Category: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Assistant Commissioner Mike Pannett has been announced as one of the new statutory deputy commissioners of Police.

After the initial shock at Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming‘s resignation in May one of the questions that emerged was who would replace him.

Then, in July Deputy Commissioner Tania Kura announced her retirement after 37 years in police, leaving both Deputy Commissioner roles vacant.

The second deputy commissioner will not be announced on Wednesday, though Jill Rogers is widely considered to be frontrunner for the role.

It’s understood acting Deputy Commissioner Mike Johnson and Bruce O’Brien – who has been in London since June 2023 as New Zealand Police’s Senior Liaison Officer – were in the final four.

Pannett is the longest serving of the final four, having joined police in 1980. His career has included a secondment to the Australian Federal Police’s International Command in 2020 as well as a stint as the New Zealand Police Liaison Officer in Washington D.C, covering the United States, Canada, Central and South America. In 2010 he was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to New Zealand Police.

Do you know more? Email Sam.Sherwood@rnz.co.nz

The announcement comes after the Independent Police Conduct Authority’s report found serious misconduct at the highest levels of police, including former Commissioner Andrew Coster, in relation to police’s response to allegations of sexual offending by former Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming.

Police Commissioner Richard Chambers earlier announced the focus for 2026 was on the four priorities he outlined a year prior: core policing, supporting the frontline, leadership and accountability, and fiscal responsibility.

Specifically, he had set specific goals around service, safety and trust, including getting trust and confidence up from 69 percent to 80 percent.

The other benchmarks included getting satisfaction for services to 80 percent from its current 71 percent, a 15 percent rise in resolutions for retail crime, and a 15 percent reduction in violence in public places.

He also pointed to a 20 percent increase in Māori at police over the past five years.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A law professor says a judge’s order for a new election to take place for seats on an Auckland local board – due to manipulation of voting papers – is another “nail in the coffin” for the postal voting system for local elections.

Former Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board deputy chairperson Lehopoaome Vi Hausia took a petition to the Manukau District Court, calling for a judicial inquiry, after receiving reports of voting papers stolen from residents.

Vi Hausia did not get re-elected, coming fifth after four candidates from the Papatoetoe-Otara Action Team – Paramjeet Singh, Sandeep Saini, Kushma Nair and Kunal Bhalla – secured the four seats in the Papatoetoe subdivision of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board.

The inquiry identified 79 voting papers cast without voters’ knowledge.

Judge Richard McIlraith on Tuesday ruled that irregularities had materially affected the election results and voided the Papatoetoe subdivision’s election results.

Otago University’s Professor Andrew Geddis said the ruling was significant in that it was the first electoral petition that had led to findings of deliberate attempts to manipulate the results of an election in New Zealand.

“It’s very worrying, whenever one of our democratic processes is found to have so fundamentally failed that we just cannot trust the results, because of course it’s the process of electing people that then allows our system of government to work,” he said.

Professor Geddis said it was a “wake-up call” for New Zealand to rethink how local elections needed to be run in the future.

“What it does show, though, is that the postal voting system that we use is susceptible to this sort of manipulation or this sort of irregularity,

“Another perhaps nail in the coffin of using the postal system to run local elections,” he said.

Professor Geddis said the most secure system would be an in-person voting system, which was used in national elections.

He said while that would cost more than the current postal system, it was worth the investment.

“Given those risks and the costs that then come with having to redo elections, the cost of not changing may well in the future be as much, or even greater than moving to a system that’s secure and more trustworthy,” he said.

“I suspect that what we’re going to find, is we just are going to have to bite the bullet and say, if we want to have trustworthy elections that produce legitimate outcomes, we’re going to have to pay to allow that to happen,” he added.

Complaints handed on to police – lawyer

The lawyer for Lehopoaome Vi Hausia, Simon Mitchell, KC, told Morning Report 53 of the 79 people applied for special votes on the basis they hadn’t received a voting paper. It soon emerged votes had already been received in their names.

Of those votes, 51 were for the newly elected members, he said.

In some streets in the subdivision there was an increase of more than 100 percent compared with the 2022 election.

Across the subdivision there was a 7.5 percent increase in voting. No other local board had seen an rise and for the Auckland Council there was a decrease in voting.

“So Papatoetoe was a total outlier in terms of special votes where a vote had already been cast…”

Mitchell said it would not have been difficult for the judge to conclude that there had been irregularities and a new election would be needed.

“He found that there was enough evidence that the result could have been different.”

Sixteen complaints have been made to the returning officer and some were now being investigated by the police.

It was a serious offence to vote for somebody else, and it could be punished by a two-year jail term, he said.

The safety of the postal voting system would also need to be examined. It might lead to more disengagement with participation in local body elections, he said.

Police said their investigation was still ongoing.

