Category: Radio New Zealand

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‘Forced off the land’: Lifestyle block owner hits out at Napier’s plan to make rates ‘fairer’

Source: Radio New Zealand

Bay View resident Robert Best says finding ways to cut back spending to pay for rates is hard on a fixed income. LINDA HALL / LDR

A Bay View lifestyle block owner says he feels as if he is being forced from his land by another proposal by Napier City Council to increase his rates.

Robert Best lives with his wife in their Onehunga Rd home, which was zoned as ‘rural residential’.

The road had a distinctive country character, with no footpaths, cycleways, or street lighting.

Power lines rise on the side of the road, and there’s a 70 kmph speed limit down the length of it.

But the council, as part of its annual plan, was proposing to change Best’s property – and 1582 other properties within the council’s boundaries – to ‘residential’.

If the proposal to remove the ‘rural residential’ rates category goes ahead, Best estimates they’ll be paying a 16 percent increase this year, instead of the forecast average 8.8 percent increase the council flagged earlier this year.

“That would bring my total rate hike for the past three years to 47 percent,” he said.

“It’s just like you are forced off the land, when you shouldn’t be forced off the land.”

A council spokesperson said its goal was to make its rates fairer.

In 2021, the council introduced ‘rural residential’ as a transitional ratepayer category in response to feedback from residents.

“At that time, it was agreed to consult in future on whether to use land value or capital value as a basis for rating properties, and that the ‘rural residential’ ratepayer category would also be considered then.”

They said elected members had assessed the benefits rural residential properties received, and believed the proposal was a “fairer” way to split the costs.

“Some ratepayers will pay more than the average increase of 8.8% and some less,” they said.

Best said his home didn’t get the “perks” of ratepayers inside Napier urban boundaries, such as streetlights and footpaths, so he shouldn’t have to pay to subsidise them.

A council spokesperson said streetlights, footpaths, cycleways, libraries and pools throughout the city were used by all Napier residents, whether they were rural or urban, and whether those things were outside their own properties or not.

The spokesperson said its total rates consisted of several separate charges.

Each charge was calculated differently, and differentials (weightings) were applied to each ratepayer category.

“For example, commercial ratepayers pay 2.6 times more than residential ratepayers.

“Targeted rates are applied to a property if it receives or benefits from a service.

“Rural residential ratepayers don’t pay the sewerage, rubbish, or recycling targeted rates if they don’t receive these services and this will not change with the removal of the rural residential differential.”

The council spokesperson said one of the biggest changes proposed this year was its transportation rate charges, which paid for roading, road safety interventions, footpaths, and cycleways.

“In the past, these have been included in the general rate and calculated by land value. The proposal is to split the transportation portion out from the general rate and change the way this is calculated to capital value.

“This means properties with higher capital value will see greater increases than properties with a lower capital value.”

Best, a retired business owner, says he’s on a fixed income, “and I know we won’t be the only ones, so where do we get the money from?”

He said he couldn’t borrow money at his age, so “we’ve just got to cut costs again”.

He said the council needed to cut its own costs.

“I’ve been in business all my life, and if I was the CEO of Napier City Council, I’d be calling every head of department into the office and saying, ‘right, you’ve got a month to come back and I want a 10 percent decrease in your spending. If you haven’t, we’ll find someone else that will do it’.

“That’s what they’ve got to do, but they won’t.”

Best has also questioned the council’s rating of his water use.

He was classed as an ‘extraordinary’ water user, along with commercial, industrial, construction and agricultural users.

“We are connected to town water and are grateful for that.

“But we pay a fixed rate and then if we use more than the allocated amount, we are billed for metered water.”

The council spokesperson said lifestyle properties were classified as “extraordinary users” under Napier City Council’s Water Supply Bylaw 2022 because they had the potential to use water beyond typical domestic needs.

“The bylaw does not quantify or require proof of higher usage. It is a risk-based classification to manage potential demand and protect the network.”

Best said when they first moved to Bay View nine years ago, rates were affordable but “man, it’s changed”.

He said he wants the council to leave them alone.

He has submitted to the Annual Plan and put his name down to speak at the council’s submissions hearing.

