Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

Lawyers for a judge accused of disrupting a New Zealand First event want clarity over the legal test which will apply at her judicial conduct hearing.

A judicial conduct panel is looking into the behaviour of Acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken.

She is accused of interrupting a New Zealand First function at the exclusive Northern Club in Auckland last year in November, allegedly shouting that leader Winston Peters was lying.

Judge Aitken has argued she did not shout, that she did not recognise Peters’ voice and did not know it was a political event.

A bid she made for a judicial review of the decision to hold the Judicial Conduct Panel was dismissed in April of this year at the High Court in Auckland.

‘What is the test’

Under the District Court Act, a Governor-General can, on the advice of the Attorney-General, remove a Judge from the office on the grounds of inability or misbehaviour.

The Judicial Conduct Panel will consider Judge Aitken’s behaviour at a hearing in February next year. It will determine facts, and write a report to the Attorney-General including about whether the removal of the Judge is justified.

The panel is comprised of former Court of Appeal Judge Brendan Brown KC (who is the chair), Justice Jillian Mallon, a sitting Court of Appeal Judge, and Sir Jerry Mateparae, the former Governor-General.

In a preliminary hearing on Monday, counsel for Judge Aitken, David Jones KC, told the panel it was essential to know what the specific legal test for misbehaviour was.

“We are asking you to state the test, in advance of the hearing.

“You have to have something to aim at, you have to have something to establish.

“And here we have the difference – for example – between misconduct and misbehaviour, and we have to know how aggregious that has to be, in order for the contemplation of removal to be considered.”

Jones KC said it was essential to understand the legal test before the hearing took place, because it could affect the arguments or context the evidence is presented in at the hearing.

“You have a situation where if you have a test, and you know that you have to satisfy that test, or special counsel has to satisfy that test, then evidence can be adduced – potentially from experts to say – ‘look this is certain behaviour but it doesn’t get to this point, or it does’, or whatever.”

He said it was even more important these issues were nailed down in what he described as a “political context”, referring to how the report from the Northern Club was leaked to the media.

Jones KC said the hearing would need to establish Judge Aitken knew of the political context when she spoke – not what she, as a judge, ought to have known.

He said the political dynamic was critical to the hearing that would take place.

“If, for example, the people in the room… were a group of law students, or were from a book club, or whatever, and somebody said something as the words were spoken, and heard by the Judge, and she said something, would we be here? My submission is we wouldn’t.”

Special counsel Jonathan Orpin-Dowell, who is one of two lawyers presenting the allegations of misconduct to the panel, said the question of what the Judge knew or should have known when she spoke needed to come out in the evidence in the hearing.

He said parliament didn’t intend to set out a specific test for judicial misbehaviour.

Orpin-Dowell said the District Court Act lays out the grounds for removal as inability or misbehaviour.

He referred to Ministry of Justice advice to the 2004 select committee considering the law setting up the judicial panel, which aimed to avoid any potential misbehaviour from being excluded.

He said thresholds of misbehaviour come down to specific facts and situations.

“The panel isn’t a permanent court, or even a permanent tribunal, it’s an ad-hoc panel set up to deal with a particular reference about particular conduct, from a particular Judge, and it follows from that, that whether removal will be justified in any case is necessarily a question of fact and degree.”

Both lawyers referred to a previous case involving Justice Bill Wilson, where it found misbehaviour was conduct that “fell so far short of accepted standards of judicial behaviour as to warrant the ultimate sanction of removal”.

This is the third Judicial Conduct Panel that has been established since the law establishing the body was passed in 2004.

Elements of discussion in Monday’s preliminary hearing have been suppressed.

The panel is expected to file a decision on Monday’s application by the end of this week.

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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 popular Auckland mountain bike park is closed for two days after a rider’s death.

On Monday evening, a representative from Woodhill Mountain Bike Park took to social media to announce the death.

“We are very sad to share that a rider has passed away at our park today. Our thoughts are with their family and friends at this difficult time.”

In the post, the representative said it would remain closed for the next two days, reopening on Thursday.

“We are also taking this time to support our staff and our riding community.

“Thank you for your understanding, patience, and care.”

In January 2024, the park also closed after a rider died.

At the time, police said medical assistance was provided but the person who fell from their mountain bike died at the scene.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Mānuka, rimu, ponga, kōwhai, harakeke, tōtara – we can probably all name a few of the commonly found New Zealand terrestrial trees and plants. But what about those that are out of sight and out of mind – on the bottom of our lakes and slow-moving rivers?

