Category: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

It’s being billed as the data centre that changes everything – but hopefully that doesn’t include the price of your power.

It will be the country’s second biggest user of electricity after the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter.

A $3 billion data centre in Southland that, as the marketing says, “changes everything”….

“…delivering the most significant upgrade to New Zealand’s digital infrastructure in a generation. We’re doubling national data capacity and opening up a high-growth gateway to Asia-Pacific’s booming cloud and AI economy.”

Multiple resource consents have been granted by three local authorities to get Datagrid’s huge AI data storage project in Makarewa off the ground, and to land a high-speed internet cable from Australia coming up at Oreti Beach near Invercargill.

But where will all the power come from? The likely answer is the Manapōuri hydro-electric power plant, which also powers Tiwai.

But if there’s a shortage, say in a drought, what will the data centre’s requirement for constant electricity do to the market – and our power bills?

That’s what niggles Newsroom’s South Island editor, David Williams, who speaks to The Detail today after six years of keeping tabs on the project.

Datagrid has told him it won’t be answering his questions until it issues a news release later on – possibly this week.

For its international clients, the fact that the centre will be using clean energy is a big selling point, but is there enough of that energy to go around?

“It’s not like a data centre can just power down,” says Williams.

“The advantage of Tiwai is that they can say, ‘ok, well, we’re not going to put on this particular potline. We will close down for a while, and that’s part of our contract, and we’ll get paid by the country if you like, to shut down because that’s good for New Zealand Inc.’

“Data centres need continuous power. If they power down… that’s why they have these backup generators… if they power down, it’s actually damaging to their units or their processing centre. It needs to be a constant supply.”

Fast Track approval has just been given for a large Contact Energy wind farm just 50 kilometres away from the centre’s site, so that could be a piece of the puzzle.

Williams says this is “not your usual Southland development, I would have thought”.

“The scale of this is quite something.”

Not only does it involve building six data halls, but it is also flanked by 12-metre-high noise control barriers over 9.5 hectares on a 48-ha property. There will be 84 emergency generators, each with a 10,000 litre diesel tank and a 15m high exhaust stack.

The construction phase will offer the most lucrative economic return to the region, with up to 550 workers expected to be on site, but once it’s finished, it will only require about 50 staff to keep it going.

The main transmission line practically runs over the top of the site, and Datagrid will build its own substation and upgrade the grid exit point.

Williams says the company has done well to consult with neighbours, iwi, and anyone else affected, all of whom seem to be on board with the mitigations it’s planning.

Southland mayor Rob Scott has told him, “these people have done it right”.

“They’ve talked to people, they’ve consulted the community, but more importantly, they’ve listened,” he says.

“They’ve taken account of the things that they’ve said, and they’ve tried to change things.”

Measures included noise mitigation from the 24-hour hum of servers and concerns answered over water, required in great quantities for cooling.

“Most of the people who live around them have given their written approval for what’s going on,” he says.

Williams says given the Amazon data centre debacle in Auckland, where billions of dollar’s worth of building and employment were promised but never eventuated, people are right to be sceptical. But he says this project has emerged differently, starting small and getting bigger.

“But I do note,” he says, “with this particular project, the consent approval announcement was not made by the Prime Minister. So maybe that’s a good sign.”

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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 Public Service Association (PSA) says a group of 2500 Te Whatu Ora staff it represents have ratified a new collective agreement.

The PSA said its members working in policy, advisory, knowledge and services – known as PAKS – voted overhelmingly in favour of the deal.

The PAKS agreement covered those employed in digital services, infrastructure, operations, communications, finance, people and capability, procurement, service design and planning, analytics and research, and policy.

The ratification was the result of 11 months of bargaining, mediation and industrial action.

Health workers covered by the collective would receive a pay increase of 2.5 percent effective from 1 December last year, with a further 2 percent in December this year.

Workers would each receive a $500 lump sum payment prorated for full-time equivalent hours worked.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Papers show that Health New Zealand faces the “extreme risk” of not having enough of the workers it needs to push through the government’s order to decentralise rapidly.

Health Minister Simeon Brown last November ordered the agency to “rapidly devolve decision-making to its four regions and 20 districts” to improve healthcare.

A new devolution committee has been set up and last month was presented a report assessing the “current state” across the board.

RNZ has seen papers from the report.

“People capability is an extreme risk,” it said.

“Workforce has the lowest capability rating identified across regions and their districts with critical resourcing gaps.”

The “most common” gaps were around staff to handle infrastructure, procurement, health and safety, planning, finance and analysis.

Brown had pushed for speed, but the assessment said there was “a feeling that basics need to be in place first”.

“The transition back to a devolved model too quickly may remove the current controls and undermine the effective oversights that have been put in place.”

That included around finances, it said.

Health NZ told RNZ on Monday it was working to address the workforce gaps and capability issues identified.

The papers showed gaps in devolution resources in areas where the centralised agency in the last two years cut jobs and accepted hundreds of voluntary redundancies.

