NZ Engine

November 30, 2025

316 new beds for Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison as prison population hits new peak

Source: New Zealand Government

Two new high security units will be built at Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison to help keep criminals off the street and keep Kiwis safe, says Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell.

“With the prison population increasing due to the governments strong measures on law-and-order, these two new units will add more capacity and resilience to our prison system.”

“The design and build agreement was signed on Friday 31 October 2025 with contractor Naylor Love and construction work on the 316 beds will start next month. They are due to be finished and fully operational in early 2027,” Mr Mitchell says.

“Eighty-six per cent of prisoners have convictions for violence or sexual crimes in their offending histories and 38 per cent of prisoners have a gang affiliation.

“Our work to restore law and order is paying off. New Zealand’s prison population has increased by 1,911 since October 2023 and this growth is projected to continue as we remain focused on keeping violent criminals off the street. Its no coincidence that we have 38,000 fewer victims of violent crime compared to last year. Corrections is well prepared for this and operational capacity currently exceeds the prison population.”

The new units at Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison will deliver an accelerated increase in capacity ahead of further work underway to ensure New Zealand’s prison system has the capacity it needs going forward.

This includes the new facility at Waikeria Prison opened earlier this year which added 500 high-security beds to the national prison network alongside 96 dedicated beds for mental health and addiction services. Additional projects underway at Waikeria Prison and Christchurch Men’s Prison will further increase capacity by more than 1,000 beds in 2029.

“We also have nearly 900 additional Corrections Officers working on the frontline since the launch of Corrections’ highly successful recruitment campaign in February 2024. The campaign has attracted around 150,000 applications, and Corrections has halved its turnover rate in just two years.” says Mr Mitchell.

“Taking these steps now ensures Corrections is in a strong position to safely manage future growth of the prison population and keep Kiwis safe from violent offenders.”

Note to editors:

Corrections is self-funding the new units at Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison through the department’s existing budget. No additional funding has been required for this work.
Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison currently has an operational capacity of 755. The two new units will bring this to 1,071 when they open in 2027.
The new prison population peak was 10,911 on 28 November 2025. The prison population fluctuates daily due to arrests, releases, prisoner movements and court decisions.

November 30, 2025

Jetstar Airbus A320 jets resume flying, Air NZ still grounded

Source: Radio New Zealand

Disruptions will likely continue though as airlines deal with a backlog of flights. 123RF

Airbus A320 software updates have been completed on all New Zealand based Jetstar aircraft, while Air New Zealand’s fleet remain grounded with further flight cancellations possible.

About 6000 Airbus A320 aircraft around the world are affected by a recall for a software upgrade.

Airline passengers around New Zealand have been caught up in cancellations. Disruptions will likely continue as airlines deal with a backlog of flights.

Air New Zealand’s chief safety and risk officer Nathan McGraw said about 20 flight cancellations were expected, with the flight schedule expected to return to normal on Monday.

Jetstar’s chief pilot and head of flying operations Tyrone Simes said on Saturday swift action had been taken by authorities and the manufacturer.

“I think the authorities in Europe and the manufacturer have done a great job in identifying this issue very promptly, they’ve issued a directive within 24 hours of the anomaly being identified.”

Jetstar have already cancelled approximately 90 flights.

Air New Zealand’s affected customers are able to make one free change within seven days of their original travel date, hold the value of their fare in credit for twelve months, or request a refund, including for non-refundable fares.

While Jetstar said their teams were working on options and were contacting affected customers directly.

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

November 30, 2025

Government trialling new drone tech in push to eradicate bovine TB

Source: Radio New Zealand

Drones allowed teams to access remote areas, detect possum populations and pinpoint exactly where people needed to be deployed, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says. Supplied

The government is trialling new technology to better control possum populations as part of its push to eradicate bovine tuberculosis.

The disease in cattle and deer herds is spread mainly by possums and can cause serious production losses and animal welfare issues.

Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard said drone and thermal imaging technology was being trialled in central Otago by disease eradication agency OSPRI to detect possums in rugged, hard-to reach terrain.

“New Zealand farmers and taxpayers have invested millions of dollars in the control, and eventual eradication of this disease, but we must finish the job, it all comes down to controlling and monitoring possum numbers. This new technology is expected to give a major boost to this work,” he said.

Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard. RNZ / Mark Papalii

“This drone technology represents a real step-change in how we approach possum control in some of New Zealand’s most challenging terrain.”

Hoggard said the Central Otago trial site was selected because it was considered a hot spot for TB eradication, and was known to have a higher-than-average possum population.

Drones allowed teams to access remote areas, detect possum populations and pinpoint exactly where people needed to be deployed, he said.

“To eradicate bovine TB, we have to eradicate enough of the possums for the disease to be unable to exist in a possum population.

“Many farmers today may not remember the terrible situation that existed back in the late 70’s through to the early 90’s where thousands of herds had TB infections, I remember as a child the anguish and cost this caused my parents whenever an infected cow was found in our herd,” he said.

“We only need to look across to the UK and Ireland nowadays to see how much this matters, particularly the mental strain this disease can cause on farmers. That’s why it’s so important that we finish the job.”

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

November 30, 2025

What’s feeding our fascination with murder mysteries?

Source: Radio New Zealand

You settle down on the couch, maybe under a blanket or with a snack, and turn on the TV.

