Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

Chipseal is cheap seal – that was the message to council, as Pāpāmoa residents continued their campaign against chipseal road resurfacing.

After an RNZ story last week, Tauranga City Council acknowledged residents’ concerns, which included changing some streets from asphalt to chipseal.

The council said it was committed to listening to the community and, on Tuesday, it got a chance to do just that, when Pāpāmoa Residents and Ratepayers Association chair Philip Brown presented at the council meeting’s public forum.

“The current [council] maintenance plan to resurface all hotmix roads with chipseal will result in a citywide downgrade of all street surfaces,” he told councillors.

“This change will lead to a range of negative consequences for residents, including increased road noise, a rough surface texture, chip migration, tar bleed, inconsistent appearance due to shoddy workmanship, stones being tracked into homes, and the necessity for frequent resealing – every 6-10 years – with additional chipseal coats.”

Brown said he understood that, since the 1990s, all housing subdivisions in Tauranga had asphalt roads.

“The hotmix debate is citywide – it is not just Pāpāmoa,” he said. “It’s Pāpāmoa now, it’s Bethlehem next.”

Brown said the issue had severely compromised the council’s relationship with the community.

“Retaining hotmix surfaces on our roads would unequivocally demonstrate to the community that the mayor and councillors are progressive leaders, committed to maintaining the highest standards and best practices for suburban roads in Tauranga,” he said.

Brown also told councillors that residents in affected Pāpāmoa streets were dismayed by the lack of consultation over what they perceived as a downgrading of their road surfaces.

Last week, the council said formal consultation on resealing of roads was not required, as it was a part of its annual maintenance programme.

Deputy mayor Jen Scoular chaired the council meeting and invited questions on the issue from councillors.

Pāpāmoa ward councillor Steve Morris asked, if it was possible to provide residents an option to pay a targeted rate or similar to retain asphalt roads.

Asphalt cost about five times more than chipseal, and the council only replaced like-for-like where high traffic volumes or heavy vehicles justified the cost.

Tauranga City Council operations and infrastructure general manager Reneke van Soest said the council had investigated how residents could pay for the asphalt, but there would be issues to work through and timing was tight, as the resealing crews were already working.

“We can defer for a year, however, we have assessed all roads [to be resealed] as starting to show early signs of failure.”

Brown took issue with the question and answer, and said focusing on ways Pāpāmoa residents could pay to keep their street surface missed the point.

“We’re talking about high-level policy here, which is going to affect the whole city,” he said. “It’s not isolating a couple of Pāpāmoa streets and pitching resident versus his neighbour, whether he wants to pay extra.”

Brown’s solution was a citywide targeted rate to allow every road to be resealed in asphalt.

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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 wife of a Dunedin man stabbed to death has revealed she rejected a proposal from the man accused of his murder.

Gurjit Singh was found dead on the lawn of his home in January last year after being stabbed more than 40 times.

A 35-year-old man, known only as Rajinder, is on trial for murder at the High Court.

His defence lawyer said Rajinder had no reason to kill Singh and there was no animosity between the two men.

Speaking through a translator, Singh’s wife Kamaljeet Kaur told the court she rejected Rajinder’s profile from a marriage bureau in India around 2022 because she was already in contact with Singh.

“I was not interested,” she said. Her parents said no to Rajinder’s proposal.

She said she told Singh about his approach the same day.

Kaur and Singh met online in 2021 and married in India in May 2023. The couple waited for a partner visa in order for Kaur to move to New Zealand in 2024.

Kaur said her bags were packed and she was preparing to leave India when she found out Singh had been killed.

She travelled from India to Dunedin to give evidence for the prosecution at Rajinder’s trial.

Kaur confirmed her sister married one of Rajinder’s relatives.

She also described overhearing a conversation on speaker phone where she found out Rajinder’s sister wanted her brother to marry Singh’s sister but Singh rejected the idea because she was too young.

Singh had moved to Dunedin as a result of Rajinder’s job offer and had mentioned him a few times when he was his boss, Kaur said.

Kaur said Singh later struck out on his own and was very successful.

The couple was in contact daily, with Kaur last receiving a photo from Singh as he drove home from a pizza party the night before he was found dead.

