Category: Politics

Source: Radio New Zealand

A patient is shocked to find that more than two years after her GP ended its contract with Manage My Health, it has continued to receive her new medical records.

The patient health information portal will today begin contacting thousands of patients whose private medical information has been caught up in a ransomware attack.

Rachel – who is enrolled at one of The Doctors Medical Centres in Auckland – was emailed by her clinic in November 2023 to say it was switching to a new in-house app and that Manage My Health was “no longer available”.

“I assumed (foolishly) that meant my data had been migrated and deleted.”

However, after hearing the news that former users may also have had data stolen, she checked her old log-in.

“Sure enough it worked,” Rachel said.

“But it gets worse. When I log in, not only can I see pre-November 2023 data, but my medical records continued to be uploaded to MMH after my GP moved providers.

“There were still lab results, multiple lab results, that were being uploaded.”

Rachel said she had received the same results via the new app, so it was not clear whether the GP was still receiving results from the lab via Manage My Health, or the systems were still integrated in some way.

Green Cross, which owns The Doctors, has been approached for comment.

Manage My Health said it hoped to finish notifying all affected patients by “early next week”.

“Notifications will be sent initially through email to the address that was used to register the account.”

The email notifications would include an 0800 number that impacted individuals could call to get “support and assistance should they require”.

“We continue to work around the clock and closely with authorities and agencies to respond to this incident and resolve the matter for patients and general practices.

“We sincerely apologise for the pain and disruption that this incident has caused to our providers and patients as a result of this criminal activity against our systems.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand is an active participant in the Coalition of the Willing – but sending troops to support a ceasefire in Ukraine would need cabinet sign off, the Foreign Ministry says.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed to RNZ that New Zealand was represented at the meeting in Paris overnight by the ambassador to France Caroline Bilkey.

The meeting resulted in a joint declaration setting out that that Britain, France and European allies would deploy peacekeeping troops in Ukraine if a ceasefire with Russia was secured.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this would include the UK and France establishing military hubs, which could also store weapons and military equipment.

The declaration was hailed as “more than just words” by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, who named New Zealand and Australia in his speech.

The ministry said New Zealand welcomed progress made towards negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.

“We welcome recent progress made towards negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.

“Any lasting peace will require robust security guarantees for Ukraine which was a key focus of the discussions at the latest meeting held in Paris. New Zealand supports the ongoing efforts of the Coalition.

“New Zealand is an active participant in the Coalition of the Willing discussions but contributions to post-conflict security efforts would require a Cabinet decision.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The Public Service Association says the Health Minister is blaming officials for slow Official Information Act (OIA) responses when his government’s cuts are at fault.

The Ombudsman stepped in over official documents slated for “proactive release” for an official information request first made in March. The final documents related to the request were not released until November.

Simeon Brown’s office has demanded improvement from officials, telling the Ombudsman the delays were in part caused by the volume of OIA requests.

“The delays in this case have been in part due to a higher number of OIAs on the Government’s health reforms causing resourcing pressures,” the Ombudsman’s office said.

“The Minister’s office has advised that the Minister directed officials to prioritise improvements to the proactive release programme so that future publications are timely, accurate and better supported.”

However, the PSA’s national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons told RNZ the minister should be taking responsibility instead.

“It shouldn’t take the Ombudsman stepping in for Health NZ to provide information to the public, but really this does come back to the minister. He can’t keep demanding savings and then blame officials when the impacts of cuts are felt,” she said.

“Health NZ has lost over 2000 roles either through early exits, voluntary redundancies, or vacancies not being filled. This includes teams that support official information requests. They’ve lost critical expertise.”

She said it was no wonder the public wanted information when the government was making such cuts, and the minister, his office, and health agencies should have seen it coming.

“This government is undermining the Official Information Act. It plays an absolutely critical role in enabling the participation of the people of New Zealand in public administration, but also in holding ministers and officials to account.”

‘This is not a one off’

Labour deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said it was a case of the government not doing its job.