“The highly centralised organisation structure has led to a loss of experience” in making organisational, operational and strategic decisions in districts, the assessment said.

Even at national senior leadership level there were big gaps – “all interim apart from one role”.

‘As quickly as possible’

The government two years ago castigated Health NZ for loose financial controls, sacked its board and under a reset the new commissioner Lester Levy embarked on a $2 billion savings plan.

The goverment then embarked on rolling back large parts of the centralisation reforms of 2022.

“We want a nationally and regionally planned system, but one that has strong clinical input and buy-in at the hospital level,” said Brown last November.

He gave HNZ a New Year’s Eve deadline to come up with a devolution policy in his letter of expectations.

“This reinforces my expectation that regional accountability, production planning, and local decision-making is embedded as quickly as possible,” his letter said.

“Local districts and regions should be empowered to manage within their allocated budgets, including hiring decisions.”

On Monday a spokesperson for Brown said the government had had to stabilise and turn around a system Labour had restructured during a pandemic “without a plan”.

It “cannot simply be switched off” and must still deliver more care to more patients, faster, and a key to that was moving health decisions closer to communities, they said in a statement.

The report – the second one done on devolution by consultants Deloitte – offered a glimpse of how devolution had been going.

The senior doctors’ union, the ASMS, in principle supported devolution but warned against districts having to take on more responsibility without the resources.

“The chatter that we’re picking up from around our regular set of meetings with the districts is a massive concern that this is just pushing responsibility onto districts without any realistic means of achieving what needs to be done in terms of providing health care,” said executive director Sarah Dalton.

‘Carefully managing the transition’

The assessment said some areas like in strategy and finance showed progress.

But it varied alot. What it called ‘People and Culture’ would be hugely impacted by devolution and was rated the worst, with ‘low’ assessments across all six measures; it was especially weak in the South Island and central North Island from Taranaki to Bay of Plenty.

“Regional and district finance and operational capacity remain concentrated at national level and many local teams are under-resourced in financial management,” it said.

The solution? “Build capability across the organisation.” The districts had lost key roles, now they needed them back.

A chart showed 12 categories – such as budgeting, analysis and auditing – and rated nine of them as less than fully effective. Three were only partially effective – the second-to-lowest rating – including HNZ’s savings programme and its internal audit programme.

Among the other gaps was technology. Key devolution changes were predicated on AI that was not yet in place, and so manual “workarounds” persisted.

Health NZ executive national director of strategy performance improvement Jess Smaling said the current state assessment report was to support “carefully managing the transition back to frontline decision making”.

It came only after HNZ had addressed the first priority of fixing the financial crisis and improved performance, she said in a statement.

“We are committed to ensuring our districts are ready, able and most of all supported, to have more autonomy over their clinical decisions and operational budgets.”

‘Not driven by … cost savings’

Health system commentator Ian Powell had long called for devolution but said that required the right capabilities.

“And we’ve lost that through short-sighted restructuring.”

He did not see signs in the assessment that the topdown command culture was being overhauled. “That’s the missing bit.

“Overwhelmingly on the management side of Te Whatau Ora, both regionally and nationally, there’s a high level of job insecurity, and that is a terrible environment to actually to have to work in, and it guarantees a destabilised organisation.”

Health NZ Te Whatu Ora subsumed all 20 of the old district health boards – DHBs – almost four years ago. Its establishment cost tens of millions of dollars including large sums in consultant fees.

Brown in his letter of expectations to the board chair late last year said it was “clear to me that Health NZ is too centralised”.

“Too many decisions are made by people who are removed from the problems that frontline clinicians are trying to solve.

“While the final devolved structure may result in a smaller national office than in recent years,

this change is not driven by restructuring or cost savings.”

The driver instead was to embed local clinicians in budgeting and planning services, and set up straight lines of accountability everywhere, Brown said.

But the papers the committee looked at last month indicated that districts might struggle with budgeting.

“Staff churn and the absence of robust costing systems and processes has created knowledge gaps, making it difficult to form an accurate bottom-up budget based on cost of services delivered, paticulary in H&SS [Hospital and Specialist Services].”

It talked about reducing some of the risks by adopting a devolution “timeframe” that allowed regions and districts to get critical activities in place to take on more autonomy.

‘Trade-offs and risks’

It sounded other notes of caution, too.

“While there is a desire to accelerate the devolution process, HNZ recognises that there are trade-offs and risks involved,” said Deloitte’s assessment.

This could lead to “lack of control, poor decision-making, duplication of effort, inconsistent reporting and accountability gaps”.

The solution was good planning.

But this appeared a long way off.

“The desired end state has not yet been clearly defined, including the [transition] from a national to a regional structure,” it said.

The “scope, sequence and pace” of devolution all needed defining.

Dalton said while 2022’s centralisation had caused “chaos” by distancing clinicians from decisionmaking, devolution had to be resourced and the minister would be wise to taihoa.

