Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

Fire and Emergency (FENZ) has been struggling to respond quickly to some rescue callouts when big storms hit – including one last month when a man died, well-placed sources say.

The specialist team in last month’s case near Ōtorohanga took 50 minutes to get out the door after they got the call for help. The team has been asking themselves if they could have saved his life, if they had been put on alert much earlier.

“We knew that every minute goes by, it’s not great for us. So there was a bit of angst in the appliance, you could feel it, the guys just want to get there and do what they’re trained for,” said a person with knowledge of what happened, who was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.

RNZ knows of two other emergencies – one in January at Welcome Bay in Tauranga and another in Nelson in July – where sources believe FENZ did not get specialist teams to flood rescues quickly enough because the crews were not pre-deployed and ready to go, despite plenty of warning.

After the Nelson storm, FENZ was warned its systems had been slow.

But the agency has defended its response in all three cases.

It declined to be interviewed, but in a statement said water rescue teams were a national resource approved with national oversight to ensure they were deployed to areas of greatest need.

It pre-deployed swift water teams “when appropriate to do so” after local operational leaders had discussed it with police – who are in charge of co-ordinating water rescues – and Civil Defence.

Swift water rescues are not a core FENZ function. But they do come under “additional functions” in the legislation, which says it is allowed to help with them “to the extent that FENZ has the capability and capacity to do so” and as long as it retained its capacity to fight fires.

The swift water teams were in a fledgling form when Cyclone Gabrielle hit in early 2023, and some members have talked to RNZ about getting a “kick in the guts” from lacking the gear to do enough when the cyclone and the Auckland anniversary floods hit.

The problems with swift water predeployment and responding were not uniform, several sources said. Some districts were better than others at standing up teams or getting them out the door, and were improving. But they said headquarters was a problem.

It also did not help that not all local or volunteer brigades even knew that calling on them was an option, while there seemed to be no standard way for communications centres to let them know at the very start.

“In my opinion, they’ve struggled to be proactive to put teams into areas that potentially will need flood response,” said one of the several sources.

Time was never on their side. As floodwaters rose, any swift water team became less able to get in at all.

“We weren’t really going to be much use if we just turned up as it was kicking off.”

Ōtorohanga

A man in his 70s died after his vehicle was submerged on State Highway 39 near Ōtorohanga on the evening of 13 February.

A severe thunderstorm red warning for south Waikato and Ōtorohanga had gone out from MetService at 4.40pm that Friday afternoon, and another red warning was valid from 7pm.

That did not trigger pre-deployment of the closest swift water teams at Rotorua fire station to south Waikato.

The call logs showed that when it was called to go to the scene that night, it took 50 minutes to get on the road.

Twenty-two minutes of that was spent securing approval through a chain involving national commanders, and the rest spent getting ready for the job.

The first alert from the flooded highway was raised at 8.36pm by the Pirongia volunteer brigade, which FENZ said was “out supporting their community when they became aware of this developing incident”.

The call log suggested initially the volunteers knew they had “a couple of people trapped in flood water” and also that “a patient is currently trapped in flood water on top of a tractor”.

Three times in the next half hour the brigade asked for a helicopter or lines rescue team from Hamilton.

FENZ in a statement said: “It wasn’t initially clear that the person trapped on the tractor required medical rescue.

“A lines rescue team is not trained to undertake rescues in water. The condition of the person trapped in a ute in floodwaters was not known at 20.52.”

At 9.13pm, Pirongia was asked if the rescue was only for those on the tractor, and responded that the patient and firefighter on top of the tractor “tried to rescue some one else in a ute but lost sight of it”.

A few minutes later, the two people on the tractor were reported safe.

At 8.56pm, the log showed FENZ people in Waikato were “in conference” and requested the swift water team from Rotorua.

But the swift water team did not leave Rotorua till 50 minutes later at 9.46pm, and they never made it.

It took 22 minutes for the request to deploy them to work its way to the National Commanders Group for approval at 9.07pm, then to be passed on to Rotorua at 9.18pm.

It took another 28 minutes for the swift water team to get ready – some had to come in from home outside Rotorua – and out the door.

“For some reason our team just takes ages to get approved from like the bigwigs,” said an informed source.

They faced a 120km trip to the trapped man. They had been on the road for a few minutes when the call came in just before 10pm that he had died.

They were then diverted to Ōtorohanga, where they rescued at least 18 people in the dark from a house.

By contrast, fire callouts typically trigger much faster responses and times are tightly tracked against targets, which are reported back to Parliament.

