NZ Engine

Source: Radio New Zealand

An ocean-watching entrepreneur engaged in a trial to assess threats to subsea cables says New Zealand needs to fix its blind spot.

There was “zero” monitoring of the risks even though the cables provided “the lifeblood of our internet, backbones and systems that drive our country”, said chief executive of Starboard Maritime Intelligence, Trent Fulcher.

“We’re hugely reliant on them now, the more that come in we’re going to be even more reliant.

“So, you know, having zero visibility of the risk on top of [that] is a real risk in my view,” Fulcher told RNZ at the opening of Starboard’s new Wellington headquarters on Thursday.

A recently completed trial with the Transport Ministry had found risks from fishing boats getting too close to cables, he said.

“The chances of us getting hit tomorrow with sabotage is probably quite low, but preparing for the future if geopolitical dynamics change is really what we’re talking about.”

Over a million kilometres of subsea data cables power the internet, while lying among them are also gas, power and other pipelines.

Hyperscale datacentre developers like Meta and Google are rolling out thousands of kilometres more of their own cables with ever-larger capacities.

But fears and accusations of sabotage, often aimed at and dismissed by Russia or China, have been growing.

Exploring protection ‘to all critical underwater infrastructure’

The ministry told RNZ some monitoring was done of power and telecommunications cables by Transpower and Southern Cross.

“The ministry is actively exploring how monitoring and protection could be extended to all critical underwater infrastructure across New Zealand,” it said in a short statement on Thursday.

Fulcher said he understood the next step was that a paper would be prepared ahead of government funding to operationalise the monitoring.

The ministry did not provide information to RNZ about that.

Starboard had to also cover off the other half of the equation, Australia, since most local cables land there, Fulcher said.

“So we’re also having conversations with the Australian-equivalent government agencies and those same commercial cable companies about a trans-Tasman protection service.”

‘We can see you’

Four ministers including the Prime Minister were at the office opening.

Christopher Luxon was briefed on threats to subsea cables and issued a caution about that some months ago.

“Subsea cable protection is really important”, and the firm’s technology could help with that, Luxon told RNZ on Thursday.

The six-year-old Starboard, born with government funding and out of an attempt to set up a space science enterprise in Alexandra that did not quite work out as planned, had just finished the trial with the Ministry of Transport, Fulcher said.

It detected a number of fishing boats trespassing into protection zones around cable landfall.

“We’re able to get on the radio and say, ‘hey, do you know you’re in a cable protection zone?’ And quite often they’re like, ‘no, I’m not. I’m fishing over here.’ We’re like, ‘no, we can see you'”.

‘State-sponsored activity in our waters’

Fulcher said their NZ-built algorithms had become adept at spotting ships “hovering” near cables. Anchor dragging, deliberate or not, is a real threat and has regularly damaged cables in the likes of the Baltic Sea and in waters off Taiwan.

“The main areas that we’ve been looking at and seeing sabotage are in the North Sea and the South China Sea.

“Now, that kind of activity, we don’t see that in New Zealand.

“But what we are seeing is increasingly similar state-sponsored activity in our waters, without naming names.

“So I think some of these state-sponsored actors understand where our assets are.”

Pushed to name names, Fulcher said “sanctioned countries” – Russia, China, “you name it”.

“Now that we understand what that risk looks like, we can be monitoring in New Zealand if that takes place.”

Starboard’s platform is now used in over 30 countries to give a near real-time view from satellites and sensors into software that fuses billions of bits of ship location data daily.

“It’s exciting,” said Luxon. “You’ve got a great platform.”

It had been proven against illegal fishing across the Pacific.

Its uses were spreading, which could include “obviously the need for us to protect our undersea cables”, the prime minister said.

Fulcher said the trial had shown there was “100 percent a need” to monitor NZ’s cables, not just the data ones but others.

“We had numerous examples where vessels, mainly fishing vessels, were coming into the cable protection zones, fishing where they weren’t supposed to,” he 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

Climate activists sit by the grave of Charles Darwin inside Westminster Abbey, London after they sprayed “1.5 is dead” over it in protest.

