Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

Renewables advocates claim it’s “madness” that thousands of new piped gas connections are being installed into houses every year, despite dwindling supply.

Organisations pushing for the country to electrify say households will face steeply rising bills in the short term and huge costs when they eventually need to switch.

They say the country’s declining natural gas supply should be saved as much as possible for manufacturers and other businesses, who are facing a costly and disorderly transition away from fossil fuels.

One advocate says, instead of banning new connections, an education campaign combined with a proposed financing scheme to help households switch to electric would be a better choice.

Data from the gas registry shows the overall number of ‘active’ gas connections has dropped and the rate of new connections has slowed.

However, new connections are still proceeding – more than 2000 were added in the last year, at a rate of nearly 200 a month.

Electrification non-profit Rewiring Aotearoa estimated another 300,000 households may use liquid petroleum gas (LPG) bottles for some form of cooking or heating.

No public data existed on the number of households using LPG, but the overall volume of LPG powering household cooking appliances, gas water heaters and heating went up nine percent between 2017-23, the most recent year of data.

The largest gas retailer in the country, Genesis, stopped accepting new piped connections last year.

But some retailers still offered gas-only connections, and Auckland network owner and distributor Vector said it would still allow new connections, if customers paid the full commissioning cost – usually about $2000.

The company, which had 120,000 residential connections on its gas network, forecasted earlier this month that it would have no new customers from 2029.

However, chief public policy and regulatory officer Mark Toner said it was “important to maintain that customer choice”.

“Some of the research shows that people really love infinity hot water, never-ending hot water,” he said. “They love cooking with gas hobs.”

Toner said he used gas at home himself and had recently replaced a gas hotwater heater with another one.

He acknowledged the long-term future of gas in New Zealand was “highly uncertain”, but customers could continue to have confidence in supply for now.

“There has been a lot of commentary about the state of natural gas in New Zealand,” he said. “There is no prospect of residential customers running out of gas any time soon.”

Green Building Council chief executive Andrew Eagles said the fact that new connections were still going in – even if that number was declining – was “absolute madness”.

The council published a report earlier this year looking at how much natural gas and LPG could be saved for industrial processes, if gas heating in homes and buildings were replaced with electric heat pumps.

“The amount that we need for manufacturing and industry is exactly the amount that homes and buildings will be using in 2035,” Eagles said.

“You’ve got firms that are closing or firing people, and down the road, you’ve got people connecting new gas, when it’s going to be significantly cheaper for that household to electrify their home.”

Retail gas prices had increased markedly and there was no indication that would change, he said.

Rewiring Aotearoa chief executive Mike Casey said that message was not filtering through to many homeowners.

“It’s preference, plus a very serious lack of knowledge around the energy future for this country.”

Similarly, developers were encouraged to build and sell houses as cheaply as possible at the moment, he said.

“Avoiding any form of capex cost is a way to do that, so installing a $2000 gas califont, instead of an $8000 hot water heat pump matches what they’re incentivised to do, which is to sell turn-key solution houses at the cheapest price possible.”

All that did, he said, was “shift the economic burden onto the person who will live in that household”.

People love gas, but it was unhealthy, increasingly expensive and the arguments for it no longer held up, Casey said.

“They talk about instant and infinite hot water, but hotwater heat pumps can provide that same outcome now electrically.

“People say they love cooking with gas, but I think anyone who moves to induction likes induction more.”

Homeowner who wants out

When Pip Gay, 71, and her husband moved into their house in Auckland 26 years ago, the water heating, heaters, oven and stove were all gas.

Over time, as appliances have reached the end of their lives, they’ve switched almost everything to electric – except the gas hobs on a large kitchen range.

“That is wildly inefficient and uneconomic, because of the monthly line charge and the tiny amount of gas we use.”

Just having the connection now costs more than $70 a month, while the gas itself is only about $3.

Gay said she’d be very happy to eliminate gas altogether.

“It’s terrible pumping that gas out from where it’s quite happy under the sea and piping it all the way up the country, and forcing it into our houses and then burning it – it’s a bit bizarre, really.”

The upfront cost of replacing the range – which she loved – was prohibitive.

“If a young family bought this house, it’s probably the first thing they’d do, because they’d hopefully be looking at staying here for a good long spell, just like we have – but I don’t feel like doing it at the end of our run.”

The same reasoning had also put them off installing solar panels – another thing they would have liked to do.