“We’re concerned this is not the exception, this is not a one off, we’re seeing this more and more with health in particular, but across many of the government agencies,” she said.

She said Labour bore no responsibility for its health reforms increasing pressures on officials, and cuts would have had an effect, she said.

“They’ve stated openly those cuts would mostly be made to the back office, well we know that many of the people … needed to respond to Official Information Act requests are back-office workers.

“Now they’re in a position that they can’t respond to what they’re legally required to respond to in the period of time stipulated in the law.”

Sepuloni said New Zealand was well known for its transparency and timely official information responses were an important part of that, “but that has been compromised by this government”.

In a statement, Minister Brown said the agency had advised him it was appropriately resourced to fulfil its OIA obligations, “and knows that is my expectation”.

“Health NZ has been working to improve processes around the proactive release of information as well as regularly updating publicly available data,” he said.

“I’m advised Health NZ has had discussions with the Office of the Ombudsman around the work it is doing to ensure it complies with its obligations.”

Months of delays

RNZ had first requested documents about the government’s just-announced 24/7 telehealth service in March 2025.

That request was rejected, with Health NZ claiming it held no such procurement or planning information that would not impact commercial negotiations.

That was despite Health NZ not using a competitive process, instead inviting specific providers that were already offering such services to join its subsidy-based online portal.

That unusual approach was revealed in the first tranche of documents released in a late response to a second request made in early July after the service launched, with Health NZ promising the remaining documents would be released “as soon as possible”.

A follow-up in September asking when the remaining documents would be released was treated as another official information request.

Three of the five documents in the second tranche were released in mid-October, the remaining two were released in November.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Four organisations are set to receive more funding through the government’s Mental Health Innovation Fund, to scale up the support they offer.

For the second round of the fund, the government lowered the $250,000 matched funding threshold to $100,000.

The initiative was funded $10 million over two years to support non-government organisations or community providers.

Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey said the funding would remove barriers to support, help people access the right support earlier, and ensure communities and workplaces could get mental health support when and where it was needed.

“I have been very clear that this government is not only focused on ensuring the right support is in place to treat mental health issues, but also on preventing Kiwis from reaching that point,” he said.

“That’s why we are investing more in prevention and early intervention, and we know grassroots organisations play a vital role in increasing access to support.”

Among the new recipients is support co-ordination service Hearts and Minds, which will expand early intervention services in Auckland’s Waitematā.

Christchurch community hub The Loft would receive funding for a new digital service, which would assist an additional 200 people.

MATES in Construction, which also received funding in the first round of the fund, would get extra funding to reach an additional 3000 construction workers across 19 regions.

Finally, Asian Family Services, which provides culturally-tailored health support for Asian New Zealanders, would receive funding for its mental health and addiction practitioners in Auckland and Wellington, as well as its nationwide telehealth service.

In November, Barnardos, Netsafe, the Graeme Dingle Foundation, Ki Tua o Matariki, and Whānau Āwhina Plunket were announced as recipients of second round funding.

MATES in Construction, The Mental Health Foundation, YouthLine, Wellington City Mission, Rotorua Youth One Stop Shop, and the Sir John Kirwan Foundation all received funding in the first round.

Organisations wanting to access the fund have to match the amount they are seeking.

The original $250,000 threshold was criticised by Labour.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Patients are anxious to know whether they’re affected by the Manage My Health hack – and there’s a pressing need for the company to tell people if their data’s been stolen, GP owners say.

The deadline is now thought to have passed for a $US60,000 ransom for hundreds of thousands of files taken from the online health portal, affecting more than 120,000 patients.

The hackers, known online as ‘Kazu’ have not leaked any further data after the deadline for the ransom had passed.

General Practice Owners’ Association chairperson Angus Chambers told Morning Report GPs don’t know who’s affected, or what information’s been taken.

“There’s a lot of patients who are worried that their privacy’s been breached, and they still don’t know, and there’s people who have had their privacy breached, and they don’t know either,” he said.

