Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

Prolific documentary and filmmaker Costa Botes – who found fame creating mockumentary Forgotten Silver alongside Peter Jackson – has died after living with cancer for nearly a decade.

Botes won multiple awards for his work on Forgotten Silver in the late 1990’s as well as short film Stalin’s Sickle (1988) and later with Saving Grace (1999) and Lost in Wonderland in 2010.

His Screenography on New Zealand On Screen credits his involvement in more than 40 productions between 1980 and 2023.

He told the website he grew up in Wellington – after being born to Greek parents on the Turkish Island of Imbroz – and dove into filmmaking after diverting away from being “bored witless” by his English Literature degree to study film at Ilam School of Fine Arts in Christchurch.

He went full time into film making making in 1985 and would continue working on projects until shortly before his death in Wellington’s Mary Potter Hospice on 21 November.

Continued to work until his final weeks

His partner of 14 years Debs Botes said her husband was proud of his entire body of work but found particular satisfaction in his independent productions.

“The latter documentaries that he made on his own – on a shoe string budget – and cobbled together with the help of friends and colleagues and really made something of.

“I think he liked being the lone wolf because he kind of made the decisions at the end of the day.

“He was very proud of When the Cows Came Home and some others like The Last Dogs of Winter, Angie, Act of Kindness. There were quite a few – in the last 15 years – he was very proud of,” she said.

Shortly before his death, Botes had completed the first cut of a new film that she hoped a colleague would be able to “whip into shape” for release next year, Debs Botes said.

Botes was well known amongst musical circles in Wellington both as a player and an enthusiastic listener.

In his last weeks he bought his dream guitar, a Gibson Les Paul, and posted pictures of himself playing the instrument from his hospital bed, she said.

An enduring fascination with people and stories

Arts and entertainment writer Sarah McMullan said Botes inspired many with his no nonsense attitude and generosity of spirit.

McMullan said she and Botes bonded over his work on 2011 documentary The Last Dogs of Winter.

“He loved life and he loved people. That’s why he made such beautiful films – he was so interested in people – and, I think, that’s how he managed to achieve that level of intimacy that made his films so special,” McMullan said.

She said she loved discussing almost any element of filmmaking with Botes who would liked little more than to talk over the pros and cons of films, shows and documentaries.

He took that passion to stints teaching filmmaking and scriptwriting at the NZ Film and TV School, and Victoria and Massey University, she said.

“I wish everybody had the chance to have watched Jaws with an audio commentary from Costa because his in depth analysis of how that film is made is incredible. It just completely opens your eyes to – what is a brilliant film – but it’s just [his awareness of] the detail and nuance which just speaks to his talent as a filmmaker,” McMullan said.

Late last month filmmaker Zoe McIntosh wrote on the Women in Film & Television website of the profound affect Botes had when he worked alongside her to make Lost in Wonderland which would go on to screen at international festivals and win Best Documentary at the Qantas Film and Television Awards.

“I was 22, broke, and living in a damp Wellington flat where rice was both dinner and décor. At a depressing documentary hui, out of sheer desperation and delusion, I pitched my first documentary idea to filmmaker Costa Botes. I expected a polite brush-off. Instead, he said, ‘I’ll shoot it. Let’s just go make it’.

“No funding applications. No contracts. No catch. That offhand ‘yes’ changed everything,” McIntosh wrote.

She said Botes’ faith in her work and forthright critical honesty help shaped her confidence and vision for her work and career.

“He was always there, always honest, sometimes brutally so. But he never let me lose sight of my vision. He’d say, ‘You’ve got half a film here. The other half’s still hiding. You gotta dig deeper’.

“Costa gives his time generously, quietly, without agenda. He doesn’t chase credit; he’s allergic to self-promotion. He’s the guy at the back of the screening checking sound levels while everyone else basks in applause. Motivated by people and, always, by story,” McIntosh wrote.