Among the hoopla of the annual COP climate summit – this year being held in Belém in the Brazilian Amazon – there is one fact finally being spoken out loud.

Ten years ago, most of the world’s countries signed up to the central pledge of the Paris Agreement: to limit global warming to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.

Until now, official discussions treated 1.5°C as though it was still live, despite projections showing it was increasingly tenuous. Even after the limit was breached for the first time across a whole year in 2024, scientists said keeping the long-term average to 1.5°C was still technically feasible.

But a new UN Environment Programme report, released just before COP30 started, declared that dream was over, and the best the world could now achieve was to spend as little time above 1.5°C as possible.

Speaking at the summit’s opening, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres spoke plainly: “We have failed to ensure we remain below 1.5 degrees.”

The world needed to face that “moral failure” and do everything it could to limit further damage, he said.

So, what hope is left – and why does 1.5°C still matter?

Why was the limit set at 1.5°C?

The Paris Agreement target built on earlier, more vaguely-worded agreements to limit global warming to 2°C – identified by the scientific community as an absolute ceiling.

But many climate scientists agreed that even warming below that limit would have disastrous consequences, and they were joined by a large group of small island nations who, faced with oblivion, pushed over the years for the world to adopt a lower warming goal.

New Zealand climate scientist Dr Andy Reisinger, who is a climate change commissioner, but spoke to RNZ in his capacity as an independent consultant, said 1.5 is not a black and white dividing line, but there are important ‘tipping points’ – irreversible changes in Earth’s systems – that start kicking in at that level of warming.

“It’s very hard to pinpoint them exactly on a global temperature scale,” Reisinger said.

“Having said that, some tipping points, you know, we’re very confident that they do exist and that they’re not reversible.”

Among the first is the collapse of the world’s coral reefs. “That’s one tipping point where we know it’s at about 1.5 degrees,” he said.

Other points on the scale are less clear, such as the slowing and potential shutdown of ocean circulation that keeps northern regions like Britain and Scandinavia warm enough to sustain their populations and grow crops.

“That shutdown… is something that we desperately want to avoid,” Reisinger said.

“The more we can limit warming to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees, the lower the chances are that such a tipping point actually occurs.”

The same goes for widespread drying in the Amazon.

“[That] would turn large parts of the Amazon rainforest into savannah-dominated ecosystems, which in itself is a massive loss of carbon to the atmosphere, but also huge destruction of livelihoods for indigenous people and of course ecosystems and animal species.”

When will we pass 1.5°C?

The short answer is: very soon.

“The data is showing that we’re getting very, very close to breaching global warming of 1.5 degrees,” Reisinger said.

2024 was the first year in which global average temperatures were more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – but a single year does not define global warming.

“Global warming is normally understood as the long-term average across multiple years,” he said.

“The long-term warming trend is still below 1.5 degrees, but only just, and we expect that within the next five years or so, global warming, as a long-term average in global temperatures, will start to exceed 1.5 degrees.”

There are always scientific uncertainties present.

“If next year we discover that we got some measurements of global temperature in the late 19th century fundamentally wrong, we might find that we’re actually further away from 1.5 degrees than we think we are… but there’s an equal chance that it will be even more than it is.”

Is there any way to avoid breaching it?

Not really.

“Emissions would have had to fall rapidly from 2020 onwards, and they haven’t,” Reisinger said.

“And so we can’t turn the ship around anymore in the space of five years.”

Even in the late 2010s, it was still possible, but now the very best scenarios place peak global warming closer to 1.7°C – and that is increasing all the time.

“If we wait another five years, the very best scenarios will put us at 1.8 degrees. And so it goes. Time is not on our side in this.”

Why does it still matter?

If the world couldn’t limit warming to 1.5°C, it’s easy to question the point of persevering.

Reisinger said in fact, the world should be doubling down on its efforts, for two reasons.

