Category: Public Media

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New Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breman talks to Corinn Dann: ‘Financial market conditions have tightened’

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breman will not hesitate again to issue a statement for markets to understand how she interprets the economy.

Breman sat down for an extensive interview with Morning Report presenter and incoming RNZ business editor Corin Dann, just a day after she took the unusual step of issuing a statement about financial conditions, which she believed had gone “beyond” the RBNZ’s recent projection for interest rates.

It came on the heels of some banks raising interest rates, believing the bank may raise the official cash rate, despite it cutting the OCR to 2.25 percent late last month.

“Financial market conditions have tightened since the November decision, beyond what is implied by our central projection for the OCR,” she said in the statement. There was still the possibility of another rate cut from the path forward published in the bank’s November Monetary Policy Statement.

Breman told RNZ it was important for markets to understand how she was reading the economic data.

“I am rather new in my role – still just about two weeks into it – and I thought given that it’s a long time until the next monetary policy meeting in February, I thought it was reasonable for markets to see how I read the economic data and also to see how I relate compared to the last Monetary Policy Statement.”

She said she did not want to say whether markets were right or wrong, but the forecast the Reserve Bank had for the official cash rate was different to how the market reacted.

“So there is still a small probability, but it’s still a probability, that we’ll do another rate cut in the near term. We will get much more information how the economy is evolving over just the coming days. We’ll get GDP numbers, we get inflation numbers out in January and all of this will be important when we go into our next meeting.”

Breman – a Swedish economist who was First Deputy Governor of the central bank of Sweden until taking over NZ Reserve Bank Governor on 1 December – said she would not hesitate to make a statement again. She said transparency was important.

“Given I am new in my role, if I comment on monetary policy, I do want everyone to have that information at the same time.”

New Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breman. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

Covid

Breman described how she had been part of the monetary policy response for the Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank. The country was known for responding quite differently in the Covid crisis to New Zealand – the Ardern government here pursued an elimination strategy, Sweden’s was more of a light touch.

“I was in the room when we made monetary policy decisions during Covid and we saw a deep recession coming. We saw even though maybe there were differences in exactly how the restrictions and the lockdown was done, we saw the economy almost in free fall.

“So it was a very severe situation and we acted to support the economy in different ways. So I think in that respect, all countries experienced a lot of both, obviously human suffering but also suffering in terms of economic loss because of the pandemic.”

In a wide-ranging interview, she was asked about the state of the New Zealand economy after Covid.

“I think that what we’re seeing now is that New Zealand has had several years with weak growth, a weak labour market, and we’re starting to see the economy recovering.

“And from my perspective, given that we see inflation also falling and being low and stable going forward, it’s very important now that we see growth that’s lasting, that we see that we have a period where growth is coming back. We see stronger labour markets while of course keeping inflation low and stable. So it’s very important and that’s also why I wanted to stress (in my statement yesterday) that the cut that the Reserve Bank did in late November that was really to support economic growth going forward.”

Cash

Breman believed it was important that people continued to have access to cash.

In a statement in November, the Reserve Bank said its research showed 80 percent of adults use cash sometimes, over half (56 percent) store cash and 8 percent rely on cash.

Breman said: “It is very important that people still have access to cash and as part of our job to ensure that. And the two parts of it is for financial inclusion. People need to be able to pay and sometimes cash is the best option. It’s also crisis preparedness. We saw that with the cyclones. There could be other reasons why the digital systems are vulnerable to attacks. So having cash in a society is important and that’s one of the things that we’re working with.”

Watch the full interview on rnz.co.nz on Wednesday morning

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

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New Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breman talks to Corin Dann: ‘Financial market conditions have tightened’

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breman will not hesitate again to issue a statement for markets to understand how she interprets the economy.

Breman sat down for an extensive interview with Morning Report presenter and incoming RNZ business editor Corin Dann, just a day after she took the unusual step of issuing a statement about financial conditions, which she believed had gone “beyond” the RBNZ’s recent projection for interest rates.

It came on the heels of some banks raising interest rates, believing the bank may raise the official cash rate, despite it cutting the OCR to 2.25 percent late last month.

“Financial market conditions have tightened since the November decision, beyond what is implied by our central projection for the OCR,” she said in the statement. There was still the possibility of another rate cut from the path forward published in the bank’s November Monetary Policy Statement.

