Category: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Nurses and care workers at Christchurch’s Hillmorton Hospital say they’re facing burnout and anxiety over working conditions, which included chronic understaffing, broken doors, faulty alarms and rat infestations.

A New Zealand Nurses Organisation survey of around 180 Hillmorton staff found the vast majority felt unsafe, reported working in dilapidated facilities, were scared to report their concerns for fear of retaliation and felt the conditions posed risks to vulnerable patients.

Health NZ said it had contacted the union to work through the concerns raised in the survey, and a senior Health NZ leader had committed to visiting the hospital this week.

Hillmorton Hospital registered nurse and NZNO delegate Sarah-Jane Perkin said she regularly battled dread before going to work, knowing she would likely be redeployed from her ward to plug staffing gaps elsewhere.

Redeployment was not an unusual part of the job, she said, but she experienced it almost every shift.

“Without redeployment moving us to different wards every shift, the hospital wouldn’t function.”

Survey respondents described the practice as “cannibalising staff” from one unit to another, and said it meant care was rationed, missed, delayed or compromised.

Other survey findings showed four out of five nurses and care workers had felt unsafe at work in the past month due to understaffing.

The NZNO said Te Whatu Ora’s own Care and Capacity Demand (CCDM) system data showed the Whaikaha forensic ward – a specialised secure unit – was staffed below safe levels 91 percent of the time last year, and a further eight wards were unsafely staffed or close to it for around half of all shifts.

Almost nine out of 10 workers – 87 percent – reported negative impacts on their well-being from working at Hillmorton.

One third reported experiencing burnout and a further third reported feeling constant stress and anxiety.

An inquiry into Canterbury’s mental health services that followed the 2022 murder of Laisa Waka Tunidau by a Hillmorton forensic mental health patient, released last year, found “significant failings”, including critical staffing shortages.

Monitoring visits since then by report author, Director of Mental Health Dr John Crawshaw, had resulted in reports that “visible progress” had been made, but front-line staff were not spoken to, the NZNO said.

Nurses and care workers had told them staffing levels and conditions were worse now than when the report was released, the union said.

In a statement, Dr Crawshaw said he was undertaking quarterly visits as part of a year long monitoring programme to assess progress against the recommendations in the report.

He had always had a good level of engagement with staff, including nurses and front-line staff, and a third visit was planned for this week, Crawshaw said.

He would be checking with Health NZ on work underway to address the concerns raised, he said.

But nurses reported feeling like they were “containing” rather than treating patients and described patients remaining unnecessarily long periods in seclusion because there was not enough staff or rooms for them to be moved.

Nine out of 10 staff reported working recently with broken or faulty equipment.

Some reported dangerously decrepit facilities, including doors that did not lock and some that jammed shut, cameras that did not work, infestations of rats, mice and ants and urine-soaked carpet and stairs.

Facilities were dangerously run down, and conditions in the adult inpatient unit where she worked were appalling, Perkin said.

“It’s quite confronting for youth that come from the new child and youth wing – they come from a brand new facility into this really disgusting one. There’s no amount of air freshener to cover up the smell.”

She noted the ongoing work to replace and expand some buildings on the Hillmorton campus, but given workforce shortages, struggled to see how they would be staffed.

The pressure for beds was unrelenting, and left her fearing some patients were discharged too soon.

“We do push patients out quicker than we should due to bed pressures – the beds don’t stay empty for very long, there’s a very high turnover.”

Many of her peers leave for Australia or elsewhere, leaving an unbalanced workforce primarily made up of junior staff.

Sometimes the pressure became too much.

“I’ve done it myself – called in sick to a shift, taken a mental health day because it just takes a toll. The job eats away at you if you don’t watch it.”

Nurses had a professional duty to immediately raise and escalate concerns about patient safety or compromised care, but around half of the workers surveyed felt they could not raise concerns without fear of blame or retaliation, Perkin said.

Health NZ needed to set up an anonymous reporting system, and listen to and engage with the concerns of front-line staff, she said.

The union also wanted to see safe staffing levels, an end to redeployment to plug gaps, workforce planning to help with retention and immediate fixes for the equipment and facility issues.

Association of Salaried Medical Specialists director Dr Sarah Dalton said the senior doctors’ union shared the concerns raised by the NZNO, and had sent staff down to Christchurch to meet with members in recent weeks.

The issues raised were not new, nor were they restricted to Hillmorton, she said.

