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Are You Dead? China’s viral app reveals a complex reality of solo living and changing social ties

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pan Wang, Associate Professor in Chinese and Asian Studies, UNSW Sydney

Qianlong / AP

A Chinese personal safety app called Are You Dead? – recently rebranded as Demumu – has gone viral in recent weeks, attracting widespread media attention.

Behind its sudden popularity lie deeper social transformations, including demographic shifts and changing personal and family relationships. At the same time, demand is growing for trust-based, non-medical, easy-to-use care networks tailored to the rapid rise of one-person households.

Demumu also shows how digital technologies are not only responding to everyday safety concerns but also reshaping social and cultural norms. As traditional kinship ties and community support structures weaken, technology is stepping in to fill – and capitalise on – the gaps.

Demumu’s virality: from local to global

In mid-2025, with a development cost of around 1,500 yuan (US$210), three young Chinese professionals from Moonscape Technologies launched a personal safety app called Are You Dead?.

The app was designed to address the safety concerns of China’s growing population of people who live alone. As described on its official store page, the app aims to “protect every solitary moment with simple solutions and build a solid safety line for solo living”.

Users are prompted to click an on-screen button daily or fortnightly via their smartphone to verify they are alive. If a user fails to do so, the system automatically sends email alerts to two nominated emergency contacts.

Shortly after the app’s release, it went viral and quickly became the most downloaded paid app in China. A 10% stake in the company reportedly increased in value from 1 million yuan (US$140,000) to nearly 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) within three days. This suggests an overall valuation of close to 100 million yuan (US$14 million) for the developer.

In mid-January 2026, the app rebranded as Demumu as part of a global expansion. It has now gained traction in more than 40 countries and ranking near the top in global markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.

China is moving towards smaller families and more individualised lives

The 2020 China Population Census showed there were more than 125 million one-person households in China. That’s one in every four households in the country.

Around two thirds of these solo dwellers are aged between 20 and 59. It is estimated there will be 200 million such households by 2030.

The rapid rise of solo living in China can be attributed to several factors. First, a growing number of “empty nest” older adults. This has been caused by population ageing, and the decline of marriage and fertility while divorce rates rise. These trends have been intensified by longer life expectancy and the legacy of the decades-long One Child Policy.

Second, intimate relationships and family formation have become less attainable for many. Men are often expected to own a home and a car even at the courtship stage, which is increasingly difficult due to rising living costs and high property prices. “Bride prices” – paid by a man’s family to a woman’s before marriage – are also escalating.

Third, large-scale migration from rural to urban areas and between cities has produced many “split households”. Millions of “empty-nest youths” live alone for extended periods under intense work-related pressures before forming or reuniting with families. A common anxiety among this group is “disappearing in loneliness”.

Numerous reports have documented “empty nesters” who died and were only found days, weeks, or even months later, particularly in gated urban communities. These incidents highlight the vulnerabilities associated with solo living, as well as the absence of trust-based safety networks. This is a problem Demumu seeks to address.

Moreover, among younger generations in China – particularly highly educated urban women – attitudes towards marriage and singlehood are shifting. Living alone is increasingly a deliberate choice.

Career development and personal autonomy are becoming higher priorities. Many women wish to avoid taking on a disproportionate share of domestic and caregiving responsibilities.

Solo living: a high-potential market

China’s singles economy is booming, and the market still has significant room to grow.

In major metropolitan centres such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, products and services tailored to people living alone are more and more visible.

These include one-person hotpot restaurants, single-person karaoke booths, and micro-apartments designed for solo dwellers. Compact household appliances such as mini-fridges, coffee machines, and kettles are also readily available, as well as solo travel packages offered by tourism agencies.

A single-person karaoke booth (often called a mini KTV) in a shopping centre in Changping district, Beijing.
These booths are commonly installed in shopping malls, entertainment complexes, and commercial streets.
Pan Wang, CC BY

Companionship of various kinds is also on offer. Owning pets – particularly dogs and cats – often plays an important role in the everyday lives of people who live alone.

The intimate services market has also expanded rapidly through digital platforms and smartphone apps. This includes love mentoring and relationship counselling, online dating and digital romance games. AI-powered chatbot companions and humanoid dolls designed to meet the emotional and relational needs of solo dwellers are also becoming more common.

There’s also an emerging niche business known as date-renting. This practice was initially popularised among young “bare branches” seeking to bring a temporary partner home for Lunar New Year family gatherings.

However, date-renting has since evolved into a personalised service economy in which individuals exchange intimacy, companionship, and dating experiences. In the process, dating is transformed into an “emotional commodity,” made visible for public consumption and increasingly shaped by platform profiteering.

Together with the emergence of safety apps such as Demumu, these singles-oriented businesses and technologies are energising China’s solo-driven economy. More importantly, they are also filling the gaps left by shrinking families and increasingly individualised living arrangements. In the process, they are reshaping contemporary social and personal relations and normalising single-centred cultures and lifestyles in everyday life.

Pan Wang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Are You Dead? China’s viral app reveals a complex reality of solo living and changing social ties – https://theconversation.com/are-you-dead-chinas-viral-app-reveals-a-complex-reality-of-solo-living-and-changing-social-ties-274536

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/30/are-you-dead-chinas-viral-app-reveals-a-complex-reality-of-solo-living-and-changing-social-ties-274536/

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We know how to cool our cities and towns. So why aren’t we doing it?

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By A/Prof. Elmira Jamei, Associate professor, Victoria University

This week, Victoria recorded its hottest day in nearly six years. On Tuesday, the northwest towns of Walpeup and Hopetoun reached 48.9°C, and the temperature in parts of Melbourne soared over 45°C. Towns in South Australia also broke heat records.

This heatwave is not an outlier. It is a warning shot.

These weather conditions rival the extreme heat seen in the lead-up to the 2019–20 Black Summer, and they point to a future in which days like this are no longer rare, but routine.

What makes this summer so confronting is not just how hot it has been, but this: Australia already knows how to cool cities, yet we are failing to do it. Why?

Urban heat is not inevitable

Cities heat up faster and stay hotter than surrounding areas because of how they are built. Dense development, dark road surfaces, limited shade, and buildings that trap heat and rely heavily on air-conditioning create the “urban heat island” effect.

This means cities absorb vast amounts of heat during the day and release it slowly at night, preventing the city from cooling down even after sunset. During heatwaves, this trapped heat accumulates day after day and pushes temperatures well beyond what people can safely tolerate.

Future urbanisation is expected to amplify projected urban heat, irrespective of background climate conditions. Global climate change is making the urban heat island effect worse, but much of the heat we experience in cities has been built in through decades of planning and design choices.

Hot cities are not only a result of climate change, they are also a failure of urban planning.
zpagistock/Getty

Heat is a health and equity crisis

Heatwaves already kill more than 1,100 Australians each year, more than any other natural hazard. Extreme heat increases the risk of heart and respiratory disease, worsens chronic illness, disrupts sleep and overwhelms health services.

Poorly designed and inadequately insulated homes, particularly in rental and social housing can become heat traps. People on low incomes are least able to afford effective cooling, pushing many into energy debt or forcing them to endure dangerously high temperatures.
Urban heat deepens existing inequalities. Those who contributed least to the problem often bear the greatest burden.

Australia has expertise, but not ambition

Here is the paradox. Australia is a major contributor to global research on urban heat. Australian researchers are developing national tools to measure and mitigate urban heat, and studies from cities such as Melbourne have quantified urban heat island intensity and investigated how urban design can influence heat stress.

Additionally, Australia already has the technologies to cool cities, from reflective coatings and heat-resilient pavements to advanced shading systems. Yet many of our cities remain dangerously hot. The issue isn’t a lack of solutions, but the failure to roll them out at scale.

Internationally, we are lagging behind countries where large-scale heat mitigation projects are already reducing urban temperatures, cutting energy demand and saving lives.

For example, Paris has adopted a city-wide strategy to create “cool islands”, transforming public spaces and schoolyards into shaded, cooler places that reduce heat stress during heatwaves.

In China, the Sponge City program, now implemented in cities such as Shenzhen and Wuhan, uses green infrastructure and water-sensitive design to cool urban areas and reduce heat stress.

Paris has a city-wide strategy to create cool zones by transforming public spaces into shaded environments.
42 North/Unsplash, CC BY

Symbolic change can’t meet the challenge

Too often, urban heat policy stops at small, symbolic actions, a pocket park here, a tree-planting program there. These measures are important, but they are not sufficient for the scale of the challenge.

Greening cities is essential. Trees cool streets, improve thermal comfort and deliver multiple health and environmental benefits. But greenery has limits. If buildings remain poorly insulated, roads continue to absorb heat and cooling demand keeps rising, trees alone will not protect cities from extreme temperatures in the coming decades.

Urban heat is a complex systems problem. It emerges from how cities are built, and is largely shaped by construction materials, building codes, transport systems and planning decisions locked in over generations. Scientists know a great deal about how to reduce urban heat, but many responses remain piecemeal and intuitive rather than systemic.

