Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

The government is providing interest free loans of $52.7 million to two companies to boost the number of electric vehicle public chargers around the country.

The zero-interest loans will go to ChargeNet and Meridian Energy, who are investing $60m in capital, and would see 2574 new charge points, 1374 DC fast chargers and 1200 AC chargers.

The move will more than double the country’s chargers, to around 4550.

New Zealand has about 1800 public charge points currently, among the lowest charger-to-EV ratios in the OECD.

In 2023, the National Party promised electric vehicle chargers by 2030 if elected.

Transport Minister Chris Bishop said the loans kept the taxpayer’s contribution to a minimum.

“In this case, the average loan per charge point is $20,000, but once repayments are factored in, the net cost to the Crown is around $10,000 per charger, roughly a quarter of what a direct grant would cost.

Bishop said it was a chicken and egg situation, with some electric vehicle charger providers reluctant to roll out chargers until there were more EVs on the road, but concerns about the driving range of electric vehicles and a lack of public chargers was one of the main perceived disadvantages of EVs for potential buyers.

“Many New Zealanders have thought about getting an EV, even before the fuel challenges we’re currently facing. But research shows that the lack of public chargers is holding many back from making the switch to an EV,” Bishop said.

“The private sector is reluctant to invest in charging infrastructure until there’s sufficient demand, but demand won’t grow until the lack of public chargers stops putting buyers off. Just as the previous National-led Government did with the ultrafast broadband network rollout, we’re taking action to break that deadlock.”

He said the below-market interest rate loans were preferable to grants.

“It’s a more commercial model, a more sophisticated model, bringing forward that private sector investment.”

“In this case, the average loan per charge point is $20,000, but once repayments are factored in, the net cost to the Crown is around $10,000 per charger, roughly a quarter of what a direct grant would cost.”

Some requirements were placed on the loans, such requiring an urban-rural split, but exactly where they went was a commercial decision for the companies, Bishop said.

“About half the new chargers will be spread across Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, the Wellington region, Christchurch, and Dunedin, with the other half throughout the regions, so drivers outside the main centres will benefit too,” he said.

“We’re also changing our planning rules to make the installation of public EV chargers a permitted activity under the RMA, meaning in most cases no consent is required – another factor that will help to speed up delivery.”

Work on the grants had been underway for some time, but that the timing was “fortuitous” given the increased interest in electric vehicles in the wake of surging fuel costs caused by the conflict in the Middle East, he said.

“People look at a petrol price of three bucks, three bucks twenty, and potentially going higher, and they say, jeepers creepers, now’s the time to go electric because the running costs are just so much lower,” Mr Bishop said.

The 10,000 chargers by 2030 target was ambitious, he said.

It was on its way to meeting it, but would require additional Crown investment which would be considered as part of the budget process, he said.

Chair of EV lobby group Drive Electric Kirsten Corston welcomed the news, but said much more needed to be done.

She said the government had promised more than $200m to go towards fast chargers several years ago, and this project only accounted for $52m.

“We’re interested to see what the other commitments are going to be.”

It seemed very unlikely the government would achieve its target of 10,000 chargers before 2030, she said.

New Zealand was falling behind other countries in [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/thedetail/586362/the-ev-slowdown-how-government-decisions-changed-the-road-ahead

EV uptake] following a sharp decline in purchases following the government’s cancellation of the clean car subsidy.

EVs accounted for around 27 percent of new vehicle sales in 2023, or at least one in four cars sold. Only one in nine cars sold are electric now.

“And you look at Australia, one in five cars sold are electric. In China, one in two cars sold are electric. The global average is one in four cars sold are electric.”

There had been a three-fold increase of inquiries into second-hand and new EVs in recent weeks, she said.

“The challenge for us, though, is we’ve got a country that is still very dependent on importing fossil fuels and we’ve got a government that whilst this is fantastic to see this investment into charging infrastructure we also need investment into electric vehicles to drive uptake.”