Electoral officer ready for new election

Meanwhile, the independent electoral officer for Auckland Dale Ofsoske said he was ready to undertake a new election for the Papatoetoe seats in the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board, which was estimated to cost between $175,000 and 200,000.

He said any voting system had its weaknesses, and it was a matter of mitigating the risks and informing voters when to check for their postal voting papers.

Ofsoske said the new election date for the Papatoetoe seats would be 9 April next year, and would also be done through postal ballot voting.

Voting packs would be delivered in early March, he said.

The minister for Local Government Simon Watts said in as statement that what occured was “disappointing”.

“This is a matter that I am watching very closely, and I will continue to assess the situation,” he said.

However, he said the processes showed that appropriate guardrails were in place and functioning as they should.

“Local councils are responsible for running their own elections, in this matter the case was referred to police by the council and its electoral officer and a petition for inquiry was brought by a candidate who noticed something unusual. This is in line with the appropriate process,” he said.

Meanwhile, Papatoetoe-Otara Action Team’s Kushma Nair was not available for an interview on Tuesday.

“I am looking into the matter and am not in a position to comment until I get full information,” he said in a text message.

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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 trains will be out of action for at least two weeks over the summer break.

KiwiRail said track maintenance and major upgrades will see buses replace trains across most of the network from 26 December Boxing Day until 12 January.

Wellington Metro general manager Andy Lyon said the line-up of work included replacing rails and sleepers, bridge repairs, and level crossing upgrades.

“Physically lifting out and replacing old infrastructure isn’t something we can do while trains are trying to run at the same time – it’s too disruptive to passenger services.”

Some of the projects were laying the groundwork for 2029’s new trains and increased services between Wairarapa and Manawatū and also included preparation work for new substations and the Ava Bridge renewal in Lower Hutt, he said.

Lyon said the plan was to get the work done while commuters were out of town but warned that disruptions were possible when train services resumed.

“It’s not unusual for things to take a few days to settle.

“We will know how things are looking by end of that last weekend, and will work closely with Metlink to make sure passengers are informed in advance of any temporary changes to timetables while things bed in.”

The network was expected to be up-and-running again on Monday 12 January, with trains on the Johnsonville line, and Wellington to Porirua services on the Kāpiti line resuming a week earlier on Monday 5 January.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

More than 10,000 households a month have their power disconnected, new data shows.

The Electricity Authority has published a new disconnections for non-payment dashboard, including prepay customers who have been disconnected.

It shows that between January and October, for people on contract accounts, there are an average of 810 disconnections a month.

For 44 percent of them, they lasted less than one day.

Prepay customers were disconnected more often. There were 27,000 disconnections a month affecting 10,000 prepay customers, or 35 percent. Prepay customers are automatically disconnected when they run out of credit.

Almost 60 percent were disconnected more than once but 94 percent lasted less than one day.

Kate Day, co-director of Common Grace Aotearoa, said the data was helpful to help address the problem.

“We are particularly sobered to see data on prepay disconnections. Prepay is used by roughly 28,000 households and is a last resort for many low-income people with poor credit history who can no longer access standard plans. A reason we believe disconnections on post-pay – standard plans – are not increasing is those having trouble paying are increasingly having to move to prepay. This makes prepay disconnections a crucial part of the picture of energy hardship.”

Day said the figures were grim.

In July, power companies cut off electricity to 12,075 households due to non-payment, including people on contracts and prepay.

“That was an average of 390 households switched off per day. The vast majority of households disconnected were on prepay, and most of those faced two or more disconnections in that month. A full 183 households were disconnected 11 times or more, meaning on average they spent time without power every three days.

“Over the full ten months of the dataset, companies disconnected households 282,370 times, an average of 28,327 disconnections per month. Each month, an average of 11,000 households faced disconnection.

“While a small minority of these households may genuinely choose to disconnect, for instance, because their property is unattended for a significant period, many households would have disconnected due to lack of funds,” Day said.

“It is positive that the majority of disconnections lasted less than 24 hours and this shows effort from companies to help people reconnect quickly. However, looking at July as an example, there were still 1848 disconnections that lasted between one and seven days. That was an average of 60 disconnections occurring per day in July that would last longer than 24 hours.”

She said that meant many households spent one or more winter nights with no lighting and potentially no cooking or heating.

“These figures show we have a long way to go before everyone can afford the electricity they need. This new data provides a vital baseline, now the Electricity Authority and companies must accelerate work to reduce the numbers of people cut off from the essential service of electricity.”

Jake Lilley, spokesperson for the financial mentor network Fincap, said his organisation was concerned at the scale of disconnections for non-payment – at more than a thousand each weekday.

“For comparison, the state of Victoria in Australia, where prepay automatic disconnections are prohibited, has a larger population but recently averaged just over a thousand disconnections a month.