Breman told RNZ it was important for markets to understand how she was reading the economic data.

“I am rather new in my role – still just about two weeks into it – and I thought given that it’s a long time until the next monetary policy meeting in February, I thought it was reasonable for markets to see how I read the economic data and also to see how I relate compared to the last Monetary Policy Statement.”

She said she did not want to say whether markets were right or wrong, but the forecast the Reserve Bank had for the official cash rate was different to how the market reacted.

“So there is still a small probability, but it’s still a probability, that we’ll do another rate cut in the near term. We will get much more information how the economy is evolving over just the coming days. We’ll get GDP numbers, we get inflation numbers out in January and all of this will be important when we go into our next meeting.”

Breman – a Swedish economist who was First Deputy Governor of the central bank of Sweden until taking over NZ Reserve Bank Governor on 1 December – said she would not hesitate to make a statement again. She said transparency was important.

“Given I am new in my role, if I comment on monetary policy, I do want everyone to have that information at the same time.”

New Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breman. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

Covid

Breman described how she had been part of the monetary policy response for the Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank. The country was known for responding quite differently in the Covid crisis to New Zealand – the Ardern government here pursued an elimination strategy, Sweden’s was more of a light touch.

“I was in the room when we made monetary policy decisions during Covid and we saw a deep recession coming. We saw even though maybe there were differences in exactly how the restrictions and the lockdown was done, we saw the economy almost in free fall.

“So it was a very severe situation and we acted to support the economy in different ways. So I think in that respect, all countries experienced a lot of both, obviously human suffering but also suffering in terms of economic loss because of the pandemic.”

In a wide-ranging interview, she was asked about the state of the New Zealand economy after Covid.

“I think that what we’re seeing now is that New Zealand has had several years with weak growth, a weak labour market, and we’re starting to see the economy recovering.

“And from my perspective, given that we see inflation also falling and being low and stable going forward, it’s very important now that we see growth that’s lasting, that we see that we have a period where growth is coming back. We see stronger labour markets while of course keeping inflation low and stable. So it’s very important and that’s also why I wanted to stress (in my statement yesterday) that the cut that the Reserve Bank did in late November that was really to support economic growth going forward.”

Cash

Breman believed it was important that people continued to have access to cash.

In a statement in November, the Reserve Bank said its research showed 80 percent of adults use cash sometimes, over half (56 percent) store cash and 8 percent rely on cash.

Breman said: “It is very important that people still have access to cash and as part of our job to ensure that. And the two parts of it is for financial inclusion. People need to be able to pay and sometimes cash is the best option. It’s also crisis preparedness. We saw that with the cyclones. There could be other reasons why the digital systems are vulnerable to attacks. So having cash in a society is important and that’s one of the things that we’re working with.”

Watch the full interview on rnz.co.nz on Wednesday morning

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

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‘It will never be forgotten’ – RNZ on the ground at Bondi Beach

Source: Radio New Zealand

Tributes from mourners are piled together at the Bondi Pavilion in memory of the victims of a shooting at Bondi Beach, in Sydney on December 16, 2025. Australia's leaders have agreed to toughen gun laws after attackers killed 15 people at a Jewish festival on Bondi Beach, the worst mass shooting in decades decried as antisemitic

Tributes from mourners are piled together at the Bondi Pavilion in memory of the victims of a shooting at Bondi Beach. Saeed Khan

First Person: RNZ journalist Charlotte Cook is in Sydney to cover the aftermath of the Bondi Beach terror attack, and says people on the street are not returning smiles, because they are holding back the tears.

I have been a journalist for six and a half years, and this is the second terrorist attack I have covered.

I had been a journalist for three months for the first one – Christchurch, 2019.

It has been nearly seven years since then, but the shock and horror here in Sydney feels awfully familiar.

Bondi Beach is a place famous for its beauty, world-class surf, golden sand and blue sea. Today it feels grey, colourless.

Even the abandoned beach towels on the railing of the walkway flutter lifelessly. They were left as people scrambled in terror to get away from the sound of more than 100 gunshots ringing through the area.

RNZ's Charlotte Cook at Bondi Beach following the terrorist attack which claimed 15 lives.

