Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

A building which ties up the hands of justice – that’s how many feel about Rotorua’s courthouse which has suffered years of delays to a slated redevelopment.

Rotorua District Court ranked the lowest in the nation for satisfaction with its facilities in this year’s Ministry of Justice Court User Survey.

Crown prosecutor Amanda Gordon said things started off badly for people as soon as they arrived at the courthouse.

Jurors, victims, defendants and witnesses must all go through a single entrance.

“Everyone has to individually go through security which takes an enormous amount of time, so on a day … where it’s pouring with rain, people are sometimes standing outside in the rain for two hours.”

Rotorua criminal lawyer Scott Mills pointed out the many problems with this arrangement.

“On Monday mornings the jury line stretches right back to the corner. There’s simply nowhere for people to go. Witnesses, defendants and complainants are shoulder-to-shoulder in the same waiting areas, fights have broken out more than once.”

It was no better once people got inside.

“It just doesn’t meet standards, for example if you have a disabled defendant they can’t get to the cells – the stair access is really steep and narrow – so there’s no way people with mobility issues can be placed in the cells when they potentially should be,” said Gordon.

Because a new building kept being promised, Gordon said no one would spend money on proper fixes or upgrades.

It was so bad the lawyers bought in audio equipment themselves just so jurors could hear video evidence properly.

“The court system and the police system don’t work together very well, so the DVDs we provide the court, they can’t turn the volume up so the jury can’t hear what the witness is saying,” she said.

She said Rotorua should have another judge to cope with the level of cases, but there’s nowhere to put a judge and nowhere they could hear cases.

Gordon said this meant judges were bailing people who they might otherwise not, and people were waiting years to get justice.

“Some decisions that judges are making are becoming entirely focused on the fact that someone might have to spend three years in custody before they get a trial and that that’s not ok, and it’s definitely not ok,” she said.

“It’s a democratic right that people get tried in front of a jury of their peers and our courthouse doesn’t serve any of the participants.”

Victim advocate Louise Nicholas supported people going through the court in Rotorua and said it was not a pleasant place.

“I’m sitting there supporting a survivor and I’m having to kill cockroaches, and you are sitting in the courtroom and you look on the wall and there’s a cockroach running up the wall,” she said.

Nicholas said when vulnerable victims were facing an intense and anxious time, they were put into a hot room to give evidence via CCTV, with distracting noises just on the other side of the door.

“When you’ve got people walking up and down a corridor, they are loud, we’re having to stop – we’ve had judges actually bring out the registrar and say, ‘remove yourself, we are actually in trial here’,” she said.

She thought it was time to get a new courthouse building up and running.

“Justice really isn’t getting served here, because of that building,” she said.

Courts Minister Nicole McKee said she was well aware of the challenges at the Rotorua courthouse and the Ministry of Justice was developing plans for a future rebuild to ensure Rotorua had a modern, fit-for-purpose courthouse.

“Across the country, we are progressing upgrades and new builds for a number of courthouses. However, financial constraints mean we cannot do every project at once.

“In Rotorua, the ministry has already purchased land for a proposed new courthouse and is working with the local council to secure resource consent in early 2026. This will allow the ministry to move quickly once funding is available.”

But there was no money for it in Budget 25, despite land already being purchased and ministerial support for a property partnership project to build and maintain a new courthouse being signalled to investors at the NZ Infrastructure Investment Summit in March this year.

McKee said Rotorua was only one of several courthouses nationally that needed attention and emphasis had gone to courts in Auckland.

“Rotorua is on the list… it’s very, very much on our radar,” she said.

RNZ asked if working with cockroaches climbing up the walls was ok but McKee said those claims were unsubstantiated.

“That’s the first I’ve heard about it, is from you, however, I’ve lived in Rotorua, there’s cockroaches everywhere,” she said.

Mayor of Rotorua, Tania Tapsell said the community had waited too long for what was considered by many an urgent and necessary investment in a new courthouse.