What you’re really craving right now is to watch something with a juicy puzzle to solve — maybe about a murder.

Despite a world filled with grim headlines, audiences are consistently drawn to murder-mystery shows. While crime dramas explore darker themes, a classic whodunnit offers something more playful and won’t leave you feeling that society is doomed.

While murder mystery shows are playful, other crime genres are more serious.

RNZ / Patrice Allen

Source: Radio New Zealand

In early November New Zealand music icon Don McGlashan (The Mutton Birds, The Front Lawn, Blam Blam Blam) gave the inaugural Lilburn Lecture at Wellington’s National Library. Here’s an edited version of his words.

I go swimming a lot. Either where I live half of the year, with my lovely wife Ann in Vancouver – in a place called English Bay, or, when I’m back in Auckland, the other half of the year at Point Chevalier or one of the tidal mud-flat bays on the Titirangi shore.

Although I’m a fairly confident swimmer, I always feel fear at that first dive: pushing off, and then coming up, breast-stroking.

The childlike fear of what’s underneath; what snag I might hit; what aquatic creature might come up and bite me; what clammy weeds might brush against me. Then pushing through that fear and feeling the joy of moving in a new medium.

This video is hosted on Youtube.

.The initial fear of coming up with something hackneyed and useless. Then, on a good day, there’s the blessed transformation as I realise that I’m moving in a new medium that was threatening before, but is now bearing me along on its own current.

Then there’s water as a metaphor for the subconscious.

C.K. Stead, in, I think,“The New Poetic; Yeats to Eliot”, talks about the subconscious as being where all the good stuff comes from.The clear way we see the world, our own authentic voice. But we have no control over when that good stuff is going to be obliging and come out. All we can do is to keep our tools sharp so that when it does arrive, we can go to work on it effectively.

So we live on the surface, but the subconscious is below us, available to us.

As writers, we tap into the subconscious every time we reach a fork in the road. “Shall I do it this way, or that way?” When we make a choice, and the subconscious agrees, there’s a satisfying click – like the door of an expensive European car closing.

I also sometimes see bodies of water as representing our relationship with time.

The future is like the sky. The past is underwater, and the present is what’s in between: the surface of the sea, the lake, the river; the tiny skin between two vast elements. It’s a cramped space, but that’s where we live, sliding along, trying not to capsize. The future is unknowable, unattainable; in the present we’re too busy to concentrate on anything but our immediate concerns, so, in terms of raw materials, that only leaves us with the past, which is like a lake that’s been formed by a hydro scheme. Streets, trees, empty buildings; ghostly, dark, washed by invisible currents. We can dive in there and see what we can find.

This video is hosted on Youtube.

Then there’s the real sea around us, here in Aotearoa.

Not a metaphor, just a real thing. Very wet, very big. A unimaginable challenge for the brilliant Polynesian navigators who first found these islands, a leap into the unknown for the Pakeha families who were pushed by social injustice at home, and pulled by the false advertising of outfits like the New Zealand Company – and now a barrier between us and the world, keeping us a long way away from everything, while keeping us relatively safe from invaders. So far, anyway.

It has a huge impact on the music industry here. If you’re in a band in Belgium, you can load your gear in a van and drive to many countries. You can’t do that so easily in Aotearoa.

The sea, for New Zealanders, is like Outer Space.

So we have a deep, respectful, existential fear of it – and we should.

Our sense of the emptiness out there should make all of us more acutely aware of the need to look after this country of ours. This raft we’re all clinging to is the only one we’re got.

But the sea is also something we love. We swim, surf, paddle, dive, fish in it, walk beside it, sail boats on it, pay an arm and a leg to live anywhere near it. But whether we’re playing in it, or just standing, looking at it and wondering, we need it. It’s deep inside us, like the plains are for Albertans, or the mountains for Tibetans. That unlikely combination of a very sensible fear, and a paradoxical love, makes us who we are.

This video is hosted on Youtube.

New islands, new possibilities

I started this talk with the notion of bodies of water being like the subconscious, from which come ideas that we can make into art to help us answer the important questions.

Or like a representation of past, present and future.

Or a metaphor for the fear of the unknown that I feel when I’m starting a new song.

Or the very real, un-metaphorical barrier between Aotearoa and the rest of the world.

There’s another way of looking at bodies of water though. They’re where Islands can be found.

About 16 years ago I was showing an overseas musician around Auckland – we were driving around the Eastern Bays to Karaka Bay, a hidden place I go to sometimes when I have a few hours to sit and get my bearings. I was giving my friend a commentary on the Gulf and the islands and how we are shaped by the landscape around us in the choreography of sea and land, and I also talked about Rangitoto and how it suddenly appeared less than 1000 years ago.

I was feeling a bit lost, my marriage was breaking up, and towards the end of the day, I must have said something pessimistic about not being able to see the future and where I fitted into it. And he said “You never know, though. New islands might appear suddenly without warning”

New islands; new possibilities. You might find them – “simply by sailing in a new direction” as Allen Curnow said – or they might appear suddenly out of the sea like Rangitoto – violent, rough on your feet, but somehow miraculous.

This video is hosted on Youtube.

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

Posts

316 new beds for Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison as prison population hits new peak

Jetstar Airbus A320 jets resume flying, Air NZ still grounded

Government trialling new drone tech in push to eradicate bovine TB

What’s feeding our fascination with murder mysteries?

What’s feeding our fascination?

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