“I wish we’d done it five years ago.”

Her example illustrated the plight of many households who could see the benefit of switching to electric or installing solar, but either could not afford the upfront cost or were running out of runway to make it worth it, Casey said.

The cost of decommissioning gas, once it was connected, could become a further disincentive.

“You often hear stories of people being charged $2000 for a disconnection, but that involves digging up all the pipes,” he said. “It should be no more than the labour cost of getting the guy around to cap the pipe.”

Toner confirmed a current charge of $2500 for full decommissioning, but said capping the pipe was also an option, at a cost of a few hundred dollars.

“If you’re doing works on property and earthworks in particular, you would want a full disconnection at the street to make the site safe,” he said. “If you’ve simply replaced an appliance in your house, it would be a very sensible option just to cap and remove the meter.”

‘Running out of gas’

Earlier this year, the government rolled back the previous ban on new oil and gas exploration, and set aside $200 million as a ‘co-investment’ to encourage development of new fields, recently extending that to include new drilling in existing fields.

It was also exploring options to import liquified natural gas (LNG) as a back-up option in the meantime – a move that has been widely criticised as expensive and inefficient.

Gentailer Genesis, which has a 46 percent share in the Kupe field, stopped accepting new household gas connections last year.

Chief revenue officer Stephen England-Hall said the decision was made “once the national gas supply began to decline faster than was expected”.

“The thought then was, how do we prioritise existing customers on the gas network and also electricity generation, and not necessarily prioritise new connections to an infrastructure that is clearly going to come under stress?”

While the decision was partly driven by economics, it was also “better for the environment and everybody”, England-Hall said.

“One of the things we’re very focused on is how do we help customers electrify as much of their lifestyle as they can? Fundamentally, electricity is a very, very efficient and very cost-effective type of energy.”

Even so, Genesis had not ruled out accepting new customers again, if future supply became more certain – but the data “continues to show signs of decline”, he said.

“We’re not seeing any major new finds occurring and we’re not seeing major new drilling investment occurring that would give us confidence that there’s going to suddenly be a big supply of new gas in the New Zealand market.”

Importing LNG was “technically viable”, he said. “What we are very interested in around that discussion is at what cost?”

Eagles described the search for new gas as “a strategy of hope”.

“[Companies] have spent billions of dollars searching and the massive amount of territory they’ve still been able to search over the last 20 years has not found anything,” he said. “We are running out of gas.”

Alternatives like biogas offered false hope, because it was still mostly fossil gas, he said.

Financing transition

Even if new natural gas was found, it would take 12-14 years to bring online – time and money that Eagles said would be better spent electrifying the country.

“If you look at the state of Victoria in Australia, they’ve said all new builds will be all-electric… and at end-of-life for existing homes, you need to move to electric systems.”

More than 60,000 households had taken up hotwater heat pump support packages in Victoria, since the policy was introduced in 2024.

Similar policies were needed here, he said.

“The poor and people who can’t move are going to be stuck with unhealthy, massively rising costs on a network that has less and less people.”

Energy Minister Simon Watts said there was “not a clear case for further subsidies at this time in the residential gas market”.

The Warmer Kiwi Homes programme had provided subsidies for heat pumps for many years, he said.

“In addition, most major banks in New Zealand provide low-rate loans for households who are installing renewable energy or switching their appliances to more energy-efficient options.”

There was no need to intervene in the residential gas market to “limit consumer choice”, Watts said.

“With new builds, data shows the rate of new connections has been declining and I understand that only one gas retailer is offering new connections where existing infrastructure is not in place.”

Ending gas connections for existing homes would impose extra costs for households, and the government had “a clear plan” to improve gas supply through encouraging exploration and procuring an LNG import facility.

Casey said simply banning new gas connections was likely to create “an allergic reaction”.

“We saw it happen in America, when the Biden administration… tried to ban gas cooktops and you literally had celebrity chefs handcuffing themselves to their stovetops, saying ‘Over my dead body’.

Finance was the solution, but the switch could happen without subsidies, Casey said.

His organisation supported a Local Government New Zealand business case to develop a ratepayers’ assistance scheme, funded by capital raised by councils.

The scheme would offer long-term, flexible loans to anyone who wanted to make renewable upgrades to their property.

“Most New Zealanders can’t access [bank] loans – pensioners, renters, and also those who are struggling to make ends meet and struggling to pay off the mortgage.”

