Category: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Primary school teachers are considering a potential settlement of their drawn-out pay talks.

Teachers belonging to union NZEI Te Riu Roa received the offer overnight.

Voting on the offer began on Friday morning and closed at 12pm on Wednesday next week.

It included the same pay rise secondary teachers had accepted – 2.5 percent on 28 December and 2.1 percent a year later.

Management allowances would increase by $700 and the offer no longer included more call-back days requiring teachers to work outside of term time.

The offer was put to members just a day after primary school principals represented by the NZEI rejected a potential settlement of their collective agreement.

The union said its members were unhappy their offer did not include a curriculum change allowance similar to the $15,000 allowance secondary principals won.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Some food outlets have been supersizing portion sizes and it would be good to go back to smaller amounts, a New Zealand health professor says.

In an article in the medical journal The Lancet, adviser to the UK government on obesity, Professor Naveed Sattar, said ready to eat portion sizes were calibrated towards an adult male, and smaller options should be available for women, children, and shorter people.

The article recommended “food outlets offer at least two portion sizes for single-portion, ready-to-eat products, differing by around 25 percent – the average difference in energy requirements between men and women and priced fairly”. It said this would also help provide more appropriate portion sizes for children and shorter people.

Auckland University professor of global health and nutrition Boyd Swinburn told Morning Report the basic physiology of that made sense in the sense that smaller people needed smaller portion sizes.

“Whether it’s going to go all the way to having multiple portion sizes available I’m not sure, but we have been at risk of Americanisation and supersizing and we’ve seen that with a number of areas and takeaways and the upsizing and muffins are a big one as well,” he said.

“I think it would be good if we could get back to smaller portion sizes.”

Swinburn said ultra processed foods were the main driver for obesity.

“The body does work pretty well in managing to have energy intake according to its needs but it can get fooled and the place where it really gets fooled is with ultra processed foods which are highly palatable and very dense in energy. So we think we’re just eating enough for our body … but because it’s so energy dense, so full of calories, we end up overeating,” he said.

“It’s mainly an issue related to the ultra processed foods rather than real foods that the serving sizes apply to.”

Swinburn said as part of his research he had recently been developing a mathematical model for energy balance.

“It is interesting how much the lean body mass dictates what we eat and how much we eat. It’s really this intersection between this physiology we have and the ultra processed food environment that is driving our obesity epidemic.

“The way the energy dense food sort of fools our system if you like and we end up passively overeating it and slowly gain weight over time.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Young children getting burnt by playground equipment has sparked a petition calling for every new or upgraded playground to have mandatory shade from the sun.

Founder of app Roam With Kids, Renata Wiles, launched the petition to parliament earlier this week and has just under 2000 signatures.

Speaking to Morning Report, Wiles said there were so many amazing playgrounds across the country that have recently been built or upgraded – but keeping them shaded from the sun was not a requirement.

She said all new or upgraded playgrounds should have shade sails – or mature trees providing equivalent shade from the sun.

It was not just about keeping children safe from getting sunburnt while out playing on the playground – but preventing the equipment getting so hot that it burns children.

“The equipment is actually unusable because it’s so hot from the sun.”

Wiles said it was “crazy” to her and other parents that shade was not already a mandatory requirement for playgrounds.

“Since starting this petition and talking about shade more publicly on social media, I’ve had so many people send me photos of their kids that have been hospitalised or had to have medical attention for really, really serious burns – even little toddlers that have just touched something that’s metal in a playground and ended up with terrible burns, like little kids skin is so sensitive.”

Wiles said she has spoken to local councils in previous summers about the lack of shade at playgrounds – and said her now 5-year-old daughter was burnt on a metal slide when she was 18 months old.

“After that I spoke to our local council about getting shade and they did put shade up over that playground and they kind of said they just do it on a case-by-case basis, no real requirement, its not mandatory for them at all to take it into consideration.

“So I picked up the communication with them again ahead of launching this petition and I kind of got the same response. They are aware it’s a problem but it’s not a requirement and it’s different for every single local board. There is no consistency.”

Caroline Bay playground in Canterbury.