Shining lights on the dark corners

Wellington Musician Carol Bean worked in crews on Botes’ films and also played alongside him in bands.

She said she admired his skill as a musician and also his witty and, at times, cutting sense of humour.

“He had a bite. He didn’t suffer fools but deep down very compassionate person.

“He had a lot of time for an authentic, regular person who wasn’t blowing their own trumpet. He said he liked ‘shining lights in the dark corners’ with his films. Bringing people out, bringing the story out, the real true story, the best of people,” Bean said.

Costa Botes spent the last weeks of his life in the care of the Mary Potter Hospice in Newtown Wellington.

Debs Botes said she was hugely grateful to the staff who kept him comfortable and accommodated his much loved dogs, bedside editing suite and guitar.

“He knew what was happening and he knew that it was the best place for him to be because they would keep him comfortable and they did that to the very last moment,” Debs Botes said.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Warning: This article discusses sexual abuse and may upset some readers.

It was not the sexual violence or years of trauma that finally broke a victim’s silence, but a chilling moment in adulthood, when her perpetrator stood in her kitchen, boasting of being “proud” of his life.

The remark felt so brazen, it ripped open the locked boxes of pain she carried and gave her the courage to report Geoffery Miller to the authorities.

Now, Miller, 53, has appeared in the Whangārei District Court for sentencing on historical sexual abuse charges relating to two victims in separate decades.

Earlier this year, he was found guilty by a jury of 12 charges, including rape and supplying methamphetamine to one of his victims.

Miller’s first round of offending occurred when he was 14 years old and repeatedly sexually abused a girl.

The court heard he violated her with objects and, on one occasion, he plied her with alcohol, until she passed out, and then raped her.

Decades later, Miller’s sexual offending continued, but he had a new victim.

Miller repeatedly touched that girl sexually and gave her cannabis. He also supplied her with methamphetamine and smoked it with her.

Miller touched her inappropriately and spoke to her sexually, as a form of payment for the drug.

Both victims, now adults, read their victim impact statements to Miller, while he stood in the dock at his recent sentencing.

The first victim said that, when she was younger, she was scared of Miller’s dark moods and he was intolerable to be around.

She said she felt safer on the streets, in the dark.

“I had to grow up real fast to survive you,” she said.

For years, she lived with post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and had more than 20 clinical bouts of depression, as a result of his offending against her.

When she encountered Miller in her adult life, she became triggered by something he said.

“You stood in my kitchen one day, in front of my teenage kids, and said, ‘I’m really proud of my life’,” the woman recalled.

“Those words triggered me and sickened me. How could you be proud of what you did to me?

“All the locked boxes in my brain, all the tucked-up pain came out, piece by piece.

“That event is what brought us here today. Your words set me free.

“I finally felt the courage to stand up tall and do the right thing.”

The second victim also lived a life with mental health challenges linked to Miller’s offending and battled a drug addiction, which took hold, after he had supplied her with drugs when she was younger.

“I’m constantly living the same thing, repetitive memories take over my mind that I never asked for,” she said in her victim impact statement.

“I had so much more potential than what I’ve been and what I am now. I don’t remember ever feeling happy or, let alone, good enough.

“Instead, I felt like a worthless piece of meat.”

Her statement had some parting words for Miller.

“I hope you f****** rot in sh**.”

Continued denial of offending

Crown lawyer Danette Cole said both victims had reported Miller was also physically violent towards them.

“Both victims came forward and said how they thought their life would turn out differently, but because of the offending, their lives have taken a turn for the worse,” Cole said.

Miller’s lawyer, Chris Muston, made no oral submissions at the hearing.

Judge Keith de Ridder noted Miller had denied the offending, when speaking to pre-sentence report writers.

“You make no admission whatsoever of any offending and deny any offending of any sort,” the judge said.

“The report touches briefly on your upbringing and your employment history with some sense of self-pity arising from, what you say, were the actions taken against you by the victims’ families.”