RNZ’s Charlotte Cook at Bondi Beach following the terrorist attack which claimed 15 lives. Charlotte Cook

The mosque attacks also left Christchurch like that. Dulled by the great weight of what had happened. Blood spilled, lives lost, sorrow embedded in the earth. Even the rows of memorial flowers struggled against the grief.

I am told people ran from the northside of Bondi in horror, fleeing from the shots. For those on the main road, the rounds of fire were so loud they could not work out how far away they were or where they were coming from.

Onlookers thought someone was charging, chasing behind and opening fire on the beachgoers. The fear amplified when people who had barricaded themselves into shops and cafes then saw crowds running back the other way, thinking there was another shooter boxing them in.

When I greet someone on the street, in a cafe or a shop, I can tell from their sleepless, red eyes they felt that. And they will never forget it.

Items that were left behind at Bondi Beach following the terrorist attack which claimed 15 lives.

Items that were left behind at Bondi Beach following the terrorist attack which claimed 15 lives. Charlotte Cook

That is not to mention the ready access the rest of the world had to the graphic events unfolding. Before I landed in Sydney I had seen the gunmen shoot from three different camera angles, had a north and southside view of the people running, saw the inside of the local Woolworths as it went into lockdown. This played out, in near real time on social media for the whole world to see.

People I have spoken to tell me they have never seen anything like it – and neither have I.

This is different to Christchurch because of the way it played out. Thousands, if not tens of thousands felt like their lives were at risk in a active shooting environment on Bondi Beach.

While the 2019 mosque attacks devastated New Zealand and Christchurch, the biggest trauma and hurt was specifically aimed at the Muslim community. That is not to say it did not create hurt for many others – but they did not have a gun pointed at them.

Yes, Jewish people were the target here, but they were in a public space used by everyone, regardless of faith.

Mourners gather by floral tributes at the Bondi Pavillion in memory of the victims of a shooting at Bondi Beach, in Sydney on December 15, 2025.

Mourners gather by floral tributes at the Bondi Pavillion in memory of the victims of a shooting at Bondi Beach. AFP / Saeed Khan

The man sitting next to me says he was minding his own business – next minute he was giving first aid to victims. He did not want to go on the record, because he can’t put it into words yet.

The waiter brought me my lunch and said: “I really don’t feel ready to be here today, but I didn’t want anyone else to have to do it.”

The people on the street do not return my smile, because they are holding back tears.

On the other hand, the Jewish people I have spoken to today said they feel a togetherness they haven’t experienced in Australia for years. They feel seen. But they say it shouldn’t have taken this to create that.

A Hanukkah menorah is projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House in memory of the victims of a shooting at Bondi Beach, in Sydney on 15 December, 2025.

A Hanukkah menorah is projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House in memory of the victims of a shooting at Bondi Beach, in Sydney on 15 December, 2025. DAVID GRAY / AFP

Christian leaders have spoken at the vigil, chaplains are on standby for emotional support, Turbans for Australia is handing out food, even puppy therapy has been on offer.

I am not religious, but I’ve always liked the idea that even on our worst days the sun will rise again. Tomorrow the sun will rise again, it will be the fourth day of Hannukah, an event which symbolizes light triumphing over darkness. It will be three days since two terrorists attacked a peaceful event. It will be a new day.

And like Christchurch, it will never be forgotten. It will scar, deep and enduring.

But slowly, the sky and the sea will feel more blue, the sand clear and the flowers brighter.

Colour will return to Bondi, but how to make sure this doesn’t happen again and I don’t cover a third attack will be another much longer journey.

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Mayor Wayne Brown’s rate rise not popular with former deputy chief of staff

Source: Radio New Zealand

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown says council staff have worked hard to stay within budget. Jessica Hopkins / RNZ

A lobbyist who used to work for Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is now a critic of the city’s 7.9 percent rates rise.

Josh Van Veen was Brown’s deputy chief of staff just two months ago, but is now publicly criticising his former boss over the proposed rise in rates.

Auckland Councillors approved the mayor’s draft 2026/2027 annual budget – which included a 7.9 percent average residential rates increase – on Monday.

Mayor Brown said the increase was higher than ideal, but the new City Rail Link, set to cost roughly $235 million to run each year, was the primary driver.

Van Veen left his post at the mayor’s office after the October local body elections and is now a spokesperson for lobby group Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance.

