Category: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Wellington mountain biker says riders aren’t a threat to nesting kārearea, after vigilante attempts to keep people off the trails.

Tracks on Matairangi/Mt Victoria have been vandalised this week, with logs, holes and makeshift barricades put up across them.

Local rider Rod Bardsley, who helps build and maintain the track, told Morning Report it appeared to be an attempt to protect kārearea, New Zealand’s native falcon, nesting on the ground nearby.

According to the Department of Conservation, kārearea did not build a nest – instead, the bird made a scrape on the ground and laid its eggs in that. A typical clutch consisted of between two and four eggs, which took just over a month to hatch.

The female guarded the nest until the nestlings are close to fledging, which took another month or more after hatching.

Only a month ago, Hutt City Council asked people using the Haywards Track to give the birds some space and avoid using the area, after nesting kārearea began swooping on walkers.

But Barnsley said mountain bikers were not a threat.

“We need to look after native birds,” he said. “But the ridiculous thing is, we’re riding hard-packed, formed trails at a reasonable speed. We’re not of any threat to any nesting birds.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

An Auckland doctor based in Otara said crowded housing makes children in her community more vulnerable to the spread of measles, and is doing everything she can to make vaccinations more accessible to families.

There are now six actively infectious cases of measles across the country, and three of them are in Auckland.

Health New Zealand said the total number of known cases nationally since 8 October is 28.

GP of nearly 30 years, Dr Oruba Khalil, is all too familiar with the damage the highly infectious disease can do to families – having seen how it affected her community in 2019.

“People with fever, whole families affected, we are seeing people at the carpark, lucky that we have a big clinic – we are allocating the people – the number of people affected by measles was very high,” she said.

Khalil said the crowded living conditions of some families made them more vulnerable to the spread of the virus, and at higher risk for children to develop complications.

“Our population, if the kids have measles, and we are having the problems of housing and high rates of smoking, and these things, the kids can end up with pneumonia and lots of complications of measles,” she said.

Khalil said her clinic, Otara GP and Urgent Care, had been sending texts to all enrolled patients who were recorded as not yet vaccinated with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Two doses of the the MMR vaccine (after the age of 12 months) protected about 99 percent of people from getting measles.

The clinic had also been offering vaccinations in the evenings so that working families could make it.

The team was running an event on the evening of Friday 12 December, to raise awareness about measles and provide vaccinations, alongside music, food and activities.

Meanwhile, Pacific community health provider – the Fono – had been busy going door to door to follow up with families with children who weren’t yet vaccinated.

The organisation had about 10,000 patients enrolled at its five clinics.

Its nursing manager Moana Manukia said it’d been challenging to get hold of people, and about half the time people weren’t home.

She said sometimes it found that the family had moved out, but nonetheless, they’d make use of that opportunity to check the immunity of the new tenants.

Manukia said it still gave about 30 MMR vaccinations through its outreach teams every week – mostly to children under four.

She said it’d also been texting the parents of patients under 18 who were recorded as not immunised against measles.

Manukia said the response to those texts had been low, with just 10 percent of patients calling back.

She said the measles coverage for children under two had been good among patients, but coverage was lower for teenagers.

Manukia said it’s possible that some of the older children may have been vaccinated overseas and had no records in New Zealand.

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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 union for Air NZ cabin crew is defending the timing of strike activity planned for eight days before Christmas.

Some cabin crews will walk off the job on December 18, although a strike this coming Monday has been called off.

E tū National Secretary Rachel Mackintosh told Morning Report domestic, trans-Tasman and Pacific crews were still waiting on a deal, however regional and long haul cabin crews were set to vote on their most recent offer – which the union had recommended they accept.

“Because progress is being made, those crew have lifted the strike for next Monday,” she said.

“But what they’ve seen is that putting pressure on Air New Zealand by putting on a strike notice, that’s was really the thing that made a difference for the other two crew.”

The union had originally said any strike action would not fall in the seven days before Christmas – and this strike did not break that promise, at eight days out.

Mackintosh said by law, the union had to give two weeks’ notice, which meant their earliest possible strike date was December 18.

