Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

A person has been found dead at an Ōtāhuhu property and police are treating it unexplained.

Emergency services were called to Atkinson Avenue at 1.50am after a person was found deceased.

Cordons were in place along a section of Atkinson Avenue on Monday morning and emergency services were at the scene.

Police asked members of the public to avoid the area.

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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 person has been taken to hospital in a serious condition from an e-scooter crash in Auckland’s CBD.

It happened at the intersection of Cook and Nelson Streets just after 5.15am Monday.

Police, St John and Fire and Emergency were all involved in the response.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Some schools in Canterbury have closed for asbestos testing because a brand of play sand they had been using has been found to contain asbestos.

On Saturday, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment said four products sold by Kmart – the 14-piece sandcastle building set and the blue, green and pink Magic Sand sets – tested positive for tremolite, a form of asbestos associated with higher cancer risks at low exposure levels.

The findings expand an already significant recall that began last week, when rainbow sand products used widely in schools and childcare centres were found to be contaminated.

In posts to Facebook, Burnside Primary School, Clearview Primary, and Waitaha School said they had become aware recalled sand products had been used in their schools and were closed on Monday as a precaution while tests were done.

Rolleston’s Clearview Primary said it had identified one home base that used the recalled Kmart product. The school’s board of trustees said a further four classrooms had used other brands of kinetic sand, or kinetic sand that had been removed from its packaging, making its origin unclear.

“At this stage, there is no immediate risk to staff or students. However, out of an abundance of caution, we are closing the school on Monday, Tuesday and possibly Wednesday this week while all our teaching and learning spaces are professionally tested,” Clearview Primary said.

In a Facebook Post, Burnside Primary School said a recalled kinetic sand product sold at Kmart had been used in “some areas of our school”.

The school said while the risk to staff and students was considered very low, it had been advised by WorkSafe to close on Monday as a precaution to complete testing and ensure learning spaces were safe.

In a post to Facebook, Waitaha School said it was also closed on Monday.

“Waitaha School will be closed on Monday November 17 as we have become aware that a number of areas of the school across satellites and the base school have been exposed to various coloured sand brands that have been recalled. The Ministry of Education have advised the Board to close the school and arrange for an investigation and clean by professional asbestos cleaners,” the school said.

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment product safety spokesperson Ian Caplin said he understood how alarming the discovery would be for families.

“We appreciate that the presence of asbestos in products that are used by children will be concerning to parents and caregivers. We urge families who have purchased these products to stop using them immediately, secure them safely, and contact your local council for advice on where and how to dispose of the contaminated material safely,” he said.

“If you are a workplace, where you may have higher volumes of these products or more people may have come in contact with the products, you should contact a licensed asbestos assessor or removalist for immediate advice and support on your specific situation. A list of these is available on the WorkSafe website.”

The contaminated Kmart products include:

• 14-piece Sandcastle Building Set
• Blue Magic Sand
• Green Magic Sand
• Pink Magic Sand

The newly identified products are in addition to the previously recalled sands from Educational Colours and Creatistics:

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealanders are losing six-figure sums to scammers pretending to offer anything from jobs to cryptocurrency investments and technology support.

Financial Services Complaints Ltd, an external dispute resolution service for the financial services sector, said it recently investigated a complaint from a retiree who lost $250,000 to a company falsely claiming to offer cryptocurrency trading services.

He thought he was signing up to an online platform for trading crypto and transferred money from his bank account to a money transfer service.

When the victim thought he was confirming regulatory declarations, he was actually authorising transfers to a financial service provider in the Middle East.

“Scammers use extremely sophisticated methods to recreate legitimate tools, such as websites, or reassure consumers and portray themselves in convincing ways, that can fool even experienced investors,” FSCL’s ombudsman Susan Taylor said.

She said people should check out the intended recipients of money they were transferring, not rush into making payments and be cautious about downloading anything.

Banking Ombudsman Nicola Sladden had a similar message.

She said the percentage of complaints her scheme received about fraud and scams had dropped from 22 percent of its caseload last year to 13 percent this year.

But the average amount being lost in the cases it considered rose from $73,000 to more than $100,000.

In one case it dealt with, a woman who had been having trouble with her internet speed received a call from someone claiming to be a technician ringing to fix it .

That person tricked her into downloading remote access software and asked her to log into her internet banking to test her internet speed.