There are more than 75 species of native freshwater plants in Aotearoa, but they are disappearing.

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How do we know? Well, 19th century botanist accounts are one piece of evidence, says Mary de Winton.

“Back in the 1800s they had, you know, a huge raft of plant species growing right across the bed of the lake.” Today some of the same lakes are completely bare.

Mary is a freshwater ecologist with Earth Sciences New Zealand in Kirikiriroa Hamilton. She’s often diving in freshwater environments for science, and across her 40-year career she’s seen changes herself.

“We’ve seen a lot of lakes that have lost their vegetation over the last four decades. I can think of five in the Waikato off the top of my head that I’ve actually seen both in their vegetated state and in a de-vegetated state several years later.”

Pest fish, invasive weeds, high sedimentation rates, reductions in water quality – the challenges facing our freshwater ecosystems are numerous. For plants, lack of light can be a big issue, says Mary. “The water itself gets very murky, either from algal blooms or from suspended sediment. And when you get those kinds of environments, there’s very little light that’s getting down to the bottom where the plants are growing. And if you lose those plants, it’s incredibly hard to get them back again.”

That’s why a team at Earth Sciences New Zealand, in collaboration with local iwi and international researchers, began a project to investigate how native plants might be given a ‘helping hand’.

Inspired by roll-out turf, the stuff you might use on a lawn in a new build, the team investigated ways to grow plants in a type of matrix that could then be rolled out on the lakebed and left there.

For the ‘RotoTurf’ project to work, they needed their matting to be biodegradable, but also robust enough to stay together long enough for the plants to grow to a decent size. After trying a range of materials, they decided that wool and muka (the fibres from harakeke/flax) matting were the two most promising. Alongside the matrix trials, they also investigated which plants would be best suited to grow in the matting and be transplanted into a partially degraded lake. Milfoil and native pondweed came out on top as the most likely candidates.

To test their RotoTurf design the team ran trials at Lake Ohinawai. The turf was unrolled on the lakebed in December and left there until August to see how the plants went through the seasons. They were also surrounded by a plastic mesh cage, to keep pest fish, like koi carp, out.

After eight months the plants were still there, growing right to the surface, says Mary. The milfoil seemed to be doing particularly well.

A three-year funded project, RotoTurf has since wrapped up. Now there is some interest in the design from iwi groups and other agencies who are keen to return plants to their lakes.

But for proper restoration RotoTurf alone will not be enough, says Mary, without also addressing the lakes’ underlying water quality issues.

“The best candidates… are those that have already had some works undertaken in the catchment…. some intervention for the nutrient and sediment loads, that have had some riparian planting around the edge of the lake… that gives any kind of in-lake restoration the best chance of success.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Housing advocates say boarding houses are not appropriate for people with complex mental health or addiction needs and are calling for national data to be collected showing where people are discharged to after a hospital stay.

It comes after a woman raised concerns about the appalling conditions of a lodge her adult son was discharged to, following three weeks in an acute mental health unit in Auckland.

Lisa Hawkeswood said her son Jack lasted three days in the lodge before pleading to live with her because he hated his accommodation, which had blood on the carpet and other tenants were trying to get him to do drugs.

Tragically, he died in a suspected suicide after moving in with her.

Housing First Auckland programme manager Rami Alrudaini said vulnerable people need safe housing and good supports in place.

“What happened is totally unacceptable – no person who is vulnerable or needing support should be released into an unsuitable living situation,” he said.

“Across the housing sector, we continue to hear consistent anecdotal reports of people being discharged from acute mental health care into unstable or unsafe accommodation, including boarding houses. While these stories are deeply concerning, there is no comprehensive national data of where people are discharged to or the outcomes that follow.”

Health NZ earlier said its practice is not to discharge people to homelessness, but there is no reliable data on where people are sent to.

“What we do know is that the gap between acute care discharge and access to safe, supported housing is a critical failing in our system. Boarding houses are not appropriate for people with high mental health or addiction needs. They are not a substitute for adequate, stable housing with wrap-around support,” Alrudaini said.

“We need urgent cross-agency action and better data so we can fully understand the scale of the issue and design policies and deliver solutions that keep people safe. We can and must do better as a country. It is critical we make urgent system and data improvements now.”

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission released a report in June which monitored the mental health and addiction system.

It found there had been no change over five years in the proportion of people accessing mental health and addiction services who were homeless – in the 2023/2024 year six percent of specialist mental health and addiction service users were homeless.