“I mean, it really does smack of trying to come up with what looks like some quick wins in an election year, and that’s no way to run a health system.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

It’s feasible that petrol prices could reach $4 a litre, economists say.

Ongoing conflict in the Middle East has pushed up oil prices, taking petrol prices with them.

Over March, the average price of 91 has risen about 50c a litre, according to price monitoring app Gaspy. On Monday it was just over $3 on average across the country.

Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold said if the crisis were to continue, the price of oil could hit US$200 a barrel, which would take retail petrol prices past $4.

Westpac noted last week that refining margins had already lifted from US$20 ($NZ34) to around US$35 a barrel, which amplified the effect on retail prices for petrol in New Zealand.

“Refining margins will go quite high because there’s the supply chain that’s going from the Middle East to the refiners in Asia who are overwhelmingly reliant on crude oil coming out of the Middle East, with a three-week lag, maybe a month if you want to be generous.

“Those refiners in Asia are already considering reducing production because they don’t want to shut down a refinery. They would prefer to run it at a lower level because if you shut it down it’s really expensive and hard to start back up again.

“What that will mean is that there’ll be increasingly reduced supply of refined products around Asia and that will obviously be an important input into petrol and diesel here … $4 petrol prices are eminently feasible if you end up in some of those quite negative scenarios.”

Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub said oil prices at around US$150 a barrel would mean $4 a litre for motorists.

Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said with oil prices at around US$100, petrol should be at about $3.27.

“We’re pushing towards that … if you had another US$35 a barrel on top of that, US$135 on a sustained basis, you could be pushing $4. I’ve seen people talking risks around $150.

“I think Westpac came out with $185 and others are talking $200 …. you look at some of those numbers and you’re talking well north of $4 potentially.”

He said every US$1 increase in the oil price added about 2.2c but Eaqub said as long as the refining crack spread remained the same it could be about 1.2c. Westpac estimated a US$10 increase in the price of oil added 11c a litre.

Murat Ungor, at Otago University, said the market was very sensitive to price movements

“If crude oil were to reach US$130 to US$140 per barrel and stay there for three to four weeks, petrol prices could quickly move into the $3.50-$3.70 range.

“To break the $4 barrier, we would likely need a combination of extreme factors, such as crude sustained at US$140-US$170 per barrel, matching or exceeding the record highs of 2008, or such high prices combined with a weaker New Zealand dollar and higher shipping margins.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Leslie Parr was spiralling.

It had been 27 years since he’d killed his ex-partner Fiona Maulolo, stabbing her repeatedly with a chisel before beheading her.

Following his first killing he was made a special patient under the Mental Health Act after a jury found him not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

From about 2012 he was back in the community and in 2021 he had his status change to being a patient under the Mental Health Act.

But by early 2024 his mental health was rapidly declining, he was having troubles with his relationship and he was using cannabis. In May 2024 he was admitted to a mental health facility after an altercation with a relative. About a week later he was released back into the community.

Then, five days later he killed “the most important thing to him” – his mother Heather Condon. Once again, he would be found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

The case was shrouded in secrecy until RNZ revealed it last year.

On Monday, the Supreme Court dismissed Parr’s application for leave to appeal a decision declining name suppression, allowing RNZ to reveal the full details of the killing.

RNZ has obtained court documents including statements from those who knew him best that lift the lid on Parr’s life, his mental health battles and his family’s anger with the mental health system.

“How can someone who has previously killed another person be able to remain free when the warning signs are right there for all to see?” his father wrote.

‘Cold and sinister’

Leslie Raymond Parr was born in 1974. He was the youngest of four siblings, and a year after he was born the family moved to Whanganui.

Parr’s father Harold Parr would later tell police the children were “all good kids”.

“My boys and I would do lots of things together like hunting, fishing and I coached their school rugby team.”

Wanting the best for his sons, Harold Parr sent them to St Stephen’s secondary school in Auckland.

After finishing school, Leslie Parr returned home. His parents soon separated and Harold Parr moved to Taupō before going to live in Wellington.

Leslie’s troubles were first expressed in 1995 when he developed insomnia, with a decrease in appetite over several months.

He was admitted to a psychiatric unit under the Mental Health Act in August that year after attempting suicide. On admission he was overheard saying “Satan will kill us all. Here to save you”.

A psychiatrist found he was suffering from a disorder of the mind.

“I can only say, most emphatically, that Mr Parr should remain in a psychiatric hospital as an involuntary patient. He is really very ill and is at risk of suiciding. I fear the type of schizophrenia he has is one that is associated with impulsive and often successful suicide attempts, usually based on concealed delusional thinking.”

Parr was then made the subject of a Compulsory Treatment Order. After responding well to medication he was released.

Harold told police about “episodes” Leslie had while living with him.

“I knew he was suffering from something serious because he was so dark and cold when he had an episode.

“I noticed it mostly in his eyes, they were just cold and sinister looking.”