The first is partly a legal and political one.

“The International Court of Justice has ruled that 1.5 is a central part of the ambition and the obligations that countries have towards maintaining a liveable climate.

“Once you pass 1.5 degrees, you can still get back to it, so it’s still a relevant target.”

The second is that 1.5°C “is not a binary black and white threshold”.

“It’s not like everything’s fine under 1.5 degrees and everything goes to hell in a handbasket above 1.5 degrees,” Reisinger said.

“Limiting warming to 1.6 degrees is better than limiting warming to 1.7 degrees. Limiting warming to 1.7 degrees is better than limiting warming to only 1.8 degrees… The lower we can keep that peak of warming, the better.”

Getting back to 1.5°C would still be better than giving up just because we’ve already breached it, he said.

“Of course, it would have been better if we had managed that, but we haven’t – so how are we going to deal with it?”

What is ‘overshoot’ – and can we get back to 1.5?

Earlier this year, Reisinger attended an event in Austria called the Overshoot Conference – the first global gathering of scientists to discuss the consequences of breaching 1.5°C of warming and the possible pathways to bend the curve back.

‘Overshoot’, in a climate science context, refers to exceeding the limit but then bringing it back to that level or below, he said.

“It’s not entirely infeasible… in the long run, even while accepting that we will be above 1.5 degrees for a period of time with attendant greater damages, greater harm from climate extremes, greater risk of tipping points.”

However, doing so will mean more ambitious action from governments, businesses and individuals.

“One thing that doesn’t change at all when we exceed 1.5 degrees is the imperative to reduce emissions in the near term as rapidly as possible, as much as possible, and towards at least net zero emissions of long-lived greenhouse gases,” Reisinger said.

That was the “absolute minimum” though.

“The inevitable consequence, once you actually accept it, would be to start talking about long-term net negative emissions – so, a scenario where countries take more CO2 out of the atmosphere than the totality of greenhouse gases they put into it, in order to enable the world as a whole to get back to lower temperatures.”

Would lowering temperatures again fix everything?

If we could achieve net-negative emissions, then the global temperature would come down again, Reisinger said.

“But the question is, would other parts of the climate system also reverse?”

There is much less certainty around that.

“Just because the temperature comes back down again, that wouldn’t turn on the ocean circulation that might have shut down… That would not magically regrow glaciers or the western Antarctic ice sheet.”

Some geophysical systems, such as long-term sea-level rise, might experience a lag; others could be “irretrievably lost”.

Even so – going past 1.5°C is not the time to give up on mitigation, he said.

“You need to keep on going at the same pace, if not more so.”

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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 growing number of schools across Aotearoa are pushing back against the government’s plan to remove the requirement for school boards to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, saying their commitment to the Treaty will remain unchanged.

The Treaty requirement previously in the Education Act said schools would give effect to Te Tiriti, including by ensuring plans, policies, and local curriculum reflected local tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori, and te ao Māori; taking all reasonable steps to make instruction available in tikanga Māori and te reo Māori; and achieving equitable outcomes for Māori students.

The Education and Training Amendment Bill, which passed its third reading on Tuesday, removed this requirement.

Associate Education Minister Penny Simmonds, who moved the bill’s third reading, said it was “unreasonable to expect elected parents, who volunteer their time, to discharge the Crown’s legal responsibilities in respect of the Treaty.”

“This government is relentlessly focused on lifting student achievement and closing the equity gap,” she said.

“Boards will still be required to seek equitable outcomes for Māori students, and to take reasonable steps to reflect New Zealand’s cultural diversity and provide te reo Māori learning if requested.”

Simmonds said the bill “clarifies expectations” and “keeps schools focused on educational achievement as their highest priority.”

But education leaders say the move – made without public consultation – “undermines” boards’ legal responsibilities as Crown entities.

The National Iwi Chairs Forum (NICF), supported by a coalition of national education organisations, also launched a petition against these changes, saying “removing Te Tiriti from the one place every child in Aotearoa passes through… deprives our tamariki of the opportunity to learn about identity, belonging, and partnership in a culturally responsive environment.”