Wiles said a lot of equipment at playgrounds is metal including slides, in-ground spinners and seesaws. But even plastic equipment can get so hot it burns, too.

In her communication with councils, Wiles said she has been told that sunshades are not budgeted for and equipment would have to be given up in order to provide it.

Wiles said councils should “absolutely” give up equipment in favour of shade.

“Give up another set of swings, or a slide, let’s use some of that money that already exists, that’s already been allocated for those playgrounds and put that into shade because that’s really what parents care about.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The Mayor of Wellington says the region needs to work together to plan a response to the government’s calls for simpler, more cost-effective local government to prevent changes from being “imposed” upon them.

All of the region’s mayors and the regional council chairperson have agreed, via the Wellington Mayoral Forum, to work on options for amalgamation.

Chair of the forum, Mayor Andrew Little said the centralisation of much of the region’s water management, changes to the Resource Management Act as well the government’s reorganising of local government would impact each council’s processes.

“All of this is coming together to suggest that council’s do need to look at their own organisations and – particularly where they are closely located to other councils – how they can work more closely together and, obviously, the question of amalgamation pops up,” Little said.

He said the forum’s first task would be to seek a mandate from their respective councils in early 2026 and to set up a project team to co-ordinate the work including public consultation.

“We need to work up a plan on how we’re going to tackle this. Which is what we’ve agreed to do. A critical part of that is engaging with the public, getting a bit of a mandate to see how they want their council’s to respond and react as we face the future – with a view to keeping downward pressure on rates but providing all the services that people need to see from their local council,” Little said.

Little said he did not believe the move was a “reheating” of the Super City proposal – which was scrapped due to a lack of public support in 2015.

He said the proposed changes to local government were likely “to be a reality” but he said attitudes had also shifted in the ten years since the Super City proposal was put on the back burner.

“I think the debate about what is an effective way to organise local government in New Zealand is probably more acute now than it was ten years ago.

“Simply because of planning rules and the complexity of them, the cost of local government and the fact that most local councils are dealing with massive catch up in investment to make sure that services continue to run. All of this has come to a head in a way that perhaps hasn’t been the case for some considerable time,” Little said.

Little said the economic and infrastructure issues facing the region were “too important to be left to chance”.

“The most important thing is that councils actually lead the discussion with their residents. But we’ve each got to work with our councils and with the people that each council represents rather than a more imposed approach from the outside.

“These things can only happen – and should only happen – with the right level of public support and that’s going to be a critical feature of the process that we do over the months and years ahead,” Little said.

Deputy chair of the forum and current South Wairarapa Mayor, Dame Fran Wilde said she was hoping to avoid “the squabbling” that characterised the previous amalgamation proposal over a decade ago.

“The difference is that was for a unitary authority over the whole of the Wellington region. Now we are likely to get more than one unitary authority out of this. We don’t know yet what the shape will be but I suspect it will be more than one,” Dame Fran said.

She said – while the previous amalgamation plan was well supported in Wellington City – support was lacking in Wairarapa and Hutt City.

“Mayors we’re generally not happy with losing their jobs but a lot of Wellington City and Porirua – and a lot of people elsewhere – thought it would be useful but the leadership of the councils didn’t and you can make your own surmises as to why that was the case.

“The difference now is that people have realised that we should be doing it and it’s been quite instructive for me over the last several years how many people who were political leaders in those days – who opposed it – have come to me and said ‘Fran you were right, we should’ve done it’.

“But the other thing is the government has just said ‘get your act together local government’ and people understand that we either do it or it’s done to us,” Dame Fran said.

She said – while her focus was on the Wairarapa – she wanted to ensure the outcome was positive for the entire region.

“People in Wairarapa are very keen to have a go at a unitary authority. Iwi are very supportive of that, the business community are very supportive, so are a number of the community organisations because when you come to Wairarapa you don’t think ‘oh now I’m just driving over the boundary between South Wairarapa and Carterton or between Carterton and Masterton’ you’re actually in Wairarapa. People and business and tourists etc. don’t care about council boundaries.

“So we need to make sure it’s workable and affordable and we have to grow the economy. That is our number one priority, grow the economy,” Dame Fran said.

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