‘I had to kill her’

Leslie met Fiona Maulolo in 1996 and the pair soon moved into a property in the Hutt Valley.

Soon after meeting Maulolo, Leslie stopped taking his antipsychotic medication regularly and had an “episode” which led to him being admitted to Porirua Hospital.

Parr was described as a man who was “depressed and delusional”, thinking that his father was Satan. He was predicting the end of the world in the year 2000, and said he heard voices telling him to kill himself.

When his medication was reintroduced he began to deny psychotic symptoms.

On the day he was due to be discharged from hospital he seriously assaulted a police officer who was visiting the same ward.

Parr told a psychiatrist he didn’t believe he was to blame “because the constable had looked at him”.

Parr was then made a compulsory inpatient for six months under the Mental Health Act.

However, he was released nine days later, on 28 March 1996. He was not seen again by mental health services until 15 April 1997 after he was found semi-conscious in a carport at Maulolo’s property.

He was transported to Hutt Hospital by ambulance and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. He later regained consciousness and underwent a psychiatric assessment before he was discharged into his father’s care.

Three days after he was admitted to hospital his father and another person went to collect some clothes for him from Maulolo’s home. On arrival they found Maulolo’s daughters and a relative who had not heard from Maulolo for a week.

They forced their way into the home and found Maulolo’s body in the bath. Police were then called.

Maulolo had been decapitated with her head found in a plastic bag in a clothes dryer. Forensic evidence revealed Parr had driven a chisel multiple times into her heart before decapitating her.

He went on trial for murder in 1998. At trial police said Parr and Maulolo’s relationship was “volatile” with neighbours describing constant verbal arguments and fights between them. There was a suggestion Maulolo was looking to end the relationship.

He told police he killed her because he believed she was Satan.

A jury found Parr not guilty by reason of insanity. A judge ordered he be detained in a special secure unit and not freed without the health minister’s authority.

A coroner later said Parr’s treatment had been seriously deficient.

There had been no ongoing assessment of Parr’s mental health state, or monitoring of his medication needs between when he was discharged and when the murder occurred.

Parr’s hospital file showed that a clinical review of his mental health had been carried out by his responsible clinician, Dr Linda Astor.

She claimed she had examined Parr and “consulted with other health professionals” involved in the treatment and care of him, and that she had taken their views into account when assessing the results of her review of his condition.

She said he was fit to be released from compulsory status, nine days into what was supposed to be six-months as a compulsory patient.

There was, however, no evidence Dr Astor ever saw Parr or consulted with other health professionals involved in his treatment and care.

Astor later fled the country and was unmasked as a bogus psychiatrist.

‘He was very loving and caring’

Parr was transferred to Te Awhina, an inpatient acute mental health service, to be closer to his family in 2000. He was put on a different medication and his mental health “improved a lot,” his father said.

In the coming years he started doing day visits accompanied by a nurse and even got a job.

Once he was released eventually released from Te Awhina he started going by the name Zac.

At first he lived with his mother, before finding his own place. Harold said Leslie looked after his mother and grandfather including doing their lawns.

In 2021 the special patient order was removed.

In 2023 Leslie met a woman Rachel (not her real name) via online dating, by September they were in a relationship.

The woman told RNZ Leslie, who told her his name was Zac, seemed “perfectly fine”.

“He was very loving and caring and treated me incredibly well.”

She would later tell police Leslie was “always helping his family”.

“Especially his mum and as far as I knew he was a good person, a kind person.”

Harold told police that Leslie spent several years working at a local freezing works but left after people found out about Maulolo’s death. He went on the benefit for a few years before getting a job at a milk factory cleaning trucks.

In March 2024, the work “dried up,” his father said and Leslie was laid off and went back on the benefit.

Harold said he visited his son days before his birthday in April to help as he was having a party.

“When I arrived, Leslie was there with a friend, and they were bouncing off the walls. It was obvious him and his friend had used drugs.”

The following day Harold told Leslie to get off the drugs or he would call the police.

The pair did not have much contact after the incident as they were “both annoyed at one another”.

It was not until May that Leslie told Rachel he killed his former girlfriend in 1997.

“I laughed and thought he was joking but he had a dead-pan face and I eventually realised he was not joking, and I screamed and told him to leave.”

After he left, she looked him up online and read about what happened to Maulolo.

“At the time I thought it had been years earlier and he wasn’t well at the time and the case had not been handled well, lots of mistakes involved.

“So, I believed it was a one-off thing due to all the circumstances and not likely to happen again.”

Leslie also sat down with her and said he was on the wrong medication at the time and claimed he begged them not to let him go because he knew he wasn’t well.

The admission

In May 2024, following an altercation with a relative he was admitted to a mental health facility.

Rachel said after the admission she became “very scared and very terrified”.

He was released after about a week on 30 May. Following his release, he became preoccupied with the loss of keys to his ute which he could not find.

Harold told police his son did not sleep for four nights, worried about his ute.