“We just really urge Air New Zealand to sharpen their pencils and continue to work with us.”

Air New Zealand chief people officer Nikki Dines previously said discussions with the union had been constructive and were progressing well.

“We’re hopeful we’ll reach agreement and have all bargains in a position for our cabin crew to vote as soon as possible,” she said on Thursday.

“At this stage, there is no change to our flight schedule and our focus remains on reaching agreement with E tū and avoiding strike action entirely.”

The airline originally estimated strikes across all of its fleets could affect somewhere between 10-15,000 customers.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

One person has been taken to hospital in moderate condition after a car crashed into a house in the Auckland suburb of Grafton.

The crash, on Seafield View Rd, was reported to police just after 7.30am on Friday.

An RNZ reporter at the scene said the vehicle, a white Toyota RAV4, has gone into the front facade of a villa, taking out the front door.

It is not yet known whether the person who was injured was the driver of the vehicle or an occupant of the house.

Police enquiries into the cause of the crash are continuing.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The person who died after a car crashed into a river off State Highway 2 near Whakatāne on Tuesday has been named.

They were 44-year-old Ngahina Takarangi, of Whakatāne.

A second person was injured in the crash on White Pine Bush Road, Tāneatua, police said.

“The circumstances of the crash remain under investigation, and police would like to speak to anybody who witnessed the crash, that happened at around 6pm,” police said in a statement on Friday.

“Additionally, we’d like to hear from anybody who saw a red Honda Accord travelling in and around Tāneatua between 5.30pm and 6pm.”

Anyone with information was urged to contact police via 105, referencing file number 251202/5566.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The boss of the Ministry for the Environment believes most New Zealanders are more concerned about immediate challenges, particularly pressures on households, than the environment.

Ministry officials faced questions about its mahi and people by the Environment select committee on Thursday, as part of Scrutiny Week.

Hundreds of jobs were cut during recent restructures, with full-time employee numbers falling by nearly 27 percent off the most recent peak of 1010 full-time employees in 2022/23 to 738 in 2024/25.

During the Ministry’s annual review, Green MP Lan Pham asked outgoing chief executive James Palmer if the environment had been de-prioritised as a result of reduced the environmental spend.

Palmer said public opinion on environmental matters had shifted.

“What we have seen over the last couple of years as a consequence of the stress on households and businesses and communities has been a reduction in the priority of environmental action and investment in the environment for New Zealanders,” he said.

“And I think that just reflects the priorities and the issues that people are facing.

“I’m incredibly sympathetic to the fact that for most New Zealanders, there are more near-term pressing priorities for them.”

It was a ministry behind a number of significant pieces of work this year, including Resource Management Act reform and climate change adaptation.

Palmer, a former Hawke’s Bay Regional Council chief executive, said the ministry had worked with less, but delivered more.

“Overall, I have to say it was a record volume of deliverables by the ministry, despite the reduction in resources,” he said.

“The ministry produced in terms of outputs to ministers, parliament and the public, 4822 items which included 896 briefings, 62 Cabinet papers, 452 [Official Information Act requests] and many more parliamentary questions and pieces of ministerial correspondence.”

Labour’s Rachel Brooking cited a report that showed 54 percent of the ministry’s staff often reported stress.

“In terms of the statement that you’re working with less but doing more, it seems like there’s a lot more stress as well.”

Palmer said the teams worked extraordinarily hard with dedication to public service.

He said the public service itself had become very agile and “very good at running sprints”, particularly following the Covid-19 pandemic, but recognised this put pressure on workers.

“I think it’s to do with the pace at which we’re working.

“I do think that the cadence of the New Zealand parliamentary system, particularly the three-year term, does result in governments on all sides of the house moving at pace.

“There are things we can’t control and those are particularly the timeframes that the parliamentary process demands of us.”

Palmer said the challenge for New Zealand, given relatively poor economic performance in recent years, was to sustain investment in areas that required a long-term focus.

From next year, Palmer will be chief executive of Earth Sciences New Zealand.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

An Auckland doctor based in Otara said crowded housing makes children in her community more vulnerable to [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/580795/paediatrician-worries-new-measles-wave-spreading-undetected the spread of measles, and is doing everything she can to make vaccinations more accessible to families.

