Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

Whangārei district councillors have voted unanimously to oppose plans for fast-tracked sand mining at Northland’s Bream Bay.

The proposal – which, if granted, could see 8 million cubic metres of sand removed over a 35-year period – could be lodged within days by Auckland company McCallum Brothers.

It was one of 149 projects listed in the government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill, allowing it to bypass the often laborious RMA process.

However, any move to dredge sand off Bream Bay is staunchly opposed by local residents, who say it could have long-term environmental effects and accelerate coastal erosion.

Those concerns were highlighted by the position statement passed by 13 votes to 0 at Thursday’s council meeting in Whangārei.

New councillor David Baldwin, who drafted the motion, said there was no certainty under fast-track rules that the council or local groups, such as the Bream Bay Guardians, would have a say.

He said the statement was a way of amplifying local voices, which were “overwhelmingly” opposed to sand mining, and making sure they were heard by the government and the consenting panel.

“This motion is our opportunity, as the community’s representatives, to draw a clear line in our sand. It’s a chance for us to declare that the health, wellbeing and economy of our district are paramount … We must not be taken for granted. This proposed large-scale offshore operation poses an existential threat to Bream Bay’s fragile ecosystems.”

Baldwin said the risks sand mining posed were “totally unnecessary”.

A report from consultant engineers BECA, commissioned by the Bream Bay Guardians, had found no shortage of sand for industry or construction, and plenty of land-based, replenishable or manufactured alternatives to marine sand.

He said the proposal offered no jobs or economic benefits to Bream Bay or Northland, even though regional benefit was a requirement of the fast-track law.

The public gallery was packed during Thursday morning’s meeting with Bream Bay residents, many holding banners declaring opposition to sand mining.

McCallum Brothers has been approached for comment.

A substantive resource consent application has yet to be lodged, but parties involved in the process expected that to happen before Christmas.

The proposal, as it currently stands, is to use a suction dredge to remove up to 150,000 cubic metres of sand a year for an initial three years and up to 250,000 cubic metres a year for the next 32 years.

In total more than 8 million cubic metres of sand would be removed from a 17 square kilometre area of seabed.

At its closest point the dredging area would be 4.2km from shore in about 20m of water.

A study would be carried out after the first three years to check for any environmental effects.

However, Bream Bay Guardians told Thursday’s meeting many effects would be long-term and not necessarily evident after three years.

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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 pair of major cycling and walking tracks in the central North Island are closed while police search for a man wanted for murder.

Police have been looking for 29-year-old Mitchell Cole since Saturday, after two bodies were found in nearby Ruatiti.

Locals told RNZ the Mangapurua and Kaiwhakauka tracks had been closed while police were in the area, as well as several huts along the route.

RNZ approached both police and the Department of Conservation for comment, but neither confirmed if the closures were related to the ongoing manhunt.

The tracks formed a key part of Te Araroa long-distance tramping route, and travellers were being redirected via alternative paths.

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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 man who had allegedly just been stabbed lost his yacht – also his home – after he called police and they arrested him and his supposed attacker, and decided to abandon the vessel at sea.

The 16m-long boat contained all his possessions, and more than a year later still has not been found.

The strange case ended up before the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA), which on Thursday said police should have done more to mitigate the loss of the yacht, and increase the likelihood of its recovery.

The vessel was off the Far North coast on the afternoon of 2 December 2024, when its owner (Mr X) made a mayday call, claiming he had been stabbed by his crewmate (Mr Y).

Police located them about 10 nautical miles (18.5km) offshore shortly before 8.30pm and arrested the pair on existing warrants, putting both men in handcuffs. The IPCA said this was reasonable, with Mr Y being accused of stabbing Mr X, and Mr X “exhibiting unusual behaviour”, possibly due to “drugs or under the influence of some substance”.

They were taken ashore, the yacht left adrift.

Mr X complained to the IPCA that he had no opportunity to retrieve his belongings before being taken off the boat, and that neither he nor Mr Y were given lifejackets for the trip back to land.

The IPCA said in its ruling “more consideration should have been given to allowing Mr X to retrieve some of his property”, though the “circumstances were hazardous and reboarding the yacht may not have been without risk”, noting the vessel was in poor condition.

Police said uncuffing the men to put lifejackets on posed too much risk, which the IPCA disagreed with.