“He was so agitated about his keys and seemed really scared and stressed,” he said.

“I could tell how much it was affecting him and he just wouldn’t let it go.”

Leslie visited his father’s home on 3 June. He did not go inside, and just sat on the back doorstep.

“He started to remind me of how he behaved in Wellington when the other incident happened.

“Leslie had those dark eyes and wasn’t present. The biggest thing I notice when he’s like that is you can’t reason with him. He talks so fast and frantic that you don’t even have time to answer.”

Rachel’s concerns were also growing.

“I started to see a side to him I didn’t like.”

He started becoming delusional and irrational which appeared to coincide with his consumption of marijuana increasing a lot higher than she had noticed before.

“He said some weird things to me about his mum not being a human and that she was a Demi-God.”

When she heard he was going to be released from the mental health facility she worried “maybe he’s gonna come for me”.

“But I didn’t want to come tell the police because I thought I needed to try get out of it quietly, because I thought if I piss him off, you know you can get protection orders, you can get that but it’s just a piece of paper they can still kill you.”

A day after he was released Leslie messaged Rachel and said he did not love her anymore and wanted to break up.

The following morning, about 4.30am, Rachel woke up to tapping on her ranch slider. She got up and he was standing outside. He said he had been drinking with his friend all day and night and he had been sick and then drove to her place. He ended up staying the night.

Two days later she was mowing her front lawn when she saw him sitting in his car on the road watching her. Rachel asked him what he was doing, and he replied: “Oh, I love you and I want to be with you.”

She told him he was stalking her and was being “creepy”. He took off, but she then saw him again about an hour later across the road. She told him to go away, and she would see him later on.

The next night he visited her home after repeatedly asking to come over. The couple were arguing back and forth in her bedroom.

Rachel said she told him she did not think the relationship was working and he needed to leave.

He refused to leave and asked her what she was going to do about it. She threatened to call the police and then he left.

A second killing

The following morning, the day of the second killing, Parr called Rachel to say he needed someone to pick him up as he had driven out of town and his car broke down in Bulls. Rachel said she was reluctant to help him but eventually relented.

However, when she got there he was not there. Rachel then called Heather and said she could not find him.

Heather said she wondered if he was testing her.

“I said to her, ‘Yeah, he’s been acting very, very strange’ and she started to get upset and said, ‘Yes, I’m very worried about him and he’s been saying that he can’t trust anybody, that he can’t trust me, he can’t trust his dad and he only trusts you and that he only feels safe with you’.”

Shortly after Leslie called Rachel and said his phone had gone flat and he got a lift with someone else.

Leslie had also been calling his father earlier in the day. Leslie’s sister called Harold shortly before 1pm saying she was concerned about her brother and wanted him to go and stay with her to relax about his ute.

“I told her it was better for him to be in Whanganui near the pysch unit and where there are more cops in case something happened”.

Harold then drove around to Leslie’s home. He was not there, but just as he was leaving Heather arrived.

The pair talked about how their son was behaving, including his worries about his keys and his drug use.

About 20 minutes later he got a call from Heather once she was home to say Leslie was at her home when she got there.

“Heather said they had an argument because he was angry at her for calling [Rachel] and getting her involved.

“She said Leslie told her he needed the car, so she threw him the keys and he took off.”

Harold tried calling Leslie to see where he was but he did not answer.

About 1.45pm Leslie called Harold and they talked about hiring a trailer to pick up his ute.

Harold then picked Leslie up from Heather’s home and headed towards the hire centre.

“When we got there Leslie changed his mind about picking up his car.

“We had a heated discussion about picking up his car and mucking around, but he still didn’t want to go get it, so I dropped him back at his mother’s.”

Harold then went to the supermarket. While there he called Leslie’s sister and spoke about Leslie. She said Leslie had been talking about everyone being out to get him.

“[She] said she could hear in his voice that he didn’t seem well but insisted she could help.

“I told [her] we should call Police and try get him back to the hospital.”

He then called Leslie’s nurse to get and get his doctor’s number.

He claimed the nurse told him Leslie went to get this “shot” around 1pm and was “very cagey”.

“I asked [the nurse] if she drug tested Leslie, but she didn’t because she thought he might think she was picking on him and make him angry.”

The nurse said she would call Leslie’s doctor and tell him how he was behaving and express the family’s concerns.

At 4.53pm Harold received a call from Leslie asking for help. He said he was at his mother’s home and the mob was after him.

“He was puffing and was out of breath like he had been fighting or running.”

At 5.35pm Leslie phoned again and said the same thing about needing help, but he was now at his home.

Court documents reveal that between 4.50pm and 5.39pm there was an incident between Leslie and his mother at her home.

Armed with a knife, Leslie fatally stabbed his mother before leaving the address and arriving at an associate’s home about 6.20pm.

He walked into the address and sat on the doorstep asking his associate “cuz do you know where to get a gun?”

Leslie said he needed the gun because the Mongrel Mob was after him.

