Category: AM-NC

Source: Radio New Zealand

A serious crash that closed State Highway 57 in Levin today has claimed two lives.

Emergency services were called to the two-vehicle crash on Arapaepae Road about 2.30am on Monday.

Police said two people were pronounced dead at the scene.

The road is still closed while the Serious Crash Unit carry out a scene examination.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/23/two-people-dead-after-crash-blocks-sh57-in-levin/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has called critics of his Fisheries Amendment Bill “a range of noisy voices” and invited them to have their say at the select committee.

The bill, which is scheduled to have it’s first reading on Tuesday, has been welcomed by the commercial sector but condemned by recreational fishing groups.

Fishing Host Matt Watson – probably the country’s most famous recreational fisher – is dismayed by the proposals in the fishing amendment bill.

He told First Up the bill’s “designed purely to prioritise the profits of the seafood industry”.

“If these go through unchecked, it is disaster. It’s beginning of the end for our fish stocks, and that’ not over dramatising it.”

Among Watson’s concerns is the proposal to remove the minimum size limits for commercial fishers from a number of popular species, including snapper.

He said it wouldn’t encourage commercial fishers to avoid undersized fish and would decrease overall fish stocks.

The current recreational size limit for snapper is between 25cm and 30cm depending on location, while the commercial size limit is 25cm.

Minimum size limits are imposed to ensure fish can reach sexual maturity before being caught.

“If you start killing fish before they’ve had a chance to breed, you’re going to run out of fish and you don’t need to be a genius to figure that out,” Watson said.

Jones argued that allowing the commercial sector to land and sell undersize fish would prevent wastage.

Currently commercial fishers must dump undersize fish dead or alive, and it doesn’t count against their quota.

“The new provision is that if you catch them, you pay for them,” Jones said.

“With the commercial industry, we know every single kilo that they take and their conduct is now captured by cameras.”

But if Jones’ bill passes, the footage taken by cameras on board commercial boats can no longer be accessed under the official information act, effectively making it off limits to the public.

Anyone who leaks the footage faces a $50,000 fine.

“If you’ve got nothing to hide, why on earth would you behave like that,” Sam Woolford of recreational advocacy group Legasea said.

“When cameras on boats were introduced, we know that the rate of discarding, or notified discards, went up about 46 percent. For snapper and kingfish, it was closer to 1000 percent.”

Jones, a self described apostle of industry, brushed off the concerns about snapper stocks, telling First Up the “amount of snapper in our waters is almost biblical in its profundity”.

“You can almost walk on the water we’ve got so many snapper.”

Coalition support means the Fisheries Amendment Bill should easily pass it’s first reading, but Labour’s fisheries and Oceans spokesperson Rachel Boyack said she would make her concerns heard at the select committee stage.

She said her party would do their “best to make changes to the bill so that it’s not as bad as what it could be.”

Although with commercial fishing a strong feature of her Nelson electorate, Boyack was choosing her words carefully .

“It creates jobs in my local community and it’s important that we are able to produce fish for food and for export, but we also have to ensure that the fishery is sustainable”.

Conservation Minister Tama Potaka’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment, but in a facebook post Northland MP Grant McCallum said he met with Legasea and the sports fishing council over the weekend and would strongly represent the views of the recreational sector in the party’s caucus this week.

Seafood New Zealand’s Inshore Policy Manager Tamar Wells said the commercial sector was trying to make the industry more sustainable.

“Fishers do change their methods. In terms of their selectivity of their nets, they’ll have larger mesh to let smaller fish out.

“There’s also new methods coming in, like Flowmo, which is a type of net that can keep fish kind of contained underwater so they have a higher survivability.”

The Fisheries Amendment Bill won’t require commercial fishers to change their methods though and Jones said there was no plan to outlaw trawling.

“It’s evident to me that the vast majority of the activists opposed to trawling are really seeking to undo the Māori fisheries settlement and terminate the commercial fishing industry and that’s just never, ever going to happen for as long as I’m in politics, and I look forward to being in politics for a long, long time.”

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/23/shane-jones-labels-critics-of-fisheries-bill-as-noisy-voices/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Human remains found in a garden on Wellington’s south coast are centuries old, according to police.

RNZ understands an Ōwhiro Bay homeowner was gardening when they made the discovery in June last year.

At the time, police said the resident was under no suspicion and a forensic anthropologist and pathologist determined the remains were human.

On Monday, detective constable Sarah Steed said radiocarbon dating showed the remains were possibly pre-European from the 1600s-1700s.

“This information will now be supplied to the Coroner for consideration,” she said.

“Consultation will take place with local iwi to arrange a suitable burial site, once the remains are release by the Coroner.”

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/23/human-remains-found-in-garden-in-wellingtons-owhiro-bay-are-centuries-old/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Some British dual nationals are getting permanent exemptions from needing UK passports to travel there – but the carve-out is not going to help those in New Zealand.

A low-key change has allowed EU nationals granted British citizenship after Brexit to circumvent the new border requirements.

In New Zealand and elsewhere, some dual UK citizens have spent hundreds of dollars to get new British passports, trying to avoid writing off thousands more they have spent on pre-booked holidays.