Judge de Ridder said the offending, particularly with the first victim, was premeditated, violent and intrusive.

“There were threats made to her, in particular, if she told anybody about this offending. The jury obviously also accepted her evidence that you would become physically and verbally abusive towards her.”

The judge considered the act of supplying drugs to a child to facilitate offending against the second victim as an aggravating feature.

He sentenced Miller to five years and seven months for the rape of the first victim, and imposed an additional cumulative four‑year term for offending against the second.

Miller was sent to prison for nine years and seven months.

This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.

Where to get help:

Sexual Violence

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Defence Force is checking to see if any information has been exposed to hackers, after Australian media reports of cyberattacks on contractors in the country’s defence supply chain.

Some reports say Iranian-backed hackers posted classified plans of a new infantry fighting vehicle.

Government defence plans call for greater integration with Australia.

“The NZDF is making inquiries to determine if any NZDF information has been exposed,” a spokesperson told RNZ.

“We will not be able to comment, until we have ascertained what, if any NZDF information is at risk of being exposed.”

Asked if integration increased the risks, they said the Defence Force’s “appetite for risk” was determined by NZ Information Security Manual and Protective Security Requirements, which had a process around approving operations.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

“Easing the cost of new and used imported vehicles” was the pitch of transport minister Chris Bishop’s media release last Monday.

The means to that end was slashing by 80 percent the clean car standard – which incentivised sales of low- or zero-emission vehicles – by the end of the week.

$265 million in penalties would not now be charged on ‘ordinary’ cars, Bishop claimed.

On Monday, Newstalk ZB’s host Ryan Bridge pitched this as a promise of cheaper cars to come – and Bishop listed savings for selected makes and models set out in his media release.

Soon after, TVNZ’s political editor Maiki Sherman ran through those herself on 1News, even displaying the savings on the screen.

“This Corolla would see charges reduced by more than $6500,” she said, in the manner of a car yard commercial.

But on RNZ’s Morning Report the next day, Ingrid Hipkiss noted the minister’s figures for savings on different makes and models were only estimates.

“We’ve carefully caveated the words because it’s complex. Every vehicle importer will be in a different situation when it comes to penalties and credit so it will really depend on the particular type of car and the situation they’re in,” Bishop explained.

Bishop also said the changes would only have a minimal effect on emissions – and the main reason for changing the law now was that “the bottom’s fallen out of the EV market.”

“There just simply hasn’t been the demand there and they also haven’t been able to get the supply. It’s a double whammy.”

Among things that might affect demand – recent media reports about EV safety.

Safety fears hit headlines

Last week The New Zealand Herald reported a retirement village on Auckland’s North Shore – Fairview – had banned new electric vehicles.

“One resident who did not want to be named told the Herald he was pulled into a meeting with other residents where ‘management tried to scare us’ (about) the supposed fire risk electric vehicles posed,” the Herald reported.

“They’re concerned about the risk an EV fire would pose to the busy communities, residents and homes,” RNZ’s Lisa Owen explained on Checkpoint the same day.

But why, when there are no restrictions on parking or charging them anywhere else?

“As soon as there’s an EV that blows up or catches fire, it’s on the front page or it’s on the six o’ clock news. If it’s a diesel or a petrol car, you won’t hear about it,” Retirement Village Residents Association chief executive Nigel Matthews told Checkpoint.

“I’ve seen the YouTube clips where things have exploded, whether it be an e-bike or an EV of some sort that’s being charged and then just caught alight. But I’ve also seen it with cell phones. At what point do you actually stop and say we need to have a bigger holistic look at this?” he asked.

When 28 cars were set alight in Whangarei Hospital’s car park a month ago, it was dry grass on a hot exhaust that started the blaze. But plenty of online speculation suggested an overheated EV could have started it.

A day later the driver of an electric bus died after it was engulfed in flames following a collision with a petrol powered car on Tamaki Drive in Auckland.