Her husband would normally contact her in the morning, so she was worried when she did not hear from him and calls and messages went unanswered.

Kaur said she asked friend Tarsem Singh to check on her husband and when another mutual friend did so at his request, Singh was found dead.

In response to questions from defence lawyer Anne Stevens KC, Kaur said it was normal for profiles to be sent to a bureau to arrange a marriage.

She said she had never met Rajinder and had refused other proposals the same year because she wanted to study and did not want to marry.

She told Stevens that she was not aware of any difficulties between Rajinder’s family and her own because of her rejection and Singh had never mentioned any difficulties in his relationship with Rajinder.

Kaur said her husband had accepted Rajinder’s job offer because it would improve his chance of becoming a New Zealand resident.

She told Stevens it was possible that discussions could take place with matchmakers without family knowing.

Asked whether the term proposal meant matchmaker negotiations, rather than an actual marriage proposal, Kaur said yes.

The trial is set down for three weeks.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police have confirmed they are now treating the fatal incident in Sanson on Saturday – where three children and their father died – as a homicide.

Police are continuing to comb through the scene of a house fire in Manawatū on Saturday, where the children and their father died.

Manawatū Area Commander Inspector Ross Grantham said the post mortem examination of the adult male has been completed and the three children are expected to undergo a post mortem tomorrow.

– more to come

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Otago Regional Council is investigating a series of failures at Wanaka’s wastewater treatment plant.

Queenstown Lakes District Council says heavy rain hit last month while the Project Pure Wastewater Treatment Plant was operating at reduced capacity due to a major upgrade, leading to a spike in nitrogen levels and treated wastewater to flood disposal fields and run off.

The district council’s property and infrastructure general manager Tony Avery said the situation was unfortunate and would be unwelcome to many.

“There was always a risk that some parts of the facility’s treatment process would be negatively impacted while carrying out these significant upgrades. To reduce as much risk as possible, works were carefully planned to take place during low flow periods and operational teams implemented several mitigation strategies,” he said.

Queenstown Lakes District Council acknowledged the compliance issues in a media release on Tuesday.

It comes after recent compliance problems at the district council’s Hāwea and [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/563664/queenstown-lakes-district-council-must-fix-issues-with-shotover-wastewater-plant-court

Queenstown treatment plants].

Mayor John Glover said he wanted to share the information proactively with the public.

“As governors, we will need to review what has happened to fully understand why and especially in the context of regulatory compliance failures at Shotover and Hāwea treatment plants,” he said.

Avery said while the issues at the Shotover plant also related to the disposal field, the system at Project Pure was different.

The council did not expect any long-term issues, he said.

“Project Pure’s fields have been operating successfully for approximately 15 years now, have more modest loading rates and discharge through free-draining soils well above groundwater,” he said.

Upgrade work was now complete and the plant’s performance was improving, the council said.

Queenstown Lakes District Council said it referred the performance issues to the regional council immediately and expected to receive its investigation findings shortly.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

University of Auckland students and a food upcycling company have turned old loaves of bread back into flour and then back into homestyle baking.

While the flour is a product of Rescued Kitchen, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering senior lecturer Febelyn Reguyal told Morning Report that the students analysed the environmental impact from the raw materials extraction of the leftover bread.

“They collect the leftover bread at the supermarkets, and then what they do is put it in a dryer, mill it, and then eventually you will have your bread flour.”

The drying process is very energy intensive, so the students recommended to the upcycling company that improvements could be made, Reguyal said.

Bread is one of the most wasted foods in the world, according to a study in the US National Library of Medicine, which estimated 24,000 tonnes of manufactured bread was binned each year.

The bread that was used in the experiment had to be of a certain standard – therefore mouldy bread was off the cards.

“That’s one of the requirements for the Rescued Kitchen because it has a short life, and sometimes we also overproduce the bread. We cannot use the bread that has already been consumed at home as the leftover bread, it has to be the clean and unused ones.”

The students presented their life cycle assessment reports to Rescued Kitchen co-founders Diane Stanbra and Royce Bold.