He then called his sister and a plan was made to go to Raetihi.

Leslie got into his associate’s car and while they were travelling he said “cuz I’ve killed mum”.

Asked why, Leslie said “Mum’s possessed, Mum’s possessed. I had to do it.”

The associate got out of the car and walked away. Leslie then drove off. The associate eventually drove to the Whanganui Police Station and told them what Leslie had said.

About 5.30pm, Leslie arrived at Rachel’s home. He made himself a chicken sandwich and about 7pm they went to bed.

Meanwhile, Leslie’s family were becoming concerned as they were unable to get hold of him or Heather.

They thought she may have gone to mass, but it was “out of character” for her not to have her phone. Harold drove to her home but there were no cars outside.

He then went and checked the laundry and shops, but could not find her.

At 8.25pm police found Heather dead in the garden beside the porch.

Harold told police that as soon as he was told about Heather’s death he became concerned for Rachel and her daughter.

“I didn’t know any details of what happened to Heather, but I immediately thought Leslie was the only one capable of doing that and given how he had been behaving it was likely.”

About 1am Rachel woke to get some water when she saw lights coming from outside.

“I woke him up and said ‘there’s all these lights and things’ and he just got up and shot out, and then suddenly there’s armed offenders squad and dogs and guns being pointed and stuff like that.”

Rachel went and spoke with the police and asked what was going on.

Leslie was told he was under arrest for murder and he replied:

“Yes, I know.”

The following day, Rachel was told what had happened.

“I was in disbelief, I was sickened and distraught.”

Heather was “the most important thing to him,” she said.

“This is where it is so hard to believe what he’s done to her because he would talk to her every day, if not multiple times a day.

Harold told police Leslie “loved his mother” and did anything for her.

“When he’s well he’s such a caring person.

“Leslie wasn’t well though and he is capable of anything when his mental state is unstable.”

Mental health system ‘failed everybody’

In April last year in the High Court at Whanganui Justice Karen Grau said there was no question Parr was responsible for his mother’s death, but that he was “legally insane” at the time he caused her death.

“I am satisfied, based on the reports of the experts, that it is clear Mr Parr suffered from a disease of the mind, a relapse in his longstanding schizophrenia, at the time he killed his mother.

“It is not the case that he did not understand the nature of his actions, but as the experts have concluded, and with which I agree, he was incapable of understanding his acts were morally wrong, and they were driven by his delusional beliefs.”

He was ordered to be detained as a special patient under the Mental Health Act.

Justice Grau said the case occurred “against a backdrop of apparent significant failures in the mental health system”.

Harold Parr wrote to Justice Grau as part of proceedings, requesting name suppression for both his son and Heather.

He said he had attended “countless appointments” and meetings relating to his son’s mental health over the years.

“I have met his doctors and psychiatrists and have a good understanding of the mental health system, what services are provided and some of its failings.”

He referenced Maulolo’s killing, saying the details of which were “too horrific to repeat”.

He wrote his son’s release by Dr Astor was “unlawful and improper” and said Leslie “should never have been let out”.

“If the proper procedures were followed Fiona would not have been killed in 1997.”

He also referenced the allegations that on the day Leslie killed for a second time he was supposed to be drug tested but wasn’t because he was “acting cagey” and the staffer didn’t want him to feel he was being “picked on”.

“This is a so-called health professional who observed unusual behaviour from a person with severe mental health issues and they didn’t do anything about it. She didn’t test him and basically allowed him to leave. A few hours later Heather was dead.”

Harold wrote the build-up to Heather’s death was “predictable”, adding his son was “on a downward spiral”.

“The health system is not aggressive enough to make decisions. They pussy foot around because they don’t want to hurt people’s feelings or upset them. But the consequence of them being indecisive is the reason that we find ourselves in this predicament now. Heather is dead and it could and should have been prevented,” he said.

“There are more questions than answers. The health system had Leslie in their custody and released him. A health professional saw Leslie on the day he killed Heather, described him as being cagey, did not do the blood test and let him go without anything. How? Who is accountable? How can someone who has previously killed another person be able to remain free when the warnings signs are right there for all to see?”

Speaking to RNZ, Rachel earlier said Leslie should not have been released from the mental health facility five days before the killing.

“I don’t know how they couldn’t have noticed how he was unwell unless he put on a really good show.”

She believed there had been a “massive failure” in the mental health system.

“It failed him, it failed everybody twice.”

Rachel often wondered whether Leslie may have killed her as well. She was in therapy and said she was “a mess”.

“I feel sad. I feel sad for the victims, I feel sad for him. I feel it’s just sad all around really. He was unwell, and he just wasn’t given the care that he should have been given.”

Reviews under way

Health New Zealand (HNZ) national director of mental health & addictions enhancement, Phil Grady, said on Monday the case was an incredibly tragic event.

“Our thoughts remain with the family, friends and communities affected. On behalf of Health New Zealand, I extend our heartfelt sympathies to everyone impacted,” Grady said.