Designing an uncomfortable future

Research suggests that even if global warming is limited to below 2°C, heatwaves in major Australian cities could approach 50°C by 2040. At those temperatures, emergency responses alone will not be enough. Beyond certain temperature thresholds, behaviour change, public warnings and cooling centres cannot fully protect people.

The choices we make now about buildings, streets, materials and energy systems will determine whether Australian cities become increasingly unliveable, or remain places where people can safely live, work and age.

The battle against urban heat will be won or lost through design, technology, innovation and political will. Cities need to deploy advanced cool materials across roofs, buildings and roads, in combination with nature-based solutions. This will only work if governments use incentives to reward heat-safe design. Heat must be planned for systematically, not treated as a cosmetic problem.

With leadership and a handful of well-designed, large-scale projects, Australia could shift from laggard to leader. We have the science. We have the industry. We have the solutions. The heat is here. The only real question is whether we act, or keep absorbing it.

A/Prof. Elmira Jamei does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. We know how to cool our cities and towns. So why aren’t we doing it? – https://theconversation.com/we-know-how-to-cool-our-cities-and-towns-so-why-arent-we-doing-it-273341

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/30/we-know-how-to-cool-our-cities-and-towns-so-why-arent-we-doing-it-273341/

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‘Bold’. ‘Elegant’. ‘Introverted’? How words describing wine get lost in translation

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allison Creed, Lecturer and Curriculum Designer, Cognitive Linguistics, The University of Melbourne

karelnoppe/Getty

I recently watched a participant at a wine tasting freeze when asked for their opinion. “It’s … nice?” they ventured, clearly wanting to say more but lacking the specific vocabulary to do so.

The sommelier quickly intervened, noting the wine was “quite elegant, with beautiful structure.” The participant simply nodded, and the conversation ended.

Wine is a multi-billion-dollar export commodity, yet industry “winespeak” can actually stop people feeling they can join in conversations about wine. And often words can get lost in translation – or mean something very different – in fast-growing wine markets such as China, Vietnam and Thailand.

My new research systematically reviewed 77 studies on wine language and metaphor. Building on my earlier research tracking how wine metaphors evolve, it reveals a surprising disconnect: the language used to taste and talk about wine does not travel across cultures as smoothly as the industry assumes.

This matters for the wine industry, because wine descriptions directly influence purchasing decisions and overall enjoyment.

Images in English that don’t travel

The problem is not the use of metaphor itself. In their 1980 book, Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue metaphors are essential cognitive tools we use every day, often without even noticing.

When we say a wine has “body” or “backbone,” we draw on our intimate knowledge of physical experience to make sense of taste and texture. This is how human language works.

The problem is when metaphors fail to travel. Consider “body,” a fundamental concept in English-speaking wine cultures when talking about weight and mouthfeel.

Research shows even native English speakers interpret “body” differently. Some believe it refers to flavour, others to texture, still others to alcohol content.

When translated where the word lacks the same associations, confusion multiplies. In Dutch, German, and Hungarian, literal translations (“lichaam”, “Körper”, “test”) trigger awkward anatomical associations. What sounds natural in English reads as bizarre in translation.

The enigma of ‘elegance’

“Elegance” presents a similar challenge. Wine experts across cultures share a core understanding – that a wine is smooth, balanced, refined, or complex. Yet cultural associations can vary.

In Chinese wine reviews, elegance is expressed through mírén (迷人), meaning “charming”, and nèiliǎn (內斂), meaning “introverted”. These are social-aesthetic metaphors that activate entirely different cultural scripts.

This is significant, because wine is what’s called an “experience good”. You cannot judge taste or quality until after you purchase. Consumers rely on descriptions to signal what they are buying.

When metaphors don’t align culturally, the industry is not just failing to communicate but actively eroding people’s trust.

Why some words affect wine ratings

The wine world’s most widespread linguistic habit is anthropomorphism – the attribution of human characteristics.

Industry reviews routinely characterise wines as “shy,” “honest,” or “aggressive”. This is not decorative language; it is cognitive scaffolding.

Describing wine as a person helps us communicate complex sensory perceptions by drawing on our personal experience of human behaviour and emotion.

However, these particular metaphors can carry cultural baggage. Research suggests that wines labelled with feminine terms (such as “delicate” or “elegant”) are perceived as hedonistic products meant for quick consumption, leading consumers to believe they decline at a younger age.

Conversely, wines with masculine descriptors (“powerful”, “bold”) are linked to ageing potential, and receive higher quality ratings.

Although these gendered metaphors might not always hit the price tag directly, they can fundamentally alter if and when a consumer decides to drink the bottle.

Creating better metaphors

As global wine trade increases, industry is eager to connect with new consumers in emerging markets. Yet they often do so using vocabulary rooted in European traditions and Western thinking that do not communicate clearly to international audiences.

Wine marketers find themselves caught between traditional wine language maintaining prestige and authority, and pressure to create new metaphors resonating globally.

The solution is not to stop using metaphors to describe wine – that would be impossible. The question is how metaphors can work inclusively across cultures, rather than carrying cultural baggage that can lead to bias and market undervaluation.

My research suggests a need to rethink how we communicate about wine. This could include writing tasting notes that incorporate more universally understood sensory cues and culturally consistent evaluative language, in addition to traditional expert vocabulary.

Without deliberate attention to how metaphors travel, or fail to travel, across cultures, the gap between expert “winespeak” and consumer understanding will only widen. The industry is not building a Tower of Babel through metaphor itself, but through the assumption that everyone speaks the same metaphorical language.

Allison Creed is affiliated with The University of Melbourne, Wine Communicators of Australia, and the Global Wine Business Institute.

– ref. ‘Bold’. ‘Elegant’. ‘Introverted’? How words describing wine get lost in translation – https://theconversation.com/bold-elegant-introverted-how-words-describing-wine-get-lost-in-translation-274415

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/30/bold-elegant-introverted-how-words-describing-wine-get-lost-in-translation-274415/

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Dog parks are an unexploited arena for a television dramedy – so now we have ABC’s Dog Park

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phoebe Hart, Associate Professor, Film Screen & Animation, Queensland University of Technology

ABC

Raise a paw if your dog ever helped you to meet a new two-legged friend? The premise of ABC’s Dog Park capitalises on the fact pet ownership in Australia is increasing, with canines being the most popular choice.

This rise is sadly commensurate to the rate of social isolation and loneliness experienced in Australia, especially among men.

Enter Roland, played by Dog Park co-creator Leon Ford. Ford, who (according to the press notes on the series) says his own dog makes him nervous, came up with the concept with Matchbox Productions’ Amanda Higgs, best known for spawning the Australian drama series The Secret Life of Us (2001–05).

Roland is a middle aged recluse and all-round grump who has a hard time trusting and/or liking other humans. His sense of dissolution takes a further dip when his estranging wife Emma (Brooke Satchwell) departs for work in the United States, leaving the TAFE career counsellor in charge of his distant teenage daughter Mia (Florence Gladwin) and disdained dog Beattie.

The first turning point of this six-part series occurs when Beattie goes missing and boozehound Roland searches for her at the local park. This is where Roland meets the always sunny Samantha (Celia Pacquola) and a ragtag bunch of overly friendly folks and their fur babies (AKA the Dog Park Divas), all of whom are quite familiar with Beattie already.

From the outset, you can tell it is this diverse pack of dog lovers that are most likely to draw Roland out of his hard, turtle-like shell, and hopefully deliver a few laughs along the way too.

The ensemble cast features a few familiar faces, including Florence Gladwin, Nick Boshier, Ash Flanders, Ras-Samuel, Grace Chow and Elizabeth Alexander.

The series also features a quirky visual style throughout thanks to the off-beat camerawork from director of photography Aaron Farrugia and his team. The rambling and percussive musical score by Bryony Marks is another highlight with some solid licensed music choices as well. I love the title track use of the 1991 indie anthem Don’t Go Now by Aussie rockers Ratcat, but maybe Reg Mombassa and Peter O’Doherty’s Dog Trumpet would be more appropriate?

Doling out life lessons

Dog parks are a relatively novel innovation in town planning. There are many proven benefits to exercising dogs communally, but not unsurprisingly dog parks can also be sites of conflict.

Therefore, I would argue they are an unexploited arena for a television dramedy, although Wilfred (2007–10) sticks out like you-know-whats as a rather surreal and anthropomorphic example of dogs teaching humans a thing or two.

Both Dog Park and Wilfred centre on a hero suffering depression: a tough sell for prime time telly. I struggled to form an attachment to Dog Park’s protagonist, a man who goes out of his way to alienate others and does not seem to know how nor want to help himself, but feel this is a topic worth exploring.

Roland is hard to like – but Beattie is very cute.
ABC

The Dog Park Divas dole out life lessons, trying to help slow Roland’s downhill roll. Their interventions slowly begin to take effect – which gives hope that all humans are ultimately redeemable.