“We really need a long, hard look at the way we’re treating mental health services, the way we staff and resource them and the way we’re basically rationing access to care for people who need it.”

Dalton wanted to see more accountability from Health NZ’s board and the Minister of Mental Health.

“These are known issues – it’s not the first time these problems have been highlighted, and it’s about time Health NZ leadership and the government step up, because people are being harmed.”

Health NZ national director mental health and addiction services Phil Grady said he had been in touch with union leadership to offer to “work through” the concerns highlighted in the survey, and would also make a visit to Hillmorton this week to meet staff and discuss the issue in person.

While healthcare settings could be challenging environments, staff safety was a top priority, he said.

Health NZ actively encouraged staff to report incidents of violence and aggression, and was working on ensuring “robust processes” were in place so staff could do so safely and without fear, he said.

Work also continued on recruitment and retention and improving baseline rostering.

“There is more work to do, and we are committed to ongoing improvements at Hillmorton to support our kaimahi and the people in our care,” Grady said.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A landmark case has found that a veteran’s brain cancer must be treated as service-related because of potentially carcinogenic burn pits on his deployment in Somalia.

Open burn pits were used in many conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan, where there was not infrastructure to deal with the large amounts of waste created by military operations.

In the United States, a long list of conditions are automatically considered to be related to burn pit exposure – including several cancers and respiratory issues.

But in New Zealand, none of those conditions have been accepted as service-related until now.

New Zealand army veteran Bob Pearce was deployed to Iraq in 2017 as part of a mission training Iraqi soldiers to fight Isis.

Large burn pits were ablaze 24/7, leaving a smog over army camps, he said.

“The clouds of burning smoke would be all across the camp… it was kind of a fairly constant smell and sight and aroma across the camp.”

In some camps, chemicals, paint, human waste, petrol, and munitions were burned in the pits, according to American Veterans Affairs.

Since returning from his deployment, Pearce said he’d had respiratory and throat issues which had gotten worse in the last couple of years.

“My breathing’s become more laboured in certain cases, my throat’s constantly sore and my voice is totally changed. My sinuses and nose I feel is a lot more blocked.”

He worried about what would happen if his condition got worse.

“I’m 56 now, and if this isn’t something that’s recognised by the government or veterans affairs, and if my respiratory condition deteriorates over time then I might not be able to get any help for it.”

High-profile veterans affairs cases showed veterans often had to go above and beyond to get the help they needed, he said.

Veteran advocate Teresa Cousins represented the veteran who won the appeal for his brain cancer to be treated as service-related at the Veterans’ Entitlements Appeal Board.

The decision would open the door for many other claims, Cousins said.

“This opens up the way for a lot of our people who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. It opens the way for more argument on East Timor and Bouganville.

“The biggest thing is we know is the conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq were terrible. We’ve got the data from America.”

However, Veterans Affairs would still assess them on a case by case basis.

For the veteran with brain cancer, it took nearly two years for his claim to be accepted.

Professor emeritus of environmental health sciences at the University of California, John Balmes, said there was strong evidence that burn pits caused respiratory problems, but the link with cancer had not been proven.

“That said, there’s enough concern because of the carcinogens that are contained in burn pits emissions, that the US department of veterans’ affairs went ahead and listed a number of cancers as likely to be caused by burn pit emissions.”

Head of Veterans Affairs New Zealand, Alex Brunt, said the recent decision on the veteran with brain cancer reflected the individual circumstances of that case, and there was not an established causal link between his condition and burn pit exposure.

The decision might lead other veterans to make similar claims, and each would be assessed on its own merits, Brunt said.

Veterans Affairs’ approach relied on an evidence-based framework and as international research evolves it would adapt its approach, he said.

Over 3500 New Zealand Defence Force personnel served in Afghanistan, and several hundred in Iraq.

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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 Nelson policeman who was part of efforts to save Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming says the moment a car hit her was like a land mine exploding.

Hayden Tasker, 33, is on trial at the Christchurch High Court for murdering Fleming and badly injuring Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay, after driving into the pair in the early hours of New Year’s Day last year.

Tasker has admitted three charges of dangerous driving and his defence lawyers say Fleming’s death was manslaughter, arguing he was depressed and drunk at the time.

They say the tragedy was a failed suicide attempt, the result of Tasker wanting to spark a police chase to end his life.

On Monday, constable Jude Yeoman told the court he was standing near the toilet block in the middle of Buxton Square when he heard the engine noise of an approaching car.

“I hear just this impact, this incredibly powerful impact and it’s like an explosion, like a landmine or something,” he said.