“Rotorua is one of the busiest regional courts in the country and handles complex cases from a large wider region, we need to be showing that we take our justice facilities seriously and now is the time for the government to action that,” she said.

McKee said the government did want to do better for Rotorua and get it a new courthouse.

But critics said everyone was still waiting for the money to make it happen.

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

A Far North charity is revisiting a world record it smashed 10 years ago with another attempt to turn a town bald.

On 20 November 2015, a total of 462 people had their heads shaved during a Bald Angels Charitable Trust fundraising event in Kerikeri.

The feat was later recognised by Guinness World Records as the greatest number of heads shaved in one hour.

So many people went bald at once – everyone from former MP Kelvin Davis and Rugby Sevens legend Eric Rush to police officers and schoolchildren – visitors to Kerikeri in the following weeks wondered if some strange illness was sweeping the town.

Bald Angels founder Therese Wickbom said that record would be remembered with another mass head shave this weekend.

Money raised would help fill kai boxes the charity planned to give to 400 families this Christmas, and buy presents for up to 1600 children.

If more money was raised than needed, any leftover funds would go to other projects helping vulnerable tamariki (children) thrive, she said.

Wickbom did not expect to set a new record, with about 50 people signed up so far.

“But we hold the record now, and no one’s beaten it. No one’s going to beat that,” she said.

What she did hope to replicate from the 2015 event was the atmosphere.

“The thing that everyone remembers about that day 10 years ago was the sheer number of people and the wairua or the goodness in the room. It was palpable and it was so unifying,” she said.

“We’d love to recreate that again, and I don’t think we need 3000 people there to do that. I think we could do it with 100 or so people.”

Among those sacrificing their locks on Saturday, will be Forest and Bird’s Northland conservation advocate Dean Baigent-Mercer.

It would be a big change for Baigent-Mercer, who had been growing his dreadlocks for 20 years and was once described as “David Attenborough with dreads and attitude”.

Baigent-Mercer said he was taking part because even the most basic needs of many young Northlanders were not being met.

He hoped the money raised would help children who in later life would have to deal with difficult problems such as climate change and forest collapse.

“We need to look after the next generation so they can deal with the stuff they end up inheriting,” he said.

Wickbom said this weekend’s Shave 4 Kids Anniversary Challenge aimed to raise at least $40,000, with $24,000 already in the bag.

The 2015 head-shave raised $62,000 but Wickbom said times were tougher now.

The event would take place from 2-5pm on Saturday, 22 November, at the Turner Centre on Cobham Road, after the Kerikeri Half Marathon.

Entry was free, Wickbom said.

“But we would like people to koha, because this is about raising funds for vulnerable children.”

Anyone who wanted to take part in the mass head shave could register on the website or on the day.

Wickbom said the 2015 world record head shave was not only a great unifying event, it also left a visible mark on the town with almost 500 people losing their hair in the space of an hour.

Puzzled patrons at restaurant she owned at the time would approach her in a whisper and ask what was going on in Kerikeri, she said.

The Bald Angels’ kai boxes and Christmas gifts will be distributed to families selected by the charity’s partner agencies.

Those agencies included iwi social services, health providers, schools, Hospice, Plunket, Women’s Refuge and police.

The Bald Angels’ first mass head shave in 2012 raised $45,000 for children in the care of Hospice Mid Northland.

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

A Canterbury landlord sanctioned for failing to clean up and fix a boarding house would rather cop a fine than pay for maintenance costs, a neighbour says.

Murray Lawrence Hill, who had been warned multiple times that his property was not up to standard, has been ordered to pay $33,000, remove industrial rubbish and repair holes in the roof and walls of a boarding house in Lyttelton.

The Tenancy Tribunal took action against Hill, who had a long history of complaints, for failing to ensure his property was compliant.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team (TCIT) received a complaint from a member of the public in December 2023, who said the boarding house was in a serious state of disrepair, with rubbish rotting on the property.