There is another bone to pick. Although much of the action in Dog Park, which was filmed in Melbourne, occurs in a city park, it appeared to me this location doesn’t look too fenced off. These outdoor areas are a hit in many urban centres and city councils around the world because dogs can be safely let off their leashes while the people socialise. Dog Park breaks slightly with reality in that way, but I guess the other 50% of the audience who don’t own a dog would never know.

All this said, Dog Park is tender in a darkly bittersweet way with an underlying thematic of connection and chosen family. The tone of grounded humour with a generous dollop of pathos aligns well with episode one director Matthew Seville’s previous work, which includes the painfully honest Please Like Me (2013–16).

Dog Park continues in this mode and could be a bit hit as well; I predict a TV format adaptation overseas in the not too distant future. An American remake of Wilfred starring Elijah Wood lasted four seasons.

Newcomer director Nina Buxton, fresh from directing episodes of season three of Heartbreak High (2022–), sinks her teeth into three episodes of Dog Park. There is peppery dialogue throughout thanks to screenwriters Penelope Chai, Chloe Wong and Nick Coyle alongside Ford and Higgs. Beattie (played by an unspecified poodle breed named Indie in real life) is pretty cute – and proof dogs really are the superior species.

Dog Park is on ABC and ABC iView from Sunday.

Phoebe Hart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Dog parks are an unexploited arena for a television dramedy – so now we have ABC’s Dog Park – https://theconversation.com/dog-parks-are-an-unexploited-arena-for-a-television-dramedy-so-now-we-have-abcs-dog-park-273458

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/30/dog-parks-are-an-unexploited-arena-for-a-television-dramedy-so-now-we-have-abcs-dog-park-273458/

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New Zealanders missing out on motor neurone disease treatment, study shows

Source: Radio New Zealand

Illustration of motor neuron diseases, showing degeneration of motor neurons in anterior horns of spinal cord. Science Photo Libra via AFP

A low uptake of New Zealanders with motor neurone disease are using the only publicly-funded treatment available for the disease, a new study shows.

Motor neurone disease (MND) was a fatal, rapidly progressing neurodegenerative disease that deprived people of their ability to move, talk, and eventually breathe.

The only Medsafe-funded treatment available for the most common variant of the disease, known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), was a riluzole tablet.

A research paper was published in the New Zealand Medical Journal on Friday.

Research showed 48 percent of research participants with ALS took riluzole, a lower uptake seen overseas.

Four European ALS centres showed an 83 percent uptake while an Australian MND survey recorded 76 percent usage.

The study was led by Motor Neurone Disease New Zealand (MND NZ) research advisor Dr Natalie Gauld, and neurologists Dr James Cleland and Dr Sarah Buchanan.

Participants, who were not taking riluzole, said they were either worried about its effectiveness or side effects, had not been offered or prescribed it, or had never heard of it.

People with swallowing issues (bulbar onset) were less likely to be prescribed riluzole, underlining a need for the liquid form to be introduced in New Zealand, researchers said.

“As lead investigator on this research and a person living with motor neurone disease, it has been concerning to see our riluzole uptake is so low when compared internationally.

“I believe it is vital for everyone with ALS to have access to liquid riluzole and the right information about its life-extending properties to aid uptake in New Zealand,” Gauld said.

Recent research showed, on average, riluzole extended survival by seven to 11 months, Gauld said.

“This is meaningful for those living with this fast-progressing terminal disease and their whānau. Earlier riluzole trials only showed a median increased survival of 2 to 3 months compared to a placebo.”

The average life expectancy of the disease was two to three years after diagnosis, with 50 percent of people dying within 30 months of the onset of symptoms.

Two people each week in New Zealand were diagnosed with MND.

Dr Natalie Gauld was the project’s lead researcher. Supplied / Motor Neurone Disease New Zealand

Dr Cleland, one of the paper’s co-authors, said he was pleased to see the paper published, which brought benefits to people living with MND in New Zealand.

“This research highlights the strength of collaboration between patients, whānau, and healthcare and research teams. It shows that New Zealand can play a meaningful role in advancing MND research, and we look forward to ongoing partnerships focused on reducing the burden of this devastating disease for New Zealanders,” he said.

“It also highlights the evolving nature of science and the need for clinical practice to adapt as evidence changes over time.”

Dr Gauld and MND NZ chief executive Mark Leggett had contacted Pharmac and Medsafe to ask the government to urgently introduce and fund a liquid form of riluzole in New Zealand.

The findings from Friday’s paper was also presented at a neurological association conference in November last year to raise awareness amongst neurologists.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/01/30/new-zealanders-missing-out-on-motor-neurone-disease-treatment-study-shows/

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Teaching Council to examine actions of ‘everyone involved’ over sex abuse claims against St Bede’s priest

Source: Radio New Zealand

Former St Bede’s College priest Fr Rowan Donoghue arrives at the Christchurch District Court for an appearance on January 28, 2026. Nathan McKinnon / RNZ

The Teaching Council says it will investigate whether mandatory reporting obligations were met over allegations involving a priest now convicted of sexually abusing boys, with its disciplinary process set to examine the actions of “everyone involved”.

It comes after RNZ revealed that the Society of Mary was made aware of allegations against the priest nearly 20 years ago. The religious order was unable to verify the allegations from the anonymous complainant, but removed him from public ministry and enacted a “safety plan”.

RNZ reported on Wednesday that Fr Rowan Donoghue had pleaded guilty to six charges, five of which are representative, including indecent assault on a boy aged 12-16, indecent assault on a boy 16 and over and sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.

The offending related to four boys who were boarding at St Bede’s College in Christchurch between 1996 and 2000.

  • Do you know more? Email sam.sherwood@rnz.co.nz

In response to questions from RNZ, a Teaching Council spokesperson said any situation where a young person had been harmed or made to feel unsafe was “deeply distressing”.

“Our thoughts are with all those affected by this case. No child or young person should ever feel unsafe at school.”

Fr Rowan Donoghue pictured in the 1993 year book. RNZ

In general, the council did not comment on complaints or mandatory reports that had been made to the council.

“However, given the level of public interest, we can confirm that we have been working closely with New Zealand Police since early 2025 in support of their investigation into offending by Mr Donoghue.

“The legal requirement for mandatory reporting to the New Zealand Teachers Council (now the Teaching Council) relating to the dismissal, resignation under investigation, serious misconduct, competence concerns, or specified convictions of teachers was first inserted into the Education Act 1989 by the Education Standards Act 2001 to protect the safety of children and young people in our education system.”

Now the criminal process had concluded, the council’s professional disciplinary process would resume.

“This process will include consideration of whether obligations have been met to report conduct or competence concerns to the council that were known at the time, and appropriate action depending on the findings.”

Asked who the disciplinary process would look at, the spokesperson said the council would “look into the actions of everyone involved”.

“We are committed to ensuring the safety of children and young people and the quality of teaching in our education system, and we encourage anyone who has concerns about the conduct or competence of a formally registered teacher to reach out to us.”

In response to questions from RNZ on Wednesday, the Society of Mary confirmed an anonymous complaint of a sexual nature was made against Donoghue in 2007.

“The Society of Mary sought to investigate the complaint, but was unable to gain sufficient information to verify the allegations. Even so, the Society of Mary determined that Donoghue should be removed from public ministry, with a safety plan enacted. That has stayed in place since that time.”

The society was not aware of the allegations to which Donoghue entered guilty pleas until police laid charges, the spokesperson said.

“Our first thoughts are with those who came forward and described what happened to them. We extend our apologies to them, and will seek to do so personally at an appropriate time. We deeply regret the hurt or harm caused.”

The society was “committed to ongoing efforts to ensure the safety of all people in Church settings”.

Asked whether police were told, the spokesperson said the complainant was “encouraged to contact the police”.

St Bede’s College rector Jon McDowall told RNZ on Wednesday the details outlined through the court process were “deeply disturbing”.

“As rector, it makes me feel sick to think that young people entrusted to an adult’s care were abused in this way. I am deeply sorry that this happened to them, and my thoughts are with the victims and survivors who continue to live with the impact of that harm.”

McDowall said the school had worked openly with police throughout the process.

“We will continue to cooperate fully with the authorities should any further information come to light.

“Abuse has no place at St Bede’s – past, present, or future. The College has an established policy in place to respond and support victims of historical abuse, alongside safeguarding policies and practices to protect the wellbeing and safety of students today. Our focus remains on providing a safe and supportive environment for all members of our community.”

McDowall extended an open invitation for victims in the case, and others who may have been impacted, or anyone with concerns to contact him directly.

He earlier told RNZ the school was “formally notified” of the allegations by police and had “worked openly with them since that time”.

“We hold victims and survivors in our thoughts and remain focused on providing a safe and supportive environment for all members of our community – past, present and future.”

