Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

A proposal to run a floating sauna in a popular Te Anau reserve has gone up in steam in the face of public backlash.

The plan was for people to sweat it out on a floating pontoon on Lake Henry with the option to finish with a cold plunge.

Floating Sauna Limited first applied for a licence to occupy in Ivon Wilson Park under the Reserves Act back in 2024 – it was granted a resource consent in February.

The Southland District Council spent hours discussing the many concerns residents raised at a meeting on Wednesday.

In the busy tourist town of Te Anau, Diana Zadravec said Ivon Wilson Park was a welcome patch of tranquility

“We really appreciate to have one space in town that is not commercialised, that is not pre-dominantly for tourism,” she said.

She and others have been fighting to keep the floating sauna from setting up shop on the lake at its heart.

“It’s just the place you can go and just walk and have quiet and have peace, and it’s just incredible. There’s this little lake in the middle that’s like the jewel in it.”

The company’s application said the saunas would create a new way to appreciate the park without compromising the enjoyment of the wider reserve and it would provide a year round opportunity for residents and visitors to “provide for their health and well-being”.

Earlier this year, council received 210 submissions on the planned sauna – 170 were against it and 37 backed the proposal.

Councillors considered those points of view at Wednesday’s meeting, with councillor Matt Wilson saying residents had ensured their voices were heard.

“Lake Henry is only this big. There’s three public platforms and one out of three of them would be commercialised so that sentiment from the submissions, I think, really does need to stand,” he said.

Many residents did not want to see a business on a lake they treasured, he said.

“The acknowledgement that Te Anau’s got a strong tourism economy but the park was cited as a space where locals could step away from the commercial tourism and go to a local space that wasn’t commercialised.”

Councillor Jaspreet Boparai agreed.

“Multiple people said that the jetty’s the first place we head to when we visit the park,” she said.

A resource consent for the saunas was granted in February.

But councillor Don Byars said that should not mean the community’s environmental concerns were discounted, especially as the saunas were wood-fired.

“Heating saunas to accommodate 160-something people (a day), I would have thought that on balance that there is going to be an effect of smoke in that park. I don’t see how you can rule that out,” he said.

When it came to decision time, no one backed the proposal and it was declined.

Diana Zadravec said it was the right call to make.

“I think it was never a question of whether the community supported a sauna project, it was just not the right location for it,” she said.

“I was really impressed with the robustness of the discussion that was held by the council. It was a very thorough and long discussion about it.”

A floating sauna on Lake Henry might be off the cards, but some locals hope the idea will not lose steam – just find somewhere else to go.

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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 well-known Wellington landlord who owns numerous properties has pleaded guilty to multiple charges of making and publishing intimate recordings.

Matthew Ryan appeared at the Wellington District Court on Wednesday, wearing a moon boot and using a walking frame.

He entered guilty pleas to two counts each of making an intimate visual recording and publishing an intimate visual recording.

Ryan has entered not guilty pleas to a number of other charges, which include threatening to kill and strangulation.

His trial is expected late this year or early 2027.

Who is Matthew Ryan?

Ryan has owned more than 100 properties, and regularly spoken to the media about the housing market and property investment.

DCM, the organisation supporting homeless people in Wellington, has praised him for leasing some homes for community housing.

In 2018, Ryan was involved in a Tenancy Tribunal case when a foreign diplomat avoided paying her landlords – Ryan and Rebecca Van Den Bos – more than $20,000 she owed, due to diplomatic immunity.

Ryan was also caught up in a 2019 tenancy stoush with former Wellington Phoenix owner and TV star Terry Serepisos, Stuff reported.

The Tenancy Tribunal ruled in Ryan’s favour and allowed him to kick Serepisos out of a house Ryan bought from Serepisos’ mother, which Serepisos had been refusing to leave, it said.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

There has been an increased security presence at a West Auckland train station, after anti-social behaviour involving teenagers yesterday.

The incident occurred at the Sturges Road train station car park on Tuesday afternoon.

Auckland Transport spokesperson Hayden Rawcliffe confirmed the incident involving a group of young people, some of whom were in school uniforms.

Kelston Boys’ High School said it had students who were involved.

“The school is aware of an incident that occurred yesterday afternoon and is taking the matter seriously.

“We are currently working with other schools involved and relevant agencies to establish the facts. For privacy reasons, we are unable to comment on individual students or provide further details at this time.”

Rawcliffe said AT’s train service operator Auckland One Rail had placed security at the station on Wednesday.

“AOR is sharing CCTV footage from the station with the police, and the appropriate schools to ensure this is managed from their sides.

“AOR is also sending roving security patrols to the area this afternoon to help reassure our passengers and provide a more visible presence.

“While this was an incident that took place near a train station, it could have occurred at any public place. Although AT has a range of initiatives and staff in place to help with public safety on public transport and at our facilities, our role is limited, and we don’t have the primary responsibility or enforcement powers that Police have.

Rawcliffe said no transport officers were at the station at the time of the incident.

“Where possible, AT transport officers are often rostered to be on trains during peak travel times, including after school. This is to deter antisocial behaviour and to prevent fare evasion. However, our transport officers cannot be everywhere, all at once, and unfortunately, none were present at Sturges Road Train Station at the time of yesterday’s incident.