The scheme would fund electric appliances like heat pumps and hot water heat pumps, switchboard upgrades where needed, solar panels and batteries, Casey said.

Crucially, it would allow homeowners to transfer the remaining portion of the loan when they sold their house – making it a viable option for anyone who might not plan to stay in a property long term.

Watts gave tentative support to the idea earlier this year, and said Local Government New Zealand and the Local Government Funding Agency were currently revising the business case.

“I understand they have taken a few additional months to get it right and are ready to present it to me shortly.”

Once he received it, he would consider it alongside official advice and expected to make decisions in the new year.

“I endorse the efforts made to bring relief to ratepayers, but I will be looking at the proposal closely to understand the mechanics and viability, before sharing any further views.”

Casey said it was positive that the numbers showed people starting to leave the gas network of their own accord, but not all households were in a position to make that choice.

“If we don’t plan for a decommissioning of the gas network, then it’s going to be a chaotic transition, where vulnerable New Zealanders really suffer.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

MetService is predicting a chilly Christmas Day as the current cold snap continues.

The forecaster says a southwesterly air mass is responsible for cooler than average temperatures for most of the country.

Head of weather Heather Keats told Morning Report although temperatures were expected to rebound early next week, the pattern of periodic cool weather was likely to be prolonged.

“It’s not looking great for Christmas Day for much of the country.”

She said there was still some lee-way in the forecast a week out from Christmas but as the day approaches, the models will start to align with greater confidence and accuracy.

Keats said at this stage, a high pressure with warmer temperatures was expected in the lead-up to the New Year.

“Which is kind of what we see every year.

“If it’s a little bit rubbish on Christmas Day it tends to be much better for New Year’s Eve and vice versa depending on your location.

“So you are going to get lots of fine weather and it looks like there’ll be some warmer days coming too after Christmas.

“But whether we’re still locked in to that … southwesterly flow, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police say two people have reportedly suffered injuries after a gun was fired in the Southland town of Gore.

Emergency services were alerted to the incident near Aparima Street shortly before 8pm on Wednesday.

St John said it dispatched multiple ambulances and two helicopters to the scene, but police said the injuries were not thought to be life threatening.

A cordon is in place and police are asking the public to avoid the area.

They said they did not believe there was any further risk to the community.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

An Auckland duty lawyer says he and some of his colleagues will not work for a full week next month, as they battle poor pay and working conditions.

Duty lawyers are paid by the Justice Ministry to give free legal advice to those appearing in court who could not afford a lawyer.

Dennis Ansley has been a duty lawyer for over 38 years in Auckland.

For the last three years, Ansley said he had been pushing the government for a better hourly pay rate.

“It’s very low,” he said.

“It’s about a fifth of what I could charge if I was charging in private practice.”

Ansley said duty lawyers could be getting paid twice what they were currently, if their pay was adjusted for inflation over the past 25 years.

“Out of frustration, what we’re doing next month is we’re taking industrial action, we’re not making ourselves available for duty for one whole week in January,” he said.

He said he had support from at least 75 percent of his colleagues at Auckland, as well as support from other parts of the country like Christchurch, Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay.

“What we’re trying to do is give the government a message that if you don’t come to the party and talk to us, and try to make our job conditions better and our pay rate better, we’re going to show you how important we are and how vital our work is.”

Ansley said it would be chaotic for the courts if they stopped working.

At Auckland District Court alone, duty lawyers helped 60-80 people a day, according to Ansley.

He was hopeful the action would spark change.

“By doing nothing, we’re not going to get anywhere,” he said.

“Most of us are fed up, we’re doing this important job but not getting recognised properly for it.

“By not having a majority of duty lawyers being available for a whole week, it’s going to create a real shortage of people on the ground, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, they’ll probably have to put cases off, they may have to just concentrate on the overnight arrests and maybe do very little.”

Ansley said he had spoken to a number of judges who were supportive of the action.

“They know how vital we are to the running of the court,” he said.

Ansley said many of the people coming through the courts had mental health issues, and it had grown worse over the years.

“Pretty much every second person we deal with has mental health issues,” Ansley said.

He said that had made their job more difficult, and seen the number of both physical and verbal assaults increase “astronomically”.

“To get abused on the job is not pleasant,” he said.

“When you’re sworn at on a regular basis, and all you’re doing is your job and you’re trying to help someone, it’s pretty difficult to deal with at times.”

Ansley said he had been threatened and another colleague had been assaulted while on the job.