“Energy is an essential service, needed to keep healthy and keep up with the world. It is the front line of our health system, affordable heating and home cooked meals can prevent presentations to hospitals. The Consumer Care Obligations that set out what electricity business must to do help people offer next to no protection from automatic disconnection when someone runs out of money on prepay power. This needs urgent attention.”

He said some people had no option but to choose prepay power.

“We need a right for all to connect to a post-pay electricity arrangement at a fair price in Aotearoa to prevent serious harm for whānau who otherwise could not maintain ongoing access to the electricity they need.”

Jessica Walker, communications and campaigns manager at Consumer NZ, welcomed the data being made public.

“The rationale given for the previous exclusion of pre-pay disconnections was an assumption that consumers accept disconnection as part of the pre-pay product. We, along with other advocates, have strongly disagreed. Many households do not actively choose pre-pay; they end up on it as a last resort. In many cases, non-payment or a poor credit history result in households being required to go on to a pre-pay plan in order to get connected. For these households, pre-pay is not a genuine choice.

“In the absence of official data, Consumer NZ has previously relied on extrapolations from our own ongoing survey work and estimated that there could be around 40,000 disconnections for non-payment each year. Some of the industry disputed this, arguing that we were overstating the scale of the issue. The newly published data shows the opposite: if anything, our estimates were conservative.”

Electricity Retailers and Generators Association chief executive Bridget Abernethy said members were focused on supporting customers who were struggling.

“For those managing multiple bills, prepay can be a helpful way to keep overall household finances in check. Retailers may offer this option when it fits well with a customer’s situation. The number of prepay customers is falling, around a 6 percent reduction since 2023.

“The data clearly shows that of those who reach the disconnection point, most prepay customers reconnect quickly – over 90 percent within just 24 hours. Only a small number are disconnected for more than three days at a time.

“A prepay disconnection might be due to hardship, but it could also mean the customer is away, the property is vacant, or it’s for temporary use, like a holiday home. Providers gain these insights in their interactions with customers. The dataset is broad and includes both small businesses and residential properties.

“We welcome the Electricity Authority providing more detailed disconnection information publicly available. Having reliable data is essential for addressing energy hardship effectively. At the same time, it’s vital to look at the new dashboard carefully to help us make informed decisions about where support is best placed.”

Andrew Millar, general manager, retailer and consumer Electricity Authority, said that given less than 0.1 percent of most customers had been disconnected, New Zealand’s consumer obligations were working as intended.

He said it was too soon to tell whether the numbers of prepay disconnections reflected the cost of living crisis, as this was the first time the data had been released.

Millar said some people liked prepay because it gave them more control of their electricity use, and some used it for properties or holiday homes that were not always in use. But he said he would not recommend prepay for people who were medically dependent, because their electricity could be cut off.

Disconnections that lasted over several days were concerning, he said, and would be something the authority would be talking with retailers about.

He said the disconnection data would be released monthly – and he hoped in time it would be able to track if people were moving between postpay and prepay plans.

“This data is about really looking under the hood of the retail market for the first time and giving more visibility. It’s important we have this information out there so ourselves, retailers and other advocates can have a really informed discussion about consumers, their needs and where energy hardship may be.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Permits for trapping feral cats on conservation land may become easier to obtain.

At present, individuals need to adapt a possum fur trapping permit and contact local Department of Conservation (DOC) offices for permission to trap.

Gaining permission can take weeks, and requires filling out paper forms and supplying maps with trapping areas marked.

In contrast, hunting permits can be obtained by completing an online form on the DOC website, and approval is automatic. A 12-month permit is emailed within 15 minutes of the form being completed online.

Since RNZ reported hunter Victor Tindale’s struggle to trap cats in Fiordland, DOC’s stance on the matter has changed.

Initially, DOC told RNZ it was satisfied with the current system of adapting the possum permit.

Tindale said he had now received a letter from DOC following his request to make the system simpler, saying the permit system is being investigated. The letter states: “As part of our regulatory modernisation programme, DOC is seeking to improve efficiency and usability of the permissions system. This includes exploring the integration of trapping authorisations and online hunting permits.”

The hunter – who trapped five cats, two stoats, a ferret and 18 possums on a recent trip to Fiordland – thinks many hunters would be happy to do some trapping on hunting trips to help out the environment.

He’s “rapt” at the positive response from DOC and hopes it results in a consistent nationwide approach for online trapping permits, as he had experienced different attitudes from different regions.

Being able to help native bush out with some trapping during hunting trips, “welcomes more of us as part of a team, without barriers which put us off”.

The idea should be well promoted on the DOC permit site to encourage involvement, he said.

“Good hunters care about this sort of stuff and good hunters make great trappers.”