The border requirement – which means British and Irish citizens can no longer use their New Zealand passport to enter the UK – came into force a month ago.

The policy, first revealed by RNZ in mid-January, caused panic for travellers unaware of the move.

Advocacy groups and immigration lawyers in the UK have since called on the government to rethink several aspects of its programme.

They only discovered the new passport exemption for European dual nationals given settlement status in Britain after Brexit through Home Office correspondence about the ongoing saga two weeks ago.

The British government website now sets out how citizens of EU and other European countries such as Switzerland will not need a UK passport to travel there.

UK lobby group the3million – named after the EU migrants living and voting there – said it welcomed the government’s partial u-turn, but said it still left many others struggling to navigate citizenship and passport complexities.

“It’s for a very precise group – it’s for those EU/EEA/Swiss citizens and their family members who were living in the UK and applied for status under the EU Settlement Scheme,” its spokeswoman Monique Hawkins told RNZ.

“This is the cohort that can benefit from this new concession.”

The group wants the UK government to go much further in changing the passport requirements and allowing a grace period for people who have not yet got a UK passport, or did not know they needed one.

“As the world moves towards digital travel documentation, we do not see that dual citizens should be forced to maintain two sets of expensive physical documents if they do not want to do so.”

Hawkins also took aim at the digital Certificate of Entitlement (CoE), which is an alternative – albeit ‘extremely expensive’ – to keeping a second passport.

“We are fully aware that these no longer need to be renewed; however, £589 [NZ$1347] is still more than six times the cost of an adult British passport, each of which lasts for 10 years,” said a joint letter to the Home Office.

“It would therefore take more than 60 years before the cost of a CoE outweighs the cost of passport renewals, and for a family the multiplied cost is likely to be unaffordable.”

The letter also points out that some European dual nationals will now not even need a passport to enter the UK, but only a national ID card from their country of origin.

“Although this was not one of the measures we had asked for in our letter, we welcome this change for the cohort who can benefit from it. We note it is a significant departure from the general Home Office position that for a British citizen there is “a legal requirement to hold a valid British passport or Certificate of Entitlement” as stated in the Home Office response to our letter.”

Meanwhile, dual nationals in New Zealand are still struggling with the changes, as well as flight cancellations and uncertainty thrown up by the Middle East conflict.

Travel agents and some airlines have been updating passengers, but others remain unaware of the change or even that they or their children could be British citizens by descent.

Some are against the clock to access ID documents for citizenship and passport applications, waiting on deliveries, or have decided they will be relinquishing their UK citizenship altogether.

A New Zealander told RNZ he was lucky to see news about the rule change before his daughter, who was studying in the UK, took a trip to the Continent – as she would not have been able to return to Britain afterwards.

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

The UK’s Guardian newspaper has reported cases of dual national Britons, including teenagers, stuck overseas after going on holiday to Europe or elsewhere and then discovering they need a UK passport to return.

RNZ has heard from people planning to try to travel without a British passport, hoping that check-in and border staff will not know they or their children have dual citizenship.

The UK Home Office and British High Commission have previously warned against that, and suggested people could use expired passports as a temporary measure if airlines agree, while defending their communication of the changes.

* The full rules around citizenship can be found here https://www.gov.uk/check-british-citizenship and a rundown of the passport requirements are here https://www.gov.uk/apply-first-adult-passport , including information for those who had names changed by marriage, or last had a UK passport issued before 1994.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/23/some-dual-british-citizens-get-border-exemption-from-new-passports/

Source: Radio New Zealand

A brain surgeon who refused advice from his colleagues has been stood down after his patient died of a brain bleed post-operation.

A report by the Health and Disability Commissioner found his sarcastic remark to a fellow surgeon, who questioned him on his approach, “inappropriate”, and criticised a culture of silence when it came to questioning senior surgeons at the hospital.

The patient, who the report calls Ms A, then aged 51, received two heart valve replacements in 2012, and then in May 2019 was admitted to hospital with vomiting, diarrhoea and fever, accompanied by delerium and speech issues.

Scans revealed a brain aneurysm, and although she needed urgent cardiac surgery to replace her heart valves, doctors decided the aneurysm needed to be treated before they could operate on her heart.

A surgeon referred to in the report as Dr C performed endovascular surgery, with support from other doctors – but one of those doctors told the HDC that their own involvement was “very passive”, as Dr C was “very used to work[ing] by himself”.

An anaesthetic registrar who was in attendance told HDC they witnessed another doctor entering the room to ask Dr C, “Are you sure you want to do it like that?”

HDC heard from that doctor, who said when Dr C was removing a microcatheter that had become temporarily stuck, it “was not adequately controlled and surged forwards, injuring a more proximal vessel (causing a dissecting pseudo-aneurysm)”.

When he asked Dr C what he was going to do about the pseudo-aneurysm, and Dr C replied: “hat pseudo-aneurysm.”

The woman was transferred back to the ICU following surgery, but those complications caused further bleeding in her brain, and she died six hours after surgery.