The group released a statement today, demanding that the mayor put a specific number on how much of the rates increase was to cover the new rail network.

“I don’t think that he has intentionally misled anyone about the rates increase, but I think that there are questions to be asked about the numbers,” Van Veen told RNZ.

The mayor has previously butted heads with the ratepayers group.

In an email in October, he told the group to “F off” after they asked him to sign a pledge to keep rates down.

Van Veen said his departure from the mayor’s office was not because of any personal issues with the mayor.

“There’s no bad blood. I think the mayor has a very hard job, and he is just one vote around the council table.

“I wear my heart on my sleeve in terms of my politics. I previously worked for the Ratepayers’ Alliance, and now I’m back. For me, it’s all about the policy, not the personalities.”

But he believed the mayor could cut spending more and advised him to ask the hard questions.

“Certainly, a lot of savings were found in the last council term. But the Ratepayers’ Alliance would argue the mayor could have gone a lot further.

“My advice is don’t take at face value any of the advice you receive from council officers. Ask the hard questions, be sceptical, be thorough.”

He said some Auckland councillors had requested that a breakdown justifying the rates increase be available for when the public was consulted on the budget in early 2026.

At the Auckland Town Hall, where councillors met on Tuesday, Brown told RNZ the proposed rates increase was in line with the council’s 2024 to 2034 Long-Term Plan.

He said council staff had worked hard to stay within budget.

“Read the papers, the annual plan has everything in it. You can find out what the cost of a park in Howick is.

“If people are too lazy to get the information, it’s not my job to take them word by word through the process.”

The mayor said the recession, infrastructure costs and rebuilding after flooding had all been costly for the city.

He only had one thing to say to Van Veen’s claim that he had not gone hard enough when it came to cutting council spending.

“He had his opportunity last term.”

The mayor was whisked away before he could answer questions about why Van Veen was no longer in his circle. His advisor said that it was an employment matter.

“It’s nothing. The contract ended,” said Brown.

The mayor’s budget would be open for public consultation from 27 February to 29 March.

Auckland Council has been asked what the dollar amount of the average rates increase proposed would be, but was unable to provide the information immediately.

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Some dolphins appear to have orca friends – scientists think they have figured out what’s going on

Source: Radio New Zealand

How dolphins and orca can work together

By Katie Hunt for CNN

Underwater footage revealed that the killer whales were also following dolphins on their dives of up to 60 metres. File photo. AFP / FRANCO BANFI

A pod of Pacific white-sided dolphins off the coast of British Columbia have been observed cooperating with orcas, a traditional enemy that is better known for taking out great white sharks than friendly interaction.

Scientists say they have documented the dolphins and a local population of killer whales known as Northern Resident orcas teaming up to hunt the orcas’ staple food: salmon. Though other groups of orcas feast on dolphins, Northern Residents do not. Still, it is the first time this type of cooperative behaviour has been documented between the two marine mammals, researchers reported.

“Seeing them dive and hunt in sync with dolphins completely changes our understanding of what those encounters mean,” said Sarah Fortune, Canadian Wildlife Federation chair in large whale conservation and an assistant professor in Dalhousie University’s oceanography department. Fortune was the lead author of the study, which published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

To witness the dolphins and orcas interacting, the researchers captured drone footage as well as underwater video by attaching suction tags to the orcas that were equipped with cameras and hydrophones.

Their footage showed that the killer whales travelled toward the dolphins and followed them at the surface level. The underwater footage revealed that the killer whales were also following dolphins on their dives of up to 60 metres, where the orcas were able to prey on Chinook salmon.

Though light levels are low at those depths, Fortune said cameras picked up the killer whales catching salmon, with clouds of blood billowing from their mouths, and hydrophones picked up the crunch of a kill.

To understand better what was happening, the researchers also eavesdropped on the echolocation clicks made by dolphins and orcas, which allow animals to navigate and sense their environment by listening to the returned echoes of the noises they make. “We can look at the characteristics of these clicks to infer whether a whale is actively chasing a prey for a fish and also whether it may have caught the fish,” Fortune said.

The researchers recorded 258 instances of dolphins and orcas interacting between 15 and 30 August 2020.

They found that all the whales that interacted with dolphins also engaged in killing, eating and searching for salmon.

Put together, the data Fortune and her colleagues collected suggested that the killer whales, fearsome predators able to take on great whites and whale sharks several times their size, were essentially using the dolphins as scouts.

