building in towns and cities connected to public transport, shops and community facilities
• Require councils to enable development capacity for long-term population growth
• Remove barriers to Māori building on their own land and scale up Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga programme
• Reverse National’s changes to interest deductability for landlords

The party at the last election also campaigned on many of these measures, but the previous rent-rise cap used a more complicated calculation based on rates of inflation and wage growth.

The party’s 2023 policy for expanding public housing also specified a figure of 35,000 new “warm, affordable homes”, and they had a plan to increase the Income Related Rent Subsidy so no tenant would be forced to spend more than a quarter of their income on rent.

At the time, the housing policy was costed at nearly $14 billion over five years.

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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 coalition has ditched a contentious aspect of fisheries legislation after a backlash from recreational fishers.

The Prime Minister stepped in and spoke with Minister in charge Shane Jones, and said he agreed to take out the sections of the Fisheries Amendment Bill that removes the minimum size limits.

Winston Peters also took to social media, saying New Zealand First agreed to remove the contentious clause, after feedback about the proposed catch size limit changes for commercial companies, and how that would affect a large number of ordinary Kiwis.

The legislation is currently before Parliament and Peters said the party is now looking to review the issue of catch size limit during the select committee process.

“We believe in democracy, and the most important part of democracy is listening to the people. We are doing that,” said Peters.

Luxon said on social media he shared Kiwis’ concerns on the impacts to juvenile fish stocks.

“I know Kiwis still have some concerns, which is why we want the fishing community to submit to the Select Committee process on this Bill,” wrote Luxon.

The change comes following comments by Jones – also deputy leader of New Zealand First – saying on Monday critics of his Fisheries Amendment Bill were “a range of noisy voices”.

Peters said on Wednesday he spoke with Jones on the matter and “we decided to review this part of the legislation and use the select committee to remove this clause”.

The bill has been welcomed by the commercial sector but condemned by recreational fishing groups.

The current recreational size limit for snapper is between 25cm and 30cm depending on location, while the commercial size limit is 25cm.

Minimum size limits are imposed to ensure fish can reach sexual maturity before being caught.

Jones argued on Monday that allowing the commercial sector to land and sell undersize fish would prevent wastage.

Currently commercial fishers must dump undersize fish dead or alive, and it doesn’t count against their quota.

“The new provision is that if you catch them, you pay for them,” Jones said.

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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 Christchurch Methodist Mission is warning that homelessness among older people is at crisis levels and that the situation is rapidly worsening.

The scale of the problem was laid bare during the launch of the charity’s cross-party Doors to Dignity campaign at Parliament on Tuesday night.

The mission said the housing situation for older New Zealanders had deteriorated significantly over the past five years.

Its executive director Jilll Hawkey said that, anecdotally, the number of older people rough sleeping was on the rise.

“We see it from our housing outreach teams, we’ve in recent weeks found a couple of women in their eighties who have been homeless and two men last week in their sevenites who are homeless,” she said.

Hawkey said the housing crisis was especially bad for renters aged 65 and over.

”There is a lot of evidence that this is a growing crisis. The percentage of those aged over 65 years on the social housing register has grown at a faster rate than any other age group.”

The Christchurch Methodist Mission said two out of every three renters aged 65 to 74 spent 40 percent or more of their income on rent.

Hawkey believed the answer to the crisis was simple.

“We need homes to be built that are affordable, accessible and warm, that foster cultural connections and that are embedded in local communities. We know the difference that living in such a home makes.”

The charity’s Doors to Dignity campaign advocated for cross-party support for government investment in what it considered appropriate housing for older people.

Speaking at the launch, Housing Minister Chris Bishop said parliament did not use to take housing seriously enough, but now acknowleged there was a crisis.

He said housing supply did not meet the specific needs of older people.

”Fifty percent of people of the [social housing] register need a one bedroom house. Twelve percent of Kainga Ora stock is one bedroom. We’ve been building the wrong houses for years and years. We need to build simply, low cost affordable units, increasingly for seniors.”

Labour’s housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said flawed data was masking the true scale of the homelessness crisis among older people.

”We don’t know how many people are in severe housing hardship. We don’t know how many people are sleeping rough. We, up until now, have been relying on a census that happens once every five years and, frankly, despite the best efforts of all of you and others, if you are living rough filling out a form is not going to be a priority and then we have a five year gap before we have another idea.”

Green Party housing spokesperson Tamatha Paul said New Zealand did not have the infrastructure for older people to have a dignified life.

”Only 2 percent of our overall housing stock is accessible and that’s despite the fact that we have a growing ageing population and also despite the fact that more than a quarter of our population is disabled.”

New Zealand First said the latest Budget would fund hundreds of new social homes in Auckland and help lower borrowing costs for community housing providers.

The Christchurch Methodist Mission said the challenge of older persons’ housing was urgent.

Its Parliamentary petition to increase and target investment in social and affordable housing for older people had 911 signatures.

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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 law professor says if New Zealand was asked to support ensuring safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a combat deployment is unlikely.

But Professor Alexander Gillespie said a joint statement between 19 countries condemning Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Gulf was “effectively just scoping”.

“Nothing’s been nailed down, and it would be premature to nail it down until you know what’s happening with the wider war.”

If a request was made to New Zealand, Gillespie told RNZ it could be helping with intelligence, or picking up patrolling obligations for others so they could deploy to the region.

Another option was actual deployment, which he thought was unlikely.

On Tuesday, the Foreign Minister said people should not be alarmed that “we’re going to be engaged in some military exercise” after the government signed the joint statement.

Labour had raised concerns about the “broad nature” of the statement, criticising the government for not detailing what that commitment might look like, with leader Chris Hipkins saying New Zealanders had a right to know.

But Winston Peters said there had been “scaremongering” from critics who said the government was “rushing to contribute military forces to this conflict”.

“What absolute crap, what absolute nonsense – New Zealand is not a party to this conflict, and we have absolutely no intention of joining it,” he said at Parliament on Tuesday.

It also came as the head of NATO included New Zealand as one of 22 countries “coming together” to secure the Strait of Hormuz.

On Tuesday the government said it had not made any commitment towards military action in the Middle East, but Hipkins said he was very concerned about “what the government had signed us up to”.

He was referring to the joint statement the government signed with 19 other countries, including the United Kingdom and Germany, condemning Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Gulf.

They called on Iran to immediately cease threats, laying mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block commercial vessels from travelling through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Freedom of navigation is a fundamental principle of international law, including under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” the statement read.

The statement also expressed its signatories would be ready “to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait”.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon clarified any such future support would need to be considered by Cabinet.

Luxon also outlined nothing had changed in terms of the government position on the initial attacks that started the war, after being asked about condemning Iran’s strikes, while “acknowledging” the strikes by the United States.

“What we’re talking about now is a second order consequence, which is Iranians holding hostage a whole bunch of ships that should be freely traveling to bring fuel and fuel and critical supplies to places like New Zealand.”

Gillespie said it was a “notable inconsistency”.

He said New Zealand should treat “all violations of the UN Charter the same”.

“In as much as we condemn Russia for their illegal war against Ukraine, we should act consistently with the US and Israel.”

On the ‘right side’ – law professor

Gillespie said New Zealand was on the “right side” in supporting an international principle – the freedom of navigation – but “we have to be very cautious and have our eyes wide open as we walk forward”.

He said the statement had the backing of the UN Security Council with regards to the protection of international waterways in freedom of navigation.

He said New Zealand was in good company with the other signatories, and pointed out it was not an initiative from the United States, Israel or Iran.

The protection of international waterways was a longstanding principle, “No country can effectively strangle international commerce by trying to control a waterway,” he said.

“You just can’t do that.”

In terms of the wording “appropriate efforts” in the statement, Gillespie said that could be anything, “it could be civilian, but it’s likely to be military”.

In regards to what New Zealand could offer if support was requested he pointed to the operations in the Red Sea, where the contribution had been “modest”.

The personnel had helped with intelligence, and part of the operations of a much larger system, he said.

A second option was offering “our military to relieve other militaries to be deployed to the region”.

“So we might pick up the patrolling requirements and select some American vessels in a safe area to allow the American vessels to then be deployed to the strait.”

The third option was deploying the Air Force or Navy to the war zone, which he thought was “very unlikely”.

“We’re more likely to be doing the other two, if asked.”

Ultimately he said New Zealand needed to be “very careful what we commit ourselves to, because you can start off in these exercises with a fairly good objective, but then you can find yourself in a very sticky situation that can take years to unravel”.

‘New Zealanders have a right to know’ – Hipkins

On Tuesday, Hipkins said the government had “basically” signed the country up to say “we’re ready and willing to participate in securing the strait”.

“I don’t think we should be making a broad commitment like that at this point. Any support that New Zealand provides should be after a United Nations mandate, and at this point that doesn’t exist,” Hipkins said.

“The government has signed us up to an open ended commitment to re-open the strait, without detailing what that commitment might look like.

“New Zealanders have a right to know what the government is signing us up to.”

Since the statement was released, speaking to Fox News, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said countries including Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, UAE, Bahrain and the NATO alliance were working to “implement [US President Donald Trump’s] vision of making sure that the Strait of Hormuz is free, is opening up as soon as that is possible”.

Asked for clarification about this comment, Peters said Rutte did not speak for New Zealand and he had probably been misinformed.

“We haven’t been asked, and should we be asked – we would consider it. That’s all I’ve said,” Peters emphasised.

On the joint statement, he said it was “specifically narrow”.

In Parliament during an urgent debate on the conflict in the Middle East, Peters said the government was committed to working with partners to try and address one of the consequences of this conflict, that was higher fuel prices for New Zealanders.

“But that is not the same as saying we are definitely going to contribute.

“If we receive a request, or if an international coalition was established in the future to safeguard commercial shipping, any possible contribution would be a matter for – guess who – the Cabinet first of all, to determine based on careful consideration of New Zealand’s interests.”

Currently, the government would not comment on what potential resources would be considered or committed if New Zealand was requested to help, due to it being a hypothetical issue.

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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 new diabetes roadmap hopes to slow the disease’s progression and decrease the number of amputations.

The government’s roadmap would be released publicly, but not for a number of weeks while its details were finalised.

Maungakiekie MP Greg Fleming announced the plan on behalf of an airborne health minister Simeon Brown at the Tongan Health Society clinic in Auckland’s Onehunga.

“Health New Zealand estimates that diabetes care in 2024-2025 (fiscal year) translated to an estimated $2.1 billion, and even that figure likely underestimates the true cost,” he said.

“The National Diabetes Roadmap sets out a clear and coordinated direction for responding to these challenges, and recognises a vital truth: that diabetes cannot be managed by individual effort alone, it requires system-level leadership and it requires long term commitment.”

Fleming said that accountability would be provided by an oversight group led by epidemiologist Sir Jim Mann.

Mann was clear he intended to flex his role as overseer.

“Please warn Minister Brown that he will be hearing from me, and I hope lots of others, frequently,” he told Fleming.

“I have been in this country for 40 years now and I feel more positive today than I have felt before in my work in diabetes. I am absolutely determined that we’re not going to lose the momentum.”

Mann described the prevalence of diabetes in New Zealand as an epidemic akin to measles or Covid-19.

“People have talked about the ‘epidemic of diabetes,’ but it’s kind of been like ‘epidemic’ with a small ‘e’ instead of epidemic with a capital ‘E’.”

He said it would not be solved overnight.

“We are realists, we know what is written in that roadmap cannot be implemented tomorrow. We know there are a lot of constraints on public money, there are a lot of things that need to be funded, but this is clearly a priority.”

Health New Zealand’s Dr Richard Sullivan, also on the oversight committee, had his sights set on a number of priority areas.

“There’s areas we just know we need to tackle. Some of those things are foot care, weight management guidelines, opportunity around potentially a diabetes register,” he said.

“[On Wednesday], in fact, a small group are sitting down and looking at how we come up with a prioritisation framework, so we’ve got the roadmap, we’ve got the baseline review, we know the costs, so actually where do we start and where do we invest, and putting together that plan over the months ahead.”

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