In early 2023, police were contacted about the allegations of sexual abuse by Donoghue in relation to his time at St Bede’s College.

St Patrick’s Silverstream rector Rob Ferreira told RNZ the school had not been made aware of any allegations of abuse in care while Fr Donoghue worked at the school between 1982 to 1992.

“We have not had any inquiries from the police either.

“We operate according to clearly set out guidelines and best practice and you should note that our primary concern is the wellbeing of our students. Given that – our protection of the privacy and any other rights of survivors of abuse and other individuals would be paramount.”

He said the school had informed the community that Donoghue’s name suppression had lifted.

St Patrick’s College Wellington rector Mike Savali confirmed to RNZ that Donoghue was on the college staff from 2003 to 2007.

Where to get help

If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.

If you have been abused, remember it’s not your fault.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/01/30/teaching-council-to-examine-actions-of-everyone-involved-over-sex-abuse-claims-against-st-bedes-priest/

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Collectors fear police aren’t taking Pokémon card thefts seriously

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Guinness Book of Records record-holding collection of Pokémon cards owned by Jens Ishoey Prehn and his brother Per Ishoy Nielsen. IDA MARIE ODGAARD / AFP

Trading cards like Pokémon have become serious business, straddling the worlds of gaming and high-value investment.

Originally created in 1996 for competitive play and on sale for approximately a dollar per card, the most expensive card has since sold for a staggering US$5,275,000 (NZ$8.7m).

And soaring collectible value has turned the cards into targets for theft and fraud.

Liam O’Neil, managing director of Hobby Lords, said they had to beef up security to protect staff after one worker was recently stabbed in a robbery.

“Each of our stores in this industry has more money (stock value) than jewellery stores. We have to look like jewellery stores with security and alarms, and all bells and whistles.”

And while the burglary is now before the courts, O’Neill said the theft of Pokémon cards was not being taken seriously enough by police.

“Police are under-resourced, understaffed, and that’s causing part of the problem that they don’t have the resources to investigate these crimes.

“But when it comes to the punishment levels versus jewellery stores, cigarettes, ram raids, do I think the punishment [for card thefts] is lesser than those? Yes, 100 percent. I don’t think it’s been taken seriously.”

Liam O’Neil, managing director at Hobby Lords, feels they are increasingly becoming the target of criminals. Supplied

But police deny this, saying they treat all the reports of fraud or theft the same.

In a statement, Superintendent Blair Macdonald, director for service said: “Police treat reports of fraud or theft the same – it doesn’t matter what has been stolen or defrauded, or from what type of community. Police conduct an initial assessment for any matter reported to us, which considers a number of factors in determining whether it will be investigated. This is not based on monetary values.”

Trading cards first became popular in the ’90s. Along with Pokémon cards, The game Magic: The Gathering was particularly hot at the moment.

O’Neil said one of his customers lost around $25,000 worth of Magic: The Gathering cards when their home was burgled in early January. Two weeks later, a woman walked into O’Neil’s store attempting to trade them.

Staff instantly recognised the cards and made multiple calls to police while trying to keep the woman in store for 90 minutes.

O’Neil said the 90-minute wait for police was a disruption for the business as they discreetly asked other customers to leave, and the woman began behaving aggressively after they told her they knew the cards were stolen.

Police confirmed they had arrested someone in relation to the burglary and have returned stolen items to the victim.

Scams are also widespread within the trading card community, O’Neil said.

“We had a person I know personally stole at least $10,000 worth of stuff from scamming. We had her address, we had a bank account number, we had everything which has been presented to the police, and nothing’s ever happened to them.”

Three teenagers who allegedly stole items from a Hobby Lords store in Newmarket, as caught on CCTV. Hobby Lords / supplied

Macdonald told RNZ they had not identified it as a particular issue of concern, but they encouraged victims of this type of offence to report it.

“Aside from enabling us to investigate if appropriate, it also helps us to build a picture of offending and understand any trends, which in turn can help us more effectively target our response.”

Collector Peter Johnson believed the increase in crime was due to increased publicity over the potential value of trading cards.

“Over the last two years, there has been a small influx of theft going on as the community has seen the value in Pokémon and sees an increase in your investment over a short period of time. So that’s definitely interested a lot of people that are outside of the hobby.”

He had been collecting Pokémon cards since they first launched in 1996.

Peter Johnson has been collecting Pokémon cards since 1996. Supplied

In the past month, his Umbreon VMAX card – currently valued at $3500 – had been stolen twice at trading events.

The first time, Johnson recovered the card after alerting the trading card community. It was taken by a 10-year-old boy and later returned by his apologetic parents.

But two weeks later, it was stolen again and was still missing.

“It hurts and it’s sad, but it’s motivated me more to be more alert. This weekend just gone, I’ve put up a tripod and a camera and filmed the whole event. “

Card Merchant Westcity store manager Marshall Stevenson had also seen an increase in shoplifting.

Card Merchant Westcity store manager Marshall Stevenson has also seen an increase in shoplifting since 2024. Supplied

He suspected much of it was carried out by parents trying to fulfill their children’s wish list.

“Any time we hear about particularly valuable collections or a particular card that have ended up being sold within our local area, most of our industry is aware of the situation and will keep an eye out for that sort of thing.

“Hopefully someone will be able to come across it at some point, but I don’t hear many of them ever showing up again. A lot of people are able to sell overseas.”

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The treasure’s in the tales of New Zealand’s 2500 sunken ships

Source: Radio New Zealand

The S.S.Tasmania hit a rock off Table Cape, Mahia Peninsula in 1897. Auckland Libraries

There are concerns divers are plundering one of New Zealand’s famous shipwrecks. Are they treasure-hunting pirates, or just amateur souvenir-seekers?

Concerns have been raised over the summer that the historic contents of a shipwreck off the Mahia Peninsula are being plundered by divers.

The site where the alleged theft is happening is that of the S.S. Tasmania, a grand passenger steamer that went down in a fierce storm in 1897 after hitting rocks off Table Cape.

On board was a suitcase full of jewels, carried by a distant relative of the famous Rothschild family. It was that treasure that prompted diving pioneer Kelly Tarlton to buy the wreck, and in the 1970s he managed to recover about 250 rings and other items encrusted with rubies, opals, sapphires and diamonds.

But it was only a fraction of the loot, and the rest – more than half of what went down – is still there.

That may well be the allure of diving the wreck but the experts all agree that what’s left will remain lost. Storms, shifting currents and sludge from land clearances have literally muddied the waters.

Now the site of the wreck is targeted by fishers going after the prize species that gather there, but some divers are believed to be after crockery and other bits of history they can lay their hands on.

One expert however doubts there’s any looting going on.

Garth MacIntyre owns the property closest to the wreck at Mahia. He’s been diving and exploring shipwrecks for 50 years, and counts Kelly Tarlton among his mentors.

The ship site is “dived regularly by numerous recreational divers, and probably predominately spear fishermen who free dive over the wreck,” he says.

“The wreck in its own right acts like an artificial reef and draws in a lot of fish life. It’s a spectacular dive when the conditions allow you to dive it. It’s a great location.”

But he says if you’re keen enough to explore an old wreck for its potential treasure, you’re probably going to be spending more money setting up your operation than you’ll gain from any plunder.

“It’s a passion – you’re not going to get rich out of it,” he says.

For him, it’s more about the history and the stories of those who were on board.

“We don’t have an old history here, so we know most things about the wrecks that have gone down, in terms of their design and probably what they’re carrying,” he says.

“But it’s still a real buzz and a real thrill to be able to try and find these wrecks and document them – you know, video record them. There’s so much great technology out there now to relay that to the general public, and that’s what keeps driving me and this small group of people who are endeavouring to find these deep water wrecks or revisiting the shallow water wrecks.”

Today on The Detail, MacIntyre also talks about the laws governing diving around shipwrecks, and who has salvage rights.

Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here.

You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.

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Australian Open cameras: WTA backs players’ calls for more off-court privacy at tournaments

Source: Radio New Zealand

Coco Gauff went viral after smashing her racket following her quarter-final defeat at the Australian Open. AAP / Photosport

The WTA said that calls from players for more privacy away from the court at tournaments were entirely valid after broadcasts of Coco Gauff smashing her racket following her quarter-final defeat at the Australian Open sparked intense debate.

Gauff looked for a place without cameras to channel her frustrations shortly after losing to Elina Svitolina on Tuesday and was unhappy to learn that video of her striking her racket repeatedly on the floor near the match call area of Rod Laver Arena had been broadcast worldwide.

Iga Swiatek, Jessica Pegula and Amanda Anisimova were among the players highlighting the lack of privacy and the WTA agreed steps should be taken.

“Recent concerns raised by WTA players at the Australian Open about cameras in off-court player areas are completely valid,” WTA chairperson Valerie Camillo said on Thursday.

“This is a very human and fair request – athletes need spaces where they can recover and not feel constantly under scrutiny.

“Providing that space is part of our responsibility as a sport. The WTA is committed to listening to its players and acting on concerns like this.”