“We would suggest that a concerned person call 111 in cases of emergency – AT actively works with police and supplies CCTV or access to our systems to monitor situations like the below if required. They can also approach a station guard with concerns and make a report to Crime Stoppers.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Young people who could have been helped into work are instead stuck “in a void” due to government policy changes, says the head of the Mayors’ Taskforce for Jobs.

It comes as StatsNZ data points to rising youth unemployment, with 14.4 percent of 15 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (NEET) in the March quarter – up from 13.3 percent in December.

The Mayors’ Taskforce is a partnership between Local Government NZ and the Ministry of Social Development, helping young people find work across 36 council jurisdictions.

Its chair, Gore mayor Ben Bell, told a select committee on Wednesday it works best by supporting 16 to 18 year-olds who are “NEET” – before they’re eligible for the Jobseeker benefit.

But he said the government last year directed it to target support at jobseekers – “80 percent jobseekers, 20 percent NEETs” – which meant the younger jobless cohort fell through the cracks.

“If a young person leaves school at 16 and has no social interaction until they hit Jobseeker at 18, they are significantly harder to place than if we picked them up at 16 and then got them a job immediately,” he said.

“The 16 to 18 year-old group is the critical window of where we can take them from education, put them back into education, or into training or into employment. But if they sit in this void, that’s where it becomes really challenging.”

Bell acknowledged politicians’ arguments that those people were not costing the government anything.

“Our opinion, on the ground, is that that makes things worse in the long term, rather than the short term gain of not putting them on a welfare system,” he said.

“We honestly think that we can do the Jobseeker work and also the NEET work as well. We just need a little bit of the funding to do it … we’re investing in what works.”

Social development minister Louise Upston indicated the focus would not change.

“It doesn’t prevent them from working with 16 to 18 year olds, it’s just a proportion issue,” she said.

“I accept they want to work with a different age bracket, but we are paying welfare to Jobseeker recipients, and it’s really important that our employment initiatives that are funded by taxpayers are going to those who are already on welfare.”

The government is standing by its target of 50,000 fewer people on the Jobseeker benefit, despite the numbers heading in the wrong direction and a predicted rise in unemployment.

Bell said the programme had supported more than 1000 people in the last financial year – exceeding its target of 900 – with $8 million in government funding.

Upston said some mayors were achieving “outstanding results” and she applauded their success.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The AA wants stronger rules for high-powered electric bikes and scooters.

Its principal policy adviser Terry Collins told Checkpoint the current rules were unfit for purpose.

“These rules that exist today have very little clarity for the riders, for the councils, for police, and really it just kind of undermines both the compliance and the public confidence in the system,” he said.

“An example is the rules say an e-bike is less than 300 watts in power, but it doesn’t have a speed limit because the assumption is 300 watts will keep it around 30 kilometres per hour if you peddle furiously on it.”

“[But] if you go on the internet, you can look at these things at 9 kilowatts, which is 30 times the legal limit, they are for sale.”

He said increasingly powerful e-bikes and e-scooters were hitting the market and causing a headache for police.

“What we’ve seen is the battery technology is allowing us to have much bigger, more powerful motors for these bicycles, so they’re bigger, heavier, more powerful and they go way quicker than what the old ones used to do,” Collins said.

“I’ve seen e-scooters that claim to do 120 kilometres per hour. As we get better at building these batteries for electric vehicles they’re going to go for longer distances and they’re going to go faster, so we really need to get a solution sorted out now, because if we don’t more accidents are going to happen.”

Collins suggested high-powered e-bikes should be classified as a different type of vehicle so rules could be better enforced.

“I think if we set up what would be known as a class of vehicle that may not have to go through all those rigourous requirements of certification and warrants of fitness, but because they’re classed as a vehicle then the riders of them are subject to other land transport rules around use of a vehicle, around speed rules, use of alcohol, turn signals, that would be the expectation of the riders of these devices,” he said.

“How do you visually inspect that a bike is only 300 watts in power? You can’t. A lot of them look very similar to each other, yet they have a completely different power ratio and speeds they can attain. I say by trying to moderate the behaviours of the driver, as opposed to setting standards around the technology, we’ll probably have a better outcome.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Ten little spotted kiwi are being taken to Hawke’s Bay tonight from the Zealandia sanctuary in Wellington.

They will be released into Cape Sanctuary’s 130-hectare kiwi enclosure tonight, in an effort improve the genetic diversity of the sanctuary’s growing kiwi population.

A Zealandia spokesperson said the 10 kiwi were placed in large wooden boxes lined with ferns, and known pairs were kept in the same box together.

Zealandia general manager of conservation and restoration Jo Ledington said the population of little spotted kiwi at Zealandia had grown from 40 to about 250 since the birds first came to the sanctuary in 2000.

“These taonga have grown in numbers within the safety of our fence to the point where they can now bolster the populations of other sanctuaries,” Ledington said.

It was the second time Zealandia had sent kiwi to Cape Sanctuary, after it translocated 15 kiwi last year.

“Our team have enjoyed watching the new kiwi pukupuku settle in this past year – their reflector bands make them very easy to identify on trail camera,” Cape Sanctuary general manager Rachel Ward said.

“They have been seen mixing and mingling with the original population right across the 130ha enclosure.”

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