Kura commit to Te Tiriti

From Whakatāne to Tāmaki Makaurau to Ōtautahi and Invercargill, school boards have issued public statements reaffirming their obligations to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Te Uru Karaka Newton Central School in Auckland said the government’s move “does not change who we are or how we operate.”

“Our commitment to Te Tiriti is deeply embedded in our co-governance model, which is clearly reflected in our school constitution,” the Board of Trustees said.

“This structure ensures shared leadership and genuine partnership between Tangata Whenua Ahi Kaa and Tangata Tiriti. It reflects our identity as a school community and anchors the values that shape our relationships, decisions, and aspirations for our mokopuna.”

In Whakatāne, Allandale Primary School said its direction would remain “unchanged.”

“We will continue to proudly work to support mana motuhake – the right of Māori to determine and shape their own futures including educational pathways,” the board wrote.

“Our kura will remain grounded in te reo Māori, mātauranga Māori, and local tikanga, guided by the aspirations of Ngāti Awa whānau and hapū, and the whānau of our school hapori.”

Nearby Apanui School said Te Tiriti o Waitangi was the foundation of its strategic plan.

“We work in partnership with Ngāti Awa to ensure Māori aspirations guide our curriculum, culture and decision-making,” Alexandra Pickles said on behalf of the school board.

“Apanui School will continue to uphold Māori rights as tangata whenua and to enact Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a living, practical foundation of all we do.”

“This is not only our legal responsibility but also our moral and educational one. We stand firmly in this position.”

In Ōtautahi Christchurch, Somerfield Te Kura Wairepo said the removal of the clause would not change its priorities.

“Our commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi remains unwavering,” presiding member Lucy Green said.

“The principles of partnership, protection, and participation are core to our responsibilities and integral to success in our kura.”

Another school in Ōtautahi, Ao Tawhiti Unlimited Discovery, responded to the changes by learning a new waiata Māori for staff and students.

“The Board and staff at Ao Tawhiti Unlimited Discovery would like to reinforce our commitment to valuing our bicultural heritage” the kura wrote on Facebook.

“We will continue to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

In a letter seen by RNZ, the New Zealand Catholic Education Office (NZCEO) also reaffirmed its support for Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Chief Executive Dr Kevin Shore encouraged Catholic schools to continue giving effect to Te Tiriti, embedding tikanga Māori, te reo Māori, and local mātauranga Māori into school policies, curriculum, and daily life.

“Catholic education in New Zealand has a long history of support for tangata whenua and for the inclusion of tikanga and te reo within the culture and practice of our schools,” he said.

The letter outlined practical steps for Catholic schools, including developing community understanding of te ao Māori, recognising Māori as tangata whenua, consulting with local Māori communities, and embedding Māori spiritual and cultural practices into school life.

Lawyer and Māori rights advocate Tania Waikato has been compiling a list of kura who have publicly reaffirmed their commitment to Te Tiriti, and as of 13 November the list had reached 195 schools.

Waikato said this response shows that the government had “failed” to remove Te Tiriti, and she expected the list to grow.

“The people are speaking. Not the politicians, not the activists, the people,” she said.

“They are telling you again, that we will not dishonour Te Tiriti, because Te Tiriti protects us all.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Kāinga Ora has acknowledged it breached the privacy of tenants, after the email addresses of more than a thousand Auckland tenants were exposed in a group email.

On Monday, the agency sent out an email asking how tenants would like to receive future correspondence.

Kāinga Ora said the tenants’ email addresses were mistakenly entered into the recipients’ line, instead of being blind carbon copied (BCC), which would’ve concealed their inboxes.

“We are providing additional training to help prevent these types of incidents,” said Taina Jones, the regional director for Auckland North and West.

Kāinga Ora said it’d notified the office of the privacy commissioner, and was contacting those who received the email to apologise for any disruption this error may have caused.