Craig Tiley AFP

Tennis Australia, which organises the year’s opening Grand Slam, said cameras in warm-up and cool-down areas were set up to provide fans with a “deeper connection” to the players, but that it will work with them to find solutions to their concerns.

“We want to listen to the players, we want to really understand what their needs and what their wants are,” tournament director Craig Tiley told the Tennis Channel.

“So, that’s the first question we’ll ask; we’ve heard you and whatever adjustments we need to make we will make.

“It’s a fine line between the player promotion, event promotion, and where the cameras are.”

The WTA said it had already taken steps to reduce the number of cameras in off-court areas at its tournaments.

“We moved to this standard because we agree that there should be clear, respectful boundaries in off-court areas,” the governing body of women’s tennis added, calling for similar action from other stakeholders and broadcasters.

“We believe this issue should be reviewed by tournament organisers and broadcast partners to ensure appropriate boundaries are in place.”

-Reuters

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‘Footballing nation’ – record number of Kiwis playing

Source: Radio New Zealand

Football is becoming increasingly popular in NZ. Photosport

Football is increasingly becoming the sport of choice in New Zealand, with the latest numbers showing more Kiwis than ever are playing.

And New Zealand Football expected that to grow, with the All Whites competing at the FIFA World Cup 2026.

According to New Zealand Football’s 2025’s participation statistics, more than 180,000 players registered to play last year.

And football continued to be the most popular team participation sport in Aotearoa, according to Sport NZ’s most recent Active NZ Participation Survey.

Nearly 148,500 players took part in New Zealand Football organised football and futsal in 2025, a 3 percent growth in football and an 11 percent rise in futsal from 2024.

Adding to that, more than 34,000 players also played through New Zealand Secondary Schools.

Girls and women’s football continued to gain in popularity after the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, with a 35 percent increase in female football and futsal players since 2022.

There had also been significant growth for under-represented ethnicities, with participation among Māori up 9 percent compared to 2024.

The biggest rise was in Asian participation compared to 2024, increasing by more than 10 percent, while participation in football by Pasifika increased 7 percent.

There was also a big jump in people taking part in New Zealand Football coaching courses in 2025. The biggest hike by far was seen in an 80 percent increase in Asian, Māori, and Pacific coaching participants.

New Zealand Football CEO Andrew Pragnell said New Zealand continued to show it was a footballing nation.

“With the All Whites competing at the FIFA World Cup 2026, this year represents a massive opportunity to inspire more Kiwis to pick up the sport and join their local club.

“We’ve seen the power of football through major tournaments already, with the women’s game still blossoming through the legacy project established following the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 on home soil.”

Pragnell said the numbers showed they were on the right path towards achieving key outcomes in New Zealand Football’s 2035 strategy.

“Which includes football becoming the most inclusive sport in Aotearoa New Zealand, thriving participation driven by high quality experiences, inspiring performances through connected pathways, growing fans and growing revenue while ensuring financial sustainability.”

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The Masters Games: Jigsaw puzzle racing, ballroom dancing and competitive cornhole

Source: Radio New Zealand

Mosgiel resident Carole Evans, 84, said she was first introduced to cycling about 34 years ago through her husband and she has loved getting on her bike ever since. She is wearing her original 1992 Masters Games tracksuit. RNZ / Tess Brunton

Quick minds and fast feet are not the only skills that will be on display when the Masters Games kick off this weekend in Dunedin.

Just over 3500 competitors have already signed up, ranging in age from a 94-year-old cyclist to a 20-year-old swimmer.

They would soon be facing off in sports ranging from traditional athletics to ballroom dancing and the popular jigsaw puzzle racing – which sold out on the first day.

Mosgiel resident Carole Evans got into cycling later in life, when she was about 50.

But the now-84-year-old was excited to compete in another Masters Games – her first was back in 1992 in Dunedin, and she has not missed one in the southern city since.

“Everyone was lovely and they put me on some good handicaps sometimes so I did win a few races,” she said.

But it was running – 10 kilometres and a half marathon – that first got her involved, until the cycling bug kicked in.

“I like the speed of it. You can go a lot faster than walking or running and we meet some lovely people. Quite a few come from overseas every year and from different parts of New Zealand, and it’s just a fun thing to do, and I’m quite competitive as well,” she said.

She has a drawer full of medals but her favourites were from the World Masters Games in Auckland, Canada and Australia.

Evans stayed fit with mountain bike rides over Saddle Hill and around the suburbs once a week and enjoyed getting on her racing bike as well as using her rowing machine and exercise bike.

Christchurch couple Chris (R) and Norm Ellis took up indoor bowling just before Covid struck. Supplied

Christchurch couple Chris and Norm Ellis first competed in the Masters Games two years ago after hearing about it through their indoor bowls club.

As well as indoor bowls, they also gave cornhole and petanque a crack, enjoyed it so much that Norm has since built a cornhole board and they have joined a petanque club.

Chris, 72, said it was such a great week they were coming back for more and adding a sports accuracy challenge to the mix.

“It was fantastic. Everybody was happy and they were chatty … it was just fun, caring, I mean you could go through the dictionary but it was just a lovely week and everybody was so, so helpful down there,” she said.

They were looking forward to teaming up for cornhole after being on different teams last games.

“I’m not really a sporty person, never have been, but these games and the games we play sort of galvanise you just to be social and have a good time,” she said.

Christchurch couple Norm (L) and Chris Ellis gave cornhole a go at the last Masters Games and enjoyed it so much Norm made them a cornhole board. Supplied

Norm, 74, said they first took up indoor bowls just before Covid after a friend had been asking them to give it a go for about eight years.

He enjoyed being able to play together, saying that he wanted to share more experiences after doing night shift work for about 27 years.

He would like to get a medal in indoor bowls, but said the competition would be tough.

“But the thing is we know who we are up against and they’re people who have been playing 40, 50 years and they’re very wily, they’re very good and they’re very experienced,” he said.

“Just over five years experience doesn’t cut the mustard with them and we’re working hard. But the thing is we’ve improved enormously after the last five years.”

A lot of different sports had come out of the woodwork over the 13 years Vicki Kestila had been the games manager.

“Jigsaw racing is fantastic. It’s such a great event to watch and very intense. We’ve got Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is the first time we’ve had that,” she said.

“Extreme petanque, looking forward to that. It’s a bit like mini golf-petanque cross.”

Masters Games manager Vicki Kestila said registrations were still open for some sports, and she encouraged people to get in touch if they wanted to compete. RNZ / Tess Brunton

About 60 percent of competitors come from out of town with the average games bringing in $3.5 to $4 million to the local economy.

It was the people and great atmosphere that kept people coming back year after year, she said.

“Some people are not competitive at all. But there are a lot of people, they get on that sports field and that competitive streak comes out. I know I’m one of them,” she said.

“It just depends. That’s what I think great about the games is that it’s there for everybody, so if you are competitive, that’s great, and if you just want to give it a go or you just want to participate, that’s great too.

“There’s something for everybody.”

Registrations remained open for some sports, and she encouraged people to get in touch if they wanted to compete.

The Masters Games opening ceremony on Saturday would be a chance for competitors to glam it up at the Edgar Centre before the sweat started to fall.

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Staff, public deserve answers after major IT outage at hospitals, union says

Source: Radio New Zealand

Hospitals in Auckland and Northland were impacted by the outage. (File photo) 123rf.com

There are calls from the senior doctors’ union for an explanation from Health New Zealand as to what caused the most recent IT outage to hospitals in the upper North Island.

The computer systems outage happened over a 12-hour period between Wednesday night to Thursday morning.

Health NZ executive director for the northern region Andrew Brant confirmed the outage had affected several hospitals.

“Health New Zealand hospitals in Te Tai Tokerau, Waitematā, Auckland and Counties Manukau experienced an IT outage yesterday impacting some clinical and operational systems,” he said.

“The outage lasted around 12 hours with services restored to all impacted hospitals in the early hours of this morning.”

He said patient care continued safely during those hours.

“We are currently completing an incident debrief to identify any potential opportunities to improve our systems,” he said.

It comes less than a month after online portal Manage My Health was hacked and patient data held ransom.

Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) executive director Sarah Dalton said an outage had happened more than once recently and staff and the public deserved answers.

“We haven’t had any kind of a meaningful response from Heath New Zealand’s leadership and given the frequency of these system failures, I think the public deserves to know what’s going on in our public health system.”

Dalton said it was chaos for many staff during the outage period.

“Clinicians were unable to print patient labels, access laboratory records which means no bloods, they couldn’t book theatres, they couldn’t see patient histories online.

“Basically anything that might be recorded digitally, was unable to be accessed.”

Dalton put the outage down to the lack of resources and investment into the systems by the government.

“There is no meaningful investment and the kind of work that is needed to bring it up to scratch and to deal with issues of interoperability between community based care, hospital based care and across the country, they are just not in a place to make those things happen,” she said.