The scammer then logged in and set up a payment of $14,200. The woman said she was sent an authorisation code for the payment but when she received the text, she hung up the call and shut down her computer.

Her bank would not reimburse her for the loss because it said she did not take reasonable care.

The ombudsman scheme investigated and said many customers would not know that logging into their bank account when someone was working on their computer remotely could disclose their login details.

“We also had reservations about whether [she] had in fact texted the authorisation code and online screen code to the bank.

“[Her] evidence was very clear and consistent on this point: she maintained she did not send a reply text and hung up the phone when she saw the test. The bank did not investigate this point.”

The bank ended up reimbursing the customer.

Sladden said people should stop and think before acting.

“Check you’re actually dealing with the legitimate organisation by contacting it directly using contact details you find yourself, not those provided by the sender – and read any messages from your bank carefully. Report suspicious approaches to help protect others from becoming victims.”

She welcomed amendments to the Code of Banking Practice which will introduce more protection for customers from 30 November, including identification of high-risk transactions, pre-transaction warnings to customers and improved information sharing.

Banks have committed to reimburse eligible customers up to $500,000 for authorised payment scam losses if a bank does not meet those commitments.

“These changes will undoubtedly strengthen consumer protections,” Sladden said.

“But they do not diminish the need to stay alert and take care with your banking, which remains the best way to protect yourself from scams.”

In another case, a woman authorised two payments of $5000 to another bank account as part of what she thought was a legitimate cryptocurrency investment.

The bank thought the payment was suspicious and called her but she said she authorised it.

After another payment a few days later, she called to report the scam.

A scammer then contacted her and tricked her into believing he could help her get her money back.

He told her to accept $4200 into her bank account as part of recovering what she had lost but she was being used as a money mule.

The bank got in touch and told her she had received fraudulent funds, and froze her account.

She was not able to access any money other than her wages until it completed its fraud investigation.

She had recently been made redundant and was living off money her husband put into her account every week.

Four months after reporting the first scam, the bank told her it would not reimburse her initial $10,000 loss and it had taken the $4200 out of her account that had been received fraudulently.

The ombudsman said the bank was not required to reimburse her for the $10,000 and was entitled to reverse the $4200.

But it said the bank did not treat her fairly and reasonably.

It offered her $1200 to compensate for the stress and inconvenience she suffered.

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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 trial of the man accused of murdering a newly-married migrant in Dunedin starts on Monday.

The body of 27-year-old Gurjit Singh was found at his home in Liberton with stab wounds in January last year.

The technician accused of his murder, who is listed in court documents only as Rajinder, will appear on trial in the Dunedin High Court.

He pleaded not guilty in February last year.

The trial of the now 35-year-old is set down for three weeks.

Forensic evidence indicated Singh died from multiple stab wounds by a sharp weapon.

More than $46,000 was donated to support his family on a GiveALittle page, describing Singh as hard working and a “well settled permanent resident of New Zealand” whose new wife was due to arrive into the country in early February in 2024.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Lawyers for a high court judge say her family’s dispute over a bach should be dealt with in private arbitration rather than public court, in part because of her judicial position.

Some of her family members disagree.

Both sides voiced their arguments for and against an arbitration order in the Court of Appeal on Wednesday. The decision was reserved.

Court documents show in 2022 Justice Anne Hinton sold her share of the bach to two of her four sisters – but her other sister, Gillian Gatfield and niece, Emma Pearson (who inherited her mother’s share) argued Hinton had, years earlier, promised to transfer her share to them.

Gatfield and Pearson said Hinton’s sale of her share breached the trust, and took their case to the High Court.

Hinton applied to have it referred to mediation, and if that was unsuccessful, to arbitration. Mediation results in a collaborative settlement, while arbitration relies on an independent arbitrator to make a decision.

Arbitration is common when both parties agree to it – but in this case, Gatfield and Pearson did not want it. When Associate Judge Dale Lester ordered it, they appealed that decision.

Their lawyer, Matanuku Mahuika, told the Court of Appeal Lester’s ruling was “coercive orders”.

Judge wants privacy, family seeks public hearing

Court documents show Hinton wanted arbitration because it was faster and cheaper than going through the courts – and private.

In their submissions to the High Court, her lawyers said some of the allegations against Hinton called her credibility into question.

“It is not in the interests of justice that these credibility issues be assessed by one of the applicant’s work colleagues if the matter is not resolved by mediation.”