“By hunting with other echolocating animals like the dolphins, they might be increasing their acoustic field of view, providing greater opportunity to detect where the salmon are. That’s sort of the prevailing thought here,” she explained. Using dolphins in this way would also allow the orcas to conserve energy, with salmon often hiding at depths to try and avoid predators such as orcas.

But what do dolphins get out of the interactions?

The video Fortune and her colleagues collected showed that once the orcas caught their prey and shared it with the pod, the dolphins were quick to eat the leftovers.

But salmon isn’t a core part of a dolphin’s diet, so greater access to food likely wasn’t the sole motivation, Fortune said. By hanging out with the orcas, dolphins likely gain protection from other orca pods that pass through the area and hunt dolphins.

In addition to the salmon-eating Northern Resident killer whales, the region is home to a distinct type of orca known as the Bigg’s or transient killer whales that specialize in eating marine mammals such as dolphins.

Interactions between Northern Residents and dolphins have occurred off north-eastern Vancouver Island for at least three decades, according to Brittany Visona-Kelly, a senior manager at Canadian conservation group Ocean Wise’s Whales Initiative, who wasn’t involved in this research but has studied the interactions between dolphins, porpoises and the same population of orcas.

In her experience, it was the dolphins that initiated interaction with the killer whales, not the other way around, and she said she was sceptical that the two were genuinely engaging in cooperative foraging. Instead, she said, the orcas may have viewed the dolphins as an annoying pest that was easier to put up with than get rid of.

“Over several years of observations, we concluded that dolphins and porpoises – not killer whales – benefit most from these encounters. Dolphins and porpoises likely gain protection from their primary predator,” she said via email.

“We suggest that Northern Resident killer whales derive no clear benefits from these interactions, but that actively avoiding or resisting them may impose greater energetic costs than tolerating them,” she added.

Fortune, however, said her team’s findings upended the prevailing view among scientists of the interactions.

“Under that paradigm, the dolphins would need to be just kind of hanging out at the surface, grubbing scraps, not exerting time and energy and effort in the process, which they certainly are,” she said, adding that her team found no evidence of antagonistic or avoidant behaviour by the orcas toward the dolphins.

What’s more, the research by Fortune and her colleagues was the first time underwater footage has been used to understand the behaviour, she added.

Cooperation between different species is relatively common in nature, but rarer among mammals and typically doesn’t involve predators, said Judith Bronstein, University Distinguished Professor in the University of Arizona’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology, who studies interspecies cooperation. However, she noted that coyotes had been observed hunting with badgers and opossums with ocelots.

Many species feed together, Bronstein said, noting that “mixed flocks of birds, mixed shoals of fish, for instance, all look out for predators.”

“What’s cool about this example is that each of the species has different abilities,” she said, “and when you look at collaboration between species, you’re always looking for the benefit that outweighs the cost.”

– CNN

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Willis v Richardson debate unlikely to go ahead

Source: Radio New Zealand

Current Finance Minister Nicola Willis and former minister Ruth Richardson. RNZ/Reece Baker/Supplied

The debate between Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Taxpayers Union chair Ruth Richardson seems unlikely to go ahead, with Richardson saying she won’t be part of a “circus or sideshow”.

Willis last week challenged Richardson – the former National Party finance minister who championed the so-called “Mother of all Budgets” – to a debate “any time, anywhere”.

Initially laughing off the request, Richardson agreed – but the pair have been unable to settle on a time, a location or a host.

Willis directly criticised the Taxpayers Union’s rhetoric at the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update opening of the books on Wednesday, coming armed with a copy of the group’s proposed solutions which she said would deliver “human misery”.

She said she was still up for the debate and would be available Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, and did not care who the moderator was.

However, in a statement later in the afternoon, Richardson said instead of a good-faith roundtable discussion in a Wellington Studio, Willis had pushed for an event at Parliament chaired by Winston Peters, which would be “a circus”.

“In the face of the level of fiscal failure revealed today, it is clear why she wanted such a distraction,” Richardson said. “The outlook delivered today is the worst in 30 years. It gets lost in the billions, but no one was expecting the books to be anywhere near this bad.