Yeoman said the vehicle was travelling at high speed.

“I heard the car hit people. It was just this incredibly deep, hard thump,” he said.

Yeoman said saw two bodies flying through the air and recognised them as police officers because of their hi-vis vests.

One was propelled higher than the car and disappeared from view, while the other was thrown a distance of between 20 to 30 metres, he said.

“My recollection is seeing them tumbling through the air at great speed and then smashing into the ground, kind of like tumbling and ragdolling. The impact on them was catastrophic,” he said.

Yeoman said he ran towards Fleming, who was being attended to by two other officers, but because the car was still moving through the carpark he was concerned the driver was trying to flee.

He ran after the car, trying to record video footage so he could capture the registration and later identify the driver.

One of the officers with Fleming then called for help, Yeoman said.

“I’m looking sort of over to my right at them tending to Lyn and I’m watching the vehicle accelerating,” he said.

Yeoman said he went to help while watching the car drive into the back of a nearby patrol car.

“I didn’t see it brake, had it braked it would have been quite easy to avoid that impact but it didn’t, it just went crunch, right into the back of that car that was there,” he said.

He ran towards the car with several other officers and members of the public, including a young man who reached through the window and grabbed the driver with one hand, pulling the keys from the ignition in the other.

“I’m still really concerned this vehicle’s going to attempt to reverse out and continue causing harm so my priority is to immobilize it,” Yeoman said.

Wary that the car might reverse and injure him, he hesitantly reached through the back driver’s side window to unlock the door to try to disable the driver.

He said the airbag had gone off and the car was filled with dust but he could see the driver on the other side handcuffed, lying on the ground and “flapping like a fish”.

Yeoman then went back to help the two officers and other members of the public who were giving CPR to Fleming.

He said one of the constables doing chest compressions was distraught, yelling, “come on, senior, come on, senior”.

Yeoman then took over for 10-15 minutes and someone brought a defibrillator, before paramedics arrived.

He said they all stood back at one point to let the machine administer a shock but nothing happened, so they continued chest compressions.

“I do have a really distinct recollection of Lyn’s body, I don’t know, almost coming back to life, if that’s the right term, possibly isn’t, but she’s just made this huge, big heave, like this big kind of inhalation,” he said.

Fleming was taken to Nelson Hospital where she was put on life support until her family were able to gather to say goodbye.

The trial continues this week, with more witnesses to be called by the Crown.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

• Soldier who thought he was spying on New Zealand to keep name secret for now, despite appeal court ruling
• The soldier will now serve time in a civilian prison, rather than in military detention
• Name of the country soldier thought he was passing information to will remain secret.

The veil of secrecy surrounding a “traitor” soldier with links to far-right groups, and who thought he was spying on New Zealand, will stay in place for now.

The soldier could still fight to keep his name secret, despite two courts now ruling there are no grounds, so cannot yet be named.

A judgment from the Court Martial Appeal Court, released on Monday, also says the name of the country the soldier thought he was passing information to will remain secret, while the man’s sentence of military detention has been replaced with 15 months in civilian prison.

This is the first military prosecution in New Zealand for espionage or attempted espionage.

Snared in an undercover trap

At a court martial at Linton Military Camp near Palmerston North last year, the soldier was sentenced to two years of military detention after admitting a charge of attempted espionage. He was also kicked out of the military.

Authorities zeroed in on the soldier after the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks due to his links to far-right groups, Action Zealandia and the Dominion Movement.

The then-27-year-old was twice questioned by police about his involvement in the New Zealand identitarian movement, which is concerned with preserving white European identity.

His defence lawyer told his court martial the soldier felt under so much scrutiny that he expressed a desire to defect. The soldier said this was because he feared for his safety in New Zealand.

Later that year he was caught in a sting, where he thought he was handing over information to a foreign country, whose name is suppressed.

The soldier was contacted by an undercover office purporting to represent that country in November and the pair met the next day. The soldier had, as asked, prepared a document outlining how he was prepared to help the foreign country.

As contact developed he passed or attempted to pass on sensitive material, such as maps of defence bases, his password to the Defence Force integrated exchange system and his ID card.

The soldier was arrested in late 2019. After a short period in military detention he was open arrest until his Court Martial in August.

The soldier also admitted charges of dishonestly accessing a computer system and possessing objectionable material. That was a video of the 2019 Christchurch mosque attack and a copy of the terrorist’s manifesto, found when he was arrested.

