Category: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

How to shop for your kids this Christmas, in the wake of the asbestos-contaminated sand, toy recalls, and children’s products failing safety tests

After a string of headlines about toy recalls, including kinetic sand contaminated with asbestos, shopping for the kids this year seems harder than ever.

And with the cost of living sky-high, it can be tempting to turn to cheap international e-commerce sites. But Gemma Rasmussen, Consumer NZ’s head of research and advocacy, has one piece of advice on that: don’t.

“We would say don’t buy from these cheaper online marketplaces like Temu and Shein. I get that cost of living is really tough and there might be other things you want to buy from there, but when it comes to kids’ products, don’t do it.

“There’s a really high failure rate in safety testing and we don’t think it’s worth the risk.”

But as we’ve seen with the asbestos-contaminated sand from Kmart, just because it’s purchased in New Zealand doesn’t automatically mean it’s safe.

“There is a massive trust model in New Zealand and how effective that is, is questionable,” says Rasmussen.

“We are relying on the honesty of suppliers and a lot of our standards are voluntary.”

There are various laws in New Zealand to protect consumers: The Fair Trading Act, the Consumer Guarantees Act, and “we have specific mandatory product safety standards for higher risk product categories, and this is things like toys, children’s nightwear, cots, things like that, and that’s because there has been this historic risk in this space.”

But when it comes to actually enforcing some of these standards, products can fall through the cracks.

“Often it’s that the enforcement and recall is happening once something’s landed on our shelves, so we’re sort of in a model where until something goes wrong there’s not really a lot that’s happening and that’s quite a dangerous model because it means potentially someone is getting hurt.”

“In short our government hasn’t prioritised putting the resources into ensuring that we actually have a system that is really reflective of the retail experience in New Zealand.”

She says the EU is the leader in this space.

“They’re sort of trying to create a marketplace where the guardrails are on and there’s the assumption that the shopper can really shop with safety.

“They have things like government certification schemes, they’ve expanded what chemicals are regulated, they have a greater focus on imports and online marketplace surveillance and they really have a focus on traceability.”

She says that means when a product that has a problem is identified, it’s easily trackable and can be recalled.

“I think that we [in New Zealand] really do need to be taking it far more seriously. I see risk on our horizon with the way that our marketplace is now operating. I think in the instance of the asbestos sand, it is disappointing to see that the buck has been passed a little bit.”

Beyond the laws, reputational damage and the resulting economic risk may be a bigger force for keeping retailers in line.

“It’s not good business practice for a retailer to do whatever they want because of the reputational risk they face if something does go wrong.”

“With this kinetic sand asbestos issue, what really surprised me was that it was a retailer like Kmart because often these really big retailers have quite rigorous systems because they know that the reputational and economic risk is so major to them.”

While it’s impossible to completely avoid risk, Rasmussen says that products like slimes, sands, dough and face paints are likely to carry more risk. (Consumer NZ has previously tested face paint, which contained lead.)

In this episode of The Detail, Rasmussen explains the laws designed to protect us, and why they’re not fit for purpose, and Mareta Hunt from Safekids Aotearoa spells out the ‘Six S’s’ to look out when shopping for toys – size, surface, string, supervision, sound and swallow.

Check out how to listen to and follow The Detailhere.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Wellington’s maritime police are no longer responding 24/7 to help boats in trouble or to respond to crimes on the water.

The team has had a 60 percent cut to their operational hours and will now only be available from 9am to 6pm most days.

Police said it will save money, but critics like Geoff Marsland said it will cost lives.

Marsland has sailed the world and seen all sorts of conditions but said the worst seas to be found weren’t far from his doorstep.

“You leave Wellington you turn right, and you go three miles to the west and there’s Kiroroi rip,” he said.

It was off the southern shore of Wellington when his engine filters failed, and he needed the maritime police.

“It was just getting dark, I had two little kids on board… the nor’ west got up to about 30 knots and by calling the Lady Liz within like twenty minutes they were there and took me into a tow into the wharf. The next day I cleaned the filters, and I was fine,” he recounted.

A version of the police boat Lady Elizabeth, nicknamed ‘Lady Liz’, has patrolled the shores of Wellington and rescued boaties for over 80 years, including finding missing diver Rob Hewitt, brother of ex-All Black Norm Hewitt, who’d been lost at sea for three days before the Lady Elizabeth crew found him in 2006.