FENZ told RNZ that pre-deploying a water rescue team was not raised by the Pirongia volunteer brigade.

The storm was “particularly severe” and it had received 800 calls on 111 about the storm on Friday and Saturday.

But it was focused on the risk of landslides, it said.

Weather modelling indicated the main risk was land instability and FENZ consulted Civil Defence, which was the lead on landslides.

“One request was received for support from a specialists water rescue team in Tairāwhiti, which was agreed to.

“There were no other requests.”

It predeployed Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) crew who deal with slips to the East Coast, Bay of Plenty and Wairarapa.

Welcome Bay – rescuing the rescuers

The month before Ōtorohanga, the Rotorua swift water team took hours to get to a rescue near Papamoa, on the night before the fatal landslide at Mt Maunganui campground on 22 January.

A red severe rain warning for Bay of Plenty had gone out at 9am the previous day – a Wednesday – and a local state of emergency was declared.

But most of the swift water team was not pre-deployed, either at Rotorua or closer to Tauranga, according to a FENZ message log and the police record.

When a call came from police about 12.30am overnight Wednesday-Thursday to rescue a “person trapped in flood water in car” near Papamoa, the Rotorua team was approved to go a half hour later.

But they were not actually assembled and sent.

“We are still in bed asleep at home when it is all going down,” said one of the sources.

Instead, a NZ Defence Force unimog with some police and firefighters on board went, and ended up rescuing four elderly people.

It was only when the unimog got stuck in a culvert about 4am, that the swift water team was sent from Rotorua station.

It was 5.45am before they reported in the log: “Swift water rescue just entering the water now.”

They eventually got to the unimog about 6am. The rescued people who had been on it for several hours had “mild hypothermia”.

Police told RNZ: “They were wet and cold but otherwise uninjured.”

Earlier, at just after midnight, police had called the unimog for help, but were told the vehicle was a transport – not a rescue asset – and that police should call swift water rescue instead.

“FENZ were contacted to deploy a swift water rescue team,” police told RNZ.

The swift water team at Rotorua was approved to go at 1.08am.

A fourth informed source said the unimog was under the assumption they were on their way – but they were not.

Police told RNZ that instead they discussed with FENZ the difficulty of getting in past rising waters, so went back to the unimog.

This time the unimog did set off, with some swift water rescue-trained FENZ staff and two police officers on board.

They rescued people on Waitao Road in Welcome Bay, but events then overwhelmed resources.

Driving back to dry land, the unimog hit slip debris hidden underwater and went into the culvert.

“We need water rescue,” came their call at 3.49am.

“Can we get swift water rescue activated as the Unimog is stuck with people in it… trapped and semi submerged… 12 POB [people on board].”

The water was 1.5m deep. Police told RNZ: “The unimog driver advised police that the occupants of the vehicle were in no immediate danger.”

The Rotorua swift water team was called for a second time.

A source familiar with this said: “Bear in mind as we were not pre-deployed, the team was at home, had to drive to station and uplift equipment and transportation.”

They then drove 70km to Welcome Bay. They unloaded their raft as close as they could get to the unimog and, joined by surf lifesavers, went in.

Meantime, a car had come down the hill “and hit the flooded water – no movement or headlights have been seen since”.

“Can you make swift water rescue aware and if further information is need[ed] they can speak to the stranded police officers on the unimog,” said the log.

At 6.20am the swift water team was coming back with the rescued people from the unimog in a raft to a chopper on a dry bit of road to fly people out, while another team was “heading further up to a car that is under water”.

“There wasn’t concern” by then, said another source. “Water levels were receding, it was shin deep.”

At 7.39am the FENZ call log said: “All crews back to dry ground inc life savers … all patients rescued.”

Nelson – ‘The public’s not probably getting the best bang for buck’

After last year’s Nelson storm, FENZ headquarters was warned its systems were too slow. National commanders took hours to approve swift water teams to pre-deploy from Christchurch and Wellington.

Instead of getting there in daylight, they arrived about 3am the next morning, almost 24 hours after the first members had been called in down in Canterbury.

It is understood the warning triggered an operational review, which RNZ has asked to see. FENZ said the review was ongoing.

“We can’t be turning up and being exhausted,” said an informed source.

“The decisions not to pre-deploy or [use] us could have catastrophic outcomes for the public, but it’s also for our people, too.”

The frustration about when they got pre-deployed by national commanders – or were approved to actually go to a rescue – appeared strongest at the front line.

“We’re at home having dinner while they [flood victims] are there getting stuck,” said a third informed source.