The reports concluded that rescued flour offered major environmental benefits compared to regular flour – using less water, land and fossil fuels, and producing much lower carbon emissions.

Rescued Kitchen’s bread flour has a shelf life of two years, freeze-thaw stability and complete substitution potential. And its capabilities have already been put to the test.

“Rescued Kitchen has already made some recipes and they also brought some products to the university and shared them with students. They had sweets as well as savoury muffins,” Reguyal said.

“They’re amazing. And I think all the students, including myself, I enjoyed the food brought by Rescued Kitchen.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

An ordinary annual insect survey has uncovered an extraordinary grasshopper.

Department of Conservation ranger Jen Schori said she could not believe her eyes, as colleagues called her over to see a deep pink grasshopper near Lake Takapō.

Schori was taking part in the annual grasshopper survey in the Mackenzie Basin, when the discovery was made.

The pink female robust grasshopper (Sigaus robustus) was sunning itself on stones.

“I’ve been studying these amazing creatures for years,” Schori said. “They are usually grey or brown coloured, like river stones.

“I’d heard rumours about a pink one, but never seen one myself. It was so exciting.

“Pink grasshoppers are exceptionally rare. It’s likely caused by a genetic mutation called erythrism, which results in an over-production of red pigment and less of the usual natural pigment that the species has.”

DoC said the robust grasshopper was New Zealand’s largest lowland grasshopper, only found along the edges of braided rivers in the Mackenzie Basin, and nationally endangered.

“These grasshoppers are so unique,” Schori said. “They look almost prehistoric.

“They can jump fairly well, but are renowned for their clumsy landings. They’re also very vulnerable.

“The pink one will unfortunately stand out even more to predators, which is why this sighting is so special.”

In 2018, a predator fence was built around a small area of grasshopper habitat in the Mackenzie Basin, but Schori said this pink grasshopper was outside the fence and would have had to fend for herself.

“They do live up to their name,” she said. “They’re quite robust and the females are double the size of the males.

“Maybe she will breed and we will see some more pink ones.

“She has certainly become a bit of a celebrity in our office, and we joke about the paparazzi coming and taking loads of photos. I’m just so happy I got to see one after all these 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 carpenter says he never saw an alleged slavery victim work at three lodges or a campground.

Suli Tuilolo has been giving evidence at Moeaia Tuai’s trial at the High Court at Auckland.

Tuai, 63, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of dealing in slaves. He also denies two rapes, assaults, eight charges of indecent assault, and six of sexual violation by unlawful connection.

Tuilolo, a lodge employee, said the complainant would only visit the lodges to play volleyball, denying he worked 50-60 hours a week in jobs that included cleaning up, repairs and gardening.

Under cross-examination, he was shown a photograph of himself and a young male complainant wearing hi-vis vests.

He denied the man worked there, but may have worn the fluorescent vest to keep warm when he visited, suggesting he played there.

“Are you suggesting that in this photograph [he] is about to go and play volleyball?” asked prosecutor Chris Howard.

“As I said previously, I’m a carpenter, I did my job,” said Tuilolo. “And I always say, he does come around and look around sometimes.”

The only time he would see the complainant was playing volleyball or seeing a young woman he liked, said Tuilolo.

Previously another witness gave evidence, saying she had never seen Tuai hit the female victim, and denying the family turned a blind eye to what Tuai was doing.

‘Blowing the whistle’

In the closing prosecution address Howard said Tuai had been controlling the two young people and their finances, holding them in modern slavery, and beating and raping the female complainant.

Neither was allowed to speak to anyone they did not know, nor to each other in case they told people about the way they were being treated, said Howard.

Tuai’s own diaries have been read to the jury, in which he sets out when beatings happened, working hours and wages, he added.

One complainant had to get a new passport to run away, the court heard, and Tuai made the other one take out a $7000 loan.

She said that after sexually assaulting her, Tuai threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

When the young woman ran away, Tuai called police claiming she had been raped by a different man and and told Internal Affairs she should be deported or lose her citizenship.

It was not a hollow threat as he might also have hoped to stop her ‘blowing the whistle’, said Howard. “The moment she stops being a money-producing asset, he wants her gone.”

The trial continues.

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