Marsland said the decision to pull back the police maritime service was crazy.

“It’s ridiculous, this is Cook Strait and Wellington! Within not long there will totally be casualties,” he said.

Know something about this story? Email libby.kirkby-mcleod@rnz.co.nz

Wellington Acting District Commander Inspector Nick Thom said in the last two years, police had needed the service during the night only once.

He thought the new hours had things covered.

“We looked at a range of data and when the Liz was being deployed to incidents, and the main demand picture has told us it’s that 9am to 6pm time,” he said.

However, a sworn police officer involved with the maritime unit said when they are called it’s usually life or death.

He questioned whether the money saved is really worth it.

“There’re managers within the organisation who go ‘well look, we are willing to wear the risk.’ And it’s like ‘well, are you? Are you going to stand up in front of the media and the public and say ‘yep, that person died because we saved $90,000 this year,’?”

When the maritime police officers were asked for feedback, they overwhelmingly rejected the decrease in hours.

“Staff expressed concern that the proposed changes would negatively impact public safety and erode trust in police,” the decision report said in a summary of feedback.

“The perception that the unit may be unavailable during emergencies could damage its reputation and reduce community confidence,” continued the feedback.

Paul Gubb had been boating around Wellington commercially for 40 years. He said he always felt safer on the water knowing the Lady Elizabeth and her crew were there.

“When you are a water person, and a lot of Wellingtonians are, this is something we pay for and they can cut something else but don’t cut our wharf police,” he said.

Several officers gave feedback that they would consider leaving the maritime unit or the police entirely due to the changes.

“I would acknowledge the submissions raised a range of concerns but ultimately it’s been determined that those concerns are not outweighed by the need to prioritize our resources and where they will have the biggest impact,” said Thom.

Outside of operational hours search and rescue will be the responsibility of Coastguard.

Thom said this comes at a cost to police as if police deploy Coastguard, they pay Coastguard to do that work.

But Thom still believed it was an overall saving for the police, which he put at around $130,000 annually.

“What the data has told us is there have been 1% callouts for the night standby period over the last 12 months which would indicate its going to be a very low callout percentage for Coastguard.”

A Coastguard spokesperson told RNZ they remain on-call 24/7, ready to respond and assist those on the water whenever needed around Wellington with 70 active volunteers and two dedicated rescue vessels – Reremoana and Spirit of Wellington.

“Our crews often leave work, family, study, or other commitments when a call for help comes in, which means our response times may be slightly slower than those of the Wellington Police Maritime Unit,” they said.

But Coastguard was confident it could provide an effective search and rescue response across the region.

John Bryant was in the Wellington police maritime unit for 24 years, nine as an officer in charge.

He saw the change as a cut to frontline policing.

“The history of these constables is that they are frontline police, they wear the blue. They are policeman first and mariners second,” he said.

He thought the Wellington public should be concerned about what they have lost.

“For decades police have [been there], and as a result there are many many people who are alive today because of that level of service.”

The current police officer involved with the unit said the crew did many frontline policing duties on the water.

“It’s not just search and rescue, we work with customs, and MPI, and the defence force and the local harbourmaster; we’ve worked with immigration before, mental health… any kind of incident on a ferry or another vessel that requires a tactical response, other agencies won’t take tactical teams.”

A Coastguard spokesperson confirmed that as a volunteer-powered charity, Coastguard’s sole purpose was to save lives on the water.

“We do not carry out any Police work or act as law enforcement of any kind. In this regard, we cannot provide the same operational scope as the Wellington Police Maritime Unit. While we work closely together, our focus is solely on search and rescue.”

Police told RNZ the decision will be formally reviewed in a few months’ time to see the effect of the changes.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Thousands of electric bike riders are taking to a central North Island great ride trail – even though e-bikes are illegal on it.

Bike trail builders and operators on the Timber Trail say it is a classic example of the tangled rules and hurdles that faces an industry worth more than $1.3 billion a year.

Rider numbers on the 85km Timber Trail – which goes through massive rimus and over long swing bridges in Pureora Forest Park – topped 20,000 two years ago and are still rising.

Paul Goulding has run Epic Cycle Adventures, which offers glamping, shuttle and ebike hire, for 12 years.