“The debate was supposed to be about whether there is a credible pathway back to surplus; today’s numbers show there clearly isn’t one. Over the last two years, Minister Willis has pushed back surplus another three years. If there is a so-called ‘path to surplus’, Willis is walking the wrong way.”

She appeared to pull out of the debate entirely, saying: “I will not be party to a circus or a sideshow designed to distract from fiscal failure.”

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Finance minister must take responsibility for state of books, say Labour, Taxpayer Union

Source: Radio New Zealand

Finance Minster Nicola Willis says going harder could hurt lower income families, while going softer was “reckless and irresponsible”. RNZ / Mark Papalii

Both Labour and the Taxpayers’ Union have hit back at criticism levelled at them by Finance Minister Nicola Willis, saying she must take responsibility for the state of the books.

Treasury’s Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) – published on Tuesday – showed a surplus was not forecast until 2029/30, although Willis said the government would still target 2028/29.

The expected deficit for 2025/26 was projected to be $13.9 billion, $1.8b worse than forecast in May. A slower economy, lower tax take, higher debt costs were cited as reasons for the revisions.

In her accompanying Budget Policy Statement, Willis mounted a defence of her “deliberate, medium-term” strategy, and attacked her opponents on both the left and the right.

She acknowledged there were calls for her to take a harder approach – and cut spending faster – and those who wanted a softer approach.

But Willis said going harder could hurt lower income families and depress demand in the economy, while going softer was “reckless and irresponsible”.

She used Labour’s opposition to the government’s savings measures to create a hypothetical Labour Budget, with an increase to the deficit and the debt.

Using Treasury’s analysis of the savings the government had delivered over its first two Budgets, Willis’ office calculated that if government spending in 2024 and 2025 had not been offset by its savings programme, then the OBEGALx deficit would be $25b, and net core Crown debt would be 59 percent of GDP over the forecast period.

“We have the receipts, and unfortunately for Labour, having opposed every saving that we have delivered, they cannot take a position of responsible fiscal management,” Willis said.

But Labour leader Chris Hipkins questioned whether Willis had factored in the government’s tax cuts to those forecasts, an initiative Labour would not have gone ahead with.

“We certainly wouldn’t have delivered the tax cuts that they delivered at the last election, which have now created the structural deficit that Nicola Willis is dealing to.”

Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said the government and Willis had made the wrong decisions.

“She’s blamed Labour. She’s blamed Fonterra. She’s blamed Ruth Richardson. She’s blamed the unions. She needs to have a good, hard look at these books and reflect on the choices that she’s made.”

The Green Party’s co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the government had created a “doom-loop” for itself.

“They have underfunded our public services and infrastructure, they have completely gutted the circumstances necessary for creation of jobs and a productive economy, which in turn has meant they have lowered their tax revenue,” she said.

“All of this has meant that we are circling the drain as a country, and these are active government decisions. Different decisions can be made.”

At her Tuesday media conference, Willis brandished a policy document from the Taxpayers’ Union, which said abolishing Working for Families tax credits would save $2.98b in 2025/26, or $14.95b over the forecast period.

Willis said such a policy would take money away from 330,000 families overnight, with beneficiaries and low-income working families to bear the biggest brunt.

“It would create a level of human misery that I, for one, am not prepared to tolerate.”

The Taxpayers’ Union head of policy and legislative affairs James Ross told RNZ not all of the suggestions in the document had to happen, but the longer it took the government to make choices, the harder it would be.

“The real story is that for the third time in just two years, the minister has seen the surplus slip back and back and back,” he said.

In the HYEFU, the cost of superannuation payments was projected to increase from $24.8b in 2025/26 to $30.9b in 2029/30 (with the number of New Zealanders receiving Super tipped to cross the one million line in 2027/28).

Willis, who temporarily put on her National party finance spokesperson hat, said “all sensible parties” should take a position on superannuation into the campaign.

A policy to raise the KiwiSaver contribution rate, announced last month, was National’s “opening shot,” Willis said, in that the party sees KiwiSaver playing a greater role in people’s retirements.

ACT leader David Seymour agreed superannuation needed to be looked at.

“There is an obvious change that just about every country we compare ourselves with is making, and that is now inevitable in New Zealand. The question is are we going to make that change slowly and gradually in our own time, or have it foisted on us by some financial crisis in the future?”