Alongside the rubbish removal and hole repairs, Hill was required to install glass planes in windows that were boarded up, install mechanical ventilation in the bathrooms and clean the kitchen and bathrooms to an acceptable standard.

The tenants were described as vulnerable and afraid to complain, for fear of being evicted.

David Wilcox lived opposite the Cressy Terrace property and said Hill had converted it into a halfway home for paroled prisoners following the earthquakes.

Wilcox said the landlord was the type of person who considered property maintenance as an unnecessary business expense.

“It’s a waste of money to him,” he said.

“I mean, his tenants can’t complain. So he just takes the money and banks it and forgets about this kind of stuff.

“He’s just not the kind of guy that really wants to do the right thing. He just wants to bank his money.”

Wilcox said a $33,000 fine would be of little consequence to Hill, who he understood to have an extensive property portfolio.

“He’s probably a multi-millionaire, so it’s not going to really harm him.

“I think they need to have, not just the fine, but they need to have people come in and supervise, make sure it gets done, because he won’t do it.”

Although Wilcox agreed Hill was more “slumlord” than landlord, he said the boarding house was better for tenants who had no alternatives.

“Would we rather have them in here under some kind of control and management, or would you rather just have them in a tent somewhere in the central city.

“So I think anybody with that choice, they’d rather be here.”

A woman who lived on Cressy Terrace told RNZ it was good the tenants had somewhere to live, but objected to the conditions they were subjected to.

When RNZ phoned Hill for comment, he swore at the reporter before asserting “at least they’re in a house”.

“They’re warm, they’ve got water, they’ve got hot water, they’ve got showers, they’ve got somewhere to cook. They’re not sleeping under a bridge, or shop doorways.”

He then ended the call.

TCIT national manager Brett Wilson said Hill had previously been issued warnings for the property.

“Despite receiving multiple warnings over a number of years, he failed to take meaningful steps to address these concerns until 2024/2025. His prolonged inaction over a four-year period demonstrates a deliberate and intentional disregard for his obligations.”

His failure to maintain the property to the required standard despite multiple warnings, had a direct and harmful impact on his tenants.

Wilson said landlords were running a business and if they wanted to operate a boarding house they must comply with their obligations under the Residential Tenancies Act.

He said Hill was an experienced landlord who had regular interactions with Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team, Fire and Emergency New Zealand and the Christchurch City Council, and was aware of his obligations under the Residential Tenancies Act.

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 mother of the three children who died following a fire in the Manawatu town of Sanson has spoken out for the first time.

August, Hugo and Goldie died last weekend, in what police are treating as a murder-suicide.

Their father, Dean Field, also died.

In a statement issued this morning, Chelsey Field said her children were her world and she doesn’t want their deaths to be the most defining factor of their lives.

“My babies were my absolute world. I have been a stay-at-home Mum since I had Hugo in 2020. Before that, I was an early childhood teacher and August came to work with me every day, and I am so glad I got this time with my darlings.

“I enjoyed so much quality time with them; trips to gymnastics, music groups, playgroups and play dates with friends. We had so much fun together and many holidays away. I will forever cherish all these special memories.”

She says she will cherish the special memories she had with her children.

Her dog also died in the blaze and the ashes of her stillborn daughter, Iris, were lost with the destruction of her house.

More to come

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Specialists say the health postcode lottery is rampant when it comes to trauma care.

The South Island was bearing the brunt of a funding shortfall, according to a New Zealand Medical Journal editorial released on Friday.

Health NZ and the minister of health rejected the claims, and said South Island trauma patients were receiving “timely, quality care with strong outcomes”.

But the authors, senior staff from Christchurch Hospital – one of the busiest emergency departments in Australasia – said the trauma team faced “considerable operational challenges” thanks to underfunding, staffing gaps and data collection issues amid increased admissions.