‘Traitor to his country’

The Crown appealed against the sentence of military detention, arguing it was inadequate and saying only time served in a civilian jail would suffice.

“The absence of loyalty, betrayal of oath and being a traitor to his country are characteristics of this offending,” Crown prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Rob Goguel told the Court Martial Appeal Court during a hearing in October.

Defence lawyer Steve Winter argued the soldier’s crimes were against the military ethos, and a military solution would be best for a charge of attempted espionage.

In its ruling, the appeal court said the starting point of the court martial judge’s sentencing calculations was too low.

It found the judge was right to allow a discount in sentencing for the lengthy time it took from the soldier’s arrest until his Court Martial hearing, although overall reductions were slightly too generous.

It acknowledged the court martial judge sentenced the soldier to the maximum allowed term of military detention.

“However, in the circumstances of this case, we accept the Crown’s central submission that a sentence of imprisonment was required to prove a proportionate response to the offending,” the appeal court judgment said.

“In concluding otherwise, the court martial underweighted the purposed of denunciation and deterrence and overweighted to purposes of rehabilitation and reintegration.”

Had a civilian offended in a similar way the appeal court said only a prison sentence would be considered appropriate.

The appeal court judgment said the soldier’s ability to reintegrate into society after prison would be no better if he served time in military detention, compared with a civilian jail.

If he were considered at risk in jail, because of his offending, Corrections had ways to deal with that.

The appeal court said two years and three months’ jail would have been appropriate.

Because the soldier had already spent eight months in military detention, he would now serve 15 months in jail.

He won’t have to appear in front of the Parole Board. Instead he goes before a Reconsideration Authority every six months. The authority can slash the sentence on grounds such as good conduct.

Public interest in naming soldier

The appeal court agreed with the decision made at the court martial not to suppress the soldier’s name.

But because he might file a further appeal, he cannot yet be named.

At the court martial the soldier’s lawyers argued his name should be suppressed because naming him would cause extreme hardship to him, his wife and children; his wife and children would be in danger; and it would prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand.

The judge declined suppression, saying even if the thresholds for these grounds were reached, he wouldn’t have granted suppression as public interest outweighed the concerns of the soldier.

Now, the appeal court has ruled against suppression, agreeing with the court martial judge that open justice trumped the soldier’s interests.

Foreign country forever secret

RNZ sought permission to appeal against the decision to suppress the name of country the soldier thought he was passing information to.

At the appeal hearing RNZ was represented by Robert Stewart KC, who said media were initially unable to see material relating to the matter.

After undergoing security vetting it was made available, and Stewart said concerns about the suppression order were “heightened” as a result.

Stewart said the law was changed more than a decade ago to give media the right to take part in suppression discussions in civilian courts and courts martial.

But he acknowledged there was nothing allowing them to make appeals about rulings at courts martial.

The appeal court ruled because of this, RNZ would not be granted leave to appeal.

It said the gap in the law was addressed in a bill before parliament, but that was not enforceable in this case.

“Even if there were jurisdiction, we do not consider the merits of this application are strong,” the appeal court judgment said.

The soldier initially faced 17 charges under the Armed Forces Discipline Act. A years-long period of pre-trial hearing then followed.

Those 17 charges were withdrawn in March 2025 and replaced by the three charges the soldier admitted.

The soldier didn’t speak during his Court Martial, but a statement from him was read by his lawyer.

“Both of these groups are no more than groups of friends with similar points of view to my own,” the soldier said of Action Zealandia and the Dominion Movement.

“Both of these groups were a positive experience for me. We tried to support each other in a social environment.”

The soldier described himself as a proud New Zealander, saying that was why he joined the army.

He said he did not support the Christchurch mosque attacker’s ideology and the March 2019 attack had shocked and confused him.

The soldier said after his arrest he was subject to harassment, including someone trying to knock him off his bike when he was riding with a young child.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

By Māpuna

A partnership between the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and Te Māori Manaaki Taonga Trust will create curatorial residences for Māori at the famous museum later this year.

Evie O’Brien is Te Kura Toroa, chief executive of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. She told Māpuna it’s an opportunity for someone with a background in caring for taonga Māori to spend three months at Oxford and will cover their travel and accommodation costs as well as a stipend.

“They will be supported by some of the world’s leading, from a Western perspective, curators at Pitt Rivers Museum to spend time in the museum, to access our taonga, to also access and understand the approach to tiaki taonga from the museum’s perspective of indigenous taonga that are held in that museum.”