Edmonds said Labour was not prepared to change the superannuation settings “at this point,” while New Zealand First leader Winston Peters asked what had changed to make people concerned.

“When it’s only 5.2 to 5.3 percent of our GDP, half the imposition that it is in other economies, how can this be the issue?”

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Man jailed for more than five years for collecting child exploitation material

Source: Radio New Zealand

Storm Uriah Constable-Carter appears via video link in the Nelson District Court. RNZ / Samantha Gee

WARNING: Contains content about sexual offending against children and animals.

A Tasman man has been jailed for more than five years for collecting thousands of child exploitation photos and videos, described by a judge as graphic and horrific.

Storm Uriah Constable-Carter pleaded guilty in the Nelson District Court in August to 50 charges relating to the creation, possession and distribution of child exploitation and bestiality material.

Investigators described the material as some of the worst they had seen in more than two decades of work. It featured the extreme sexual exploitation of children and infants, and the torture and sexual abuse of a range of different animals.

The 22-year-old was charged in August after the Department of Internal Affairs’ Digital Child Exploitation Team launched an investigation after a video file, depicting bestiality involving an toddler was found in two cloud storage accounts.

Investigators found more than 60,000 objectionable publications across nine internet accounts created and controlled by Constable-Carter with more than 10,000 objectionable items shared with others.

The offending began in 2019 when Constable-Carter was 16 years old.

Judge Tony Snell described the content in Constable-Carter’s possession as being among the worst of its kind.

“Some of your charges depict the most extreme and depraved depictions of child abuse imaginable,” Judge Snell said.

“Your offending involved real infants, real toddlers, real children, real young people. It involved the horrific and sickening abuse – including rape, violations, torture – and it involved the torture and murder of animals for your sexual gratification.”

Not a victimless crime

Online child exploitation was not victimless, the judge said.

“It is a crime that fuels the cycle of sexual abuse and exploitation of real children internationally.

“There are the obvious impacts on all of the victims but that is compounded with this type of material because it is redistributed and exists forever on the internet. The abuse and trauma suffered by the victims continues forever. It can never truly be eradicated because it exists online. It is described often as shame and trauma that never ceases.”

Judge Snell said Constable-Carter was in possession of objectionable material where a set of victims had previously been identified.

In a victim impact statement, one of the victims described how she lived with the horrible knowledge someone, somewhere was watching the most terrifying moments of her life and taking grotesque pleasure in them.

“Every day people are trading and sharing videos of me as a little girl being raped in the most sadistic ways. Every time they are downloaded, I am exploited again. My privacy is breached and my life feels less and less safe.”

Investigation launched in after video flagged in cloud storage account

The Department of Internal Affairs’ Digital Child Exploitation Team began an investigation in June 2022 after they became aware a video depicting sexual exploitation of a toddler had been uploaded to a cloud storage account based in New Zealand and attributed to Constable-Carter.

The DIA received 74 referrals related to Constable-Carter from an international organisation that manages child sexual abuse reports.

“Between the nine cloud storage accounts, you were in possession of at least 60,437 objectionable photos and video files depicting the sexual abuse of children, bestiality and urination for the purpose of sexual conduct. Due to the number of files contained between these accounts, an additional 35,636 images and video files have not been able to be categorised,” a summary of facts said.

Constable-Carter used cloud storage accounts and encrypted internet communications to receive and distribute the objectionable material and discuss his sexual preferences.

Judge Snell said Constable-Carter had curated a large collection of objectionable material and was highly proficient at sharing it with others.

“You had your finger on the pulse of what you were distributing and knew it intimately well.”

There were several aggravating factors to the offending – the sexual exploitation of children, the age and vulnerability of the victims, the impact it had on them, the creation of objectionable videos, the duration and frequency of the offending, the scale of the offending, the engagement with the material, and the nature of the content, the judge said.

From a starting point of 12 years, Constable-Carter was given a combined discount of 55 per cent for his guilty plea, young age, undiagnosed psychological issues and other life circumstances, resulting in the end sentence of five years and five months in prison.

Judge Snell made an order for the forfeiture and destruction of the seized objectionable publications and an Apple iPhone used to access them.

Constable-Carter was automatically added to the Child Sex Offender register.

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

Posted on

Auckland’s fortnightly rubbish collection trial kicked to curb

Source: Radio New Zealand

Supplied / Auckland Council

Auckland Councillors have voted not to proceed with a six-month trial of fortnightly kerbside rubbish collections in parts of the city, after considering public feedback.