The busy road was closed for almost a day.

“Due to the bus’s electric battery, the area could remain hazardous,” a Police statement said.

That prompted keyboard warriors to conclude batteries in the buses were not just a hazard – but could have caused the fire.

Some also cited a bus colliding with an Auckland railway station building earlier in October. Nobody was hurt in that, but smoke was seen emerging from the top of

the bus.

Alarmed by what he called ‘misinformation’ about the Tamaki Drive crash – and “bizarre anti-EV propaganda” – Auckland City Councillor Richard Hills then took to social media himself.

He pointed out that Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) had confirmed the fire started from the petrol vehicle that hit that bus on Tamaki Drive, and bus company Kinetic found the electric bus’s batteries were undamaged.

“But all I saw everywhere was: ‘Told ya, told ya – EV buses and EV batteries’,” Hills told the Newstalk ZB Drive show.

“But this cannot happen again if we have an electric bus that has a crash on Tamaki Drive. You cannot shut a road for 24 hours,” ZB host Heather du Plessis-Allan responded.

“If you thought it was because it was an electric vehicle – it was. We did some extensive looking into it for you,” she told ZB listeners.

“Once they got on the bus, what they saw was battery packs hanging through the roof and so they were worried about that.”

She also said firefighters saw gas leaking and were worried lithium batteries were starting to disintegrate.

“Actually it was an aircon problem, but again, they were treating it differently because it was an electric vehicle,” she said.

But those details were not in any news story published by Newstalk ZB or its stablemates at the Herald at the time. Or any other media outlet for that matter.

There’s been no official FENZ incident report about the incident made public yet. FENZ has not yet responded to Mediawatch’s request for further information.

The risks and the reality

It is true that fires involving electric vehicles can be harder to suppress and take longer to make safe.

On [https://www.nzherald.co.nz/video/herald-now/auckland-bus-fire-should-we-be-worried-about-lithium-batteries/OGYBS4PTGQJCANRCBPAVSVWZTQ/ the

Herald Now show] AUT professor of electronic engineering Adnan Al-Anbuky explained the reaction known as ‘thermal runaway’ – heat can excite a lithium battery cell causing ignition or even explosion in neighbouring cells in extreme circumstances.

But it still wasn’t clear how likely that is to happen on the road – or in a garage.

Ten days after the Tamaki Drive crash, another Auckland Transport electric bus caught fire when it struck an overpass.

There were no passengers and the driver got out safely that time, but dramatic images of the flames in the underpass were widely viewed on social media, sparking more speculation about the fire risk of electric buses.

That prompted an explainer from Stuff the next day: ‘[https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360874741/no-electric-buses-arent-catching-fire-because-their-batteries No. Electric buses aren’t catching fire because of their batteries.’

Australian fire safety expert Emma Sutcliffe – who researches battery fires for Australia’s Department of Defence – told Stuff there had been only eight such fires in

Australia in three years to 2024, at a time when there were more than 180,000 EVs in use there.

While Auckland has had three events in a row, they are unconnected, she said.

“It’s just unfortunate that they’ve happened in a bit of a cluster,” she told Stuff.

“You should be far more concerned about the cheap lithium-ion batteries in your house than the ones powering your bus to work,” Emma Sutcliffe added.

Not for nothing did Fire and Emergency New Zealand launch a campaign about that last month, with slogans like: ‘Warning! Using an incorrect battery in your e-bike can cause violent fire in seconds.’

But sometimes, the media give people the wrong idea.

Last year RNZ reported a Wellington man’s claim that his neighbour’s Tesla burst into flames in the garage next door. Eventually, FENZ ruled out electric vehicles or lithium-ion batteries as the cause. RNZ updated the story accordingly.

Earlier this year a fire destroyed a boarding house in a Sydney suburb. The Sydney Morning Herald said it was not clear if the blaze began as an electrical fire, but lithium ion e-bike batteries “had contributed to the fire’s rapid spread and intensity.”