Changing Minds engagement and insights manager Megan Elizabeth said everyone had a right to safe and secure housing, and there needs to be greater availability of housing for people experiencing substance abuse or mental distress.

“On the face of it, taking someone from an inpatient setting and putting them into a boarding house to avoid homelessness is a good measure but it is only part of the picture,” she said.

“The bigger question is not should this individual have been discharged to a boarding house but should they have been discharged into the community without a really comprehensive support for their wellbeing around them.”

Elizabeth said people needed to be discharged and supported into accomodation that is safe for their wellbeing and their situation.

“A roof over your head is only one element of wellbeing, you need to feel safe, you need to be able to progress your wellbeing journey in an environment that is supportive of your wellbeing.”

Meanwhile, the Mental Health Act is being repealed and replaced as part of the response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in Faith-based Institutions.

The Mental Health Bill, if passed, will replace the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Three months after fainting and waking up paralysed, a Canterbury teenager is still searching for answers as to what caused the episode.

Angel Dagcutan has now regained mobility, but the episode has her concerned it may repeat in future.

Angel was only days away from her 18th birthday when she was struck by a flu-like illness in August.

She felt lethargic – even just moving felt draining, she said.

The illness also caused physical pain, especially in her head.

Then she started hallucinating.

“My head started spinning, like it was going round and round,” Angel said.

“Then the mail van came to drop off some things. I saw the mail van but then I started seeing it turn into different things. I saw it as a white van, then into an ambulance.”

Then she fainted.

“I just remember black and hearing noises, and feeling pain on my head. But I wasn’t sure if it was my headache at the time or because I fell.”

Her older brother David Dagcutan said he heard the noise as Angel collapsed and rushed into the room.

“She was on the ground and my mum was assessing her and calling her name, which was quite a terrifying experience,” he said.

“I didn’t know what was happening and I thought it might be serious condition because it’s never happened before.”

David said his sister was unconscious for several minutes and he was worried she might die.

When she regained consciousness, she was unable to speak or move.

“She tried to speak but it was gurgled and all like jumbled,” David said.

Angel said she awoke to her brother performing CPR and she tried to tell him to stop as the pressure was painful, but the words would not come out.

“I wasn’t scared, I was just mainly confused as to why this was happening and what they were doing,” she said.

“Nothing made sense to me at the time.”

Her family called emergency services and an ambulance arrived, but that was not the end of the teenager’s troubles.

“When we were about to leave, the ambulance had a flat tyre so they said we have to get the helicopter in,” she said.

On board was Canterbury Westpac Rescue Helicopter paramedic Libbie Faith.

“This patient was a bit of a puzzle about what was going on,” Faith said.

“We kept reassuring her, we kept monitoring her, testing her, seeing what was happening, and we knew she had to get to hospital pretty quickly.”

As the hours rolled on in hospital, Angel said she started to worry that she would never walk or talk again.

“I couldn’t feel anything,” she said.

“Any needle they would take for tests, I couldn’t feel. I couldn’t move. I just couldn’t feel anything so I wasn’t really in pain. I was just confused.”

Another round of tests were carried out early the following morning and Angel was finally able to push her hands and feet back against the resistance of the doctor.

It was only slight at first but she said she had since fully recovered her strength and her ability to speak.

A battery of tests was carried out, including an ECG.

However, Angel said the doctors were stumped as to what caused the episode.

“Physically it’s behind me but psychologically it’s always going to be a little thing that lives in the corner of my mind because I do think about it every now and then – how they never figured out what was wrong and how my heart suddenly stopped and why I got paralysed and why I fainted,” she said.

“There’s just these questions that keep coming back.”

However, the episode had highlighted to her and her family – who lived in rural North Canterbury – the importance of the Westpac Rescue Helicopter.

“Living this far out, it’s so important to have the helicopter service available,” Angel said.

“The helicopter got to me so much faster than anything else could have. I really appreciate the paramedics involved who helped me. They were amazing and made a terrifying experience seem not so daunting.”

Faith said situations like Angel’s were why the rescue helicopter was so important.

“The helicopter is there to provide care for patients in rural, remote communities,” Faith said.

“That’s their lifeline and where we are best utilised as well – a time-critical patient that needs to get to hospital from a rural, remote community.”

Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools and Spa would be raising money for the Canterbury Westpac Rescue Helicopter and a new helipad in Hanmer Springs at the Night for Flight on 28 November.

Entry to the pool would be $10 with live music, food and raffles on offer and all proceeds going to the rescue helicopter.

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