As for the stabbing, no investigation was undertaken while the men were in custody at Whangārei Police Station.

“We also found that police should have arranged mental health assessments for the men while they were in police custody and more should have been done to deal with Mr X’s complaint against Mr Y in relation to the alleged assault,” the IPCA said.

This was attributed to “the police response [involving] staff from different geographical regions of the Northland Police District, with staff from Whangārei assuming staff from the Far North would handle it, and vice versa.

“We note that police have held a debrief in relation to the response to this incident, including with Maritime NZ and Coastguard,” the IPCA report said.

“One of the issues identified was the absence of a clear policy on how police respond to incidents of this nature, unusual as they are. A recommendation from the debrief was that police develop a policy to support police responders in maritime operations. We fully support that recommendation.”

A search for Mr X’s yacht in the following days came up empty.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Universities have announced a deal with academic publisher Elsevier that will save them money and increase public access to their research.

The in-principle agreement covers all New Zealand and Australian universities and resolves an impasse that threatened to cut their access to important research journals next year.

The Council of Australasian University Librarians said the agreement marked a substantial shift toward fair, sustainable and transparent access to research across both countries.

“The in-principle agreement delivers a substantial reduction in sector expenditure, uncapped hybrid open access publishing across the full Elsevier portfolio, including internationally renowned journals such as Cell Press and The Lancet, and other measures to begin addressing the inequities associated with previous legacy pricing models.”

The council’s Open Access Negotiation Strategy Committee chair and Deakin University vice-chancellor Professor Iain Martin said the agreement addressed longstanding issues with previous Elsevier agreements.

“Through this agreement, more than 10,000 [Australian and New Zealand] research articles will be published openly with Elsevier in 2026, providing public access to our research for the communities we serve.”

The chair of the council’s Content Procurement Committee, Hero Macdonald, said it was significant that the agreement was reached without interrupting universities’ access to Elsevier publications.

“In most international examples, achievements of this scale have only been secured through significant disruption and multi-year cancellations,” they said.

The council said it had agreements with three other major journal publishers, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

When you think of a Honda City, you might think of a car designed for parallel parking, not river crossings – built for errands, not off-road exploits.

Over the weekend, enthusiasts, from as far as Australia, joined a convey of the little cars from Christchurch to a working farm station in Canterbury’s Avoca Valley, for the annual Great Honda City Road Trip.

The event’s creator, Jared Campbell, told Morning Report that about seven years ago he decided to give it a go with a few friends.

“I had a Honda City at the time and I used to do this particular off road track back when I was younger with my father, I remember it being not too harsh on the cars so I decided to give it a go and it was a lot of fun.”

The first year about eight people in about five cars took part in the event and that had increased to about 30 people in 20 cars this year – including a couple of people from Australia, he said.

Campbell said as organised he was usually at the front of the group of cars.

“After we pass the traffic, about three or four cars, they start to realise there’s something weird going on and they start getting their phones out and filming us as we drive past – it’s definitely a sight.”

Campbell said he had always like the Honda City and “as a small silly car it was quite easy just to do silly things in them”.

It was a well designed car that some features that had some features that made it capable of going off-road, he said.

Evidence that the Honda City was a good car could be seen in the fact that there were still so many of them around and that so many were sold when they were new, he said.

Campbell said the route started in Christchurch.

“We start off in Christchurch in Belfast and from there we take some back roads out to Sheffield to the famous pie shop, from there we take the inland scenic route out towards Mt Hutt and then we get access by private station in the Avoca Valley.”

The terrain on the road trip would vary from gravel roads to up and over hills, he said.

The main track did not go through any major rivers, although there were some minor river crossings, he said.

“The main track in and out is quite easy but a lot of us like to go a little bit further and a little bit harder and we try and get across the Avoca River.”

It was a big challenge to get through that river to the other side, he said.

“We do take recovery vehicles with us but we try our best not to use them.”

But he said that people who tried “to do things that they really shouldn’t do in a Honda City” would get stuck and in that case the recovery vehicles would be put to use.

“We can be quite hard on vehicles too so we have some issues like cracked open gear boxes … but we’ve been slowly modifying our cars to be able to handle this type of stuff with bash plates and snorkels.”

He said they often ended up pooling car parts bought along for the trip since because everyone was driving the same type of vehicle they often bought spare parts along which could then be used on their or someone else’s car if needed.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

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