Several sources suggested the policy should be that if a known flood-risk area, or one recently flooded, got a red weather alert, that should trigger swift water predeployment.

The swift water rescue teams based at Christchurch – two teams of four usually go out in utes and trailers – were called in four times to Nelson-Marlborough in the floods of June and July 2025.

Three times they made it, and a source said that pre-deployment had worked pretty well.

But the fourth time on 29 July was the worst flooding – and the slowest response.

After waiting all day for a green light, crews set off themselves, even though night was falling. Nelson had already been drenched – it should have been a quick, easy decision to pre-deploy, they felt.

As it was, they made their first rescue around the same time they would have been just arriving in Nelson had they delayed and left the next morning.

“The public’s not probably getting the best bang for buck.

“It’s also our volunteers and our firefighters that may not have that resource and will have to make a harder call than they would have needed to if we’d already been there.”

“If the event had carried on any longer … our own personal safety would have been [at] higher risk because we were just so tired because we had to drive through the night.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Artificial intelligence could soon be used to screen for breast cancer in the public system.

Experts say using AI as a second set of eyes for mammograms could make better use of our radiologists – as long as its trained on the right data.

Typically, the tool works by assessing a mammogram for tumours, using past examples of positive and negative scans to make a decision on whether a tumour is present, not present, or unclear, meaning the patient should get a second scan.

A Swedish study of 100,000 women found a higher rate of early detection, and a UK study of ten thousand women found it increased detection generally by more than 10 percent.

Just last month, the New Zealand government put out a request for information on the topic, assessing the market. The tender closed on 4 March.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting women in New Zealand, killing more than 650 each year, and more than 3700 diagnosed, according to the Breast Cancer Foundation.

Dr Mehdi Shahbazpour from the Breast Cancer Foundation explained in New Zealand, two radiologists looked at each scan.

If AI could replace one of those, it could alleviate some of the pressure on a stretched workforce.

“Our shortages of radiologists are real, they’re impacting screening, they’re impacting treatment and diagnosis. We need to implement a solution fast – next one to two years is our preferred timeline.”

Recalls – where a second screening was required as the first was unclear – added additional load, he said, and overseas AI had been shown to reduce recall rates, and improve accuracy.

Studies had also shown it was better at catching “interval cancers” – that is, those which appeared between scans, usually because of symptoms like lumps, and usually signalled a more aggressive form of cancer.

The timeline for introducing a new system was variable, with a lot of unknowns.

“We want New Zealand to be a fast follower,” Shahbazpour said. “Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, go with trusted models that have been implemented elsewhere.”

Dr Karaitiana Taiuru, an expert in AI and data governance, said if we were to adopt a tool developed overseas, it was important to train it on local data.

Research has shown characteristics like breast tissue density vary between ethnicities. Māori and Pacific women have typically more dense breast tissue than, for example, an American woman’s.

“The risks there are that the AI could just not see a cancer,” Taiuru said. “Or it might see something that is not a cancer, but say it is a cancer.”

That local dataset was ready-made, with the country’s history of mammograms already on-file.

Taiuru said as long as it was fed the right data, AI could actually remove bias.

“The AI doesn’t care if you’re Māori, or if you’re Asian, or if you’re European.”

He said people should be able to opt out of having their data fed to AI if they chose to, including for cultural reasons.

While the government scouts for information, private companies are a step ahead, with some already working to introduce AI tools.

Shayne Hunter, chief digital officer for RHCNZ, the parent company of Auckland, Pacific and Bay Radiologies, said for them, its arrival was imminent.

He said they planned to use it for private diagnostic and screening work, catering for women who fell outside the criteria of the public system and chose to pay.

“We have a capacity issue in the health system in that we don’t have enough breast radiologist, and so part of this is about creating capacity to meet the demand,” Hunter said.

Ongoing clinical governance would be key, he said, to make sure clinicians didn’t come to rely on AI, or become disinclined to challenge its results.

“The key thing about AI is there is still a human in the loop,” he said. “We still have a human that will absolutely check every image.”

Nicholas Knowlton, a senior research fellow at the University of Auckland, said it was clear the tool was effective.

“Should the public be paying for these things, is the question, and how much should we be paying? If we take a Pharmac-type of approach and demand high value for money, yeah, why not?”

Were there any risks? Not with the tech itself, anyway.

“The model is decision support,” he said. “It’s like spellcheck on your document when you’re writing. It says ‘This word’s spelled wrong,’ you look at and go, ‘No, that’s right. This is what I meant to say.’ It’s helping, it’s not making clinical decisions for us.”

