NZ Engine

Source: Radio New Zealand

Multiple fire crews are battling a blaze that’s engulfed a workshop in Eskdale, north of Napier.

Emergency services were called to the rural Seafield Road property about 1.20pm.

Fire and Emergency says it has five fire trucks and two water tankers working in the building that is about the size of a three bay garage.

It could not say whether anyone was injured.

St John confirmed it was at the scene.

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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 they recovered a body from the Waioweka River on Tuesday morning after a search for a man who was swept downstream after falling from a boat in the Bay of Plenty town of Ōpōtiki last month.

Inspector Nicky Cooney, Eastern Bay of Plenty Area Commander, said the body was recovered from the river at about 9am.

“This has been a long slow search, hindered at times by the weather as well as impacted by the slips on SH2,” Cooney said in a statement.

Police earlier said that they were called out at about 5.30pm on Friday 23 January after reports that a man had fallen from a boat and a search of the area was carried out with a vessel found nearby.

Cooney thanked all those who assisted in the search efforts including Land SAR volunteers, local jet boat and helicopter operators, the Police National Dive Squad and iwi whose knowledge of the river and surrounding terrain had been invaluable.

The formal identification process is underway, and the man’s death has been referred to the Coroner.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The defence for a District Court Judge accused of disrupting an NZ First event has told a judicial conduct panel the affair has been blown “out of all proportion”.

Judge Ema Aitken was appearing before the panel in Auckland on Tuesday, accused of disrupting a function at Auckland’s exclusive Northern Club in 2024.

She was accused of shouting that NZ First leader Winston Peters was lying.

Judge Aitken said she did not shout, did not recognise Peters’ voice when she responded to remarks she overheard and did not know it was a political event.

Her lawyer, David Jones, KC, opened his case by praising the judge’s career, describing her as diligent and a judge of principle.

He explained why the judge continued to fight the allegations.

“She is a judge of principle, and she is a judge of integrity, and she is not going to resign over something that she did not do,” he said.

Jones maintained Judge Aitken did not know it was Winston Peters speaking at the Northern Club, and that she was unaware of the political context when she made her comments.

Jones raised the concern of handing the acting attorney-general a ‘loaded gun’ if they found consideration of removal was justified.

Special Counsel Tim Stephens, KC, had said on Monday final say on removal of the judge fell with acting Attorney-General Paul Goldsmith.

Jones pointed to the fact that Goldsmith was a politician.

“Now, it’s been said, well, the attorney-general has to act lawfully,” he said.

“We have the very real political context of the complaint generated by, it seems, a political situation, and all of the issues that have been raised about the reports in the media, they are all political issues,” he said.

“So, this is a politicized situation, not of the judge’s making, but of others, and what you have is a situation where in the current climate, for example it’s an election year, we have coalition issues that obviously are going to be concerning some people, and the attorney-general, if he gets the loaded gun from the panel, what considerations will come into play there?”

Jones said the emphasis of the panel had to be on fairness, natural justice, and fitness for office.

Comments ‘rude’, justifies consideration of removal

Presenting the allegations of misconduct to the panel, Stephens said the panel was responsible for reporting on the judge’s conduct, finding the facts, and ultimately recommending if the judge should be removed.

He continued his opening from Monday, addressing the allegations Judge Aitken faced, and what happened on that night in 2024.

He started by providing political context on leading up to the alleged disturbance, leading with a complaint made by lawyer Gary Judd, KC, over compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students.

The complaint was supported by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters who said teaching tikanga was “cultural indoctrination”.

A select committee largely rejected a complaint in April last year.

The next piece of context Stephens gave was the haka that broke out in Parliament following the vote for the Treaty Principles Bill.

Stephens referenced NZ First MP Casey Costello, who at the time had said NZ First would only support the bill to first reading.

Minister Costello is expected to be called as a witness before the judicial conduct panel.

On the night in question, Stephens said Judge Aitken had been attending a function for district court judges, while at the same time, a NZ First event was taking place in another part of the Northern Club.