They argued any judge hearing Hinton’s case would be put in a difficult position: either risking the perception of favouring a colleague, or ruling against her which would effectively question her credibility.

Hinton’s lawyers also said it was clear that the matters were “intensely personal” so “the proceeding cries out for private rather than public resolution.”

In the Court of Appeal on Wednesday, Justice Francis Cooke said the fact that the respondent was a high court judge was the unavoidable “elephant in the room”.

But Hinton’s lawyer Andrew Butler KC said: “she is a citizen and is entitled in the usual way to draw on the law.”

“It’s a family dispute, judges have families,” he said, adding that there was no reason her case would be treated differently.

Butler said the court’s job was to decide where the dispute was best resolved.

Harry Waalkens, who represented the two sisters Hinton sold to, said his clients had the most at stake, and said the situation was “as acrimonious as it could be”.

Solving it in arbitration was the most pragmatic approach, and there was “no public interest at all” in it being heard in court, he said.

Lawyers for Hinton’s sister, Gillian Gatfield, and niece, Emma Pearson, disagreed.

Matanuku Mahuika said “significant weight” was placed on Hinton’s role as a judge, in her request for arbitration.

“That’s not appropriate, that should not be a ground for going through a private process.”

He urged the judges to be mindful of open justice and warned them against being seen to give preference to a fellow judge.

Granting arbitration risked the appearance of privilege because of her position, Mahuika said.

No precedent for forced arbitration – lawyer

The law gives courts the power to order arbitration.

But Mahuika told the court it needed to be careful in exercising that power when arbitration was opposed, as it was in this case.

Arbitration had never been ordered – as opposed to agreed to – in a trust dispute, said Mahuika.

“There is no precedent.”

Justice Cooke questioned whether it was in everyone’s best interest to have it heard in a confidential setting, but Mahuika said his clients did not want that, and their wishes should be “significant”.

Butler said this sort of acrimonious dispute was “well-suited” to arbitration.

Much of the argument about whether the case should be referred to arbitration centred around the “validity” of the trust.

The concept of validity “is understood to refer to the formal steps of the trust being created,” court documents said.

Arbitration could not be ordered for a dispute about the validity of the trust.

Mahuika said the dispute was about the trust’s validity – but Butler disagreed.

Justice Hinton

Hinton became a High Court judge in 2015, and when she retired in 2023 she took up a part-time role as an acting High Court judge.

She was appointed as a full-time acting Court of Appeal judge from July 2024 until June 2025.

The Ministry of Justice said she had not been sitting on hearings since then, but the final judgement she was part of is expected to be delivered 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

Six weeks after a father and son were murdered in a house fire, the family have spoken for the first time about what happened that night, revealing the heroic actions of a father who died trying to save his youngest son and the devastating impact their deaths have had. National crime correspondent Sam Sherwood reports.

Yea Seul Park was at home in Jakarta when she received a message from her younger sister who lived in Auckland with her husband Jung Sup Lee, and their two sons, a 13-year-old and 11-year-old Ha-il.

“There was a fire in the house last night,” the message began.

“Only [her eldest son] and I managed to escape outside, Ha-il and Jung Sup couldn’t get out.”

Park screamed and cried as she read it, almost fainting.

She then took the first flight she could to New Zealand, having to fly first to Perth and then to Auckland.

Once she arrived she went straight to the hospital to visit them. At first she felt relief seeing her sister and eldest nephew.

“But I was still looking for my brother-in-law and Ha-il just hoping there was a possibility they could’ve survived, that they were mistaken or I got the message wrong.”

‘He’s our hero’

It was about 2.30am on 2 October when emergency services were called to the family’s home on Murvale Dr, Bucklands Beach.

The family lived on the second floor of the home and had a boarder downstairs.

Park says her sister was woken to the house being on fire. She tried to save as many people as she could. But she says the fire was already too big and she had to get out of the house.

“Jung Sup threw himself into the flames to save his son when the fire started. That was the last moment my sister saw him.

“He must have known he could die, but he still ran into that huge fire to save his youngest boy. He’s our hero, and honestly the best father anyone could imagine.”

The couple’s 13-year-old son used his fist to break a window and then jumped from the second floor roof to escape, Park said.

Park said at first the family thought the fire must’ve been an accident. When she visited the home her views changed.