But Health New Zealand acting chief information technology officer Darren Douglass said there was no link between the IT outages in recent weeks and staffing numbers in the Digital Services team.

“All but one of the outages this month have been due to third party vendor issues.

“We operate a very complex technology environment, and we have monitoring and support in place across the system.

“We do experience technical issues from time to time. This includes the recent IT outages where thanks to strong back-up plans, patient care continued safely.

“Since we became a single health organisation, we have been working hard to rationalise and modernise our systems, improve the quality of our data and digital platforms and ensure that they connect across the country to support and enhance healthcare delivery,” he said.

Auckland University computer scientist Dr Ulrich Speidel said the country’s systems needed a complete overhaul.

He said the systems were vulnerable due to decades of neglect.

“That dates back even to the district health boards, back then every district health board was cost under pressure, so you know, where do you go when you’re not having to save on doctors and nurses, you go and see what you can save in the IT and your trying to make your old equipment tick over,” he said.

Douglass said it had a 10-year Digital Investment Plan to modernise current systems.

“While we continue to improve and modernise our technology environment patient safety remains our priority. Our hospitals have contingency plans in place to ensure the delivery of safe patient care during and IT outage,” he said.

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Panicked travellers fear getting caught out by new UK passport rules

Source: Radio New Zealand

Travel agents say they are fielding queries about new UK passport rules. RNZ

Travel agents say they are fielding queries from panicked travellers who think they might be caught out by new United Kingdom passport rules.

From 25 February, expat British and Irish dual citizens are required to use their British or Irish passport to enter the UK, or pay more than NZ$1300 for a ‘certificate of entitlement’ to use in their New Zealand passport.

Alternatively, they can pay about NZ$1100 to renounce their citizenship.

Previously, dual citizens have been able to visit the UK on a New Zealand passport, more recently with an ETA, an electronic online declaration costing about $37.

Tori Keating, managing director of Queenstown travel agency xtravel, said the rules had left “an awful lot of people quite confused”.

“I actually had a client book her trip to the UK to visit family and friends for the 25th of February literally the day before the announcement came out. So she had to get herself a passport. She only had a four week turnaround for her passport to come through, but now the turnaround time is extending out as literally hundreds of thousands of people are trying to organise passports for trips that they have pre-booked this year,” she said.

To start the passport process, people had to track down their birth certificate or apply for one in the UK, she said.

“That gets sent over, then you have to send it back so that you can actually do your passport application,” she said.

From 25 February, expat British and Irish dual citizens are required to use their British or Irish passport to enter the UK. 123RF

Auckland visa consultant Thelma Lorence, of Visa Assist, said she too had been inundated with questions about the change.

She was trying to find out how it would affect people on a cruise ship travelling around the world, who boarded last month and were due to arrive in the UK after the deadline.

“It’s thrown a huge curveball for those who may be caught out,” she said.

The British High Commissioner has encouraged people to use an online tool to check if they have British citizenship.

Lorence said a key point of confusion was whether people entitled to apply for a UK passport needed to apply, including children and descendants of citizens.

“Nowhere does it say you must now apply for a British passport to come to the UK. Nowhere is that in black and white. But there won’t be any case studies until after the 25th of February,” she said.

Dunedin travel agent Rosann Connolly-George, of Vincent George Travel, said about a third of her clients heading to the UK this year had already been in touch, worried they would be affected.

Some were thinking about avoiding the UK altogether, she said.

“A couple of our clients are actually rethinking about going into the United Kingdom and focusing more on the European side of things – which is a real shame for the tourism there,” she said.

UK border system goes digital

British High Commissioner to New Zealand Iona Thomas and Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro pictured in August 2022. Supplied

The new passport rules were part of what British High Commissioner Iona Thomas called a broader shift towards a more streamlined immigration and border-control system.

The UK government was rolling out a fully digital system, replacing physical documents with online records of immigration status and digital travel permission.

Disability advocate Blake Forbes said he was concerned about what that could mean for people who were “digitally isolated” and less computer-savvy, including elderly people and those with disabilities.

“I would like to see them just keep those more non-technological options for a little bit longer,” he said.

Disability advocate Blake Forbes. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

Earlier, the British High Commission said it had put out notifications last year to make people aware of the change.

Thomas said she was sorry dual citizens were finding the new passport rules hard to adjust to.

Dual citizens warned to sort passports well ahead of travel

Dual citizens who did not have travel plans should still be aware of the change, Keating said.

“It’s no longer going to be enough to be able to get into the UK urgently with a New Zealand passport, even if you try and say that you didn’t realise you had the citizenship, you don’t want the citizenship. All of the processes, all of the steps need to have been taken before you can actually board the plane. And in fact, you won’t even be allowed to board the plane if you don’t have your UK passport or your Irish passport,” she said.

“Being prepared right now gives you more flexibility to be able to move quickly if needed.”

People with queries should not rely on AI or social media for answers, she said.

“Start with the British consulate, or the Irish consulate,” she said.

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Bay of Plenty families remain isolated two weeks after Waioeka Gorge slips

Source: Radio New Zealand

Damage in the Wairata Valley following torrential rain on 16 January that brought down slips on SH2, closing the Waioweka Gorge. Supplied / Rebecca Redpath

Damage in the Wairata Valley following torrential rain on 16 January that brought down slips on SH2, closing the Waioweka Gorge.

Several families living in the Waioeka Gorge in Bay of Plenty remain isolated, two weeks after dozens of slips came down.

The landslides have closed kilometres of State Highway 2 – the main route between Ōpōtiki and Gisborne and helicopters have been taking supplies to the cut-off locals.

Even before last week’s storm laid waste to North Island communities – families in the Waioeka Gorge were isolated.

On Friday 16 January, torrential rain brought down multiple slips on SH2, trapping around 40 motorists, who had to be evacuated by helicopter.

On the family farm in the Wairata Valley, Rebecca Redpath said the rain was relentless.

“It was just coming down in sheets … you often get heavy rain, but it doesn’t last, and this just lasted, and lasted, and lasted.”

The nearby creek turned into a roaring torrent as boulders came crashing down, she said.

Damage in the Wairata Valley on 16 January. Supplied / Rebecca Redpath

The damage to the gorge road, meant her in-laws Bob and Mary Redpath – who were away – had to be helicoptered to their home.

Bob Redpath said while they had had floods in the past – the damage had never been this extensive, and the bird’s-eye-view from the chopper was sobering.

“We’ve had nothing this complete. Every creek, every little spring has blown out.

“It was just so much rain – 160mm in two hours – and y’know, nature can’t deal with that.”

Mary Redpath said in her 47 years on the farm, she’d never seen anything like it, with streams rerouted 10 metres away from their original course.

“It’s … totally mindboggling.”

She said they were lucky the deluge came at a time when no one was out on the farm and in danger from rushing water and slips.

“Because we would never expect this to happen. Tracks here on the farm – you’ve got to scramble over rocks and debris and trees.

“The whole land has just slipped away in places that it’s never slipped before and washed out all these fences, and it’s like, ‘Where do you begin?’”

Bob Redpath said the ongoing gorge closure, had meant their farmstay operation has come to a grinding halt.

“This is our prime part of the season, so we have had people booked right through … to autumn.

“We’ve had to ring people and say, ‘Look, you’re on standby but it doesn’t look like you’re going to be able to get in here, so very sorry, we’ll have to try that again another day.’”

But, he’s philosophical about it.

“Yeah, it is rough. But hey, you live in a wild place like the Waioeka Gorge occasionally these things jump out and bite you in the bum.”

Rebecca Redpath said the impact of the road’s closure went well beyond her family, and she was just hopeful they would be able to drive out this weekend in time for her children to start school in Hawke’s Bay, next week.

One of the slips blocking State Highway 2 through Waioeka Gorge. Supplied

NZ Transport Agency regional transport services manager Mark Owen said crews were working overtime to reopen the section of SH2, but it was a huge job.

“Unfortunately, there’s been massive damage in there, so again crews are working away, beavering away at each end – they’re doing a full assessment.”

He was hopeful they could provide a timeframe for opening later this week.

“The good news, is that we think the road will probably be okay, but we’ve got massive slips that have come down … so we can clear and get a lane but then we’ve actually got to stabilise the hill as well.

“Then once the river recedes we then need to determine whether we’ve got any under-slips where the river may have scoured into the highway,” Owen said.

“Teams are working, we’ve got all the expertise that we need, it’s just going to take some time.”

Damage in the Wairata Valley following torrential rain on 16 January. Supplied / Rebecca Redpath

Ōpōtiki mayor David Moore said up to 30 people were living in the gorge, which ran through both Ōpōtiki and Gisborne districts.

He said the council’s civil defence teams had been working together since its closure.

“There’s people who’ve been in and out for medical appointments. There were some people that were in there that needed to get out and people that needed to get in.”