Dr Vanessa Caldwell, Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner, found despite the surgery being high risk, and Ms A being very unwell, “there were multiple failings in the system and in decisions made on the day of Ms A’s surgery”.

She says according to Health NZ, Dr C’s workload was “significant” at the time of the event, and “the dynamic of the team was such that no staff member felt empowered to speak up to [Dr C]”.

It said Dr C had a history of persevering despite recommendations from others, and a culture of staying silent had developed.

“Dr C reflected that he may have had an unconscious bias against his colleagues,” the report says, “due to their relative lack of experience”.

They had not worked together long, he said, and they were “still relatively unknown quantities” which “played a definite role in his willingness to take advice from them”.

Caldwell, in her report, finds his sarcastic remark – quoted variously in the report as both “hat pseudo-aneurysm” and “What dissection?” – inappropriate.

“Dr C told HDC that this was made sarcastically in reference to the brain-bleeding because it was so obvious that an injury had occurred.”

She also criticised the quality of his handover to ICU staff post-surgery, which contained a lack of information about the injury’s severity.

Dr C was stood down from performing such surgeries, and last did one in May 2019. He accepted the findings of the HDC report, and extended his condolences to the family.

He said the case had had a huge impact on him personally, his work and his career, and on his family.

Caldwell said Dr C described being “burnt out”, and in her view, Health NZ had an organisational responsibility to staff its service safely.

She recommended a written apology to Ms A’s family from both Dr C and Health NZ.

Health NZ has been approached for further comment.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/23/patient-dies-after-burnt-out-brain-surgeon-ignores-advice-from-colleague/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The New Zealand Drug foundation is calling for a “fundamental shift” in drug policies in response to dramatic increases in cocaine and methamphetamine consumption.

The foundation said police wastewater testing showed cocaine use reached an all time high during the last quarter of 2025 – exceeding MDMA consumption for the first time.

In that period New Zealanders used an estimated 9.4 kilograms per week – nearly double the average weekly amount consumed over the previous four quarters of 4.7 kilograms per week.

The wastewater report showed during the last three months of 2025 Kiwi’s were also using nearly 34.7 kgs of methamphetamine every week.

The consumption of the drug had held steady over the previous two years after a sudden surge which saw use nearly double from an average estimated figure of 14.64 kgs per week in the year following 2023.

Drug Foundation Executive Director, Sarah Helm said the results were a “stark illustration” that underinvestment in treatment and harm reduction combined with an over reliance on police to interrupt supply wasn’t working.

“The dramatic increases in methamphetamine and cocaine consumption over the last two years are unprecedented.

“Consumption is at record levels, drug use is diversifying, prices are down, harm is increasing, and new potent drugs are arriving. Every indicator is screaming at us to change our approach,” Helm said.

Helm said since it’s introduction in 1975 the Misuse Drug Act had only seen the problems of drug harm worsen in New Zealand.

“We’ve gone from having a small number of substances – causing a small amount of harm – to mass incarceration, a growth in addiction and much more toxic and new substances appearing all the time. It has accelerated harm and we’ve really given it it’s best,” Helm said.

Helm said the foundation sought to remove criminal penalties for drug use – so that people were encouraged to seek help rather than covering up their substance use – as well as addressing parts of the law that criminalised elements of harm reduction initiatives.

“A bunch of the things that we need to be able to do to prevent people from dying or having harms occur are actually criminalised or are made very difficult to conduct under the Act.

“So we do need new law that is centred on evidence and the well-being of people – rather than what has been historically in place for over 50 years,” Helm said.

Helm said the foundation supported the initiatives outlined in the Government’s Action Plan to Prevent and Reduce Substance Harm – announced last week.

The plan included pledges to strengthen early intervention and prevention measures – such as drug checking and health promotion – as well as improving access to community-based support and better data and monitoring of the health system’s performance in the area.

But Helm said “a more fundamental shift” was needed” to reverse the current trends.

“We need step change if we really want to try and get this growth and change in our drug supply and our drug harms under control. If we continue to just do the same kind of thing we will see the harms continue to grow.

“If we could wave a magic wand, we would do two things: vastly increase the spending on addiction treatment and harm reduction, and change our drug laws.

“While these things won’t remove all problems, the evidence is clear that it would reduce the worst harms and provide us with more tools to tackle the increase in harm. But if we continue doing more of the same, things will continue to get worse,” Helm said.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/23/rise-in-cocaine-and-meth-use-prompts-call-for-fundamental-shift-in-policies/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Motorists are being warned that a milk spill is affecting traffic on State Highway 73 in Canterbury.

It comes after an oil spill closed Porters Pass for several hours on Monday morning after a vehicle towing a fuel tank became stuck on the one-lane Porter River Bridge.

Police said there were no reports of injuries.

Fire and Emergency NZ sent crews from Springfield and Sheffield, who assisted with road control.

Waka Kotahi NZ said the milk spill occurred near Parapet Rock, between Lake Pearson and Castle Hill.

Motorists are being asked to stop on demand and should prepare for delays.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/23/milk-spill-oil-spill-affecting-traffic-on-state-highway-73-in-cantebury/