Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

The family of a child and grandmother killed when a landslide hit a house in Pāpāmoa say they’re “absolutely devastated” by the loss of a “treasured son” and his “beloved Nai Nai”.

Two bodies were recovered by police at the home on Welcome Bay Rd on Thursday.

On Tuesday, police named the pair as 10-year-old Austen Keith Richardson and his grandmother, 71-year-old Yao Fang.

Their deaths have been referred to the Coroner.

In a statement Austen’s parents, Keith and Angel, said he was the “much-loved” only child of the couple, and Fang’s only grandchild. Angel was Fang’s only child.

“Austen and his grandmother had an incredibly close relationship – with Austen affectionately calling her Nai Nai.”

Austen was born in Shanghai, China, and the family moved back to New Zealand with him when he was about eight months old.

Since Austen was born Fang had spent “extended periods” of time with the family in New Zealand.

“Austen had just finished at Arataki School where he thrived in the Montessori class. It perfectly suited his personality.”

Austen had been accepted to Bethlehem College and was due to start as a Year 7.

“A gifted musician, Austen loved piano, was extremely mechanically minded, loved building Lego, riding motorbikes, Pokémon and solving math equations.

“The weekend before the tragedy, we visited the Kumeu Classic Car and Hot Rod Festival before surprising him with his dream motocross bike from a mate on the way home.

“This will forever be a treasured memory.”

The family recently attended the Annual Honda Kids Camp at Lake Rotoiti.

“Austen spoke Mandarin fluently, was proud of his Chinese heritage and loved visiting China on our trips back.”

The family said they were “lucky” to have Fang spend so much time with them.

“She was a beautiful mother and grandmother, deeply caring, so generous and always prioritising looking after others ahead of herself.

“Fang worked as an architect in China while raising Angel as a solo parent.

“She loved the nature in New Zealand, helped us grow an incredible vegetable garden, looked after our chickens, and joined us at Chinese Methodist Church in Greerton.”

The family was grateful for the “amazing support” they had received.

“We are absolutely devastated by the loss of our treasured son and his beloved Nai Nai.

“Our thoughts are also with the other families impacted by the Mount Maunganui tragedy and what they are going through.”

‘Bright’, talented musician

St Peter’s Anglican Church director of music Chalium Poppy earlier told RNZ the boy was due to come to a piano lesson at the Mt Maunganui church on Thursday.

Poppy said he was contacted by a friend of the family to say the boy was missing in one of the slips.

“I’d been teaching all morning, so I hadn’t heard the news about the slips yet, and so I was a little bit caught off guard and on the back foot, but it became obvious during the day that it was a lot more serious,” he said.

“Then I found out again from a friend of the family, whose son also takes piano from me, that it was confirmed today that he was one of the two victims.”

Poppy said the boy had recently started taking piano lessons with him.

“He had only sort of just started, so he had a few lessons… but like with all my students, I always sort of do a meet and greet first and make sure that it’s going to be a right fit for the student and the parents and everything and so I got to know him through sort of the meet and greet more than his lessons, but he was just really bright and incredibly talkative… asked lots of really great questions, like a really cool, sort of inquisitive mind, and obviously talented

musically.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Thames Coromandel’s local State of Emergency ends at noon tomorrow, and the mayor told RNZ at this point it is unlikely to be extended.

However, as the district tried to dry out it had challenges ahead, including two major slips on its main state highway and 63 storm-damaged homes.

Claire Steer, chair of Pāuanui Neighbourhood Support said the sun was shining today and things were getting back to normal after the recent storm.

“During the weather event last week we had a tremendous amount of rain, in fact probably more rain than we had at Gabrielle, but we were very very lucky we didn’t have the wind that accompanied Gabrielle, so the amount of damage wasn’t as bad initially,” she said.

Pāuanui was flooded in for a time, and three houses had been red stickered.

Steer said being a sandspit the water had drained away easily, roads were now open, and locals had shown up for each other.

“The community’s been amazing in that we’ve had just huge amounts of offers for temporary accommodation to help the local people,” she said.