The council has received more than 300 submissions, which the spokesperson says will be considered before any final decision is made.

A spokesperson for Hastings District Council said there were no changes proposed to its rural-residential rating differentials this year.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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

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Infant milk formula exporter a2 Milk recalls batches in United States

Source: Radio New Zealand

123RF

Infant milk formula exporter a2 Milk has recalled three batches of Synlait-manufactured a2 Platinum infant milk formula in the United States due to the presence of cereulide.

Cereulide was a heat-stable toxin produced by some strains of the bacterium Bacillus cereus which could cause nausea and vomiting – symptoms typically developed within 30 minutes to six hours of ingestion.

a2 Milk told the NZX on Monday, the recall related to a “relatively small” quantity of about 63,078 tins in the US – over 16,000 of which had been sold to consumers.

No confirmed incidents of infant illness or harm had been reported to the company.

The impacted batches were distributed through a2MC’s website, Amazon and Meijer stores as part of Operation Fly Formula.

Chief executive David Bortolussi said the recall does not impact infant milk formula products sold in New Zealand, Australia, China and other markets .

He said the food safety and quality of its products was its “highest priority”.

“For this reason, we have voluntarily recalled three batches of our a2 Platinum USA label infant milk formula sold only in the US which had previously been discontinued with no products currently available for sale.”

The probable source of cereulide is an ingredient in the product and the recall was initiated after cereulide was detected through additional testing of the product following the release of New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) industry update and expectations for managing cereulide on April 15 with application retrospectively for New Zealand infant formula manufacturers.

a2 Milk said it was communicating with US Food and Drug Administration with respect to the recall and has released guidance to its United States consumers.

The recall is not expected to impact a2’s financial results, with total infant milk formula sales in the US accounting less than 0.1 percent of its total sales revenue.

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Charge dropped against man whose partner was fatally shot by police

Source: Radio New Zealand

Scene at Clyde Rd in Bryndwr last August. RNZ / Adam Burns

A charge has been dropped against a man whose partner was shot dead by police in Christchurch.

Te Arohanui Pohio, 53, died following a family violence callout in the suburb of Bryndwr last August.

Police were responding to a 111 call that a man with a knife was threatening his partner and himself.

Police fired at the man and then the woman, who they say ignored an appeal to put down the knife.

The man was charged with possessing an offensive weapon in September, but on Monday Christchurch District Court judge Gerard Lynch granted a request from the man’s lawyer to dismiss the charge.

The Crown did not oppose the request.

The man’s name remains suppressed.

The shooting is being investigated by the Independent Police Conduct Authority.

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Kids TV is broken – Can Suzy Cato fix it?

Source: Radio New Zealand

There’s something about beloved child entertainer Suzy Cato’s return to television programming that reminds me of Mary Poppins Returns. You probably didn’t see the movie, so let me explain.

The Banks children are all grown up and find themselves in a pickle with life and raising their own kids. Mary Poppins returns to sort out all the big, scary problems and inject joy back into their lives.

Today’s parents of young kids are up against a firehose of mostly rubbish children’s programming being sprayed at our offspring from every which way (Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, and so on). Cato, the entertainer that many of those parents grew up watching, has floated down on a cloud to hold our hand, tidy up the mess, and make us – and our kids – smile again.

This video is hosted on Youtube.

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Man who spray-painted racist graffiti in Auckland claimed he was drunk, didn’t remember

Source: Radio New Zealand

A 61-year-old man has admitted he was behind the anti-Indian graffiti. RNZ / Liu Chen

A man who spray-painted anti-Indian graffiti near an Auckland school last month told police he was drunk and could not remember doing it.

The 61-year-old admitted in Manukau District Court on Friday that he was behind the concerning graffiti near Papatoetoe Central School.

The message urged violence against Indian people, and police at the time noted it had caused worry.

“I can reassure the community that we have assessed this particular event as an isolated incident and that there is no wider risk to the community,” Inspector Dave Christoffersen said last month.

The man last week pleaded guilty in Manukau District Court to two charges of intentionally damaging a footpath. Each charge carries a maximum three-month prison term or $2000 fine.

