NZ Engine

Source: Radio New Zealand

Nearly two months on from a sewage spill that completely destroyed their crops, Mahurangi oyster farmers are still waiting to see a full compensation package.

More than a thousand cubic metres of sewage overflowed from a Watercare pump station in late October contaminating thousands of oysters in the Mahurangi river and preventing the farmers from harvesting for nearly a month.

Watercare agreed to give a million dollars in compensation to 10 affected farmers, who split it between them.

The organisation also promised to provide a second payment before the end of the year.

But as that date creeps closer the farmers are still waiting and getting increasingly desperate.

It has been around two weeks since Tom Waters was able to reopen Matakana Oysters.

It means he has only been able to farm for around six weeks of this year.

With little time to harvest, his bills and debts have quickly built up, and the $100,000 in compensation he got for October’s sewage spill was gone in 48 hours.

He has already considered closing the doors on his business twice this year, and if Waters does not see more compensation soon, he is not sure how he will carry on.

“This year’s been diabolical, I wouldn’t even be in business if it hadn’t been for lovely people who had donated and kept me going”

But Waters said even the money can’t quantify the damage done to his business.

He is worried the reputational impact is also too much to bounce back from.

“[The spill] was just devastating, I personally just struggled a lot after that spill, it was the worst feeling, because we’d just been trying to get the reputation back up again because all of us have suffered from people not wanting Mahurangi oysters because they’re legitimately concerned about their safety.”

Both sides agreed to an independent loss assessor reporting on how much further compensation was needed.

A few days after the report was lodged, Watercare came back with a request for more information from the farmers.

However, the farmers said they have already given them all the information they have.

Jim Aitken from Mahurangi Oysters said he is close to losing all faith.

“They’re stalling, they’re not believing us, we’ve sent an email saying no we’ve given you everything you’ve asked, they’re simply not believing us, come and see us if you don’t believe it. We’re here, we exist, these are all our oysters, and we’re sick and tired of jumping through hoops for Watercare.”

Much like Waters, Aitken’s compensation went straight into paying off debt incurred from the sewage spill.

While he was able to finally reopen his farm two weeks ago, the spill means they have missed out on the peak season and lost thousands of oysters.

“Without that money you just sit there in the red looking at your debt get bigger and bigger because quite simply even if we are open, it’s not like we can sell every oyster we have right then and there, we have to start this whole new process, get customers confidence back.”

While Aitkin said he has lost all confidence in Watercare, he is still hopeful that they will pay up.

“I want compensation to make up for the fact that I’ve had to stop two roles because I can’t afford to pay them, so I want compensation to be able to employ people so they can continue to work and keep the farm running.

“I want to make sure that this never happens again… and actual accountability from Watercare, so if this ever happens again it’s just an immediate fine.”

Chair of the Mahurangi oyster farmers association, Lynette Dunn said she is disappointed by the back and forth with Watercare.

She said they were originally promised compensation by the 19th of December.

“We’ve been fighting for the last seven years, we’ve been going into more and more debt. So with that last payment sort of income that came through that just got gobbled up into paying all our expenses that had occurred over quite a period of time, so there’s nothing in our accounts to get us through the next three months, four months.”

As the clock ticks on Watercare’s promise the farmers have all agreed on one thing.

They have got a long road ahead, not just to recover financially, but also revive their product’s reputation.

In a statement to Checkpoint, Watercare chief operations officer Mark Bourne said they expect the loss assessment report to be finalised in the new year.

He said Watercare acted quickly and in good faith to respond to the impacts, by first providing $1 million to the oyster farmers affected, and then appointing an independent loss assessor with aquaculture expertise.

“The assessor has met with the oyster farmers and is now assessing losses on an individual, per-farm basis. This is a complex process, and care is being taken to ensure assessments are thorough and fair.”

He said with the information in the report they will be able to confirm the next steps and timing.

This will involve Watercare contacting the oyster farmers individually to discuss outcomes and arrange any final payments.

Bourne said they know the overflow caused considerable stress to the farmers, who they reassured that Watercare will learn from the incident.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Waihī North extension of OceanaGold’s Waihī mine has gained approval under fast-track legislation.

The decision was jointly announced by Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop and Resources Minister Shane Jones, and aimed to extend gold and silver mining in the area until 2043.

Jones estimated approval would have taken more than five years under the usual consenting process.

It became the first major mining project to gain full approvals and consents under last year’s Fast-track Approvals Act, in a process that was completed in 112 working days.

The project is expected to generate $5.2 billion in additional silver and gold exports over its 18-year life – around $286 million per year.

“The Waihī North Project will support around 800 jobs in Hauraki District and beyond over its 18-year life, and these well-paid jobs will inject millions into the regional economy while boosting export earnings for the country,” Jones said.

Bishop said an expert panel estimated the extension would generate $425 million in government revenues in 2025 dollar terms.

Oceana Gold Senior Vice President Alison Paul expected OceanaGold to invest around $1 billion in the project with $240 million invested in the Hauraki District.