Injury is the leading cause of death in New Zealand for those under the age of 44, with major trauma the second most common reason for hospitalisation. The South Island’s rates of traumatic incidents are higher than the national average,

However, trauma care had historically been viewed as the “poor cousin” of healthcare, and suffered from inadequate resourcing and attention, surgeon Dr Chris Wakeman said.

In August, Auditor General John Ryan tabled a report which showed elective services in the health system were often “not equitable or timely”, with the same level of clinical need qualifying for treatment in some districts, but not others.

“As a result, a person’s ability to access treatment is, to a significant extent, determined by where they live,” the report noted.

Wakeman said there was no question the same applied to traumatic injury care, and had done for some time.

“It does feel frustrating that we’ve published for more than 10 years about inequity between the two islands.”

Christchurch Hospital took patients from across New Zealand, but the ACC model for funding emergency departments was based on census population data, he said.

“We take neurosurgical patients from Dunedin, we take spinal patients from Taupō south – if you’re north of Taupō you go to Middlemore, if you’re south you come to Christchurch, we also take all the transfers from Nelson, Grey, Timaru.

“It does seem unjust that we can’t employ the amount of staff [we need] … we’ve had to close because we have no junior doctors to run the service.”

A study of almost 800 patients earlier this year showed the hospital’s specialist trauma admitting service failed to improve patient outcomes due to staffing gaps, limited operating hours and underfunding.

The service, established in January 2022, was “launched without adequate funding, resulting in significant staffing shortfalls, including limited trauma surgeon involvement (fewer than four hours per week), no dedicated house officer and restricted operational hours (Monday to Friday only),” according to the University of Otago research, co-authored by Wakeman.

The team had the worst nurse-to-patient ratio in the country and no funding for administration or data management support.

Combined with “the alarming lack of medical resourcing”, the service was under “critical strain”.

The authors also advocated for a more uniform approach to benchmarking, and noted that while many North Island hospitals had gone or were going through the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons’ Trauma Care Verification Program, no South Island hospitals had done so.

“If Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora is serious about ending the postcode lottery, then Christchurch should be expected to meet the same standards as Waikato.”

While Christchurch Hospital “would currently fail”, it would still provide “valuable, unbiased identification of service gaps and help guide the allocation of resources”, he said.

“If we go through a tick box and look at what we need, we would fail, but it would highlight the issue and put in black and white exactly what we need to do and what we need to aim for, and repeat verification would hopefully prove we’ve achieved our goals of improving trauma care in the South Island.”

Asked if the levels of underfunding was making the emergency department unsafe, Wakeman said he liked to think staff did a good job, “working hard and compensating”.

“But it makes it harder, and burnout is higher over the whole hospital,” he said.

At the start of the year, Health NZ urged people to avoid Christchurch Hospital’s emergency department unless it was “life threatening”.

On its social media page, the hospital said its emergency department was “extremely busy” with “large numbers of people coming in for care”, and asked people with non-life-threatening emergencies to go elsewhere “to reduce the pressure”.

Health NZ Te Wai Pounamu deputy chief executive Martin Keogh later said it was due to increased demand caused by surgical cases, and was “definitely not a staffing issue”.

The following month, RNZ revealed the hospital’s internal staff planning system showed the hospital had 120 fewer nurses than recommended, with the emergency department short 25 nurses.

But Health NZ spokesperson Hamish Brown said current resourcing levels “continue to meet demand”.

“Trauma patients who present to Christchurch Hospital are receiving the care they need, when they need it, and with good outcomes.

“The trauma team is focused on trauma admissions and is only one part of a wider multi-disciplinary team of highly trained and experienced clinicians who regularly provide care to trauma patients,” Brown said.

Minister of Health Simeon Brown said South Island trauma patients continued to receive timely, quality care with strong outcomes at Christchurch Hospital.

“To further strengthen trauma care across the South Island, Health New Zealand has reinstated its regional trauma network, working closely with the Trauma National Clinical Network to deliver a consistent, nationally standardised approach,” he said.

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