Earlier, a tenant told RNZ they’d been continuously receiving responses from other tenants who’d been included in the same email, and that it’d been flooding their inbox.

The tenant said when they clicked on some of the email addresses, they could see people’s numbers as well.

However, Kāinga Ora said no other tenant information was exposed, other than the email addresses.

The privacy commissioner’s office said it expected Kāinga Ora to investigate the breach, and any harm caused.

“OPC can confirm that Kāinga Ora has been in contact with us to talk through their situation,

“We will continue to work with Kāinga Ora as it investigates further the privacy breach, including ensuring they are aware of their legal obligations in relation to a privacy breach that either has caused or is likely to cause anyone serious harm,

“We would expect Kāinga Ora to provide any further detail they would want to share in relation to this,” it said in a statement.

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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 Northern Territory police officer recruiting in New Zealand says the officers he’s spoken to love their jobs but are looking for a different challenge in life.

The Northern Territory Police Force’s recruitment push is underway in Auckland this week, and will also be carrying out interviews in Rotorua, Napier, Wellington and Christchurch over the next few weeks.

Acting superintendent Serge Bouma said they’ve interviewed about 17 candidates in Auckland since Monday – half of which are current serving officers.

He said the officers come from various experience levels, ranging between three to ten years of experience.

Bouma said since 2023, they’ve recruited 87 experienced officers for the Northern Territory, and 60 of them have come from New Zealand.

He said on average, the Northern Territory recruits about 30 officers from New Zealand each year – over two tranches of recruitment drives per year.

Bouma said most of the Kiwi officers he’s interviewed are passionate about their jobs.

“We’re really really noticing first off, that there’s not a single police officer we’ve interviewed here or in the past, NZ police officers, who hasn’t said that they love their job, love their organisation, they’re all very very happy in their job, in their organisation.

“A lot of them are looking for a different challenge in their life, they’re looking for new opportunities, a new adventure in a different place, some other rewarding career development opportunities that potentially a smaller policing organisation like ours can provide,” he said.

Bouma said while they offer more attractive pay – about $130,000 a year for an experienced officer, not inclusive of accommodation allowance – he’s interested in candidates who are not just in it for the money.

“I don’t want people where money is their sole motivator, policing is a very tough job, we need people that are passionate about policing and we need people to understand what policing in the Northern Territory is like,” he said.

Bouma said officers need to be prepared to work in isolated areas, where they could be one of two officers in a remote community.

He said they needed to be ready to work in high temperatures, and to respond to natural disasters.

The Northern Territory expected to have numerous cyclones every wet season, and officers at smaller stations would be involved in coordinating evacuations and doing water rescues, Bouma said.

He said they would also need to have an awareness of the cultural considerations in the Northern Territory, where about 30 percent of the population are first nation Australians – the indigenous people of Australia.

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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 man owing $28,000 in victim reparations has been remanded in custody following a string of thefts from tourists’ vehicles across Canterbury.

Police were alerted to a break-in of a campervan at Castle Hill last month, one of multiple reports of a similar nature.

On Wednesday, the 38-year-old was found in the Selywn district and arrested.

He has been charged with theft of more than a thousand dollars from a vehicle, and remanded in custody until next month.

The courts have seized the man’s vehicle to help pay towards the reparations owing.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Four people have been injured in a two-vehicle crash that earlier shut a major highway north of New Plymouth.

Two people are in a critical condition and the other two are in a serious condition.

They have been taken to Taranaki Hospital.

Emergency services are at the scene on Devon Road (SH3) Sentry Hill.

The road has reopened after earlier closing due to the crash.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The death of a Hastings woman last month is now being treated as a homicide.

Emergency services were sent to a house in Kotuku Street in Camberley on 29 October and found the body of a 37-year-old woman.

Inspector Martin James said police believe people have information about the death.

“A committed team of detectives has been assigned to the investigation, including additional staff from other districts.

“We believe there are people in our community who have vital information about this matter and the people involved.

“We urge them to come forward and speak to us.”

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