Across the river mouth from Pāuanui, Mt Paku faced a bigger clean up with a major landslip taking out a home and cutting the main water pipe into the community.

Resident John Drummond lived two houses away and had been keeping a close eye on the slip.

“Over the last few days, the slip has pretty much remained where it was – although a few smaller bits of trees and land have slipped down the face,” he said.

Drummond said the council was very quick to get the water back on, clear a way through the road and make sure the community was ok.

“The road down below has been cleared, the neighbouring properties are busily tidying up their properties and with the sun coming out it’s all starting to look a whole lot better,” he said.

Higher up the Peninsula at Cooks Beach, water was still ponding and smaller slips were being cleared.

Mercury Bay South Residents and Ratepayers Association chair, Paul Hopkins, said he would like to see small communities given more authority and agency to clean up after events.

“I think every small centre should have a designated group that actually gets in and can help out, it should be communities that fix problems not necessarily relying on your local council,” he said.

Hopkins said what might seem like a small low-priority slip to council can really affect locals who currently were discouraged from clearing these themselves.

Thames Coromandel District mayor Peter Revell said all local roads were open and no community was still cut off.

But two major slips on the main road, Highway 25, remain and one was particularly challenging.

“The one south of Whangamata blocking the road between Whangamata and Waihi is massive and is going to take longer and at this stage I’m not sure NZTA is even putting an estimated date on when that might be cleared,” he said.

These slips would be causing problems for local residents who were no longer trapped but were inconvenienced.

“If you live in Whangamata and you were wanting to go for instance to Tauranga you can’t just drop down and go through Waihi you need to come up and go across State Highway 25A and then head your way back down,” he said.

Revell said it could take the rest of the week to complete rapid building inspections, checking in on storm-damaged homes.

As of today, nine homes had been red stickered (no one should enter), 24 yellow stickered (residents have limited supervised access only), and 30 white (safe to occupy).

He said everyone was out of those homes and were safe.

“The places which are being placarded are a mix of permanent residences and holiday homes, the impact would not be the same as if they were all residential properties,” said Revell.

Today, Prime Minister Chris Luxon announced the government was adding $1.2 million to the five mayoral relief funds in affected regions.

Revell encouraged people affected by the storm to look into applying.

“That fund is for people to be able to apply and just get a little bit of financial help that they might need at this stage,” he said.

As people take stock and the clean up continues, local MP Scott Simpson said everyone is hoping for a few dry weeks ahead.

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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 Foreign Affairs Minister says the US President’s invitation for Christopher Luxon to join the Board of Peace for Gaza is a “multi-faceted” issue and requires a “measured look”.

No decision has been made yet regarding the invite, but Winston Peters says advice from his ministry is being prepared “as we speak”.

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said last week he welcomed the beginning of the next phase of the peace plan for Gaza and would give the invite “due consideration”.

Speaking to reporters on the first day of Parliament, Peters said there hadn’t been a chance yet for him to discuss the invite with Luxon.

But he said the government was going to sit down and “dispassionately discuss” the issue in its entirety and what it might mean.

“Because it’s not just a small issue, it’s a multi-faceted issue, and we need to take a quite measured look at it.”

Asked whether he’d requested advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Peters said “of course, they’re busy working on it as we speak”.

“I’ve asked them for a comprehensive paper covering all issues they can imagine.”

A draft charter for the organisation, which will be chaired by Trump, has been sent to a number of world leaders – including Canada’s Mark Carney, Australia’s Anthony Albanese, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Opposition leaders have condemned the invite, with Labour leader Chris Hipkins labelling the government’s so-far refusal to rule out joining the Board an “absolute disgrace”.

He said the fact Luxon was leaving the possibility open was “embarrassing for New Zealand”.

Greens-co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick had written to the Prime Minister on Monday, urging Luxon to “publicly and unequivocally reject this invitation”.

“It is critical that New Zealand joins like-minded nations, such as France, in rejecting the Board and defending the United Nations framework,” the letter read.