Moore said Ōpōtiki town was lucky to dodge the severe weather that ripped across the North Island last week, but the damage on the outskirts – especially on the highways – had been significant.

“It’s caused a lot of damage in the Waioeka Gorge, which is our main arterial route, transport route – lifeline for Gisborne.

“[It’s] one of three roads to Gisborne, and all three roads are out now.”

Damage to State Highway 35 from a landslide. Supplied / NZTA

SH35 from Ōpōtiki to Gisborne around the East Coast is closed in sections following torrential rain on 21 January, and SH38 which links the regions via Lake Waikaremoana is also shut.

“There’s a massive monetary cost, but that’s nothing compared to the tragedies that are playing out, the devastation to homes and the community on the SH35.

“The alternative route to Gisborne now is through SH5 – it’s a beautiful drive but it’s a very long drive and will add a lot of time and expense.”

Moore said when the Waioeka Gorge shut on 16 January, the alternative around SH35 added about five hours travel time between Ōpōtiki and Gisborne.

He said trucks took SH5 which added at least three hours to the travel time, joining the East Coast just north of Napier.

Moore anticipated it would be months until SH2 through the gorge returned to what it was, and said once that was done the focus should shift to the future.

“Whether we like it or not these weather events are happening more frequently. I was a beekeeper for 21 years so I do understand the weather.

“I know the Waioeka Gorge very well, so I’ve been in a weather event like that up there and it came out of nowhere.

“This is what’s happening so we have to make these roads as resilient as we can.”

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Could this be the year NZX stops being left behind?

Source: Radio New Zealand

Investment experts say 2026 could be the year the New Zealand share market bounces back. RNZ / Angus Dreaver

2026 could be a year in which the New Zealand share market shakes off the underperformance that has weighed it down since Covid hit, investment experts say.

For the decade until 2020, the NZX was one of the best performing share markets globally. But since 2020, it has lagged.

Mark Lister, investment director at Craigs Investment Partners, said it was well positioned for change.

“Last year we were up about 3 percent and many other markets were up much more than that, between 10 percent and 30 percent depending which market you’re looking at.

“We’ve been a major laggard and it wasn’t just last year, either. Since Covid, we’ve been flatlining which is in part due to our economy being in recession for a fair degree of that time while other parts of the world have not been in recession and have been ticking over nicely.

“Part of it is also the strength in the tech sector and so forth overseas, we don’t really have a tech sector so we’re never going to be able to ride that wave.”

Over the last five years, the NZX50 was up 1.69 percent, compared to 82.53 percent for the Nasdaq and 87.87 percent for the S&P500.

“Would I go as far as saying we will do better than some of those international markets over the next couple of years? Probably not, but I do strongly believe we will at least close that performance gap with other international peers. We’ll have a much better year in my opinion than we have had for the last four or five years.”

But he said markets were cyclical and the NZX could outperform again.

“You look at the 10 years leading up to the start of 2020, we, the New Zealand market, outperformed international shares in seven out of 10 years. So if you and I were having the same conversation on the 1st of January 2020, and we wouldn’t know that Covid was about to hit at that point, but if we were having this conversation then, we would be talking about how the New Zealand market has been so much better than international markets, and is there any point investing overseas? That was the story for the whole decade.

“When I cast my mind back to those years it was actually quite hard to get investors to have more international stocks because they were like but New Zealand’s been doing really well, why should I bother?”

He said if the tech sector hit trouble, New Zealand might look like a good alternative.

“We’re not as hyped up and frothy as other markets. I still think in a long-term sense, international markets look more inviting because they’re bigger, they’re more innovative, there’s more happening and the growth from outside New Zealand is probably stronger than it is here.

“But I think our market looks interesting to me at the moment and dividend yields are attractive. with term deposit rates and the OCR [official cash rate] lower than it has been for some time. So, and our market is a very tax efficient place to invest.”

Mike Taylor, founder of Pie Funds. Supplied / Pie Funds

Mike Taylor, founder of Pie Funds, said it made sense to expect more from the NZ market.

“But markets trade on sentiment as much as earnings. The election later this year may have an impact. I’d like to think a turn in the NZD is a signal that things are improving for NZ Inc, albeit off a very low base.”

At Generate, investment specialist Greg Smith said there were now signs of “genuine green shoots” coming through in the economy.

“As activity begins to turn, parts of the local share market could also start to perform better in the year ahead. It won’t be uniform, but the backdrop is gradually becoming more supportive than it was a year ago.”

Dean Anderson, founder of Kernel, said there were already bright spots in investment markets.

“The Emerging Opportunities Index, which is looking at smaller companies outside the large top 20 listed on the index and how they’ve performed, is actually up 17 percent in the past 12 months versus the S&P 500 in New Zealand dollar terms … which is up 9.2 percent.

“So what was driving that, though, and what’s been really interesting is that there have been a lot of smaller companies on the NZX over the past year that often fly under the radar of analysts, too small for the very large KiwiSavers who are so big they’re forced to basically only invest into the big names. And these companies have existed and they’ve had quite attractive ratios and look comparatively cheap. And what we’ve seen is they’ve now started to come on the radar of others for acquisition targets.”

That could generate very strong returns for investors in those companies, he said.

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Can you still make money doing up a property to resell?

Source: Radio New Zealand

Data from Trade Me shows that buyers are moving away from ‘doer-uppers’. 123rf / Federica Fortunat

Can you still make money buying a property and doing it up to resell?

As data from Trade Me shows that buyers are moving away from ‘doer-uppers’, property experts are divided on how much value people can hope to add by renovating a home.

Trade Me said its survey of 2200 people found 49 percent of active buyers were looking for a house that already felt new or updated and 16 percent wanted a new build.

“The DIY dream appears to be fading. Only 6 percent of buyers are now explicitly looking for a fixer-upper, while just 15 percent are interested in original-condition properties. In a market with fluctuating building costs, many buyers would rather pay more for a finished product than face the uncertainty of a renovation,” Trade Me Property spokesperson Casey Wylde said.

Nick Goodall, head of research at Cotality, formerly Corelogic, said its data indicated that, at a high level, materially increasing the quality of a property would lift the value by 4 percent to 5 percent.

Cotality head of research Nick Goodall. Supplied / Cotality

He said that would need to be more than just a new coat of paint.

“That figure is really looking at a full renovation. You’re probably talking about double-glazing the windows, modernising core areas like bathroom and kitchen.”

But he said some first-home buyers who did want to buy an older house and do it up might be doing it so they could enjoy it, rather than to make money.

“The improved value doesn’t necessarily matter if you’re going to be living in it for a decent period of time, and you get to enjoy the benefit of that improved quality, rather than doing it purely based on ‘if I spend $10,000, it’s going to increase the property value by $20,000’.”

He said most owner-occupiers would not be doing up a property purely with the idea of financial gain. “The data sort of proves that you need a pretty full-scale renovation to even get a 5 percent lift … you don’t do it for that reason, you do it to live in yourself.”

Investors would be looking at ways to improve the rents that could be charged, he said. “In which case they need to be pretty efficient with their renovation so they’re not overcapitalising on it.

“[They might be] going to be making a more significant change, such as adding that extra bathroom so that the capacity of the property increases and you can charge a higher total rent as well.”

He said there was also less of a difference in price with new builds at the moment than there had been at some points in the past, which meant more people could afford to buy new.

“The cost to build has slowed down, the growth in the cost to build has slowed down. So that gap’s closed up. And certainly for many people, new builds will still be an option because, the lending restrictions allow for more people to go into new builds.

“You don’t have to adhere to the LVR [Loan to Value ratio] restrictions. For example, if you’re buying new, DTI [Debt-to-Income ratio] is also exempted too. So I think there’s a few extra incentives to go and build new, which means that your demand might stay there.

“It means you’re probably going to be getting a smaller house … looking at a townhouse, for example, but at least it’s new and modern and won’t require any work. And the good news from that perspective from a first home buyer’s view is that there is plenty of them, particularly in Auckland, but also around the country. And I think that’s part of the reason we’ve seen continued high first home buyer activity is because those entry-level townhouses, particularly in Auckland, have been so prevalent that the options are there and they’ve not taken advantage of that.”

But investors said it should be possible to generate higher returns from renovations.

Property investment coach Steve Goodey said he had found that structural work such as replacing roofs or piling did not increase the value of a property because people assumed a house would have those things.

But he said cosmetic work could be cost-effective.

“If you buy well and get a discount when you purchase, maybe 10 percent, then you add 5 percent or 10 percent in value to it, that added 20 percent should allow the property to recycle and you can buy another property, too, which is always the way I have looked at it.”

Ed McKnight, economist at Opes Partners, said 5 percent seemed low.

“A standard rule of thumb is that is you spend $1 on a renovation, you want the value of the property to increase by at least $2. So for instance, if there was a $600,000 property and the investor spent $80,000 on a renovation, then a good investor would want the property to increase by at least $160,000 to $760,000. That’s a 27 percent increase in this example.