“Once producing, the Wharekirauponga Underground mine will generate over NZ$8 billion of export revenue for New Zealand (estimated at current gold prices).”

The Waihī North Project included the Wharekirauponga underground mine located approximately 10 kilometres north of OceanaGold’s current Waihī Operation.

Canadian-headquarted OceanaGold bought the Waihī mine from US company Newmont Mining in 2015 in a deal valued at over US$100 million.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police say a woman found dead in October was murdered in a targeted act of violence by someone known to her.

Teishallia Te Paea’s body was found at an address on Kotuku Street, Camberley, on 29 October.

Police say her body went undiscovered for likely several weeks and attempts had been made to conceal her.

A homicide investigation is underway.

The police Behavioural Science Unit (BSU) has done a preliminary analysis of the murder and the offender.

The killing was committed in a unique way, police say.

They said this person may been acting differently in the weeks after Te Paea’s death and avoiding questions about their movements, using family and friends as protection and being evasive about Te Paea.

• The offender was known to Te Paea
• The offence was a targeted act of violence
• The offender had knowledge of the property at Kotuku Street, Camberley
• The attempt to conceal the crime was to create distance between the offender and Te Paea

“If you know someone that was in contact with Teishallia and fits this profile and is reluctant to talk about their interactions with her, then please share this information with us.”

Weeks after her death and ahead of Christmas, Detective Inspector Martin James says police are more determined than ever to find the offender.

“We know someone in the community knows what happened, and that as time goes on, that knowledge will be eating away at them.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

When Jevon McSkimming was sentenced on Wednesday, his lawyer and the judge told the court he was the first person in New Zealand to be prosecuted for simply viewing objectionable material.

The former deputy police commissioner was sentenced to nine months home detention at the Wellington District Court, after pleading guilty to the possession of child sexual exploitation and bestiality material in November.

Judge Tim Black and defence lawyer Letizea Ord both told the court during the sentencing they understood this was the first time someone had been prosecuted for simply viewing material online, rather than downloading it or distributing it.

“Perhaps one of the unique features of this case is that none of the images were downloaded or stored in any way,” Ord said.

However, she said it was accepted that viewing – particularly his clicking on some 160 images – was “akin to downloading from a sentencing perspective”.

Judge Black noted in case law there was a “limited pool of decisions which involve possession”.

“Most of the decisions involve some other more serious offending, such as importation or distribution.”

Victims advocate Claire Buckley told RNZ the law hadn’t kept up with technology and people no longer had to download material to have it at their fingertips.

“I would like to see that line between viewing, versus downloading and sharing, be eradicated, those three things all put together, because if you’re viewing it, you are absolutely contributing to the creation of it.”

Viewing it still generated demand, she said, and over time the searches tended to become more extreme.

“If you start off on AI-generated images, eventually that’s not going to cut it anymore, and you’re going to go looking for slightly more realistic, and something harder-core, by which time you are generating harm because you’re generating demand for really objectionable material which requires abuse of people in order to create it.”

The evidence showed people tended to make the shift from AI-generated content to reality, but very few made the jump from watching content to acting out those things themselves, she said.

However, the harm was still very real for victims of objectionable material.

Parents of children who had been filmed for this purpose found it incredibly triggering, Buckley said.

“It’s like ‘that happened to my kid, and now, this guy could be looking at those images.’

“Once those images go around, you can never get rid of them, not really. And so the families who have been harmed by this kind of thing are harmed over and over and over again.

“They weren’t [downloaded or shared] in this particular case, but that’s what frequently happens, and people don’t separate it in their minds when they’re a victim.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

• Family rosters themselves on for shifts looking after elderly relative in hospital.
• Despite suffering severe dementia the family worried about the standard of her care.
• Another elderly hospital patient was left alone and suffering, his wife says.

The family of an elderly woman with severe dementia were so concerned about the standard of her hospital care that they rostered themselves on shifts to look after her.

And for another severely ill elderly man, what was scheduled as a short hospital stay for a routine operation ended with him catching norovirus and losing over 10kg.

His wife said the worst part of it all was that he was left to suffer alone in soiled bedding.

These two cases have put the spotlight on the care of elderly patients.

When Judith Campbell broke her hip in January, she ended up staying over a fortnight in Nelson Hospital.

“We had to be there every day to ensure she was fed, given medication and showered,” said her daughter, Jan Fryer.

“We had to do all those things for her and couldn’t get her back into her care home as she wasn’t mobile, so she was in a very unsatisfactory situation and died three weeks later.”

And Otago woman Bev – who has asked RNZ not to use her surname – recalled her husband Ross’ visit to Dunedin Hospital in late 2023.

“When as a patient for a proposed 48 hours he contracted norovirus, [he] left the hospital 12 kilograms lighter.

“Despite vomiting and constant diarrhoea and sweating profusely his bed linen was not changed in five days.”