Colston said reducing road user charges – which are the same for electric vehicles as for diesel vehicles – would be one way to do that.

Other levers included a Fringe Benefit Tax for light vehicles such as Australia has, or accelerated depreciation for commercial and heavy vehicles.

Drive EV wanted to see investment in making EVs more accessible to more people, she said.

“At the moment, when the average purchase of a car for a Kiwi is around $7000, yes, they can go and access a Nissan Leaf for $5000 – $10,000. But if they’ve got four kids and they need a 200 kilometre range to get around town for the day, that’s not going to meet their needs.

“So we have to create that second, third, fourth hand market for Kiwis to bring that price down – that’s a really critical piece to make EVs available for everyone in our community.”

Getting more people into electric vehicles promised a huge financial opportunity for New Zealanders, Colston said.

“The average household spends $3000 to $4000 a year paying for their petrol or diesel, and if they could electrify, it would be around $1000 a year.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Early signs suggest the government’s overhaul of local truancy services is working – at least in some areas.

Most principals contacted by RNZ said it was too early to judge whether their local attendance service provider was doing a better job, but two said theirs were already returning more chronic truants to class.

Last year, the ministry signed 83 new contracts aimed at making providers more accountable and effective at tracking down the most serious truants.

In Whangarei, Hora Hora School principal Pat Newman said the service brought 10-15 children to his school this year who would otherwise be at home.

He said some had never been to school at all.

“What we’re finding is that we’re getting children who have not been attending school or [attending] poorly,” he said. “We’ve got some children who have not been at school, at [age] seven or so attending.”

He said the service approached the problem in the right way.

“What they’re trying to do is to look at what’s stopping a kid coming to school and then looking at where they can get help to take away the problem,” he said.

Other, more punitive options were considered only if the initial help didn’t work.

“I think it’s a damn good model,” Newman said. “It will continue or fail, depending on the resourcing put behind it.”

At Auckland’s Jean Batten Primary School, principal Nardi Leonard said her local attendance service was working better too.

“What we have noticed by the new service is they are more readily available to us,” she said.

“If you reflect back on the old system, a lot of the attendance officers were constantly soaked up into secondary schools and all the high schools, and at the primary level for us, we felt that the resource just didn’t get down to us,” she said.

“The new system, our person actually has less schools and they are primary schools, so we do feel there’s that support directly.”

She said her school had all but given up on the previous attendance service, but under the new system, it had already referred children and had positive results.

“In the short time of five weeks, we’ve made three referrals and we’ve been able to get two back,” she said. “One, we don’t know where that person’s gone, so that’s obviously a hard one, but we have got two children back in school.

“The next challenge is the sustainability of keeping them in school, but we celebrate the small steps and just work towards increasing it day-by-day.”

Leonard said, previously, the school got no response from the attendance service and had pretty much given up using it.

She said the school emphasised the importance of daily attendance and it was good to have the back-up provided by the attendance service.

Other principals told RNZ their local provider was still getting started and they were yet to see how they performed.

Berkley Normal Middle School in Hamilton was part of a group of schools that lost its attendance service contract in last year’s re-organisation.

Principal Nathan Leith said it was too early to tell if the new organisation was doing a better job, but he reckoned schools definitely were.

Leith said many had not realised how bad their attendance was, until they looked carefully at their data.

They now had to put a five-step attendance plan on their websites and have clear plans for what to do after a certain number of days’ absence.

“Those are the things that are perhaps making a bigger difference,” he said.

Leith said schools were dealing with the bulk of poor attenders and occasional truants, while the attendance services would tackle the toughest cases.

He said the service should have funding to tackle social issues, such as lack of money for food or school uniforms, that contributed to truancy and he hoped some of that funding would make it to schools.

Education Ministry figures showed daily attendance averaged a little more than 89 percent so far this year, about one percentage point more than at the same time last year.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Public transport is experiencing a boom, with commuters flooding onboard while fuel costs soar, and passenger numbers set to tumble.