“Often those improvements would be reasonably extensive, including bathroom and kitchen upgrades, repainting and potentially repurposing an old dining room into a bedroom.”

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How to build your child’s confidence as they start school

Source: Radio New Zealand

Starting school is a big moment in a child’s life. It is a time filled with new routines, new people and new places. These changes can also mean it is sometimes a stressful time. But it doesn’t have to be.

Our recent research explored what helps children’s confidence as they begin formal schooling. More than 100 children aged three to six and 21 teachers participated in our study, which included interviews, observations and children’s drawings.

We found there are many simple, everyday things families can do to help children feel calm and ready for their first day.

Help your child feel familiar with their new setting before the first day by attending any orientation sessions or arranging a visit.

123RF

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Tanning and anti-aging procedures: Gen Z loves both

Source: Radio New Zealand

It’s no secret that Gen Z, those currently aged between 14 and 29, spend big on beauty products and cosmetic procedures.

They typically lean towards complicated, multistep beauty routines and get into it early. Cosmetic procedures such as Botox are being used to prevent aging rather than dial back its impact. This younger generation is increasingly likely to forgo spending money on alcohol so they can join a health club or buy wellness supplements. The sauna is the place to socialise rather than the bar. Looking good and feeling good are paramount.

So, it’s somewhat surprising that New Zealand’s young people are still drawn to the gaze of something that can age you quicker and leave you with lifelong health implications, such as skin cancer. Yes, I’m referring to the sun and its glorious ability to give us a tan.

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The treasure’s in the tales

Source: Radio New Zealand

The S.S.Tasmania hit a rock off Table Cape, Mahia Peninsula in 1897. Auckland Libraries

There are concerns divers are plundering one of New Zealand’s famous shipwrecks. Are they treasure-hunting pirates, or just amateur souvenir-seekers?

Concerns have been raised over the summer that the historic contents of a shipwreck off the Mahia Peninsula are being plundered by divers.

The site where the alleged theft is happening is that of the S.S. Tasmania, a grand passenger steamer that went down in a fierce storm in 1897 after hitting rocks off Table Cape.

On board was a suitcase full of jewels, carried by a distant relative of the famous Rothschild family. It was that treasure that prompted diving pioneer Kelly Tarlton to buy the wreck, and in the 1970s he managed to recover about 250 rings and other items encrusted with rubies, opals, sapphires and diamonds.

But it was only a fraction of the loot, and the rest – more than half of what went down – is still there.

That may well be the allure of diving the wreck but the experts all agree that what’s left will remain lost. Storms, shifting currents and sludge from land clearances have literally muddied the waters.

Now the site of the wreck is targeted by fishers going after the prize species that gather there, but some divers are believed to be after crockery and other bits of history they can lay their hands on.

One expert however doubts there’s any looting going on.

Garth MacIntyre owns the property closest to the wreck at Mahia. He’s been diving and exploring shipwrecks for 50 years, and counts Kelly Tarlton among his mentors.

The ship site is “dived regularly by numerous recreational divers, and probably predominately spear fishermen who free dive over the wreck,” he says.

“The wreck in its own right acts like an artificial reef and draws in a lot of fish life. It’s a spectacular dive when the conditions allow you to dive it. It’s a great location.”

But he says if you’re keen enough to explore an old wreck for its potential treasure, you’re probably going to be spending more money setting up your operation than you’ll gain from any plunder.

“It’s a passion – you’re not going to get rich out of it,” he says.

For him, it’s more about the history and the stories of those who were on board.

“We don’t have an old history here, so we know most things about the wrecks that have gone down, in terms of their design and probably what they’re carrying,” he says.

“But it’s still a real buzz and a real thrill to be able to try and find these wrecks and document them – you know, video record them. There’s so much great technology out there now to relay that to the general public, and that’s what keeps driving me and this small group of people who are endeavouring to find these deep water wrecks or revisiting the shallow water wrecks.”

Today on The Detail, MacIntyre also talks about the laws governing diving around shipwrecks, and who has salvage rights.

Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here.

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Westport residents turn to brokers and specialists as mainstream insurers shut the door

Source: Radio New Zealand

Flooding in Westport in July 2021. Supplied / NZ Defence Force

Westport locals are using brokers or specialist insurers as standard insurance in the flood-prone town becomes more difficult or expensive to get.

RNZ reported on Thursday that AA Insurance had temporarily stopped offering new home insurance policies in Westport because of the town’s flood risk.

However, Westport residents said that while AA Insurance was the only company to publicise its policy, many others were also refusing to take on new customers.

Life-time local Glenys Elley lives on a 10-acre lifestyle block on the outskirts of town, close to the Buller River but not in a flood area.

She was quoted nearly double her previous premium, after her broker was unable to secure a new policy for her in 2024.

“We had comprehensive insurance, we had total replacement. [In] 2023, we paid $4700 for our insurance,” she said.

“My broker rang and he said, ‘Glenys, I just can’t get any reasonable insurance for you.’ And I said, ‘Oh, really?’ And he said, ‘$8500.’

“And I said, ‘You are joking.’”

After calling insurers herself, Elley was able to get a quote from specialist rural insurer FMG, for a lower premium than her existing policy.

“I had a great experience with them, and they’ve been great.”

An aerial view of the eastern end of Westport during the July 2021 flood. Supplied / Defence Force

Elley is not the only one – FMG was recommended by locals in Facebook community pages as among the few insurers still reliably offering new policies in Westport.

Jonathan Cleland, head of underwriting at FMG, told RNZ, “we have a limited risk-appetite within urban areas, given our focus on supporting rural and provincial areas”.

“For areas of heightened natural hazard, including flood risk, FMG takes a case-by-case approach considering individual client circumstances aligned with our underwriting risk-appetite.”

Taryn Sweyt and her partner ended up going through a broker to secure insurance for their first home, which they will move into next month.

The house – a 1950’s bach-style property – is at Carters Beach, a part of town the couple had always wanted to live in.

“Being able to hear the ocean all the time, being able to walk over to the beach and go for a swim, we know a lot of people who live at Carters Beach so you can wander round to each others’ houses easily.”

Carters Beach is low-lying and has had problems with erosion, but the house was on higher land, had not experienced flooding, and the vendors had an insurance policy, Sweyt said.

It was a surprise, therefore, when right before going unconditional they discovered that none of the major insurers would let them take out a policy.

“As soon as you put the postcode in, it says, ‘We’re no longer accepting insurance quotes’,” she said.

They even contacted the vendor’s insurer to see if they could transfer the policy, but were turned down.

“We thought, things have been kind of too good to be true, maybe this is the thing that makes it not happen.”

At their lawyer’s suggestion, they contacted a broker – a former cricket teammate of her partner’s – who was able to secure them insurance that afternoon.

Carters Beach is low-lying and has had problems with erosion. RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King

It had been “an interesting experience”, Sweyt said.

“The postcode is associated with flooding but where the property is, yes it’s near the beach, but a lot of places in New Zealand are, and it’s never had flooding before.”

Monitoring data published by Treasury in recent years has shown that insurers are starting to hone in on flood-risk areas, charging elevated premiums and removing some online availability.

Experts have warned that insurance will become prohibitively expensive or impossible to get at all for some properties as the risk from climate change-driven weather events continues to rise.

Westport has been repeatedly flooded over time, escalating in recent years. A 2021 flood left more than 100 homes uninhabitable.

Last March, Buller District Council endorsed a flood protection plan that includes opening up lower-risk land away from the existing town for development, building 17 kilometres of stopbanks and improving flood warning systems.

West Coast Regional Council chief executive Darryl Lew said on Thursday that two sections of stopbank had been completed.

But long-time Westport real estate agent Charlie Elley – Glenys Elley’s brother-in-law – said many residents felt there had been limited progress.

It was unsurprising that AA Insurance had decided to pause new policies, he said.

“I think the insurance companies have had to make this decision, and they have included in their statements that when things improve, they will reassess.”

Charlie Elley said problems with getting affordable insurance stretched back years, to when insurers started to use flood mapping.

“Even without floods, some of our premiums around town went up then, and that’s back in about 2005.”

The issue escalated after the 2021 flood, though.

“[Home buyers] tended to first up seek properties that weren’t affected. Then after that, and the rebuild of the houses that were affected took its course … people started to look at those properties, and then they started to get a few questions over their ability to get insurance.”

More recently, insurers seemed to be affected by “postcode insurance syndrome”, he said.

“It soon became obvious that there was a trend or a change … and now they’ve come out and announced it, [but] it was already being implemented.”

Nowadays, he often advised buyers to ask the seller for their insurance information so that they could request a policy transfer.

“We say it might cost you a little bit more, but it’s better than a total outright rejection.”

There had also been “a shift in loyalty” away from the traditional insurers to others with more leeway, he said.

“And we’ve now got an insurance broker in town offering to do what they can to get insurance for anybody. So, you know, where there’s a need, then there’s a market and somebody will probably meet it.”

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