“There’s a lot of anxiety, and it’s actually creating a lot of work for GPs, because there’s a lot of queries, a lot of explanations, so we feel that we need to get that anxiety put to bed.”

That was Manage My Health’s job, he said.

“GPs are involved to a degree, but … it looks like it’s their responsibility, their fault, we feel it’s on them to be doing informing.”

Chambers said practices must be prudent about cyber security and protecting their patients, but it was not as simple as switching platforms.

In many practices, Manage My Health was closely connected with practice management software, and changing that was a massive job, he said.

Manage My Health said late on Monday that the ransom demand was a matter for police, and it would not be making any comment about a ransom while an investigation was ongoing.

The platform apologised for pain and anxiety caused to health providers and patients, and acknowledged it could have communicated better.

“However, our priority was to secure patient data and work on the accuracy of all information before providing it to practices and patients.”

It said it will publish daily updates with all the information it can share.

Health Minister Simeon Brown has announced an urgent review into the breach.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made the government’s first statement following the US military action against Venezuela, saying New Zealand is “concerned”.

On Saturday, the US attacked the Venezuelan capital Caracas and captured the South American nation’s president and his wife, citing alleged drug offences.

US President Donald Trump said in the meantime, the US would “run” the country, which has some of the world’s largest oil reserves.

“New Zealand is concerned by and actively monitoring developments in Venezuela and expects all parties to act in accordance with international law,” Peters said in a post on X (formerly Twitter), using the official Minister of Foreign Affairs account.

New Zealand is concerned by and actively monitoring developments in Venezuela and expects all parties to act in accordance with international law.  New Zealand stands with the Venezuelan people in their pursuit of a fair, democratic and prosperous future.

We continue to advise…

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) January 3, 2026

“New Zealand stands with the Venezuelan people in their pursuit of a fair, democratic and prosperous future.

“We continue to advise that New Zealanders do not travel to Venezuela. New Zealanders requiring urgent consular assistance can contact the 24/7consular emergency line on +64 99 20 20 20.”

The military action comes after months of accusations from the Trump administration that Venezuela has been shipping narcotics into the US, but Trump has made no secret of his desire to access Venezuela’s natural reserves.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure,” he said. “We’ll be selling large amounts of oil.”

The United Nations is set to have an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the action, which has recieved both praise and condemnation from world leaders.

Invasion unlawful – expert

International law expert Professor Alexander Gillespie of the University of Waikato said while it was “very good that Peters has called upon all countries to ‘act in accordance with international law'”, he was curious to know whether Peters believed the US action was lawful or not, or if Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro had diplomatic immunity.

In theory, Gillespie said it appeared the US military action was unlawful.

“You can only attack another country in times of self-defence and that situation must be urgent, proportionate in action, and no alternative to the use of force,” he told RNZ via email.

“Trump is not wrong to be concerned about the problem of illegal drugs and transnational criminal/terrorist groups, but the pretext of illegal drugs in this area is fanciful; where the ‘war on drugs’ has turned into something completely different. To say it is self-defence stretches the doctrine way beyond what it has previously been understood as.”

But it was unlikely Trump would face any legal retaliation, as the US has a veto on the UN Security Council and would “just laugh” at the prospect of being taken to the International Court of Justice.

Gillespie said there was a risk the US arrest of another country’s president would give others such as Russia, China and Iran “a green light to intervene in countries they disapprove of unilaterally – without going through the UN”.

“It will be a small step for countries like China to take Taiwan on this precedent; or Russia to push even harder into Ukraine.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Lawyers say an in-house immigration complaints process is a toothless tiger for visa applicants.

Immigration New Zealand (INZ) received more than 6500 complaints in the last year, down from 9500 in 2019.

Immigration lawyers Pooja Sundar and Stewart Dalley say people who are overseas when they apply are given vague, or no, reasons why their visa has been rejected.

Decisions about temporary visas – such as tourist or family visits – can only be appealed if travellers are already in the country renewing a visa, or changing to a different one.