“Two years ago was the first time, the first year, that we… hired out more e-bikes than normal bikes. And since then it’s just that percentage is increasing every year,” he told RNZ last month.

“Just as an example, two weeks ago, we sleep 36 people at our Camp Epic and 32 people were on e-bikes.”

But while most trails nation-wide allow e-bikes – which are meant to be under 300 watts power, although many bikes now exceed this – the Department of Conservation’s (DOC) rules are tougher in Pureora.

“It’s a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, but that does make some things a little bit difficult,” said Lynley Twyman, who helps promote the trail as part of the Central North Island Great Rides.

DOC acknowledged e-bikes were not allowed under the Waikato Conservation Management Strategy, but said this was “very challenging” to monitor and enforce.

A law change next year may fix this, it said.

Goulding said the occasional person rang to ask about the ban, but “I just tell them, you know, that’s not a problem”.

“Even though it’s illegal, DOC aren’t sort of policing it or anything.”

While it has not had an impact on Epic’s business, Goulding thought it might help if the trail could be promoted for e-bikes.

But Twyman is not allowed to do that, or to put out safety messages that were specific to the heavier bikes.

“We are just silent on it, which is not really where we want to be,” she said.

“We can’t officially promote e-bikes. However, all of our commercial partners, you know, rent e-bikes. And probably 60, 70 percent of our customers are using them because they’re a great way to travel on the Timber Trail. They work perfectly.”

The ban originated when the area’s unique Conservation Management Strategy (CMS) was drawn up. The CMS remained relevant even though it recently expired, Twyman said.

“I know that the team in the Waikato are grappling with that.”

New Zealand Cycle Trails acting chair Pete Masters said DOC could not possibly police e-bikes.

He said DOC had been behind the times when it opposed the first mountainbike trails on conservation land in a project Masters was involved with years ago, and was again behind the times on e-bikes, thinking that both were passing fads.

“The Timber Trail’s the classic, in that e-bikes are illegal on the Timber Trail, according to their CMS, which is a prescriptive CMS, but 90 percent of the users of that trail are e-bikers,” he said.

The accommodation providers had battery chargers, and all the concessionaires hired out e-bikes.

“And it’s all good. It’s fantastic,” said Masters. “We’ve got people out riding them. It’s not a problem, but technically… technically, they’re all illegal.”

He is hoping for a common sense approach in an overhaul of the Conservation Act, which the government has promised for next year.

“The train’s left the station on e-bikes and the department is 10 years behind where e-bikes are. So that should be addressed by the Conservation Act review.”

The Timber Trail lodge – which offers beds and e-bike charges at the halfway point – had not been impacted, said Guy Whitaker, who helped set it up.

“But it’s certainly not ideal. It’s just crazy that they can’t sort it out because they have known about it for years.

“DOC know what’s going on so surely… they are guilty themselves,” Whitaker said.

E-bikes can make a difference to how trails are designed. They can be made a bit steeper than for regular bikes, and sometimes might need more camber on the downhill corners as e-bikes are heavier.

DOC said the trail was meant for walkers and regular mountainbikes, and the more powerful e-bikes could do more damage and compromise the trail for other users

Riders should stick to the rules, but: “The isolated nature of the Pureora Timber Trail, and its length, make it very challenging for DOC to carry out compliance and monitoring activities in response to trail damage with the small number of suitably trained and available staff to do this work”, it said.

Trail riding is a growing tourism sector, but a disjointed one.

“Every area is different,” said Twyman. The Timber Trail comes under one set of rules, while trails she promotes around Tongariro under others.

“Whether we’re working on conservation land… Kiwirail land… LINZ land or private land or road reserve, there’s a basket of rules and regulations,” she said.

“It’s just really hard to know where to go. It can be very complex and expensive to navigate your way through that.”

DOC said the proposed conservation law reforms should streamline things and get rid of outdated restrictions, and give it greater flexibility to update guidance and respond to changes in biking.

“We acknowledge e-bike technology has evolved significantly since the guidelines were drafted,” said DOC director of heritage and visitors Cat Wilson.

The CMS rules in various regions mostly predate the upsurge in e-bike use globally since about 2020; e-mountain bikes are an even more recent phenomenon.