The condition of the building itself was an issue.

“It’s a very old court, we’ve had flooding issues, we’ve had black mould as well in the custody area where we work, we’ve got problems with the air-conditioning, so during the summer time sometimes the heat is unbearable.”

Ministry of Justice national service delivery group manager Tracey Baguley said it was aware of the planned industrial action.

She said it recognised the role duty lawyers played in ensuring access to justice for those appearing without representation.

“The Ministry’s priority is to maintain continuity of service for court users during this period and are actively working through options to ensure there is limited disruption, if any,” she said.

“The Legal Aid Triennial review includes a review of remuneration across the legal aid scheme, including proposals related to the duty lawyer service that were outlined in the discussion document. The proposals are currently with the Minister for consideration.”

A spokesperson from Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith’s office said he was being kept updated on the situation.

At Auckland District Court, RNZ spoke with those who had just seen the duty lawyer.

One man said turning up to court alone could be daunting, but that the duty lawyer staff were helpful. Another also commented on the good level of service provided.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Firefighters begged police for a helicopter to help rescue a teenage girl from a Coromandel cliff face, but police refused because they mistakenly thought the girl was dead.

The 13-year-old had seen her friend fall past her to his death on rocks below, just before 8pm at Hahei beach on 11 January this year.

A Fire and Emergency (FENZ) cliffs rescue team drove from Hamilton and lowered her down to safety at midnight.

A FENZ call log and emails from the night – obtained by RNZ – reveal police refused a chopper “because of the cost”.

Police this week said if they had “asked the necessary questions” they would have categorised it differently.

“Unfortunately, police incorrectly concluded the child had died, and it was therefore appropriate to dispatch the ropes team via road transport, rather than helicopter,” police said.

“Police unreservedly apologise to the young person and their family.”

The FENZ emails expressed distress and frustration on the night, but also referred to recurring problems getting air ambulance helicopters (AAH) to transport their lines rescue teams.

“Had the crew been deployed via helicopter, their flight time would likely have been less than 45 minutes rather than the 1 hour 40-minute drive,” the communications shift manager emailed.

“This is a further instance where we have been delayed in reaching the scene of a rescue due to police not approving AAH to transport our crews,” FENZ head of specialist response Aaron Waterreus told his national bosses shortly after the rescue.

A line from the fire-fighters’ call-log, just before 10pm, showed Hahei volunteer fire-fighters had asked where the cliff rescue team was, and Hamilton acting group manager Matt Leonard explained “police wont [sic] approve helo response because of the cost – asked if FENZ can foot the bill for it”.

Only police could authorise an air ambulance and “FENZ has no ability to authorise the tasking”, another email said.

FENZ, police and St John would not address RNZ’s questions about whether there was a wider problem with air ambulance or lines rescue responses, and if that had been fixed.

‘She was perched there’

A coroner’s findings showed the two teenagers had arrived at Hahei earlier on 11 January with her family. Their identities are suppressed

They went off together about 7pm. The girl’s father told police they had not discussed climbing.

Up on the rocks, the girl became worried and told the boy she could not climb back down, so they pressed on towards the top. When she looked down, the boy fell past her from a height of 15-20m.

She shouted for help from 10-15m up, and a bystander called for assistance. Hahei volunteer fire-fighters, a St John ambulance and a chopper with a winch from Ardmore went to the scene.

The FENZ call-log showed that at one point the responders said: “Just asking if Westpac helo could do it.”

But RNZ was later told: “She was perched there – they were worried the rotor wash would blow her off.”

Police in their statement this week said something similar: “Responders from Hato Hone St John and FENZ requested a ropes team be dispatched by helicopter to help rescue a second young person perched on the cliff face.”

But they had wrongly concluded this person was dead.

‘Incredibly sad and frustrating’

Leonard emailed his bosses within hours of the rescue, saying: “The young girl remained stuck on the cliff face for many hours after watching what had happened and it took many hours after the fall to successfully rescue her by our lines team who had to travel over 2 hours via ute.

“My concerns raised many months ago were sadly proven true and ironically while I was on call as the duty exec we had the incredibly sad and frustrating decline of approval by police to deliver my lines team asap to the scene to perform the rescue of the stricken young lady.”

About an hour after the girl was rescued, FENZ’s communications centre shift manager had emailed Leonard, saying: “It was deeply distressing for everyone to be told that we could not deploy a helicopter to assist a 13-year-old girl stranded on the side of a cliff in the dark, after witnessing the tragic death of her 12-year-old boyfriend.” The coroner reported the boy was 13.