Stephens said part of Winston Peters’ speech at that event mentioned both the teaching of tikanga at law school, as well as the party’s position on the Treaty Principles Bill.

“The allegations that I make or that I present are that while the deputy prime minister was speaking, Judge Aitken interrupted him in the New Zealand First dinner by heckling the deputy prime minister, accusing the deputy prime minister of lying and being a liar, saying that the deputy prime minister’s comments were disgusting…”

In the wake of the incident, Stephens said Judge Aitken wrote to NZ First apologising for what happened.

He told the panel a key fact finding part of their job would be determining when the judge realised the speaker at the event was Peters and if she knew it was a NZ First event.

It was Stephens submission that Judge Aitken’s behaviour was rude, and brought the judiciary into conflict with the executive branch of government.

“I will submit that even if the judge didn’t know that the speaker was the deputy prime minister at the exact point in time or prior to when she made her comments, my submission will be that her conduct seen in the round still justifies consideration of removal,” he said.

Disclosure issue clarified

The second day of the hearing begun with the panel addressing concerns from David Jones, KC, about what he described as undisclosed evidence claimed from Special Counsel.

Lead panellist Brendan Brown, KC, explained they had received an application from Judge Aitken just before Waitangi weekend, seeking disclosure of witness material.

The panel directed Special Counsel to disclose relevant documents to the judge, which Stephens stated he had already made all such disclosures.

The panellist also defined what the word ‘document’, and the reference to a ‘document authored’ meant, as raised by Jones on Monday.

Brown said the purpose of his clarification was to comply the rules of natural justice.

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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 rule change that electrical inspectors say elevates the risk of people being electrocuted is being reviewed.

The change – made late last year – lifted a ban on inserting a switch, circuit or fuse into mains power earthing systems in houses and businesses.

The Electrical Inspectors Association wrote to the government a week ago, asking it to intervene with Worksafe.

Energy Minister Simon Watts said he took feedback from stakeholders seriously.

“The regulatory amendment lays the foundation for future measures to ensure electric vehicle charging meets safety expectations, and allow for improved disaster resilience,” Watts said in a statement.

WorkSafe’s Energy Safety team had commissioned an independent review by an international expert to provide assurance on their advice to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which instituted the rule change.

Worksafe issued initial guidance to the industry and had said it was working on further technical guidance on protective earth neutral conductor (PEN) switching.

The inspectors’ letter on 29 January said they had failed to persuade Worksafe.

“The PEN conductor is the single most important wire in any electrical installation,” they wrote.

If it was broken or ‘switched-off’, the installation’s earth moved up toward a phase voltage.

“This is very dangerous and can result in multiple fatalities. Now, a compliant New Zealand electrical installation with no faults present can now be lethal.”

They offered to provide a tabletop demonstration of this and for Worksafe to demonstrate the converse if it could.

“Please use independent thought and guidance when replying to this issue as we believe WorkSafe is in ‘cover-up’ mode,” association president Warren Willets wrote to Workplace Safety Minister Brooke van Velden, who transferred it to Watts.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The Australian white supremacist who massacred 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques was pleased to be charged with committing terrorism, the Court of Appeal has heard.

Convicted murderer and terrorist Brenton Tarrant made the admission to one of his lawyers after being advised of the charge in May 2019.

The 35-year-old wants to vacate his guilty pleas for the 15 March 2019 terror attacks at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre and stand trial instead.

In March 2020, the gunman pleaded guilty at the High Court to 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of committing a terrorist act.

He was jailed for life without parole in August 2020.

The terrorist’s former lawyers Jonathan Hudson and Shane Tait, who represented him from late March 2019 until July 2020, gave evidence at a Court of Appeal hearing in Wellington on Tuesday morning.

Lawyers representing the terrorist at the Court of Appeal have name suppression.

During an exchange with a lawyer known only as counsel B, Hudson said the terrorist gave surprising responses to being advised of a 51st charge of murder and a charge of terrorism being laid against him.

Hudson’s affidavit described an “extremely unusual response” to the final murder charge.