There are now six actively infectious cases of measles across the country, and three of them are in Auckland.

Health New Zealand said the total number of known cases nationally since 8 October is 28.

GP of nearly 30 years, Dr Oruba Khalil, is all too familiar with the damage the highly infectious disease can do to families – having seen how it affected her community in 2019.

“People with fever, whole families affected, we are seeing people at the carpark, lucky that we have a big clinic – we are allocating the people – the number of people affected by measles was very high,” she said.

Khalil said the crowded living conditions of some families made them more vulnerable to the spread of the virus, and at higher risk for children to develop complications.

“Our population, if the kids have measles, and we are having the problems of housing and high rates of smoking, and these things, the kids can end up with pneumonia and lots of complications of measles,” she said.

Khalil said her clinic, Otara GP and Urgent Care, had been sending texts to all enrolled patients who were recorded as not yet vaccinated with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Two doses of the the MMR vaccine (after the age of 12 months) protected about 99 percent of people from getting measles.

The clinic had also been offering vaccinations in the evenings so that working families could make it.

The team was running an event on the evening of Friday 12 December, to raise awareness about measles and provide vaccinations, alongside music, food and activities.

Meanwhile, Pacific community health provider – the Fono – had been busy going door to door to follow up with families with children who weren’t yet vaccinated.

The organisation had about 10,000 patients enrolled at its five clinics.

Its nursing manager Moana Manukia said it’d been challenging to get hold of people, and about half the time people weren’t home.

She said sometimes it found that the family had moved out, but nonetheless, they’d make use of that opportunity to check the immunity of the new tenants.

Manukia said it still gave about 30 MMR vaccinations through its outreach teams every week – mostly to children under four.

She said it’d also been texting the parents of patients under 18 who were recorded as not immunised against measles.

Manukia said the response to those texts had been low, with just 10 percent of patients calling back.

She said the measles coverage for children under two had been good among patients, but coverage was lower for teenagers.

Manukia said it’s possible that some of the older children may have been vaccinated overseas and had no records in New Zealand.

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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 former addict who spent years moving in and out of jail says the only real way out was through specialist courts that treat addiction.

New Ministry of Justice figures show people who completed the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court (AODTC) reoffended far less than similar high-risk offenders in the District Court.

Australian-born Melanie Rauth was 13 when drugs and alcohol first entered her life after her parents split.

At 20, she moved to Aotearoa – and her addiction deepened. She lost custody of her daughter and spent years moving around, fuelling her drug habit and landing in prison multiple times.

“Being in prison did not help me at all to get well,” she said.

“It helped me to build a persona of myself that kept me safe. I learned how to fight, keep my guard up, and get my own way by causing a scene. But it didn’t really help me in the outside world when I tried to recover. All those masks that kept me safe were really hard to strip back.”

With help from her lawyer, the now-38-year-old was referred to the AODTC, a programme that treats addiction as the driver of offending.

“It is not a softer approach. It is a more realistic approach,” she said.

“Because me being a criminal and an addict isn’t who I was meant to be. Peeling those masks off and being who I am today wasn’t easy. I got kicked out of several treatment centres and went back to jail every time.

“Last time I was beating myself up because I didn’t want to be there. But once I went through the drug court and finished The Higher Ground programme, I realised, actually, I can do this. The team constantly reassured me: ‘We believe in you, you got this, we can do this.’ That was really powerful for me.”

Now, Rauth works as a team leader and support worker at Auckland City Mission’s social detox – a path followed by more than 90 percent of Drug Court graduates.

This week, specialists from around the world gathered at the University of Auckland to discuss the results and the future of these courts.

Graduates told the conference that being brought into support roles after finishing the programme was key to staying well.

“It absolutely transformed my life,” Rauth said.

“My daughter said to me yesterday, ‘I used to look down on you, and now you are my biggest inspiration.’ For my daughter to say that to me was really… it just warmed my heart, because that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve just always wanted to be her mum. I just didn’t know how to get out of that cycle.”