Last week 91 octane petrol had risen 55 cents a litre since the beginning of the Iran war, with diesel up 90 cents in the same time, hitting personal and commercial budgets amid an existing cost-of-living crunch. And a string of commuters in the main centres told RNZ they were turning to public transport to help cut costs.

• $4 a litre 91 petrol is coming, but take care with data showing it’s here in main centres

Passengers numbers have grown for both buses and trains in Wellington, the Greater Wellington Regional council says.

Prior to this year, there had been a six percent decrease in public transport use year-on-year. But now, both the price of fuel and ongoing major traffic disruption from construction on Lower Hutt’s RiverLink project had turned that around.

It means the Wellington Region is expected to have its highest day ever for public transport use in the next couple of weeks.

• Watch: Seven weeks worth of fuel stocks in NZ – finance minister says

The steep trajectory of fuel costs meant the cost of driving 15 kilometres in Auckland reached nearly double the cost of taking public transport last week, Auckland Transport said – without parking costs factored in.

And the Auckland public transport uptick has already reached records, with Tuesday the busiest day since 2019, councillor Richard Hills said.

Passenger numbers were seven percent higher than the previous Tuesday, and had 7000 more trips than the previous busiest day.

“It’s great to see more people choosing public transport and trying it out,” Hills said.

Wellington public transport challenges levelling as demand increases

Wellington “has had a hard road for public transport patronage over the last couple of years”, said the regional council’s transport committee chairperson Ros Connolly.

“We’ve had a number of headwinds, you know. We’ve had working from home, we’ve had quite high numbers of unemployment in the Wellington region, and the cost of living has all meant that our public transport numbers haven’t been as high as we would have liked them to be. So year-on-year we’ve had about a 6 percent year-on-year decrease.

But in recent weeks, “that number has absolutely turned around,” she said.

“We’ve definitely seen the impact of higher fuel prices on people’s transport decisions …So unlike Auckland, we haven’t quite topped our highest day since 2019, but we can say we are getting close, and we’re confident that in the next fortnight, if things continue to track the way they have, that we will see Wellington experience that record number.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Six people have died in 24 hours in crashes in Waikato, Taranaki, Auckland, Southland and Waiohau.

Southland

One person has died in Invercargill after fleeing police.

Shortly before 3am, police signalled for a vehicle to stop on Kelvin Street, Invercargill, but the driver fled the scene.

Police said it was not pursued, but found the vehicle crashed at the intersection of Leet and Kelvin Streets a short time later.

One person died at the scene.

The road was closed while the Serious Crash Unit examined the scene and the matter will also be referred to the IPCA

Any witnesses to the crash, or anybody who has CCTV in the vicinity of Wellesley Avenue, Avenal Street or Kelvin Street, have been asked to get in touch with police.

Another person died in a single-vehicle crash along Winding Creek Road in Southland overnight.

Emergency services were called to the rural road about 12.40am.

One other person suffered moderate injuries.

Waikato

Waikato police said on Sunday morning a person died following a single-vehicle crash on Howden Road, to the west of Hamilton city in Temple View. The crash happened about 8:30pm on Saturday.

Auckland

Meanwhile, blocked lanes on Auckland’s Southwestern Motorway at Onehunga were reopened by 9:30am Sunday, after a collision earlier in the morning. Two vehicles were involved in the crash on the State Highway 20 motorway, police said.

One person was killed and two others moderately injured.

Stratford

Early this evening, police said one person has died after a single vehicle crash on SH43 / Forgotten World Highway in Stratford this morning.

The crash was reported to police at 11.30am, and the road remains closed.

Waiohau

A sixth person died after a single-vehicle crash on Galatea Road, Waiohau, at about 5.15pm.

The sole occupant of the vehicle was found dead.

Police said the road was closed and diversions are in place.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Four people have died and others have been injured in crashes in Waikato, Taranaki, Auckland, Stratford, Waiohau and Southland

Waikato police said on Sunday morning a person died following a single-vehicle crash on Howden Road, to the west of Hamilton city in Temple View. The crash happened about 8:30pm on Saturday.