“It wasn’t the response I had expected,” Hudson told the court, although he did not elaborate.

Hudson also detailed the gunman’s response to being advised of the terrorism charge in late May 2019.

“He was pleased,” he said.

“He wanted to be described as a terrorist.”

Hudson told the court the terrorist expressed a willingness to immediately plead guilty to the charge of terrorism, while at the same time maintaining a desire to plead not guilty to the murder and attempted murder charges.

The terrorist pleaded not guilty to all charges in June 2019 and contacted Hudson on 31 July 2019 when he expressed a desire to plead guilty.

Hudson said the terrorist’s change of heart came as a surprise.

Two days later Hudson met the terrorist in prison and read a letter outlining the pleas and the case against him.

There was no change in the terrorist’s demeanour, Hudson said.

Four days later the terrorist had another change of heart shortly before he was due to formally enter his pleas in court.

Hudson received the news via a phone call from the terrorist.

“We only had 20 minutes before the scheduled teleconference with the judge,” Hudson told the court.

“I went to visit him at the prison afterwards to confirm his instructions.”

Guilty plea

Asked by counsel B if he found the terrorist’s changing mind to be “illogical or irrational”, Hudson said he attributed it to “the seriousness of the punishment he faced if he went through with the guilty plea”.

Hudson had made the terrorist aware he faced life imprisonment without parole regardless of whether he pleaded guilty or not.

Tait and Hudson told the court the terrorist always intended to plead guilty.

“He was consistent that he was going to plead guilty but he was inconsistent as to when he would plead guilty,” Hudson said.

Tait said he advised the terrorist he had no defence in law, the evidence against him was overwhelming and he accepted that advice and intended to plead guilty.

He said the terrorist had raised wanting to claim he was defending New Zealand from overpopulation from migrant communities.

“I made it clear that defence was not available to him,” Tait said.

Tait advised the terrorist that there was a possible defence to the terrorism charge because no-one had been convicted of the offence at the time.

“To be clear Mr Tarrant never wanted to defend the terrorism charge. It was something he wanted to be convicted of,” he said.

Tait and Hudson continued preparing for trial on the basis it might proceed.

As part of their preparation, Tait advised the terrorist to seek a change in venue for trial.

That application was quite advanced before the terrorist abandoned it, although Tait was not surprised.

“It was just another attempt for him to try to control the proceedings,” he told the court.

“I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t happy but I envisaged he may attempt to do something like that.

“His explanation is he didn’t want to be seen to be running away from the trauma he had caused the community.”

Tarrant’s extreme ideology seemed to be “more important to him than any idea of fair trial rights”, Tait said.

The court heard the terrorist had regularly ignored the advice of his lawyers, including in his desire to give a statement to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the attack.

The terrorist gave evidence to the court on Monday, in his first public remarks since the 2019 mass shooting.

During his evidence he claimed he always intended on dismissing his lawyers, going to trial and representing himself.

He felt “forced” to plead guilty in March 2020 because of his deteriorating mental state and his fear he would make a fool of himself at trial.

His argument for vacating his guilty pleas amounted to the terrorist claiming he was incapable of making a rational decision at the time because of the solitary nature of confinement.

Hudson and Tait disputed the terrorist’s claim he had raised dismissing them.

Tait said the terrorist had only ever discussed representing himself at sentencing.

Tait recalled regularly pressing the terrorist for an arguable defence to take to trial and the terrorist made clear he was going to plead guilty, it was just a matter of when.

“Brenton what am I going to tell a jury?,” Tait recalled asking the terrorist.

“Don’t worry, it won’t get to that,” he said the terrorist would respond.

The terrorist, who is housed in the specialist prisoners of extreme risk unit at Auckland Prison, told the court on Monday any remorse he had expressed before his August 2020 sentencing was because of his isolation and poor mental state.

“I did express some remorse. I would now say that was induced by the prison conditions, I was irrational,” the terrorist told the court.

“It was actually real but it was induced by the prison conditions inducing the irrationality.”

The hearing is set down for five days.

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