The pair contacted Checkpoint after hearing of concerns about aged care, which prompted Health NZ to acknowledge a system under pressure as the population aged.

Health NZ was contacted several times over recent months for this story, but hasn’t yet responded.

Family’s bedside vigil

Campbell was blind and had severe dementia.

Fryer was fed up with telling every new staff member how to handle her, so she didn’t fight or spit when she wasn’t sure what was going on, the family instead decided to always stay at her bedside, apart from when she slept overnight.

“For the two weeks she was in hospital we had to take shifts, between my daughter – who works for us, luckily, so I was able to give her time off – myself and my 90-year-old father, and my sister also came over from Australia.

“We took shifts to be there all day with her to make sure she got food, she got her medication and she got cleaned.”

Fryer said that wasn’t happening before they were there.

Staff had also tried to administer pain relief through pills, causing Campbell distress, despite instructions to give it in liquid form.

And the family ended up taking Campbell for walks and trying themselves to get her mobile enough to return to her aged-care facility.

“She just wasn’t getting fed. They would put her food on a tray and just leave it there. She couldn’t see so she couldn’t feed herself.

“She ended up with very loose bowel motions, so then we’d find her lying in poo.”

Campbell died in February, aged 88.

Fryer didn’t make a complaint, saying her sister, a doctor, told her it wasn’t worth it.

“I was saddened – just sad that New Zealand’s health system has deteriorated so much that we’re not getting good care when we need it.”

Patient left alone and in distress

For Bev, 13 December 2023, was supposed to be when her husband Ross began a two-day hospital stay in Dunedin to drain his lung.

He had the aggressive cancer mesothelioma, and in hospital caught norovirus.

Bev said after that her husband was mostly left alone in an isolation room, lying in soiled sheets.

She was also concerned about hygiene measures – such as nurses giving Ross pain relief tablets from the palms of their hands, rather than containers.

“He was clearly really suffering. He couldn’t eat or drink. They didn’t make any effort to give him fluid through an IV and the smell in the room after four days was horrendous,” Bev said.

She caught the stomach bug too and had to stay away a couple of days. On her return she couldn’t believe the condition Ross was in.

“I was so shocked at how ill he was and how weak he was. He could not stand up to get out of bed. He could not stand up unaided.

“When I realised how much weight he’d lost it was no wonder.”

Ross had lost 12kg and Bev decided it was best to bring him home and look after him there.

He never recovered from the ill-effects of norovirus and died in February 2024, aged 78.

“It’s left me feeling really angry and quite concerned about care for others, including myself.”

She wrote a complaint but said she never heard back.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The career firefighters’ union says a delay getting rescuers to Hahei where a girl was trapped on a cliff face is just the tip of the iceberg.

In January, police refused Fire and Emergency (FENZ) a helicopter to get a lines rescue team from Hamilton to Hahei on the far side of Coromandel Peninsula. They had to drive.

Police told RNZ they mistakenly concluded the girl was dead and that it was appropriate to send rescuers by road, not air.

New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union vice president Martin Campbell told Midday Report the problems ran wider than just the Hahei case.

“I don’t think it is an isolated incident… I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately.”

“I certainly know from personal experience being based at Auckland City where there is another lines rescue crew, we have faced delays in our ability to get to rescue incidents.”

A law change was needed, and police and FENZ needed to agree on a better approach in the interim, he said.

The FENZ call log from the Hahei rescue stated “police wont [sic] approve helo response because of the cost”.

“This is the first I’ve actually specifically seen cost mentioned,” Campbell said. “Other issues I have seen [are] interagency squabbles as to who is actually in charge and who has the authority.”

Comment has been requested from police and Police Minister Mark Mitchell.

Emails among senior FENZ personnel immediately after the Hahei rescue referred to it as a “further instance” of line rescue crews being delayed due to police not approving an air ambulance helicopter.

St John must get police approval to send a chopper to a non-injury emergency.

FENZ national manager of response capability Ken Cooper in response to Campbell told RNZ on Thursday their standard operating procedure after a 111 call for rescue was to pass all information immediately on to police as the lead agency, who then coordinated the rescue.

“It is also our practice to dispatch our resources immediately to the incident to assist,” Cooper said in a statement.

“There are no communication challenges between our agencies, and we work well together.”

The Hahei FENZ email trail showed Cooper was alerted on the Monday following the Saturday midnight rescue, and briefly replied that he would “prioritise a meeting with the relevant partner agencies this week with the intent on resolving the matter”.

RNZ has lodged Official Information Act requests with police and FENZ to find out more.

Hato Hone St John ran the air ambulance service under a contract with Health New Zealand. It said in cases where a person was not injured but required rescue, coordination and tasking was done by either of the country’s two recognised search and rescue coordinating authorities – police or the Rescue Coordination Centre.

“The coordination of search and rescue operations requires specialist expertise to ensure both the person in need of rescue, and their rescuers are as safe as possible,” it said.

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