Meanwhile, blocked lanes on Auckland’s Southwestern Motorway at Onehunga were reopened by 9:30am Sunday, after a collision earlier in the morning. Two vehicles were involved in the crash on the State Highway 20 motorway, police said.

One person was killed and two others moderately injured.

Early this evening, police said one person has died after a single vehicle crash on SH43 / Forgotten World Highway in Stratford this morning.

The crash was reported to police at 11.30am, and the road remains closed.

A fourth person died after a single-vehicle crash on Galatea Road, Waiohau, at about 5.15pm.

The sole occupant of the vehicle was found dead.

Police said the road was closed and diversions are in place.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

One person has been seriously injured, after an explosion in the engine compartment of a steam train at Glenbrook Vintage Railway.

Fire and Emergency sent four trucks to the vintage railway station between Glenbrook and Waiuku in southern Auckland just before 4pm.

A spokesperson said, when firefighters arrived, the blaze was contained inside the engine compartment of the locomotive.

St John Ambulance took one person to Middlemore Hospital in a serious condition.

– more to come

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Source: Radio New Zealand

During his state of nation speech, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters addressed his party’s new proposal to split up energy gentailers, the state of the economy, Covid and his party’s aspirations at this year’s election.

He also spent time taking shots at his political rivals, with sections of his speech dedicated to Labour, the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori.

Peters also acknowledged the country was “navigating a chaotic environment” and that New Zealand’s economy “isn’t where it should be”.

Here are some the topics Peters touched on.

Energy sector overhaul

Peters anchored much of his speech on energy, announcing his party would campaign on splitting up the energy gentailers (generators and retailers).

He said the policy would ensure energy gentailers could “no longer control both the power and the price”.

“The big four power companies control almost 90 percent of the electricity generation and then sell it back to themselves,” Peters said.

“It will mean more power stations. More renewable energy. More competition. More resilience.

“It’s time to secure our electricity system for all New Zealanders.”

New Zealand First Minister Shane Jones had already promised the party would look to split up energy gentailers.

New candidate Alfred Ngaro

New Zealand First also announced Alfred Ngaro as a new candidate, who will run for the party at this year’s elections.

Ngaro – speaking before Peters – said NZ First stood for “what is right” and everything he believed.

“Right now there is a quiet uncertainty in this country, people are working hard but wondering whether things will get better.

“The best days of New Zealand are not behind us they are ahead of us,” he said.

However several people in the crowd questioned who he was, with Ngaro not introducing himself at the start of his speech.

Fonterra and Air NZ

Peters went on to talk about Fonterra’s proposal to sell Mainland, Anchor and Kapiti.

Fonterra had gone from a “propped-up nationalist company, to a sell-out globalist company”, Peters said.

He also labelled calls for the government to sell its stake in Air New Zealand as “economic neoliberal lunacy”.

“Air New Zealand is our national carrier and a national asset.

“As the majority shareholder, the government should be backing its future rather than dragging it down and hocking it off.”

Covid and Labour failures

Peters said the latest Covid-19 inquiry highlighted failures by the Labour party.

“The report brings questions that need to be answered by Hipkins and Verrall and all those other former ministers,” he said.

“They cannot brush this off… Someone needs to be held accountable.”

Peters claimed Labour wasted billions of dollars and did not “properly advise” the public of the vaccine “risks”, a claim Labour strongly denies.

Speech protests

Peters hosted the event at the Atrium Conference Centre in the Tauranga suburb of Otūmoetai, where a group of protesters gathered holding Palestinian and Māori flags.

People protesting Shane Jone’s fishing reform were seen holding signs that read: “Shane Jones = Fishy deal” and “Big fishing wins Kiwis lose”.

The New Zealand Herald reported some of the protesters as being Destiny Church members.

Currently, NZ First is trending upward in the polls. In the latest RNZ Reid Research poll, the party sat at 9.8 percent in the party vote, which would result in 12 seats in parliament – four more than what it currently holds.