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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 number of yellow-legged hornet queens found in Auckland has risen to 45 – 32 of them with nests.

Biosecurity New Zealand said it had an excellent response from the public, with 10,270 notifications of suspected sightings.

Even though only a small number of them were actually hornets, the organisation urged Aucklanders to stay on the lookout.

It expected to find more this summer and there were dozens of traps around the city, mostly on the North Shore.

Biosecurity teams were also attaching tiny trackers onto worker hornets to try to lead them to nests.

The hornets had only been found in Auckland.

Biosecurity NZ believed it was unlikely they were outside of the city.

The hornets were a risk to bee populations – they eat them but could also compete with them food if they became established.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Woolworths says its supermarket in Te Awamutu closed briefly on Tuesday afternoon after diesel fumes entered the rear storeroom while the sprinkler system and generator were being tested.

A spokesperson said staff working in the affected area were assessed by ambulance staff and no further treatment was required.

They said no customers were impacted and the store is now trading as usual.

“A full investigation will be conducted to prevent a recurrence of this type of incident. We apologise to customers for the inconvenience and any alarm caused,” the spokesperson said.

Fire and Emergency said two trucks attended the callout to the supermarket shortly after 2.30pm and cleared the store for re-opening by 3pm.

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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 woman who arrived at Christchurch Hospital’s emergency department in acute pain died the next day after staff missed signs she had sepsis.

The 65-year-old patient died of urosepsis, a life-threatening complication of a urinary tract infection, in January 2022.

In a report released on Tuesday, deputy Health and Disability Commissioner Carolyn Cooper said the hospital failed to provide reasonable care, making “severe departures from standard practice”.

“I concur that there was a failure to recognise urosepsis in a timely way, which subsequently led to a lack of appropriate treatment being provided to [the woman],” she said.

Health NZ completed an adverse event review (AER) into the woman’s care and also found delays in the recognition and treatment of urosepsis.

The report said the woman had a history of high blood pressure and Crohn’s disease, with a previous bowel resection, small bowel obstructions and a kidney stone.

The woman was diagnosed with renal colic after being assessed in the ED and given pain relief.

She was then transferred to the hospital’s urology unit.

The report said the woman was experiencing prolonged hypotension by the next morning.

“Throughout the day, [the woman] received intravenous fluid boluses as the primary intervention for her hypotension. However, her [blood pressure] did not respond to this adequately,” the report said.

“The AER found that a lack of response or improvement from the fluid should have triggered a challenge of the diagnosis and consideration of other possible differential diagnoses or causes. However, this did not occur.”

Medical reviews at the time suggested the woman’s hypotension may have been due to the effects of the pain relief.

Clinicians noted the woman was “chirpy and chatty” throughout the day and that she did not have a fever but clinical notes also recorded instances of the woman shivering, a symptom of sepsis, the report said.

“The AER found that clinical staff exhibited anchoring bias – that is, there was an over-reliance on the absence of a fever, which normally is present in urosepsis, despite the lack of improvement over the day,” the report said.

“While the nurse in charge, the house officer, and the registrar were informed of [the woman’s] deterioration, there is no evidence of a senior medical officer consultation (after the initial ward round at 8am), consideration of involvement of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) team, or a rapid response call being made when [the woman’s] observations were in the red and blue zone, as required by the mandatory escalation pathway.”

The deputy commissioner found an “early warning score” chart had several incomplete observations throughout the day, with the total score also not recorded, which was not in line with Health NZ policy.

Cooper criticised Health NZ’s failure to follow its mandatory escalation and urosepsis policies and the renal colic protocol.

“Had these policies been adhered to, the delay in the diagnosis of urosepsis may have been avoided,” she said.

Cooper recommended Health NZ Waitaha Canterbury apologise to the woman’s family.

She also recommended developing an education and training plan for staff around diagnosing urosepsis and the importance of medical documentation.

Health NZ told the commissioner it had changed its renal colic protocols to highlight the need to consider an alternative diagnosis, run an education refresher on sepsis and run an education session for urology nurses.