He also admitted being offensive in a public place, which has a maximum $1000 fine.

A summary of facts released to RNZ on Monday said the man was walking on St George Street in Papatoetoe at about midnight on 10 April.

He had a red spray can with him and used it before he was confronted by a member of the public, according to the summary. It says he then ran from the scene.

The graffiti was eventually reported by Papatoetoe Central School at the vehicle entrance crossing outside its grounds.

A search warrant at the man’s address was executed and he was taken into custody.

A search found a red spray-paint can at a neighbouring property where the man told police he had thrown the canister.

He told police he was intoxicated during the incident and did not remember what happened.

The man planned to push for permanent name suppression, and had continuing interim suppression before this.

His lawyer, James McGilvray told the court on Friday it was based on two reasons. The first was on public safety grounds and concerns around “copycat behaviour”, and the second was amid a backdrop of social media backlash.

“There is concern that if he was to be identified then he might suffer some vigilante justice, for lack of a better term,” McGilvray told Judge Ngaroma Tahana.

The man will be back in court in September for sentencing and to argue for permanent suppression.

Race Relations Commissioner Melissa Derby last month said she had been seeing increasing anti-migrant rhetoric, including towards the country’s Indian community.

“I know from my engagements with many ethnic communities the fear these messages generate for people,” Derby said.

“Regarding this particular incident [in Papatoetoe], I am deeply concerned about the violent racist rhetoric and its impact on community members’ sense of safety and belonging. … Everyone should be able to live in their community, work or attend a school in this country free from racial harassment and discrimination.”

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BNZ profit takes hit on one-off accounting adjustment

Source: Radio New Zealand

BNZ. (File photo)

A one-off adjustment related to how it accounts for software spending has seen BNZ post a 38 percent drop in profit for the half year to March, to $494m.

Underlying earnings, however, excluding the one-off adjustment, were down just $48m to $747m.

The company said revenue for the half year was broadly flat, up 0.7 percent to $1.76 billion, while operating expenses excluding the one-off adjustment rose 4.3 percent to $701m.

Key numbers for the six months ended March 2026 compared with a year ago:

  • Net profit $494m vs $795m
  • Underlying earnings down $48m to $747m
  • Revenue $1.76m vs $1.75m
  • Credit impairment provisions hardly charged at $995m
  • Net Interest margin 2.36% vs 2.40%
  • Total lending up 4.7% to $113.6b (from $108.5b)

BNZ chief executive Dan Huggins said the result largely reflected the New Zealand economy prior to the Middle East conflict.

“The first half of the year saw many New Zealand businesses anticipating a steady return to economic growth. We saw both housing and business lending increase as household and business confidence improved,” Huggins said.

The bank reported home lending was up 6.6 percent and business lending up 2.2 percent on the prior period, while total lending rose $5.1 billion, or 4.7 percent, to $113.6b.

However, Huggins said “while it was pleasing to see a return to confidence in the New Zealand economy, the Middle East conflict has eroded that positive sentiment and customers have once again had to adjust quickly.”

BNZ’s net interest margin fell 4 basis points, with the bank citing strong competition for customers.

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Orca calf found washed up on Auckland’s Orewa Beach

Source: Radio New Zealand

A necropsy will be carried out to determine the cause of the orca’s death. RNZ / Rhonywn Newson

A juvenile orca found washed ashore on an Auckland beach early Monday morning will undergo a necropsy to determine the cause of its death.

The Department of Conservation’s Auckland biodiversity ranger Nikki Grist says the female orca was found dead at Orewa Beach.

Ngāti Manuhiri performed a karakia and the orca was taken to Massey University in Auckland.

The university’s Cetacean Pathology Unit will carry out a necropsy to try to determine the cause of the orca’s death

It is two-metres long and estimated to be 3 to 6 months old.

A baby orca stranded on the beach at Orewa on Monday 4 May 2025. RNZ / Rhonwyn Newson

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18 people killed on roads in 10 days

Source: Radio New Zealand

RNZ/ Marika Khabazi

Police and experts say it is not just excessive speed contributing to a recent uptick in fatal road crashes, but motorists’ poor attitudes to driving and lack of training.