O’Brien said it’s a reciprocal arrangement and will provide the opportunity to exchange knowledge on Western and indigenous approaches to caring for taonga.

“We wouldn’t be establishing this relationship without ensuring that the… Pitt Rivers Museum, and in particular, the director of that museum has an approach to decolonising museums and that’s most certainly the case.

“The director of Pitt Rivers Museum is Dr Laura Van Broekhoven, who since 2020 has been leading an extraordinary, and I call it extraordinary because it’s…an a global context of anti-decolonization, radical inclusion, doing things differently, particularly in the UK, an approach to how they look after taonga, but also a focus on repatriation and repair.”

O’Brien was previously the executive director of the Atlantic Institute based at Rhodes Trust, Oxford and is currently a member of the Board of Visitors for Pitt Rivers Museum.

“Often our whānau will say, ‘what? You’re on Pitt Rivers Museum board?’ And my response is exactly as I’ve shared in terms of any kind of partnership or engagement, we know this is never about the institution, notwithstanding institutions hold systems and approaches. It’s always about the people, always.”

One of the broader opportunities for the residences will be learning how Pitt Rivers, and other museums, approach the repatriation of taonga held in their collection, that includes how they establish provenance and the different ways they work with indigenous groups across the world, she said.

“I think sitting in behind this initiative is a commitment, not just by Te Māori Manaaki Taonga Trust, but by Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and many of our iwi, to grow the capability and the capacity of individuals, of collectives, of hapū, of iwi, in tiaki taonga, in the broader sense of tiaki taonga.

“So that eventually, and it’s happening in places across the motu, that our taonga do not come home and are solely held in museums, but are held in our own whare taonga.”

O’Brien said the relationship between the Wānanga and Oxford can be traced all the way back to the 1920s and the work of the pioneering scholar Mākereti Papakura, who was awarded a posthumous degree by the university in September 2025.

“So in amongst everything else that Mākereti was doing, her relationship, her primary relationship to the University of Oxford was through two anthropologists, one of whom was the founding director of Pitt Rivers Museum.

Mākereti loved the museum, she loved being in that place and bringing forth our voice, mātauranga māori, not to be studied as objects, but to contribute to the literature, to the knowledge on indigenous knowledge systems, etc,” she said.

The second director of Pitt Rivers, T K Penniman, became Mākereti’s “closest scholarly friend” and helped her write her manuscript as she was very frail and had difficulty writing towards the end of her life, O’Brien said.

Penniman was responsible for posthumously publishing her thesis in a book entitled The Old Time Māori.

“So that’s the basis, and that’s the thing about relationships… they’re intergenerational. This relationship has a legacy that’s important and I think Te Māori Manaaki Taonga Trust, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, are privileged to continue that.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

More than a dozen people have been arrested and weapons seized following increasing reports of gang and firearm-related violence in Wairoa in recent weeks.

Eastern District Police said it carried out search warrants at two addresses last week.

At one property, authorities seized a sawn-off shotgun and ammunition, class C drugs, cash and a grow tent with cannabis plants.

Two people were arrested and charged with unlawfully carry/possess firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, possession for supply cannabis, and to cultivate cannabis.

At the other property, five firearms were seized and four men were arrested and charged with unlawful possession of firearms.

All six men appeared in the Gisborne District Court on Monday.

Meanwhile, another seven people have been arrested in the past week- charged with a number of offences, including dangerous driving, drug offending, possession of an offensive weapon and bail breaches.

Detective Senior Sergeant John Love said that gang-related activity disturbed the peace for members of the public and added to a feeling of being unsafe.

“We want our community in Wairoa to be free of the threat of firearms, violence and general lawlessness that come with the presence of gangs. We’re investigating these reports and holding offenders to account,” he said.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A Northland man already in jail after his dogs killed his landlord has been sentenced to a further six years for an underage sex offence.

Abel Wira was sentenced in the Whangārei District Court on Monday on a charge of unlawful sexual connection with a female under 16, after being found guilty in a jury trial earlier this year.

The offence was historic, meaning it happened some years ago.

The six-year term comes on top of the three-and-a-half years he is already serving for owning the dogs that killed his friend and landlord, Neville Thomson, at his home in Panguru, in the Far North, in 2022.

It was the first time in New Zealand anyone had been charged with manslaughter in relation to a dog attack.

The court was told Wira’s 23 dogs had not been fed for two days before the fatal attack, and were kept in a caravan with the door secured only by a shoelace and a piece of wood.

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