In those situations, INZ has to provide written reasons, as well as an opportunity before the decision is made to respond to concerns about an application.

It was unfair such a mechanism was not offered to offshore applicants who could instead only access a complaints and feedback process – which does not look at whether the decision was correct, Dalley said.

“I think there should be someone who’s looking at the actual merits of the application more than just the process followed,” he said.

“If there isn’t such a mechanism available, then you’ve got officers who are given so much discretion in their roles with absolutely no oversight, other than just procedural oversight.”

Challenging flawed decisions

“Where the officer knows in the back of the mind that nobody can review this decision, that’s not subject to an appeal, there’s no reconsideration then where’s the incentive to make a proper decision? And how many incorrect decisions are getting made when there’s no oversight?”

When decisions are appealed to the immigration and protection tribunal, more than a third of residence rejections are overturned, he said.

Sundar would like to see officers asking offshore applicants – whose visitor visa fee rose 60 percent a year ago to $341 – for more information if they are unsure about their application, and allowing reconsiderations of decisions.

“I’ve heard stories and I’m aware of situations in which there have been family trying to visit from various parts of the world, come to New Zealand for very specific events, or if they have holidays on their end of the world,” Sundar said.

“And they will have reasons to return [home] and they will have provided this to Immigration New Zealand, but because of potentially where they’re from or because of what immigration assumes with the application itself, they are declined.

“And in that position, the option is to reapply or to make a complaint. But the complaints process isn’t really going to go anywhere. And so the person looks at paying for those flights again, potentially, and paying the visa filing fees again, and going through the process again. And if it’s declined again, then we go back to square one, apply again, or the complaints process.

“A credible system requires transparency, clear reasoning, and a genuine path to challenge flawed decisions.”

Courts had previously ruled that where someone is engaging with New Zealand, the country’s laws apply to them and they were entitled to the rights of natural justice.

But Dalley said the office of the Human Rights Commission cannot investigate immigration-related issues and the only recourse was an expensive judicial review in the High Court.

“So we have excluded this under the Human Rights Act, which seems somewhat ridiculous that we are signing up to an international treaty on human rights but yet we’re going to trample all over them when it comes to our immigration policy settings. There’s something wrong with that.”

Immigration New Zealand [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/332479/immigration-nz-s-complaints-procedure-falls-short-lawyer

reviewed how it dealt with feedback] more than a decade ago and brought in a new system in 2017.

It was criticised for shrinking the scope of what people could complain about – as it could not be about the decision itself.

INZ complaints manager Katy Goodwin said while temporary visa applicants outside of New Zealand do not have a formal right of appeal or reconsideration “immigration officers may reconsider an application if new and compelling information is promptly provided”.

“If someone based overseas has had their temporary visa declined, they should submit a new application with all the correct and required information, answering any concerns that were outstanding from the declined application. If applicants are uncertain on what is required, they should check the requirements for each visa type on the INZ website.”

She said last year’s complaints numbers were at the lowest since the new feedback system started.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Nominations are open for a new election in an Auckland local body after previous results have been voided by a judge.

In December, Judge Richard McIlraith in the Manukau District Court voided October’s election results for the Papatoetoe subdivision of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board after ruling there were irregularities.

His inquiry identified 79 voting papers cast without voters’ knowledge.

The Auckland Council said nominations for a new election were open until midday 28 January, with four seats to be filled.

Voting will be open in March and results will be announced in April.

To be nominated, candidates must be eligible to stand as at 1 August 2025, the date of the close of nominations for the now voided election, according to the council.

Candidates must also be New Zealand citizens, 18 years of age or over, on the New Zealand electoral roll, and have signatures from two voters enrolled in the Papatoetoe subdivision area, it said.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

There’s simply nothing better than ditching the workwear for an outdoor get-up and heading into the bush.

Thousands will head into the great outdoors this summer, including MPs from across the political spectrum.