“I think the risk is dragging our feet and missing cancers that can be detected earlier.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand’s attempts to get more cooperation with the Trump administration on defence, space and sensitive technology sectors has been paying off, according to an official briefing.

“New Zealand has seized opportunities in the first year of the current US Administration to register – at all levels – the importance of US-New Zealand cooperation across these sectors,” said a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) briefing, dated November and newly released under the Official Information Act.

“There is support in Washington for stronger partnership with us.”

In the latest bilateral move, NZ Space Agency officials will meet their counterparts in Washington this week.

This second US-NZ space dialogue – two years after the first – aimed to “strengthen bilateral space cooperation” but details were confidential, the agency told RNZ.

It has coincided with the US Department of Defence finalising a study looking at options for its increasing number of rocket launches – including at sites in other countries.

With Cape Canaveral and its other launch sites under growing pressure, a Pentagon study – due back with US lawmakers next week – covers environmental, regulatory, cost, geographic and orbital factors that may make alternate locations “outside the continental United States… viable or advantageous”.

RNZ has asked Congress’s armed services committee for a copy.

Defence, space and emerging tech have been evolving in new ways, at a time of big change including from US President Donald Trump applying America First policies and national security interests to international alliances, domestic production and arms exports.

Two impacts have been to tie commercial and military tech and space contracts more closely together, and to increase efforts to expand the US military industrial base. US law considers New Zealand to be part of that base.

‘Closer integration with key partners’

The November MFAT briefing said technology cooperation was increasingly significant to the relationship.

“Deeper cooperation with the United States in the defence, space and other sensitive technologies sectors has the potential to deliver significant economic and strategic benefits to New Zealand,” it said.

Local firms were advancing the country’s strategic interests by “facilitating closer partnerships and closer integration with key partners” but faced complex regulatory barriers and the growing ‘buy-America-made’ hurdle.

“Importantly, the Administration is open to investigating options for addressing regulatory challenges faced by New Zealand, particularly related to the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and US domestic sourcing requirements.”

One option was to seek some sort of exemption from ITAR, it said.

The US has been lowering ITAR barriers for Australia and the UK because they are part of the nuclear-subs deal AUKUS.

The methods American firms could exploit that was the subject of a webinar this week from US trade officials – “Full Steam Ahead: AUKUS, ITAR, and the Keys to Australia’s Naval Supply Chain”.

Defence and Space Minister Judith Collins has been at the forefront of building the NZ-US relationship on these fronts, while also streamlining aerospace regulations and overseeing a defence capability plan rich in drone and emerging technology options.

But Collins steps down soon, and is not attending the Washington space dialogue or the US Space Force’s main annual symposium in Colorado next month, where last year she was the only non-US politician invited to speak.

At the symposium in 2024, New Zealand updated its agreement to align local space regulations more with America’s.

‘Few impediments to the transfer of technology’

However, the NZ Space Agency told RNZ it was not involved in the current Pentagon study that covered foreign launch sites.

Asked if New Zealand might be in danger of missing out on US business, the agency said: “Through our regulatory cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA) with the US, the New Zealand Space Agency has been actively facilitating Rocket Lab’s provision of launch services from their private spaceport at Mahia since their inception. Customers of these services include US government agencies.

“If there was interest beyond Mahia, the New Zealand Space Agency would expect to become involved although not necessarily as the first point of contact.”

The November briefing said MFAT was prioritising work to strengthen the country’s export controls regime so it was more comparable “with our closest partners”, and to secure other short-term gains for local businesses in the defence, space and sensitive tech sectors.

“We have welcomed messaging from the US, at all levels, that as a close and trusted partner there should be few impediments to the transfer of technology between us,” it said.

In 2022, the US Congress said America should ensure that the Pentagon’s capabilities for rapid space launches “align with initiatives by Five Eyes countries” and other allies. New Zealand is in Five Eyes.

The US should implement space missions with allies that demonstrated “rapid launch, reconstitution and satellite augmentation from locations in the Indo-Pacific, European, and other theaters of operations” and “leverage allied and partner spaceports to diversify and disaggregate launch sites across the world for a multitude of missions, including national security missions”, it said.

After the first US-NZ space dialogue in 2024, the sides issued a statement focused on commercial space partnerships, and stating, “Participants acknowledged that New Zealand’s geographic advantages has enabled frequent and responsive launch for US industry and government agencies, adding strategic resilience to launch capacity.”

That year the NZ and US also launched a dialogue on critical and emerging tech, saying: “Both nations highlighted the necessity for increased interoperability with like-minded countries to address common challenges.”

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