“It was really strange because the second floor was like absolutely blown up but the downstairs was like nothing happened”.

Six days after the blaze Detective Inspector Tofilau Faamanuia Va’aelua held a press conference to announce police had launched a homicide investigation, dubbed Operation Town.

“Our investigations have led us to now confirm that the fire was intentional, and this is now a double homicide.

“Fire investigators have confirmed accelerant has been found at the scene.”

Park said the family was “shocked” when they heard police believed the fire had been deliberately lit.

“We were speechless. We were like, ‘oh my god’.”

A 38-year-old man was arrested by police on 24 October, charged with murdering the father and son.

He appeared in the High Court at Auckland on Wednesday where he entered not guilty pleas through his lawyer, David Hoskin. He was assisted by a Korean interpreter.

Hoskin asked for the man to be given temporary name suppression until Monday, 17 November at 11.59pm, which was granted by Justice Mathew Downs.

Hoskins said the man’s wife and young children would return to Korea before he was publicly named, and the suppression would prevent them suffering hardship.

Justice Downs said the man would be remanded in custody until his February 2027 trial, unless granted bail.

Park said she was “angry” the man had name suppression.

‘We can’t even talk about this’

Park says Jung Sup Lee migrated to New Zealand with his family when he was young and met his wife while they were both studying at different universities.

She described Lee as a “very calm” man who never got angry or raised his voice at anyone.

Ha-il was a “lovely boy” who loved his sport and would always compliment his aunt.

Six weeks on, Park says the family continues to struggle with what has happened.

“We can’t even talk about this at home, we try to avoid this conversation as much as we can.”

She says her eldest nephew doesn’t talk much these days.

Park is now living with her sister and nephew, doing her best to support them.

“We’ve been through a very fast process and also a very extreme process, and now we just got the new place, and it’s like we just start grieving, and now it’s really hard, coping that they’re not here anymore.

“We’re just trying to, like, process, you know, one thing at a time, like one day at a time … you just get through this day and the next day and then the next day.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

In the more than four years since exotic caulerpa was first discovered in New Zealand waters, it has been a time of uncertainty and frustration for some living in affected areas.

Caulerpa is an algae that blankets the sea floor, smothering everything from kelp to shell fish.

Nicola MacDonald is chief executive of the Ngati Manuhiri settlement trust. The iwi’s territory includes Kawau island and Little Barrier Island, two of the 11 areas where the seaweed pest is present.

“When caulerpa first got here, government really struggled with how to address caulerpa and take real proactive action, and we saw what happened at Great Barrier Island. It went from 60 hectares to now it’s well and truly over 2000 hectares. So that’s an absolute indication of how we take it seriously. And government isn’t taking it as seriously as they need to.”

Ngati Manuhiri recently produced a short film highlighting the concerns of iwi from the Hauraki gulf and Coromandel to the Bay of Islands.

“We certainly don’t want to leave the Hauraki Gulf in a much worse state for our mokopuna, our grandchildren and our children that inherit from us. So for all of those iwi that have been battling the invasive species such as caulerpa, that has been the single uniting moment”

A national caulerpa strategy was recently sent to Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard.

“My understanding is that he was taking it through to Cabinet and there may be further budget, well there will have to be, further budget in order to deliver on those milestones that the strategy recommends,” said MacDonald.

MPI director of readiness and response John Walsh said $25 million was spent before this year on the fight against caulerpa.

“I think we’re actually in quite a good place through some good planning and some good management and also some good luck.”

The good luck came in the form of significant caulerpa dieback in some of the sites that NIWA monitors – including Great Barrier island and Omakiwi cove in the Bay of Islands.

But he said there had been no consistent pattern to why caulerpa had retreated in some of the sites. “It’s a bit of a mystery, we’ll still be continuing to examine it this year.”

There was also no guarantee the dieback will continue.

“This summer will be very telling,” Walsh said. “The waters are starting to warm up already. Warm waters mean more growth, unfortunately.”

Chlorine, UV-C light technologies trialled

New technologies are being developed in the fight against caulerpa.

Brook McRae runs Commercial Dive Specialists and has a background in biosecurity. His company expanded on an technique where mats treated with chlorine were used to kill caulerpa.

They did away with the mats, creating a submersible chamber , known as a ‘rehabitat’ chamber, that can be moved along the sea floor. Chlorine is pumped into the chamber, and once treatment is complete is removed, making sure no chlorine escapes into the sea.