‘A second young person perched on the cliff face’

Acting Waikato police district commander acting Superintendent Will Loughrin told RNZ this week that police had taken steps to address “a lack of sufficient information-gathering, which meant appropriate priority was not given by police to the rescue in Hahei”.

They were alerted at 8.11pm on that January night that FENZ and Hato Hone St John were responding to reports of “a child falling from rocks”.

FENZ then asked police for a helicopter to pick up its lines team to help rescue the second person.

“Had police asked the necessary questions, the matter would have been categorised differently, and specific Police Search and Rescue staff would likely have been dispatched to help co-ordinate the rescue,” Loughrin said.

“Waikato police have been reminded of the appropriate process around the authorisation of such resources, including asking the appropriate questions to determine the full circumstances.”

There was no reference to any wider problem.

Police did not agree to an interview.

They later added they had spoken to the family, “who have reassured us that people at the scene on the night were in continual communication with their child until the rescue was completed”.

“To that end, the family say they are satisfied with the rescue effort.”

Hoping for a ‘heli’

The call-log from 11 January showed the Hahei volunteer fire crew got to the cliff at 8.25pm and called in to say “13 year old girl trapped up the cliff line rescue reqd”.

(The call log is all in capitals, abbreviated and lacks grammar; it is edited here for clarity.)

The four-man lines rescue team left Hamilton in a ute just before 9pm. RNZ was told they were worried they would wait, but not get a chopper.

At 9.13pm, FENZ asked police: “Can your SAR [Search and Rescue] please approve Westpac heli to transport our level 3 lines crew to this incident? Have liaised with ambulance and confirmed heli available…

“They can pick up the crew from the side of the road somewhere.”

At 9.26pm, Hahei volunteers said: “Got a K41-1 [K41 indicates death] and still have person on side of cliff still waiting on lines rescue.”

At 9.50pm, they learned police had declined a chopper.

A few minutes later, in the ute on State Highway 25A winding up through the Coromandel range, the team called to say it was “likely too late for heli now”.

They made it to Hahei at 10.31pm and 36 minutes later were “preparing to rescue the young girl”.

They had to move in the dark through the bush above, taking huge care not to dislodge any rocks, before going down on ropes about 100m to her. A volunteer crew from Tairua with less advanced lines rescue skills got there a bit earlier, but had not got to her.

The log at 11.59pm recorded her finally down on the beach.

How this has come to light

The Hahei mistake has come to light after RNZ inquiries into a separate callout of a lines rescue team last week north of Auckland at Arkles Bay. Records show police told the FENZ team not to deploy until they gave the go ahead.

FENZ did not address questions about this.

In a one-line statement about Hahei, it said: “We have reaffirmed with New Zealand Police that, as lead agency for search and rescue, police are responsible for requesting our assistance and for coordinating rescue efforts.”

St John told RNZ its people “routinely engage with our search and rescue partners to ensure all processes are working effectively”.

St John operations head Doug Gallagher told RNZ in a statement their team at Hahei “discovered there was a second child trapped on the cliff, uninjured”.

“Police requested Fire and Emergency New Zealand respond with a specialist lines rescue team.”

FENZ then asked for a chopper “to expedite the transport of the lines rescue team and equipment which was responding from the Waikato area”.

The call-log showed this happened somewhere between about 8.30pm and 9pm.

“Under the agreed process, this request was passed to police, as the lead agency, who declined the request,” said Gallagher. He did not give a reason.

‘Stark example of the difficulties we encounter’

The FENZ emails from the night of the rescue referred to St John making a procedural change so that it no longer approved air ambulances, but required approval from the police’s national SAR co-ordinator.

A FENZ manager wrote that the Hahei call-log appeared to show police “declined at 2150hrs citing cost”.

A firefighter close to the rescue team told RNZ that shift managers were “hounding” police, to the point the team said “we are leaving by road because this is taking far too long”.

The emails showed the communications shift manager telling Matt Leonard this was just as well.

“Had they not made that decision, the delay in response would have been even more significant,” wrote the manager, who RNZ is not naming.

“I have struggled to find the right words to convey the frustration and urgency of this matter. We have encountered these same issues repeatedly, and I’ve attached previous communications regarding lines rescue responses for reference.”