“It is completely understandable that people feel let down and are seeking answers. We acknowledge those concerns and want to approach them with openness and respect, while recognising the deep impact this has had on both victim’s loved ones, the wider community, and the staff involved in Mr Parr’s care.”

Grady said HNZ also recognised that questions had been raised about aspects of Parr’s care and the decisions made at the time.

“These were complex clinical decisions based on the information available, and the external review has carefully examined those concerns.

“Where the review has identified areas that could be clearer or stronger, such as expectations around drug screening, information sharing, and clinical oversight, we are acting on those findings to improve consistency and strengthen practice across the service.”

Health NZ reviewed every serious adverse event that occurs within its services, and were committed to learning from them, he said.

“An external review of the care Mr Parr received leading up to this event is currently being finalised, led by senior Health NZ staff from outside the Central Region to ensure independence.

“We are committed to implementing any recommended changes so that we continue to strengthen the quality and safety of the care we provide.

“Events of this nature are incredibly tragic, but when they occur, we take them extremely seriously. The learning from this event is already informing improvements across the service, including strengthening clinical leadership, improving information sharing, clarifying clinical protocols such as drug screening, and enhancing whānau engagement and staff training.”

Mental health care in the community was complex, and risk could never be removed entirely, he said

“Especially in the case of serious mental illness, but these improvements are designed to strengthen safeguards and provide reassurance to the people we care for, their whānau, and the wider community.”

The Ministry of Health also extended its deepest sympathies to the families, friends and communities affected.

Following Parr’s second killing, Health New Zealand commissioned an external review into the care provided to the individual.

“Health New Zealand has already made changes since the incident, and I support their work,” Director of Mental Health Dr John Crawshaw said.

He said the external review was being led by an external expert panel and is near completion.

“Once the external review is available, I will carefully consider whether any further actions are required.”

Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey said in a statement his thoughts were with the families impacted.

“I have made it very clear to HNZ that patient and public safety must always be paramount, clearly situations like this are not good enough. New Zealanders deserve to have trust that when people are in the care of mental health services, the appropriate care is being taken to ensure patient and public safety is at the forefront of all decisions,” he said.

“As minister, my focus is on ensuring agencies put in place all necessary changes to prevent tragedies like this from occurring again. I have made it very clear to Health New Zealand that they must move quickly to implement the findings of the reviews and make all necessary changes to prevent this from happening again.”

Doocey was awaiting the Director of Mental Health’s decision on whether he was satisfied with the review and whether any further action needs to be taken.

Chief Victims Advisor Ruth Money said the case was “heartbreaking and preventable”.

When RNZ first revealed the case she called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into forensic mental health facilities.

On Monday she said she stood by those calls.

“Given that unbelievably this is not the only recent case where someone in forensic mental health ‘care’ has gone on to kill twice.

“An inquiry that has mandated recommendations is the only way the system will improve, as opposed to Health NZ continuing to mark their own homework every time a tragedy such as this occurs. These victims and the community deserve infinitely better.”

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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 apartment block in central Wellington has been evacuated after a fire on Monday evening.

Two people were in the apartment at the time of the fire.

Police say one person was seriously hurt and taken to hospital.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) was alerted to a small third-floor apartment fire at 5.45pm.

Five fire trucks, two aerial appliances, a command unit and a breathing apparatus tender responded.

Response crews came from Wellington, Thorndon, Brooklyn, Kilbirnie and Karori fire stations, FENZ said.

The apartment block was evacuated and the fire quickly extinguished.

Fire investigators were on the scene, as well as police and ambulance.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand Customs has warned tobacco smuggling is becoming more organised, large-scale and sophisticated, with the government pledging to stop the country following Australia into tobacco gangland warfare.

But a public health professor says while criminal involvement is a concern, there is no evidence of a dramatic increase in the size of the tobacco black market.

Chief customs officer for fraud and prohibition Nigel Barnes said seizures have been trending upwards over the past decade, though there have been fluctuations due to large busts.

In 2025, Customs seized 11.1 million illegal cigarettes and cigars, and 5.4 tonnes of loose tobacco, compared to 9.2 million illegal cigarettes and cigars, and 2.7 tonnes of loose tobacco in 2024.

In 2022, 4.8 million cigarettes were seized, and 3.6 tonnes of loose tobacco.

Barnes said illicit cigarette seizures in 2025 represented about $16 million in tax revenue evasion.

“That’s just the stuff we’ve seized.”

He said illegal cigarettes were selling here for between $20 and $25 in diaries, liquor stores and pop-up outlets throughout the country. A legal packet costs between $40 and $50.

“Obviously, there’s a significant-size market in Auckland, but we’ve identified illicit tobacco distribution networks in regional centres as well, as far afield as the South Island and Gisborne.”

Barnes said the increase in seizures partly reflected a $10.4m funding boost in 2022 and the establishment of a dedicated illegal tobacco investigations team.