Another old rule that is also being flouted on trails and on the road is NZTA’s limit on e-bike power, set at a maximum 300 watts. Many e-bikes now exceed this which officially classifies them as motor vehicles (on conservation land, the law considers all e-bikes as motor vehicles).

“No final decisions have been made yet, but this is an area we expect to be able to modernise in future,” said Wilson.

Catching up can not come soon enough, said Masters. “E-bikes have saved in some ways cycle trails because we’ve got a whole new demographic of people riding,” he said.

“You know, 70, 80 year olds out riding every day, it’s just fantastic. You know, the health benefits alone must be worth a fortune.”

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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 union wants the Commerce Commission to investigate whether ACC breached the Fair Trading Act with its job ads.

The Accident Compensation Corporation recently told staff it wanted them in the office three days a week, rather than two.

But the Public Service Association (PSA) said this was in contradiction to job advertisements which ran from June 2023 until at least July 2025 that “explicitly promoted working from home up to three days a week as a key benefit of working at ACC”.

It has written to the Commerce Commission, seeking an investigation into ACC for breaching the Fair Trading Act.

“ACC deliberately advertised flexible work arrangements to attract staff, and is now looking to break that promise – this is exactly the kind of misleading conduct the Fair Trading Act is designed to prevent,” said PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons.

“The job adverts from ACC are very clear. They say you can have a work-life balance, no late nights, and up to three days a week working from home.”

She said workers made major life decisions – resigning from jobs, relocating, arranging childcare – based on ACC’s advertised working conditions.

“Many feel deceived and betrayed with the proposed change to its remote working policy.”

She said ACC needed to stick by its original commitment to its workers.

“The Commerce Commission needs to investigate whether ACC breached the Fair Trading Act, which applies to employment advertising. Job seekers deserve accurate information about working conditions, which employers are obliged to honour”.

The PSA also lodged legal action with the Employment Relations Authority following ACC’s proposed WFH policy change, to which it said ACC agreed to pause the changes and consult with staff, with implementation delayed until early next year.

“While we welcome ACC’s decision to finally consult staff, the consultation proposal is the same and doesn’t change the fact that they misled job applicants about working conditions in the first place,” Fitzsimons said.”

ACC was approached for comment, in response chief executive Megan Main said: “We have consulted with our people on our working from home proposal and are considering their feedback. We will share the outcome of the consultation 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

A captive-breeding programme that helped bring the critically endangered Mahoenui giant wētā back from the brink is expecting a bumper breeding season this summer – in more ways than one.

Not only is the purpose-built lab at the Ōtorohanga Kiwi House expecting to hatch more wētā than ever before, but they are likely to be bigger than ever.

Ōtorohanga Kiwi House wildlife manager Matthew Ronaldson is busying himself in the reserve’s Mahoenui giant wētā maternity centre.

“We’ve got about 30 egg fields or what we all egg fields here waiting to hatch again here this January.

“Basically, it’s an ice-cream container with some soil in it that the female adult Mahoenui giant wētā can lay her eggs in after breeding.”

Then it’s a waiting game.

“Eggs can take anywhere from 10 months to two years to hatch, so we put a 10-month time limit on them and put the date when we expect them to hatch, and the last lot we actually had hatch right on time.

“You end up with hundreds and hundreds … I think we were just over 400 juveniles or wētā that hatched last time, and that was from half of the egg fields we have in here now.”

Ronaldson is expecting up to 600 Mahoenui giant wētā to hatch this summer.

The wētā are thriving too.

“I guess having a greater food source, these animals have grown bigger than what either iwi or DOC have seen at the Mahoenui Reserve.

“Even when we brought in our second cohort of adults in, they came in a younger age, eighth and ninth instar, and they have grown bigger than the previous cohort, and we even had offspring that were bigger than the mother [when adult].”

Fully-grown wētā have been through 10 development stages or instars.

Adult females weigh in at about 25g and are about the size of a mouse.

Wētā handler Danielle Lloyd said that’s a far cry from where they start.

“If you do have hatches in there, they are really, really small – they hatch from an egg the size of a grain of rice.

“They are bright, fluorescent green when they hatch, so if you’ve got grass in, there as well, it can be a bit hard to find them, so we have torches, magnifying glasses if we need them.

“We have to search through the entire thing to see what’s in there, and because they are in an ice cream container, they like to hide just under the rim on the outside.”