She said expanding the courts nationwide would help break cycles like hers.

“The drug problem in New Zealand is already here, it’s already grown massively, and there are already so many people in jail. And so many of them could benefit from this. Instead of taking from their community, they could be, like me, contributing to it. So why not have more of the courts?”

AODTC: a safety net – addiction expert

Drug Courts began in 2012 in Auckland and Waitākere, expanded to Hamilton in 2021, and remain limited to those three locations – despite two-thirds of prisoners having drug or alcohol problems.

New Ministry of Justice data showed graduates reoffend 50 percent less in their first year than similar offenders, and 20 percent less after four years.

But the government said expansion wasn’t simple: referrals had dropped, courts were expensive to run, and chronic addiction remained difficult to break.

Addiction expert and UK government adviser Professor David Best spoke at the conference.

He said the AOD courts may require more resources to run, but they delivered results traditional courts did not.

“Drug courts are a hugely important potential tipping point in a drug-using career. They create meaningful relationships and provide access to peer support that can break the nexus between drug use and crime.”

Best said the courts offered a positive, incentivised model that helps shape behaviour away from criminality and towards pro-social recovery-based activities.

“But it’s a five-year process over time. In the first year after somebody stops, the likelihood of relapse is between 50 and 70 percent.

“By five years, that drops to about 14 percent, so there has to be continuity of care. No matter how good any intervention is, unless somebody has access to jobs, friends, housing, someone to love, something to do, the chances are that the effects will diminish over time.”

Best rejected the idea that the AOD courts were just an “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”.

“Prison is the real ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Drug courts are a safety net not far off the edge of the cliff.

“We know the time between the onset of dependence and actively seeking specialist treatment is typically five years. If we can intervene with drug courts earlier, we are offering opportunity to move the ambulance up the hill, to move it closer to the top of the cliff rather than the bottom.”

Recent wastewater testing shows meth use nationwide has doubled, with growing problems in Auckland and Waikato. Critics say funding should go to frontline treatment – not specialist courts.

But Professor Best said a “one size fits all” model wouldn’t work.

“In terms of effect sizes, the effects for prevention and early intervention are incredibly small. Punitive approaches are highly unsuccessful with this population. What drug courts do is offer a model of managed behaviour change over time.

“They start the process of resolving the chaos of people’s lives, offering them support to make significant, lasting changes. And while they may appear resource intensive and expensive in the short term, the return on investment is huge.”

‘Support after prison is lacking’ – judge

Waitākere District Court Judge Lisa Tremewan said New Zealand still lacked proper support for people after prison.

“In my experience, judges were used to expecting probation officers to deal with addiction issues in offenders,” Tremewan said.

“Judges would sentence people to prison terms with release conditions, or community-based sentences with requirements to undertake assessments, courses, counselling, and treatment. But we would then see people cycling and recycling because the drivers of their offending, namely their addiction, weren’t really being addressed.

“High-risk, high-needs offenders needed a circuit break, and drug courts could be that. They reduce re-offending, save lives, and provide greater safety to the community. The research shows graduates contribute meaningfully to society, sometimes even more than people who haven’t been through recovery.”

Practical limitations – Ministry of Justice

Courts Minister Nicole McKee said she supported therapeutic approaches but there were no plans for more drug courts.

“I visited the Waitākere Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court and was very impressed with what I saw and heard from those who had been through that system.

“While I’m supportive of the use of therapeutic approaches in the courts to help people with addiction-driven offending, there are practical limitations on expanding the AODT Court.”

She said there were no current plans to establish additional AODT Courts beyond Auckland, Waitākere, and Hamilton.

“The ministry’s analysis of graduates’ reoffending rates is an initial exploration and is anticipated to be refined over time. It is not intended as a full evaluation of the effectiveness of the AODT Courts and does not consider costs or the full set of benefits.

“While the ministry acknowledges the role therapeutic approaches can play in addressing addiction-related offending, there are practical limitations on expanding the AODT Court, for example only a small number of locations would have enough eligible participants, and there are limitations on the availability of suitable treatment,” McKee said.

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