She said the police dispatchers – and those from ambulance, the airdesk and FENZ – had tried their best. But the police late shift had only just come on and “SAR had not been notified because this was not considered a SAR incident”.

“We were left waiting for their approval for actions they were not briefed on …

“Tonight’s incident is a stark example of the difficulties we encounter due to procedural gaps and miscommunications.”

The shift manager added: “The emotional toll on the team is intensified by the fact that this issue has remained unaddressed for such a long period of time.”

The police and FENZ communications teams for Hahei were on the same floor of an Auckland building.

‘Powerless’

Matt Leonard in Hamilton said in his email that he had heard from an experienced lines rescuer who had been on holiday at Hahei and helped out, who told him: “If this wasn’t a case for helicopter assistance, I don’t know what is.”

Leonard told Waterreus they had tried to pre-empt such a thing happening, but been left feeling “powerless”.

FENZ in Waikato had spent hours with helicopter providers and changed local policies to try to pre-empt “significant delays” getting air ambulance choppers.

“I have also made countless phone calls to Airdesk and Firecom trying to understand and predict possible issues that may arise.”

There must be a review “so when we are called upon to rescue and save lives, it isn’t delayed and declined by others out of our organisation due what is perceived to be cost”, wrote Leonard.

Waterreus emailed FENZ’s national manager of response capability Ken Cooper, saying air ambulances were essential because most other helicopters FENZ could access could not fly at night or in bad weather.

“Are we able to reach agreement with the police that if we use an AAH for a rescue, then we will pay for it, as cost seems to be the reason our requests get declined,” he asked.

Asked about this, FENZ on Wednesday told RNZ: “We meet with New Zealand Police on a regular basis to discuss how we work together.”

TIMELINE

• January 11, 2025, 8.04pm – St John alerted to a teenager falling on to rocks at Hahei
• 8.25pm – Hahei volunteer fire crew gets there and reports the girl is trapped and they need lines rescue
• 8.43pm – St John tell Hamilton lines rescue a helicopter may be available ‘soon’
• 8.51pm – Team leaves by ute from Hamilton
• 9.26pm – Hahei crew called to say, “Got a K41-1 [K41 indicates death] and still have person on side of cliff still waiting on lines rescue”, but no approval from police SAR yet
• 9.37pm – Hamilton team suggests a chopper could pick them up near Thames
• 9.50pm – Team learns police have turned down a chopper
• 10.31pm – Lines rescue gets to cliff
• 11.59pm – “Patient is now safely on the ground rescued”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Prison staff’s failure to answer an emergency call from a cell intercom and a subsequent delay in starting CPR potentially contributed to the death of a Christchurch inmate, a coroner has ruled.

The 67-year-old man, whose name was suppressed by a court, died of heart disease at Christchurch Men’s Prison in Templeton in 2022.

When his cellmate woke to find him gasping for air he tried to raise the alarm but the emergency intercom call went unanswered.

In findings released on Thursday, Coroner Dan Moore said there had not been an adequate explanation as to why no-one responded to the call.

“In my assessment, the intercom going unanswered at the time of (the man’s) death is a significant failure on the part of Corrections,” he said.

“In-cell intercoms exist for precisely this kind of situation. Due to their confinement, it is the only means by which prisoners can raise alarm in an emergency. It should be expected that prison staff are alert and respond to calls in a timely manner.”

The report said there was a gap of approximately 18 minutes between the man’s call for help via the intercom and the start of CPR.

“Though it is not possible to say for certain whether (the man) would have survived had the intercom been answered immediately, I am satisfied that this delay has potentially contributed to (his) death,” the coroner said.

When the man arrived in prison in June 2022 he was assessed by a nurse and found to have hypertension, along with other health issues.

His cellmate said the man would often wake him at night when he was having difficulty breathing.

The man was assessed several times by a prison nurse and had submitted two complaints about a lack of medical treatment by hospital staff.

The man and his cellmate were in the Kauri Wing, which was not staffed overnight, although prison officers did several visual checks of each cell, the last of which was at 5.30am.

The cells were fitted with intercoms for emergencies, connecting to “control rooms”.

On the morning of the man’s death in July, the cellmate woke to find him gasping on a shelf he had climbed on to get closer to the window for fresh air.

The cellmate used the emergency intercom to try to contact staff at 6.39am but the call went unanswered.

The man then fell from the shelf to his bed and continued gasping for air, before his breathing slowed and eventually stopped.