In a statement, Health New Zealand chief medical officer Te Waipounamu Alan Pithie said patient safety and quality of care was a top priority.

“On behalf of Health New Zealand, we would like to say how sorry we are for what happened and extend our sincerest condolences to the patient’s family and friends for the loss of their loved one. We are deeply sorry for the distress caused and recognise that the patient’s death in 2022 has had, and continues to have, a profound and long-lasting impact,” he said.

“We acknowledge the deputy commissioner’s findings and have provided the family with a written apology. We have also implemented changes to improve our services including amending the renal colic clinical pathway for care, rolling out a national sepsis action plan, and updating processes for recording clinical information on deteriorating patients.

“Work is also underway to implement refresher education for urology nursing staff on early warning scores (EWS) and adding more functionality to the digital adult EWS pathway.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

More than 10,000 more withdrawals were made from KiwiSaver for hardship reasons last year than in 2024, and providers say there’s no sign of the rate slowing.

Inland Revenue data shows there were 58,460 withdrawals for hardship reasons in 2025, 10,000 more than were made for a first home.

In total, $514.8 million was withdrawn from KiwiSaver because of hardship, and $2.1 billion for a first home.

In 2024, there were 47,390 hardship withdrawals to a total of $403.8m

Dean Anderson, founder of Kernel, said it showed the two-speed economic recovery that New Zealand was experiencing.

The level of first-home withdrawals up a third year-on-year for the month in December, while hardship withdrawals were up 12 percent.

“On one end, sustained economic pressures, both at the household level and business level – such as in the hospitality sector – have forced Kiwis who’ve exhausted other means to tap their retirement savings just to get by,” he said.

“On the other end, three years of falling house prices, plus price stabilisation through 2025, and falling interest rates have opened the door for first-home buyers – many now in their mid-to-late 30s with a decade-plus in the workforce and substantial KiwiSaver balances built up.

“Combined with government first-home support, KiwiSaver is proving a key deposit tool, and we should expect these withdrawals to keep rising as balances grow… The data underlines that KiwiSaver is serving a dual role – supporting home ownership and acting as a financial release valve for those under pressure – but that growth masks a deeper trade-off: every dollar withdrawn today is a dollar not compounding for retirement.”

Pie Funds’ chief executive Ana-Marie Lockyer said there had been no meaningful slowdown in hardship withdrawals.

“The number of approved applications has remained relatively static over the past year rather than trending down.

“That suggests financial pressure is still present for a consistent group of members, even as broader economic indicators begin to stabilise. While we’re not seeing an acceleration, we also aren’t seeing clear signs of easing yet.”

Koura founder Rupert Carlyon said he expected the rate of withdrawals to continue.

“I think there’s three things. There’s clearly the economic climate, which is making life difficult for people. I think you’ve got larger balances, which mean that people all of a sudden are starting to think about it a whole lot more.

“And then the third thing is there’s a greater awareness that you can actually make withdrawals.”

He said a big question would be whether, if there was a shift to make KiwiSaver compulsory or add incentives, the rules on withdrawals had to be tightened.

“At the moment it’s a voluntary saving scheme without any incentive, so you kind of go ‘it’s people’s money’. It’s kind of hard to argue that they can’t get it out for all this stuff. If we move into a different type of scheme, which I think is what a lot of people are starting to talk about, then yeah, what happens to all these withdrawals?”

Retirement Commissioner Jane Wrightson said the data showed that more New Zealanders were having to dip into KiwiSaver to deal with immediate financial pressure.

“Households are clearly under strain, but early withdrawals come at a real long-term cost because people lose the compounding investment gains that help fund a decent retirement. KiwiSaver is designed to support people later in life, so accessing it early should remain a last resort.

“Our 2025 Review of Retirement Income Policies highlighted that New Zealand still lacks consistent data on the range of reasons why these withdrawals are happening. Without better information, it’s difficult to design targeted solutions to try to reduce hardship withdrawals and improve financial resilience. Better data collection is essential if we’re to protect New Zealanders’ long-term retirement outcomes.”

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