“They’re actually just like an inflatable bouncy castle. But they’re inflated with water, and that allows them to contour to the shape of the seabed,” McRae said.

The chambers have proven effective in killing caulerpa, but signoff is needed before the ‘rehabitat’ enclosure can put higher levels of chlorine into action

Another tool to tackle caulerpa is being developed by Craig Thorburn of Advanced Aquarium technologies. His team is using UV-C light to treat caulerpa.

“I ended up talking to a chap in the USA, John Pelluccio, in Lake Tahoe. He was using UVC light to manage freshwater plants in Lake Tahoe. So that kind of set us on that journey of looking at is there an application here? No one had tried it in salt water. No one had tried it with a plant like caulerpa.”

Tests run with the University of Auckland showed UV-C light was effective in killing caulerpa, but then came the complex task of developing a vehicle that could operate on the sea floor.

“We like to think of it, it’s still a bit of a Model T Ford. The frame of it and its workings are still off our original prototypes. We’re building another unit in China at the moment that is another step towards something that would be a production model.”

Both McCrae and Thorburn’s projects have received government funding.

After bringing Californian experts to New Zealand in 2023, Ngati Manuhiri continue to look offshore for solutions.

“Having recently attended Aqua Nor in Norway, I saw a lot of technology that I think could be applied in New Zealand,” said MacDonald.

“Those are some of the conversations that I’ve had with Biosecurity New Zealand, that there’s some tech overseas that I think we need to bring here and we really need to get on the job of getting rid of this stuff”

But whether caulerpa can be eliminated completely remained unknown.

“I think the chances of managing it, particularly in our anchorages and our open sandy shellfish habitats are quite high”, said Thorburn.

“I think there’s a range of tools now that are available and they’re not well practised by any means, but they exist and the knowledge exists to say yes, that could be tackled in response and we didn’t have any of those possibilities, three or four years ago. We really would love to acknowledge that incredible leadership shown by iwi and local communities in tackling exotic caulerpa and from my experience, right from the very, very start, iwi have been right at the heart of this response”

And with summer beckoning, the message to boaties from MPI remains unchanged.

“If you’re in the top of the North Island, if you pull up seaweed on your gear, on your anchor, on your fishing gear, no matter what it is, no matter where you are, it’s really good practice to get into the habit of storing it safely on your boat, in a bag, in a bin, in a bucket, taking it ashore and disposing of it safely,’ said Walsh.

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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 search for the body of a third child caught in a deadly house fire in Sanson is to resume this morning.

Four people died in the fire on Saturday afternoon.

The bodies of two children were recovered on Sunday night and were blessed by the family with karakia.

The body of the adult was removed earlier.

Police said their focus today will be on finding the third child.

By 6am, just under $95,000 had been raised for the mother of the children through a Givealittle page.

The page described the fire as a “devastating loss beyond measure” and their goal was to provide the family with the “space and security needed to grieve in solitude”.

“In the midst of this unimaginable grief, she also lost her home and everything she owned. She is facing the hardest journey possible, stripped of her physical security, while navigating the deepest emotional pain.”

Neighbour describes seeing the fire as it happened

A neighbour told RNZ he was working at his home on Saturday, when someone noticed smoke from the nearby property.

“We all came out to have a look and we saw a horrific amount of smoke coming from about 300 metres away, where the neighbour’s house is – pretty thick black billowing smoke.

“It was a very, very windy day and we knew it wasn’t any kind of controlled fire. We knew it was some sort of what we considered to be a house fire at that stage.”

He said, over an hour, many firefighters turned up, attempting to put the blaze out.

An hour after it started, the blaze and billowing smoke was still visible. He believed it took two hours for firefighters to put the fire out.

“They were still dousing it down and there was just very slight wisps of smoke coming from the property two hours after it started.”

He said State Highway One near the property did not open until 8pm Saturday.

The neighbour said that, during the fire, he was “pretty shocked” at what was happening before his eyes.

“Nothing we could do about it and just a feeling of kind of despair, I guess just watching what was going on.

“Knowing that a young family was potentially losing everything they owned and knowing that is going to be a very, very hard place to come back from.

“Just the thought of not knowing whether everybody was alright or not, and subsequent to that we found out, that isn’t the case, which has made things 10 times worse.”

Police are not looking for anyone else in relation to the fire.

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