His cellmate started banging on the door to try to get the attention of prison staff.

At 6.52 am, an officer came into the wing and heard prisoners yelling. She went to the cell and saw that the man had collapsed on his bed.

The officer then left to get help because of a policy that at least five staff members must be present before opening a double-bunk cell.

Attempts were made to revive the man, but he was pronounded dead at 7.21am.

Similar jail cell death

Coroner Moore was critical that changes had not been not made after a similar death five years earlier at Mt Eden prison.

In 2017, Tuan Anh Nguyen’s cellmate tried to get help using a call bell that went unanswered for 1.5 hours.

At the time, the coroner recommended changes to ensure emergency calls did not go unanswered.

Coroner Moore said Corrections had updated part of its prison operations manual on in-cell alarms since the man’s death in 2022.

“Had those changes been in place and complied with in (the man’s) case, it is likely that there would have been a more rapid response from prison staff. It is not possible to say for certain whether this would have prevented his death, but it may have increased his chances of survival,” he said.

In a statement provided to RNZ, one of the man’s children said no-one shouold be denied their basic human rights while in custody, regardless of their crimes.

“The emotional impact of his death has been devastating. We are a large whānau, and the effects have rippled across four generations – our children and grandchildren included. This loss, and the circumstances surrounding it, has caused profound and ongoing distress,” they said.

They said their father had been denied the right to be treated with humanity, diginity and respect.

The family’s grief had been compounded by the lack of communication and accountability from Corrections and the lack of an apology, they said.

“We were not informed appropriately – we learned of our father’s death through another inmate before police contacted us. This failure alone has had a lasting impact on our whānau.”

They said they were deeply concerned lessons did not appear to have been learnt after the death of Nguyen and much of what the family learnt about their father’s final days came from his traumatised cellmate.

“He described repeated breathing difficulties over several days, escalating distress and unanswered calls for help on the morning our father collapsed,” they said.

The family member said the coroner’s findings confirmed their belief there was a serious failure of care and they were not reassured it could not happen again.

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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 leading epidemiologist says a plan to ditch an online tool tracking respiratory illness is short-sighted, and will leave a big gap in surveillance.

The Ministry of Health is not renewing its contract for the FluTracking tool, as it looks to cut costs.

FluTracking New Zealand surveyed about 40,000 people year-round, who were asked weekly whether they had any flu-like symptoms, such as fever, cough or sore throat, along with their testing and vaccination status.

It kept track of illnesses such as Influenza, Covid-19 and RSV and more than 142,000 people had participated in New Zealand since May 2018.

FluTracking was administered in Australia and cost the ministry about $57,000 a year.

But the ministry said it needed to find savings, and would instead use other surveillance tools, such as Healthline data, to track respiratory illness in New Zealand.

“We need to ensure good value for investment in public health and seek efficiencies where they do not impact service delivery,” said a spokesperson.

It said FluTracking had been one of the data inputs into the New Zealand Respiratory Illness Dashboard maintained by PHF Science. It said it sat alongside other respiratory illness surveillance activities, including at GP clinics, hospitals and through calls to Healthline.

Epidemiologist Michael Baker, who is also a professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, told RNZ he was disappointed.

He said it was the only system across all of Australia’s six states and New Zealand, which enabled both countries to compare.

It was also the only system to provide information on people who had not seen a doctor or been admitted to hospital.

“It’s a really important sector of the population that we don’t have data on otherwise,” Baker said.

In 2024, there was an average of 30,000 responses per week.

He hoped it had not been defunded as a cost-saving measure, as it was a low-cost system for New Zealand to participate in.

“There’s just a fairly modest fee we pay to Australia just to support the operation of the system, plus I think there’s some staff involved at PHF Science to keep it going, so this is one of the most cost-effective tools we’ve got.”

Baker did not think that the FluTracking programme could be replaced.

He said it filled what had become “a big gap in our surveillance” that disappeared around Covid.

“We do have good data on people who go to hospital with severe respiratory infections. We do have some lab-based surveillance. But we’re really missing this very important base of the pyramid, that is people with less severe illness who are not going to see a doctor, or even those that do go and see a doctor. We just don’t have a good record of how many people are in that situation.”

Baker said the decision was short-sighted, especially as it ran all year.

“Very few of our other systems do that. Most of them are concentrated in the flu season period. So it does tell us what’s happening throughout the whole year.”

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