In the 10 days from 20 April, 18 people were killed in 14 separate crashes, with preliminary findings showing 16 of the 18 deaths occurred on open roads with 100km/h speed limits and no traffic safety barriers.

The annual road toll is already trending higher this year than for 2025, despite fuel costing considerably more.

Police director of road policing Inspector Peter McKennie told Nine to Noon on Monday it was impractical and prohibitively expensive to put safety barriers on every high-speed road in the country, so drivers needed to pay more attention to their own actions and surroundings.

“We need people to focus on their driving 100 percent of the time, and 100 percent focus. And if they’re distracted by anything, be it because they’re feeling tired or got some impairment or they’re distracted by their phone, then their focus isn’t going to be there.

“And when you consider something can happen without warning in front of you, need to be able to drive in a manner and with a focus that enables you to respond safely to that. And there’s a growing body of international evidence indicating that the hands-free technology, including that built into your car, is just as distracting as actually holding onto your mobile phone and talking on it.”

Emergency services at the scene of a crash in rural Wellington on 25 March. RNZ / Mark Papalii

While speed was not a factor in every accident, speed often determines the outcomes – as the police used to say in their marketing, ‘the faster you go, the bigger the mess’.

“There’s some challenges in terms of speed limits,” McKennie said.

“I mean, we’ve had the speed limits we’ve had in New Zealand for many, many decades now, and people have become accustomed to them. And it’s challenging to change and really it needs a mandate to change. And the public to date have largely said they want to keep travelling at the speeds they are.

“But when you compare us to the likes of Norway, which has some of the safest roads in the world, you can’t put a speed limit in place higher than 80kmh/h unless barriers are in place. But again, it’s a big challenge to actually change to that sort of model.”

He noted it was not up to police to set speed limits. The coalition this term has reversed some speed reductions out in place by previous governments.

“Probably what I’d do is just encourage people to just have a think about it, perhaps see what’s happening overseas, see what the differences are, because certainly New Zealand police is delivering world-leading levels of road safety enforcement for the things that matter, the things that impact on people getting killed on the roads. And it is literally world-leading, comparable to that in Norway,” McKennie said.

“But… what are the different factors in place in New Zealand? And part of it is our environment. You know, it’s the windy, torturous roads and that sort of thing. They’re unforgiving”

When safety features backfire

Bruce Wilson, who worked for 16 years as a police officer, specialising in road policing and investigated over 1000 crashes, now runs Forensic Crash Consultancy, which provides independent expert advice on the causes of road crashes.

He said drivers were too reliant on cars’ safety features and undertrained on what to do in dangerous situations.

“New Zealand drivers have an overconfidence [which] leads to a lot of drivers – especially overconfidence in their vehicle being flash and having all the systems on board, but also just overconfidence in our ability. We’re simply not taught how to drive anything apart from putting it in ‘D for dummy’ and driving from A to B. We’re not taught how to react in a situation.”

He said many modern vehicles had safety features – such as anti-lock brakes – which required a completely different response from the driver to work, than what many would have learned when they were younger.

“I’m 50 years of age. When I was taught to drive vehicles didn’t have anti-lock brakes and stability control, a lot of those other safety systems. And we had this message pushed to us that we’ve got to buy the safest car and have the safest system on board. But we’re becoming too reliant on that. And that’s what’s been seen both in New Zealand and overseas. We simply don’t understand how our modern car can actually protect us…

“In my generation, if our car was starting to spin or rotate, we were taught to steer into the skid to try and control it. In a vehicle with stability control, that is the worst thing you want to do because the car can obtain grip and give you more steering ability. So you will actually steer off into the hazard instead of modern driver training…

“Or anti-lock brakes. A lot of people panic. How many people have actually driven their car and had their anti-lock brakes go off? Because in the majority of vehicles, your brake pedal falls to the floor. People panic. They take the foot off the brake and now suddenly the car’s not braking instead of keeping that foot flat to the floor so the car can do its job to try and keep you safe.”

He said a lot of New Zealand’s roads were not suitable for high speed limits.

“But instead of just focusing on setting the speed limit, what we need to be doing is empowering our drivers to understand what a safe speed is to travel at.