She’s trying to wrangle a female going by the name of Bugg-Tsunade.

“Generally, in the eighth instar, we’ll give them a name more often than not based on their little personalities, so this one’s Bugg-Tsunade.

“I actually named her after an anime I like because she’s quite feisty, and I named her after a feisty character.

“One was called Bugg-Wonky. She had a wonky leg that she was able to fix through her instar changes, which they can do.

“And then we’ve had a Bugg-Chunky as well, and that was because she devoured all the food we put in there almost every day.”

Lloyd used to be terrified of giant wētā, but not anymore.

“Their feet are, I guess, quite prickly, is the kind of word, on your skin, but they’re really light, and you don’t really feel them on you.

“You can kind of feel them digging into you with their tarsus [final segment of their leg] when they walk.

“But it doesn’t really faze me anymore, but I guess if you’re not used to it, you probably would be a bit freaked out because it can feel like it’s stabbing into you a little bit.”

Meanwhile, Ronaldson said there’s nothing to fear.

“I actually find them extremely gentle. Once you get the hang of them and they get used to being handled, as long as you’re gentle and calm with them, they’re generally calm and gentle with you.

“You may actually catch us talking with them, calling them sweetheart and all sorts of cute names, but we do become quite attached to them, our animals, and they’re just like little puppy dogs really.”

The Ōtorohanga Kiwi House is aiming to eventually hatch 3000 Mahoenui giant wētā and see them come off the critically endangered species list.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Buzzing behind a tall fence in the inner city suburb of Green Lane in Auckland are Aidan Thompson’s bees.

At the age of 11, Aidan already has years of beekeeping and business experience, with the help of some neighbours.

“My beekeeping journey started when I was seven years old. I was looking for a job to earn money, and Mrs Parker had an idea that I could sell their honey and earn a little profit.

“I started off with buying 10 of them, and then I sold them on the side of the road, and I soon had to keep going back on my bike to get 10, and then at the end, I was getting 30 at a time, that my sisters had to help me with. And then I had enough money to buy my own beehive, and Mrs Parker and Mr Parker helped me look after it and harvest honey from it, and then I got to sell my own honey.”

By spring, the bees have waxed down the lid onto their hive boxes, and Aidan uses a hive tool – a metal that looks like a set square – to crack open the box and check on his bees.

“One bee makes one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in their lifetime,” Aidan said. He finds the little creatures’ productivity fascinating.

Last season, Aidan harvested about 150kg of honey.

His sister Emma did the maths and found it would take about 360,000 bees to make that much.

With a master’s grasp of the subject, Aidan explains how the honey is made.

“So the bees have pollen on it, they put it into cells, and then they use fluids from water, and then they eat the pollen, then they vomit it back up. So when you eat honey, you’re basically eating vomit.”

A fact that doesn’t bother Aidan.

“I didn’t really care. It tastes good, even if it’s vomit.”

It took Aidan about a year selling honey on the roadside to save the $300 for his own hive.

And now, he’s saving his money for grander plans.

“I’m going to save up for a house or a bee farm in the future. That’s what my bank has as my goal, $999,000. Don’t have that yet.”

But Aidan is serious, and he’s thought it through.

“I want to have a bee farm, but then sometimes I’m like, I might just have that as a little side hobby and just have two hives.

“Because I’ve found out that if you make 2,000 or 5,000 pots of honey a year, it’s quite hard to sell. So if I did get a farm, I’d probably be selling quite a lot overseas.”

By saving for his dream, Aidan is supporting others both locally and abroad.

“So I sponsor the Ellerslie Women’s First team. I give them ‘player of the day’, honey, so whoever gets the player of the day gets a little bottle of honey. I was sponsoring Brighton in Tanzania.

“Every $100 I made, I gave him $10. We lived over there for a year, and my mum [suggested it], because we were friends with some of them over there, so we help them now.”

With the help of his sister Lara, Aidan is growing his business and has an Instagram page called “thekidbeekeeper“, where he advertises a free honey delivery service on his bike.

But the busy beekeeper said there’s still lots to learn about running a buzzing business.

“I really like harvesting honey from the beehive, scraping off the wax on top of the honey and spinning it to get out the honey. But I’ve learnt that selling honey on the side of the road is a lot harder than getting it out from the beehive.”

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