Peters was third in the preferred prime minister ranking, at 12.6 percent. Labour’s Chris Hipkins was at 21.1 percent, with Christopher Luxon on 19.4 percent.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A Northland contractor has retained his national digger operator crown by successfully slicing a pizza with his excavator.

Whangarei’s Steven George also used the excavator to pour a cup of tea and play a super-sized game of Connect Four.

The three unorthodox challenges proved to be the biggest crowd-pleasers of the 32nd National Excavator Operator Competition held across Friday and Saturday at the Central Districts Field Days event in Feilding.

After winning last year’s competition, the Steven George Contracting owner-operator backed up his previous exploits by overcoming 11 other regional champions.

Napier’s Marcus Ingram and Taranaki’s Ryan Prankerd were the biggest challengers, finishing on the podium in second and third place respectively.

Prankerd won the MVP award for his “sterling display of spirit and camaraderie” during the event.

George said it was “bloody good” to win against a number of new competitors this year.

“I came into this weekend not knowing what to expect. There were a bunch of new faces, as well as guys who have done it a few times before,” he said.

Other challenges on the course included slam-dunking basketballs, painting pictures and serving ice cream to the crowd.

The digger operating marvel told RNZ the more unconventional tasks were not as difficult as they sounded.

“It wasn’t too bad to be honest. It was a lot easier than you’d think from watching on the sidelines,” he said.

“Those activities are crowd-pleasing ones, they love watching that kind of stuff and watching the machines do that.

“You just take your time, concentrate on what you’re doing and not rush it.”

The more traditional tasks included bulk trenching, digging carefully around underground services, truck loading and health and safety knowledge.

Other winners included Rangitikei operator Dean Cave, who won the One-day Job Challenge, which tested competitors’ ability to plan and execute a complex task from start to finish.

Tasman operator Daniel Bruning was awarded the Geoff Duff Memorial Trophy, which recognised the participant who achieved the best scores across the truck-loading challenges.

Civil Contractors New Zealand chief executive Alan Pollard said this year’s competition carried extra significance due to the essential work excavator operators had played in disaster-response efforts across the upper North Island in January.

“The competitors at this year’s event represent the very best of an industry that is more important to New Zealand than ever.

“These people are role models, who not only highlight the expertise and professionalism in our industry, but also inspire others to take up the tools and join the pool of talent required to build the infrastructure that will support the future of New Zealand.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The finance minister says New Zealand’s fuel stocks remain at seven weeks worth, including stockpiles.

But Nicola Willis concedes that keeping that buffer was still “dependent on ships like this continuing to turn up”.

Speaking on Sunday afternoon at Channel Infrastructure’s Marsden Point Energy Precinct, Willis said she wanted to provide more information to address peoples’ concerns about delays in that supply.

She said New Zealand had a number of places fuel supplies arrive into the country, but Marsden Point is the largest.

Today’s visit comes amid fears of an energy crisis, with the global price of oil skyrocketing in the wake of the US and Israel’s attack on Iran.

Iran’s response has included threatening ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a key channel for the transportation of fuel exports from the Middle East, and strikes on US-friendly neighbours’ energy infrastructure.

Marsden Point is New Zealand’s fuel import terminal, and until 2022 also had an oil refining facility. New Zealand now relies on imported refined fuels, without a facility to refine raw products.

Senior coalition politicians are at odds over whether the facility should have been closed.

Willis told Morning Report on Friday price increases were extremely tough and affecting all New Zealanders, but some were feeling it more than others.

“I can’t solve the pain for everyone. The cost of doing that would potentially involve levels of spending that would drive inflation higher, and certainly would put us in a more fragile position in terms of debt.

“So what we are looking at, is there something very targeted and temporary that we could do to assist those workers in particular who are most acutely impacted by these household budget squeezes?”

IRD and Treasury have been asked to come up with a package that could be implemented with urgency ahead of the Budget.

Willis will talk to the media at 2pm – watch it live here.

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