The proposed trial would’ve halved the number of kerbside collections in Te Atatū, Panmure, Tāmaki, Clendon Park and Weymouth, with the intention of reducing waste to landfill.

About 5000 Aucklanders had made submissions during consultation, and 78 percent had opposed the trial.

Feedback included concerns about managing fuller bins, smells, hygiene and whether they would have enough bin space, particularly in big households.

On Tuesday, the Policy, Planning and Development Committee voted to scrap the trial.

Its chairperson councillor Richard Hills said elected members took public feedback seriously and heard people’s concerns that the trial wouldn’t work well.

However, he said reducing waste to landfill remains a priority that the committee will revisit in the new year.

“Staff will return to the committee with a range of waste minimisation options in 2026,

“Feedback on the Waste Minimisation and Management Plan 2024 showed that reducing waste to landfill is important to many Aucklanders, with 66 percent of respondents supporting the overall plan and its targets,” he said.

Council’s general manager of waste solutions, Justine Haves, said council remains committed to meet its waste-minimisation target of 29 percent by 2030.

“Next year we’ll bring a range of evidence-based options that can help Aucklanders reduce waste to landfill to the Governing Body for consideration. This work will guide how we continue moving towards a more sustainable future for Tāmaki Makaurau,” she said.

During the meeting, councillor Julie Fairey raised that Auckland Council has been on the pathway of proposing fortnightly rubbish collections since 2012.

She said it’s one thing to look at evidence around the benefits, but another issue entirely to get social support for it.

Fairey said it would be useful to hear more from the 18 councils that have been doing fortnightly rubbish collections, and that could help with Auckland Council’s conversations with the community.

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

Posted on

Transport subsidies for elderly and disabled people reduced

Source: Radio New Zealand

The subsidy will be reduced from 75 percent to 65 percent. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

The government is cutting transport subsidies for elderly and disabled people for elderly and disabled people from 75 percent to 65 percent.

The Total Mobility scheme provides discounted taxis and public transport fares for those with long-term impairments.

Transport Minister Chris Bishop and Disability Minister Louise Upston said when the previous Labour government boosted the scheme from a 50 percent subsidy in 2022, it did not account for increased demand.

The number of registered users had increased from 108,000 to 120,000 between 2022 and 2024/25, and the number of trips increased from 1.8 million in 2018 to 3 million in 2024/25.

Bishop said the increased demand now meant the scheme was close to exceeding the funding provided by $236m sometime over the five years to 2030.

“The subsidy is split between the government and public transport authorities – local councils and the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) – and provides an important service for the people who use the scheme,” he said.

“This is yet another fiscal cliff left to us that we are having to correct and fix. Today, the government is announcing decisions to stabilise the Total Mobility scheme so that the disability community is supported in a financially sustainable way, by all funding partners.”

This would be done by reducing the subsidy from 75 percent to 65 percent, something the Transport Agency would work towards.

The reduced costs to the Crown would be recycled back to public transport authorities to reduce the 2025 to 2030 shortfall, with the government also providing $10m.

Upston said they wanted to “stabilise” the scheme’s funding pressures “in a way that ensures financial sustainability, consistency in how the service is delivered, and fairness across New Zealand”.

She said the government would release a discussion document to consult on further changes to the scheme “to ensure fairer, consistent and more sustainable access to services for people with the greatest need”.

Labour’s Priyanca Radhakrishnan says today’s changes mean disabled New Zealanders paying more to get to work, attend appointments or see loved ones.

She said the government was making life harder and more expensive for disabled New Zealanders by making the cuts in a cost-of-living crisis.

“Slashing subsidised transport at a time when people are already struggling is out of touch especially from a government that promised to ease the cost-of-living and has instead made it worse.

“Disability communities feel betrayed. First came the overnight cut to flexible funding. Then restrictions on residential care with no warning. Then Whaikaha was gutted and disability support shifted to the Ministry of Social Development. Now, the transport subsidy many rely on to live independently has been cut.”

She said affordable transport was not a nice-to-have for many disabled New Zealanders, but a lifeline that meant independence, dignity, and the ability to participate in everyday life – which was why Labour had increased the subsidy in 2022.

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