But the involvement of transnational and serious organised crime groups concerned him.

“Tobacco smuggling into New Zealand is becoming more organised, large-scale and sophisticated.”

Criminals were increasingly adding tobacco to their drug and money laundering operations, he said, and smugglers were masking themselves under shell companies.

Officials had seized drugs, firearms and other weapons, as well as large amounts of cash in investigations.

In 2023, Customs arrested three Malaysian nationals who travelled to New Zealand to smuggle tobacco into the country. When officials did some digging, they found out the trio had the same operation in Australia.

Agents also discovered a large illegal cigarette manufacturing operation in 2024 in Christchurch, where a man had imported loose tobacco under the guise of tea, setting up machinery to make individual cigarettes, boxes of cigarettes and cigarette branded labels.

Barnes said the trajectory of Australia’s black market for tobacco was “particularly concerning” for New Zealand.

“We’re in contact regularly with our Australian counterparts, and the trajectory of the illicit tobacco market in Australia is particularly concerning, mostly because New Zealand and Australia have the highest excise rates in the Asia-Pacific region. So if it could happen there, it could happen here, is a kind of a theory.

“The standovers and firebombs that are getting reported on in Australia are particularly concerning for us.”

Barnes said Customs was doing everything it could to prevent New Zealand following Australia’s path.

Deaths, threats and firebombs in Australia

In Australia, the illegal cigarette black market has developed into a violent and fast-growing criminal market, to the point where rival gangs are fighting over, and threatening retailers to sell illegal products.

Criminal groups have committed more than 200 arson attacks at retailers, and at least three homicides since 2023, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission said.

It found that illicit tobacco linked to serious and/organised crime cost the Australian economy about $4 billion (NZ$4.8b) in 2023-2024.

Associate professor of criminal justice at Bond University, Dr Terry Goldsworthy, said the black market had infiltrated most parts of the country.

“It was problematic in just a couple of states – but we’ve now seen responses from almost every Australian state, trying to address it.”

It triggered the formation of a federal Tobacco National Disruption group formed by the Albanese government, Goldsworthy said, led by the Australian Border Force and including every state’s police force.

Goldsworthy said arson and standover tactics had caused concern in many communities.

“They’ll go there and stand over the people and get them to sell their products, if they don’t sell their products, then they take the action of either assaulting the people who work there, or they firebomb the place to take it out of business.”

Steve Symon, who headed a ministerial advisory group on organised crime last year, said New Zealand risked following Australia’s path into a serious criminal black market.

“What’s happening there, will happen in New Zealand in 12-18 months, because our conditions are really similar – in terms of our willingness to pay high prices for illicit substances whether it be methamphetamine or cocaine, but the same thing with cigarettes.”

He said organised criminal groups in Australia setting up shop here was also alarming.

“What we see in Australia – it’s very likely, we’ll see here.”

He said illegal cigarettes were funding the operations of more serious, organised crime, and New Zealand needed to address the problem urgently.

“It’s not just you getting a cheap packet of cigarettes, what you are doing is contributing to people who are incentivised to bring the worst types of crime into our community.”

Size of black market contested

The size of New Zealand’s illicit market was not clear, with studies backed by various groups estimating wildly different sizes.

One study from 2025, commissioned by Imperial Tobacco New Zealand and British American Tobacco New Zealand, claimed the size of the illicit market was at 25 percent, but health expert Chris Bullen said his research from 2023 showed it was likely between 5 and 7 percent of the market.

“It’s an illicit trade, so it’s covert activity, it’s really hard to get a handle on what’s going on.”

The professor of public health at the University of Auckland said there was not clear evidence of a dramatic increase in the black market in New Zealand, and smoking rates were dropping among the population.

He said increasing the price of tobacco products had had a dramatic effect on driving down smoking and on people’s health.

Customs seizures did not necessarily indicate the problem was getting worse, Bullen said, but that officers were getting better at intercepting product at the border.

New Zealand had a different tobacco environment to Australia, where vapes were illegal, and the country was closer to the Asian market, he said.

What he wanted was more investment in research monitoring the black market so trends over time could be measured.

“It’s one of those things like wastewater monitoring for methamphetamine – it’s a reasonable thing to do to try and track what’s going on in the population, rather than just hoping that it will go away.

“I think it is wise for the government to be aware that across the ditch, it is a big problem.”

Customs Minister Casey Costello said Customs’ increased seizures signalled the country was facing a growing black market.

“We are very aware of what has occurred in Australia, where we have seen an explosion in the scale of the black market for tobacco and associated challenges with the organised crime groups driving that explosion.

“We cannot let that happen here”.

She said the government would use all the tools it could to disrupt organised crime groups.

“There are also further regulatory options within our tobacco control regime that can support our efforts to tackle illicit tobacco sales.

“I have asked for further advice from the Ministry of Health about how our regulatory regime can be strengthened to effectively manage the sales of illicit tobacco that has made it into New Zealand.”

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