But the headline on that – ‘Jet-like flame’. E- bike batteries fuel Sydney boarding house fire– created the impression the batteries were the cause.

Channel 7’s TV news report also suggested batteries as the cause of the fire, but one of the distressed residents could be heard off-camera telling the reporter: “I had a candle going. Maybe it was the candle.”

Call for context and ‘pre-bunking’

Co-president of the New Zealand Association of Scientists – Dr Troy Baisden – was alarmed by how recent news reports described the risks of EVs and the possibility of ‘thermal runaway.’

Dr Baisden took to social media himself to point out that none of the recent vehicle fires were caused by EVs or their batteries.

But if the risk is real – albeit remote in normal circumstances – how should media report incidents like the ones in Auckland recently?

“We know there’s a risk of EV myths and misinformation spread. The most interesting thing about these stories is that there were stories about EV fires that contained … no EV fire,” Dr Baisden told Mediawatch.

He cited New Zealand Herald and RNZ’s Checkpoint coverage of the Fairview community’s dilemma as failing to make clear that EVs pose a much lower fire risk than combustion engine vehicles.

A recent peer-reviewed study of four nations found more people believed misinformation about EVs than disagreed with it – including vehicles being more likely to catch fire.

But if it was reports of the recent bus fires that prompted the Fairview residents and management to discuss the issue, news editors can not ignore that context?

“They could have said the risk of EVs catching fire is about 60 times less than an equivalent petrol or diesel vehicle. Adjusted for the mileage, it’s maybe 20 times less,” Dr Baisden told Mediawatch.

“There’s other information that you could think about. Anything that can move you hundreds of kilometres in two tonnes of metal is going to have a lot of energy stored in it, so it can create a fire.”

“I feel like the retirement village residents – and the decisions that were going on there – were really let down by our information ecosystem.”

Checkpoint‘s coverage of the Fairview controversy stated right at the start that EV fires are rare but they can be harder to put out.

Both things that are true – and an online story carried a link to an RNZ article from 2019 all about that.

Is that sufficient ‘pre-bunking’ – informing people of facts before they’re exposed to contrary opinions, misinformation or fringe views?

“Probably not. I still don’t think that’s the most relevant thing – which is risk reduction. Fires are scary and historically vehicle fires used to be much more common than they are now. The other issue is: are we ready to deal with EV fires? That’s actually a more important issue.”

“It’s important where there are a lot of EVs – or particularly really big batteries like the bus batteries – that those firefighting methods are known and ready to respond.”

“It also points out we’re not great at working through risk – and the information to support journalists reporting these risks in New Zealand isn’t great.”

“Consumer magazine in New Zealand is a great trusted source. But where news organisations responding to headlines and trying to come up with an angle and a story, need to make sure journalists or the editors can find those.”

“This is a classic gap. We’re talking about something that actually hasn’t happened. There’s been no EV fire that’s been caused by an EV in New Zealand as yet.”

But we know that this is not a ‘zero risk’ technology. When fires occur, batteries can become a specific fire hazard which needs special treatment.

“Everybody’s home has a number of risks. The risks associated with a barbecue. Storing that in a garage with a car and other things that can catch on fire is a problem. Maybe take it from a scientist who’s run large laboratories with a lot of dangerous things in them: Don’t put the dangerous things that can catch on fire together.”

Baisden is an environmental scientist who researches carbon emissions and is in favour of low and zero-emission technologies. Does he have a bias which might prompt him to minimise the risk associated with them?

“I am keen to see the uptake of electric cars. I’ve had one for a number of years. I don’t have any vested interest in it. But here we’re talking about … at least 20 times less risk associated with EVs than conventional cars. It’s difficult to say that I’d be causing more bias than that.”

“I really don’t want to be a regular performer on the radio talking about EV fires again – and there’s still been no EV fires.”

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