“The speed limit is a limit, it’s not a target, and that’s unfortunately how we treat it in New Zealand. But if we’re driving along the road, we need to give them the skills and the knowledge to know that at this time, ‘I need to have a little bit of a buffer. I need to be traveling a little bit slower. Just because I can do the corner at 80km/h doesn’t mean I need to do the corner at 80km/h.’

“So applying speed limits with a blanket approach, I don’t think is the correct way to do it. We need to actually look at the facts and evidence, and that’s where we come back to that good-quality crash investigation. So the facts can be used to make better, more solid decisions instead of just blanket application of speed limit reductions. “

‘Angry and responsive’

Wilson said the high number of crashes when it might be expected fewer drivers were on the road could be down to stress, noting a similar trend during Covid.

“I find New Zealand drivers to be rather angry and responsive… I spent three weeks driving around the US where they have their own concerns and issues with their crash rate, but [are] a lot more polite…

“So yeah, that anger behind the wheel, it’s again that just focus or that fixation on getting somewhere in the shortest period of time instead of actually looking at the journey and getting there in your little stages and steps, focusing too much on, ‘I need to get here because I’ve got to get back to work,’ or, ‘I’ve got to get to work,’ and all those sorts of other factors that are coming into it. And it does lead into it, you know, we need to drive relaxed. We need to drive focused.”

“Yeah, it’s not necessarily just anger,” McKennie added. “It’s what else is on your mind… You just need to focus on the road, focus on driving safely. Don’t let other things distract you. If you feel your mind wandering, stop and have a break.”

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Freight prices soar as shipping giant AP Moller – Maersk faces Iran costs

Source: Radio New Zealand

Intermodel transport involves the efficient movement of a container between two or more modes, such as rail, sea and road. Andrew Campbell.

Global transport company AP Moller – Maersk has raised some of its freight charges by 27 percent to cover a surge in global energy prices associated with the conflict in the Middle East.

“With approximately 20 percent of global fuel passing through the Strait of Hormuz, current developments have created an unprecedented cost environment affecting Landside (Inland) and Intermodal operations,” it said in a statement.

Intermodel transport involves the efficient movement of a container between two or more modes, such as rail, sea and road.

“To ensure service continuity, safeguard cargo integrity, and secure sufficient vendor capacity across our network, AP Moller – Maersk will implement temporary, cost reflective energy/fuel price adjustments on Landside transportation.

“Given the volatility of the current energy market, further adjustments may be required as conditions evolve.”

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Amazon takes $45m hit, abandons planned West Auckland data centre

Source: Radio New Zealand

The site which was planned to be used by Amazon in Westgate, Auckland. Google Maps / Screenshot

Amazon’s New Zealand data centre arm has taken a roughly $45 million hit after shelving a planned West Auckland development, newly filed accounts show.

Financial statements for Amazon Data Services New Zealand Ltd for the year to December 31, 2025, reveal the company booked a $44.9 million impairment in 2025 after deciding “not to continue with the planned development of the site.”

The write-down related to land holdings, which were reduced to a recoverable value of about $62.7 million.

While the filing does not explicitly name the location, Amazon’s only publicly disclosed greenfield development in New Zealand had been a proposed hyperscale data centre in Westgate, Auckland.

The scale of the write-down and the reference to undeveloped land implies the impaired site relates to that project.

The impairment drove the subsidiary to a pre-tax loss of $36 million in 2025, reversing a profit a year earlier. It was recorded within operating expenses and accounted for the bulk of the decline.

Despite the write-down, Amazon appeared to be continuing to invest heavily in its New Zealand footprint, with total assets above $650 million.

Those investments appear to be being redirected into new servers, networking gear and leasing capacity in other data centres, rather than new builds.

Between December 2024 and December 2025, the value of equipment on its books surged to more than $250 million from about $5 million, while lease assets climbed to about $285 million from roughly $244 million, with a further $162 million in future lease commitments yet to begin.

At the same time, assets under construction have dropped to zero.

Rather than building its own sites, it looks like Amazon in New Zealand is shifting to a “lease-and-equip” model – buying capacity and filling it, rather than building from scratch.

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