RNZ interviewed a range of politicians about their experiences going bush: the highs, the lows and the whys.

Labour’s Duncan Webb is lucky to be alive

Labour MP Duncan Webb has been tramping since he was 13 and still grimaces when he recalls his first bush adventure. He followed his older brother and some of his mates into Arthur’s Pass one day, clad in heavy oilskin jackets with thin sleeping bags tucked into bulky packs they’d borrowed.

“Our parents had no idea what we were doing, and neither did we,” he said.

After an “extremely fatiguing” first day the boys found themselves in poor weather as they were crossing a mountain pass.

“It just rained, just constant rain and driving wind. We were freezing cold and as we came down the other side of the pass we got lost.”

The group took the wrong side of a creek and ended up next to a steep gorge, when Webb’s pack proceeded to fall down.

Webb said he fell into the river retrieving his pack and struggled to carry on to a hut as his drenched clothing chilled his body down.

“I was really tired and exhausted so I sat down and curled up and tried to go to sleep. I had quite advanced hypothermia.”

Webb said his 14-year-old companions “kicked him” until he moved and they eventually found a hut, had a kai and got warm.

The next night proved no better after the group camped next to a lake that flooded their tent in the middle of the night. Desperate to catch a train out the next day, Webb said the group swam across a flooded river “hearing boulders tumbling under their feet in chest deep water”.

“Utterly stupid,” he said.

His happy ending was being sent into a pub as the youngest to fetch some food for the group. Some kind West Coasters gave him hot chips and a lemonade, he said.

“We were all terrified. Our families weren’t pub goers. So, I was sitting there having chips and lemonade while my mates were out the back freezing cold,” he laughed.

Webb’s nightmarish first go at tramping hasn’t put him off what has become a lifelong love of walking in the bush.

“It’s almost meditative because you’re out there and sometimes it’s quite hard work, you’ve gotta pack on and going uphill so all the physical things are going but at the same time, you’re not thinking about anything in particular. You’re just focused on what you’re doing and where you are and it’s really refreshing and re-energising.”

Webb’s favourite place to walk is, somewhat surprisingly, Arthur’s Pass. He’s currently planning a tramp with his grown children in Mount Aspiring this summer.

ACT’s Cameron Luxton on being one with the food chain

A hunter, not a tramper, ACT MP Cameron Luxton’s ideal day in the bush involves tracking wild pigs and deer. Having lived in Galatea, near the foothills of the western side of Te Urewera, Luxton has made many memories. Some are better than others.

“One that immediately strikes is when I was brand new to hunting, I didn’t pick it up until I was in my teenage years. I climbed the biggest hill I could find. looking for the elusive deer. I was up there in my rugby shorts, walking through a beautiful clearning, nice and light green with dark bush around it, I thought this is perfect, this is the sort of place I need to be. That light green turns out to be my first experience of stinging nettle… I needed to learn that lesson once.”

Luxton said hunting for him was more than just gathering food.

“You have to be zen. You have to be part of the bush. You’re inserting yourself into the food chain, into the cycle. You have to be part of what the bush is. It can take a couple of hours, sometimes a day or so, to really get that feeling but when you hit that flow moment, that’s when you really are into it.”

There was nothing like getting off the beaten track either, he said.

“DOCs got some great tracks out there but there’s nothing like getting stuck into some gnarly heads of some gully somewhere, bashing through some bush that you just wouldn’t do if you weren’t after a quarry (game animal). So, hunting opens up a whole lot. Our forest and our hills are a massive untapped resource for a lot of people.”

Over the years, he’s introduced his sons to hunting, though they may not be so keen on following in his footsteps just yet, he said. “My eight-year-old son shot his first deer last year. He’s keen but he’s actually just got really into spear fishing. It’s one of those things like, do you force your hobbies onto your kids or do you adapt to what they’re doing?”

Given summer is not prime hunting time, Luxton said he would be spending it at the beach.

“Come autumn though, as soon as that first chill is in the air, that’s when I’ll start getting really excited to get back into the bush. End of March, early April I start doing silly things like getting the roar horn out and having a moan in the backyard.”

New Zealand First’s Andy Foster loves a long run

NZ First MP Andy Foster is a proud member of the Tararua Tramping Club and has walked many of the trails in the steep ranges north of Wellington. He loves being up above the bush line in the tussocks, grasses and mountain daisies.

“We can only visit that as opposed to staying there long term because it’s can be a hostile environment, but also the views you get to see from up there. Then there’s just being away, you know, away from the busyness of life and often the best part of that is you’re connecting with other people. You’re spending time with other people. I made a lot of good friends out of tramping.”

Though he’s slowed down over the last few years, Foster was at one point a keen mountain runner, clocking some huge kilometres.

“I’ve done runs like round Ruapehu in a day, Milford-Routeburn, Nelson Lakes to Lewis Pass across the table lands to Leslie-Karamea, out of the Wangapeka into the West Coast. It feels really good to do those sort of things. You get to see a lot, you possibly don’t get to appreciate it at the same slower pace that you go tramping but it’s great.”

He’s hit more than a few hurdles out on long runs before but that’s never put him off, he said.

“The run we did from Nelson Lakes through to Lewis Pass, it was in summer and the weather turned ugly. We got over the Waiau Pass heading towards Lewis and the weather started turning ugly, snow on the hills. We decided we’d actually stop slightly short at Cannibal Gorge. We had a couple of pieces of cheese and one bit of pita bread and that was it between us. We got there right as rain in the morning.”

Foster said while there were many highs that had come from tramping and mountain running, there were also some lows that came with the territory.

“Heights are not my favourite thing because you look down and think, if I fall off that’s the last thing I’ll ever do. The sad thing is that over time, I’ve lost a number of friends who’ve fallen off things tramping or low level climbing. It’s not to be taken lightly.”

National’s Barbara Kuriger walks to explore

National MP Barbarba Kuriger and her husband Lewis lace up their tramping boots every summer.

“We’ve done the Queen Charlotte, Abel Tasman, Milford Sounds and we like to get off on a Great Walk when we can. Last year we did a mixture of Coromandel, Waikaremoana, the Tongariro Crossing and, of course, in Taranaki. We’ve always got little short walks we can do on our Taranaki maunga on a Sunday and we go up Maungatautari while we’re in Te Awamutu.”

Kuriger said they make the most of transfer services that carry overnight gear for walkers, making the trails that much more enjoyable.

“We do a little bit of a cheat walk because we tend to take more of the accommodation where there’s food available. We don’t carry our beds and everything with us. We do an option where there’s huts available. It makes it pleasant, because you’re just really walking. You’re not carting things.”

She particularly loved the solitude of the bush, she said.

“You get to the end of the day and you’ve seen some amazing things out of out of civilization. You spend a whole lot of time, 11 months of the year actually, being with people and it’s quite nice just to get out in nature and take that time out.

Kuriger was already looking forward to walking this summer..

“We’re actually doing a little bit of a combo, where we go down the Forgotten Railway and then end up in and around Wanganui, which is actually the great walk that’s not a walk because it’s river. We’re going up to the blue duck station and I’ve always wanted to go up to the blue duck station. It’s exploring different parts of the country. I love it.”

The Greens’ Chlöe Swarbrick on feeling small in the great outdoors

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick didn’t grow up walking but has come to love it during her adult life.

“I’ve become much more of an outdoor greenie as I’ve got older. It definitely wasn’t a thing that my parents were super into when I was younger. I was very much living an urbanised life up until I made the effort to get outdoors. I’m lucky now to have a lot of friends and community who spend time outdoors and have been teaching me the tricks of the trade.”

Swarbrick said she kept a pretty busy schedule, but still managed to find time for the odd overnight tramp during the political year.

“Probably my favourite one from this year was one up in the Tararua Ranges. We went up to Powell Hut. The visibility was pretty terrible but we spent one night up there and went all the way above the clouds. There’s nothing quite like nature to remind you how small we are and to humble you to the things that really matter.”

She said she walked to connect with friends, and disconnect from life.

“One of my good mates in particular who I get to go tramping with, we will spend time delving into all of the most insane recesses of politics, but then spend hours just tramping along in silence. That’s the thing that I really do enjoy; that opportunity to just take some time and some space and to get off of a screen.”

While she didn’t have any walks lined up for the summer break yet, she was sure she would end up in the bush at some point.

“When I’m in Tāmaki I often do my best to get out to West Auckland, as well as getting across to Aotea. My summer is kind of unfolding. I know that I will be in the Waikato touching base with my family but from that point, I will absolutely be hitting my mates up to see who’s keen on an adventure.”

Note to reader: Te Pāti Māori declined RNZ’s request for an interview for this story.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Andrew Bayly still remembers the “visual assault” of Antarctica, the piercing blue clarity and scale-bending brightness.

The National MP tells how he once convinced his companions to join him on what he thought would be a short trip to climb a nearby peak. They borrowed skis, promised they would be back for lunch and set off.

Instead, the trek stretched for hours, across a crevasse field and then up a seemingly endless slope. The mountain turned out to be 12 kilometres away.

“We didn’t get back to the base until late that night,” Bayly laughs. “It was just meant to be a little stroll.”

Bayly was there for a full month in 2012, climbing mountains, including the continent’s tallest peak, Mount Vinson, and another never-before-climbed – the mountaineer’s “holy grail”.

“It was only three of us. We were miles from anyone,” he says. “You know that if you’re in trouble, you’re really in trouble.”

More than a decade on, the landscapes have stayed with him, fuelling a personal affinity for the continent and a determination to protect it.

In December, Bayly brought politicians, diplomats and officials from overseas to Wellington for a two-day meeting, the third Antarctic Parliamentarians Assembly.

Roughly 40 guests – representing nearly 20 nations – came to hear from scientists, compare notes and take home a clearer sense of what is happening at the bottom of the world.

From ice to influence

Antarctica is governed by a treaty signed in 1959, designating it a natural reserve devoted to peace and science. It explicitly prohibits military bases, weapons testing and new territorial claims.

But that is not to say the continent is free from pressure.

Tourism has surged in recent years. More than 120,000 visitors travelled south last season, six times the numbers seen two decades ago.

“We want to welcome tourists. We want people to go to Antarctica,” Bayly says. “The question is: how do you do that in a sustainable way?”

Fishing remains a concern, too. The krill fishery reached its annual catch limit this year for the first time, forcing its shutdown three months ahead of schedule – a warning sign that pressure is rising.

The tiny shrimp-like crustaceans are fundamental to the ecosystem as a primary food source for whales, penguins and seals.

“Certain nations really want to have a go at fishing out the krill,” Bayly says. “So, how do we protect ourselves against that?”

And then there is the unmistakable effect of climate change.

On the Antarctic Peninsula, the area of ice-free “greening” has jumped from 86 hectares to nearly 1200 over four decades – the size of a large sheep and beef farm, now exposed land rather than ice.

Research teams are drilling through kilometres of ice to pull up samples that may hold climate records stretching back more than a million years.

“They’re going to farm out all those core samples to … research people around the world, whoever wants them. So, you know, how do you collaborate?”

Bayly says those big questions of conservation and collaboration dominated discussions among the parliamentarians, many of whom arrived with limited knowledge of Antarctica.

“When they go back to their home, we want them to be strong advocates… in an informed way,” he says.

Among the speakers was mountaineer Peter Hillary, a moment Bayly says resonated with those visitors familiar with the legacy of his father, Sir Edmund Hillary.

“They love our connection to Antarctica,” he says. “They know we’ve got a leadership position.”

The next assembly is already in motion, scheduled for 2027, with Bayly asked to chair the steering committee. Several nations have already put up their hands to host: Norway, China, Italy, Argentina, and potentially more.

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