New Zealand Deerstalkers Association Taupō president Alan Bullick said simplifying the permit system for trapping would be a good move.

Hunters can get vilified as rednecks because they use guns, Bullick said, but “most hunters are ardent conservationists”.

“They want the bush to thrive. They want the [feral] cats gone.”

Members have told him they’ve seen feral cats while out hunting and would like to take traps into conservation land to help limit the damage they cause.

“Some people shoot them with a high-powered rifle when they see them, but that also destroys their chances of getting a deer that day.”

Bullick said DOC needs to include clear instructions for safe trap setting in any new permit system to avoid by-catch, such as kiwi or weka. He’s confident hunters who make the effort to take traps with them would be capable of following instructions related to setting traps high enough to avoid by-catch.

DOC’s letter to Tindale said trapping permits will include conditions related to animal welfare, non-target species and public safety.

The letter said the recent addition of feral cats – wild cats which live without human interaction – to Predator Free 2050’s target species list, “will likely trigger more interest in making it easier for the public to access trapping permits where feral cats are being targeted”.

The inclusion of feral cats in Predator Free 2050’s list of target species was promised in a 2023 election debate, and announced after RNZ’s reporting on the issue.

Tindale said the current beech mast event, which was expected to be the biggest in seven years, meant it was the perfect time for hunters to lend a hand. The increased seeds from the trees is expected to swell predator numbers.

DOC director of regulatory transformation Joanna Clifford said phase one of the modernisation programme is due to be completed by the end of June 2026. Work to integrate permits into an online system will start after that. In the meantime, people could still apply for trapping permits by adapting the possum trapping permit.

See more about New Zealand’s growing feral cat problem in Feral, a special RNZ investigation.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A law professor says a judge’s order for a new election to take place for seats on an Auckland local board – due to manipulation of voting papers – is another “nail in the coffin” for the postal voting system for local elections.

Former Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board deputy chairperson Lehopoaome Vi Hausia took a petition to the Manukau District Court, calling for a judicial inquiry, after receiving reports of voting papers stolen from residents.

Vi Hausia did not get re-elected, coming fifth after four candidates from the Papatoetoe-Otara Action Team – Paramjeet Singh, Sandeep Saini, Kushma Nair and Kunal Bhalla – secured the four seats in the Papatoetoe subdivision of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board.

The inquiry identified 79 voting papers cast without voters’ knowledge.

Judge Richard McIlraith on Tuesday ruled that irregularities had materially affected the election results and voided the Papatoetoe subdivision’s election results.

Otago University’s Professor Andrew Geddis said the ruling was significant in that it was the first electoral petition that had led to findings of deliberate attempts to manipulate the results of an election in New Zealand.

“It’s very worrying, whenever one of our democratic processes is found to have so fundamentally failed that we just cannot trust the results, because of course it’s the process of electing people that then allows our system of government to work,” he said.

Professor Geddis said it was a “wake-up call” for New Zealand to rethink how local elections needed to be run in the future.

“What it does show, though, is that the postal voting system that we use is susceptible to this sort of manipulation or this sort of irregularity,

“Another perhaps nail in the coffin of using the postal system to run local elections,” he said.

Professor Geddis said the most secure system would be an in-person voting system, which was used in national elections.

He said while that would cost more than the current postal system, it was worth the investment.

“Given those risks and the costs that then come with having to redo elections, the cost of not changing may well in the future be as much, or even greater than moving to a system that’s secure and more trustworthy,” he said.

“I suspect that what we’re going to find, is we just are going to have to bite the bullet and say, if we want to have trustworthy elections that produce legitimate outcomes, we’re going to have to pay to allow that to happen,” he added.

Meanwhile, the independent electoral officer for Auckland Dale Ofsoske said he was ready to undertake a new election for the Papatoetoe seats in the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board, which was estimated to cost between $175,000 and 200,000.

He said any voting system had its weaknesses, and it was a matter of mitigating the risks and informing voters when to check for their postal voting papers.

Ofsoske said the new election date for the Papatoetoe seats would be 9 April next year, and would also be done through postal ballot voting.

Voting packs would be delivered in early March, he said.

The minister for Local Government Simon Watts said in as statement that what occured was “disappointing”.

“This is a matter that I am watching very closely, and I will continue to assess the situation,” he said.

However, he said the processes showed that appropriate guardrails were in place and functioning as they should.

“Local councils are responsible for running their own elections, in this matter the case was referred to police by the council and its electoral officer and a petition for inquiry was brought by a candidate who noticed something unusual. This is in line with the appropriate process,” he said.

Meanwhile, Papatoetoe-Otara Action Team’s Kushma Nair was not available for an interview on Tuesday.

“I am looking into the matter and am not in a position to comment until I get full information,” he said in a text message.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand