Category: DJF

Source: Radio New Zealand

Bluebridge has cancelled a week’s worth of sailings on one of its Cook Strait ferries due to a technical fault, and there’s no word on when it’ll be fixed.

The fault was found on the Connemara on Saturday morning.

On Thursday, the company’s website said it had canned trips up to and including Friday “while the ship awaits regulatory requirements to resume sailing”.

A spokesperson for Bluebridge owner StraitNZ, Will Dady, said on Wednesday engineers were doing everything they could to fix it ahead of the weekend.

RNZ has asked what the problem is and how many customers are affected, but has not had a response.

Are you affected? Email lauren.crimp@rnz.co.nz

The ship usually sails four times daily between Wellington and Picton.

Bluebridge only has one other ship, the Livia.

The company was putting freight and passengers on other sailings where possible or offering refunds, Dady said.

“We’re disappointed about the disruption caused and apologise to our customers unreservedly.”

Sailings on the same ferry were also cancelled earlier this month because of a technical fault.

Meanwhile, Interislander said vehicle spaces on its ferries was in high demand this month, but there was still room for foot passengers on many saillings.

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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/2026/03/26/bluebridge-cancels-connemara-sailings-for-a-week/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police have erected cordons in Grove Street, in Nelson while officers respond to an incident.

There is not believed to be any risk to the public.

Members of the public are advised to avoid the area.

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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/2026/03/26/police-cordon-off-part-of-central-nelson/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Tucked above an unassuming safety store in Auckland, a small team is making big inroads into understanding the asbestos contamination of children’s play sand.

Testing for any airborne particles from the products, it is thought to be the first research of its kind in the world.

“We’re doing it really because it would be fabulous to be able to say ‘no, the fibres aren’t in the airspace’,” AUT Associate Professor Terri-Ann Berry said.

“In saying that, it would give some real good reassurance to people who are concerned.”

And people are still concerned months on from the first recalls. Mother of four-year-old twins, Elle Chrisp, is one of them.

“I’m just a mum who bought the product for her kids really,” she told RNZ.

“I’m so grateful for the work they’re doing and that they are wanting to get answers for us, because ultimately for me, I just want to know what the truth is.”

That’s what the researchers want to know too.

The testing site

It’s meticulous work that is measured down to the millimetre.

Specially trained staff in PPE masks and suits are putting the sand known to be contaminated through its paces, with monitoring equipment hovering above.

The monitors are at the heights of children or the height of an adult – perhaps a teacher in a classroom.

“We can obviously not just have children in the kindergarten play with it and see what happens,” Gregor Steinhorn from the Environmental Innovation Centre said.

“Given that asbestos is dangerous and there might be fibres which have to be released, everyone who’s doing this experiment has to be protected.”

That means a Class A asbestos enclosure, the kind that would be used for an asbestos clean-up.

There are air filters, an air locked decontamination shower and trained removalists are the only ones who go in.

“They are wearing a mask, they’re wearing a protective suit and they are fully trained in how to work with asbestos,” Steinhorn said.

“They usually have more boring jobs like cleaning buildings of asbestos, but yes, we had to do that because we don’t know yet if asbestos fibres will be released and if so how many, so we have to assume the worst case that there is asbestos in the air, so anyone in that chamber has to be protected.”

Inside the sealed chamber it is hot and drinks are on standby outside once decontamination is over.

When they are inside, they are essentially working to a script – acting out different ways of playing with the coloured sand.

More than a dozen different sands are being tested, and the conditions need to be the same for each test.

Hoping for a negative

Both Berry and Steinhorn know that seeing photos and videos of the tests, with workers suited and masked inside a sealed chamber, may be confronting for parents.

“It is quite an exciting study,” Berry said. “But at the same time it’s also quite a scary study in many ways, because what we really hope is that we get a negative response – and you never hope that in an experiment, you always want to get a positive answer, because that’s part of the excitement.”

But not this time.

“If there are fibres in the air then that means that there’s a possibility that they could be inhaled, and if they’ve been inhaled then there’s also a possibility that they could cause cancer in the long-term,” Berry, who’s also a founder and director of the Environmental Innovation Centre, said.

“Look, not every fibre inhaled will cause cancer, it doesn’t work like that.”

But Berry said if they can show there are no asbestos fibres in the air, then it’s something that can put people’s minds at ease.

An anxious wait

Mother-of-two Elle Chrisp says it has been a challenge to find enough information in the months since the first recalls, which in turn had confusing messages.

“And I come to that with a legal background,” she said.

Chrisp was also hoping the research would find no asbestos in the air from the play sand.

“This isn’t about demonising a retailer… and that’s what I really love about what their efforts are doing. It’s not about seeking out a particular result,” she said.

“It’s whatever happens, we just want to know the truth.”

She said her children played with the sand from when they were two.

“And we know that we may not know what the results are of them playing with that product for years and years and years… what the study is doing is determining if there’s a risk, if there is a risk then we all pray and hope that that doesn’t actually eventuate into anything.”

The research was backed by WorkSafe and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and had attracted help from several funders and supporters – including Beacon Safety and FAMANZ, the Faculty of Asbestos Management Australia and New Zealand.

Beacon Safety regional manager Johan Marais said it was pleased it could offer space and equipment for what was important work.

Berry said researchers also turned to Givealittle, and she was lucky to have good connections to those who work with asbestos.

“I just felt very strongly as a scientist that this is an opportunity to get some answers,” she said.

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LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/26/testing-for-asbestos-in-kids-play-sand-no-game/

Source: Radio New Zealand

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LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/26/more-split-enz-shows-announced-as-part-of-forever-enz-tour/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Does New Zealand have robust enough checks and balances to stop politicians lying in election ads – or should we be looking to Australia for stronger laws

In South Australia, by law, politicians aren’t allowed to lie in their election ads.

You might think that it would be normal that politicians don’t lie in their election ads, and that this would be an unnecessary rule.

But redundant or not, commentators say the fact that they check themselves before sending out their official messaging has helped turn the heat down during election campaigns.

The law is popular with voters and has been praised internationally as a tool for regulating political speech, but it’s also been criticised as labour-intensive to police, and something that has become weaponised by political parties.

It only governs advertising, not statements, what’s said on the campaign trail or on social media.

In New Zealand our watchdog over political advertising is the same body that governs all advertising – the Advertising Standards Authority. It doesn’t have the force of criminal penalties behind it, but it is a mechanism to have false information removed.

If there is a complaint, that board will often make a decision within 48 – 72 hours, and if it finds the message incorrect, it will be taken down. The ASA is the referee in this area, and all parties so far abide by it.

The subject of electoral law is a specialty topic for political commentator David Farrar. He says there is actually a law in New Zealand governing truth in politics, but it’s much wider – although it only applies for the 48 hours before an election. It’s section 199A of the Electoral Act.

“It actually can apply to anyone in New Zealand who states something false which could influence the election,” he says.

“It basically says it’s a corrupt practice – so that means you can go to jail for what’s a criminal offence – to make a knowingly false statement within 48 hours of an election, designed to influence the election.”

The law’s been in place for several decades and Farrar says it reflects a time before the news cycle was sped up, and before advance voting came in, so it’s pretty out of date.

“It’s from the days if you pop out say, a pamphlet to every household on the Friday before an election and there was something false in there, back in the old days there’d be no way to correct that. It would be too late and then you might have an election outcome that got decided on false information. Now, my view is, that’s not the case today.”

He says these days, it would be questioned on social media within 10 minutes, and reported on by media within an hour.

“It’s still on the books – Parliament hasn’t removed it – I don’t think there’s ever been a prosecution under it, but I do recall Winston [Peters] threatening me with it around 20 years ago for something – which was accurate by the way – that I published on my blog on a Friday before the election.”

Farrar says where it gets interesting though, is the question of what is actually false.

‘Those tricks are as old as the hills’

That’s a point also emphasised by Tim Hurdle, a political consultant and long-time political campaign manager who ran Auckland mayor Wayne Brown’s campaign, and the National Party’s campaign in 2020.

“Even with numbers you get into the old quote, ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’ because people look at base years; they can stretch out over what, quarters or months; or they can decide to use a real or nominal number when it comes to economic numbers … those tricks are as old as the hills. They’re used by every political party.

“I don’t think you can necessarily determine it’s an incorrect method – it’s the choice of the person who’s using them.

“But often if they are used in an almost farcical way then they will get called out, but generally they may be technically true or correct and pass some sort of legal test, but are they actually credible with the public is actually the ultimate political test.”

Mostly though, Hurdle points out that politicians don’t want to be caught out in a lie – because it hands their opposition a weapon with which they can attack.

The editor of The Post, Tracy Watkins, says New Zealand has self-regulation and laws which oversee not just political advertising but the broader advertising environment.

“The basis of those is that something has to be factually correct and truthful,” she says.

“Definitely the South Australian [law] does seem to be a much more robust law in that it’s got very strong powers to enforce, and to fine, and to order take-downs and things; but the Advertising Standards Authority I think operates under a self-regulatory regime, same as the Media Council.

“But there’s quite a lot of power in that, because under that sort of regime the media organisations have to agree that the referee’s word is final, and they have to abide by what the referee has said, and to a certain extent everyone benefits from that, even though sometimes we disagree.”

Watkins says we don’t necessarily need a new law to deal with lying.

“I think we’ve got enough guardrails in place to deal with that.”

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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/2026/03/26/its-election-year-let-the-lies-damn-lies-and-dodgy-statistics-flow/

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealanders living in rural areas say they’re being left out of the government’s fuel support package, warning it excludes people already under pressure from rising costs.

Almost 150,000 families with children will receive an extra $50 a week to help offset soaring petrol prices created by the war in Iran.

The payment would be delivered through the in-work tax credit, meaning only low-to-middle-income workers with children are eligible.

For some, that left a growing gap.

Rochelle* lives in the small rural community of Tapora, north of Auckland, where public transport is almost non-existent and driving is unavoidable.

She commutes more than an hour each way for work and also travels to care for vulnerable people in the community.

She said the rising cost of fuel was starting to bite.

“In a week I’d budget around $120 to $150 to fill my tank, but now it’s more like $200 plus. We’re kind of okay for now, but if it goes on much longer it’s going to get really hard.

“I also work as a carer, and [the government] has stopped funding the travel time to get to clients. When you’re in a remote community and fuel is going up, it’s really, really tough. I think a lot of carers are going to struggle, especially when some people you’re helping live an hour away.”

Without reliable transport alternatives, she said there was little choice but to keep driving.

“The nearest bus stop is about 40 kilometres away. There is a bus in Wellsford, but getting there is the issue. So for us, driving isn’t optional, it’s just part of life.”

Rochelle was not eligible for the government’s fuel support because she didn’t have children.

She said the impact went beyond her own budget.

“If you’re having to drive for work, especially in caring roles, and there’s no support for that anymore, it’s going to affect the people who rely on that care.

“There are people in the community who are older and vulnerable, and it might reduce the amount of help they’re getting because carers simply can’t afford to get there.”

She believed the support should be broader.

“I understand helping families, but I think they need to look wider than that. There are pensioners out here already on really tight budgets, and they’re going to have to choose between things like food, petrol, or going to the doctor.

“The government needs to think about those people too, because they won’t ask for help, they’ll just struggle along.”

‘People like me get nothing’ – job seeker

In the small community of Shannon, in the Horowhenua District, Douglas*, 42, was also missing out.

After finishing a contract late last year, he had been applying for jobs for months without success.

“I’ve sent off probably around 300 CVs. Every time I tailor my cover letter, research the company, spend hours on each application. I’ve applied for everything, even roles like fast food or cashier jobs, and I’ve been turned down for being overqualified.

“Now I’m down to double digits in my bank account and I’m really starting to stress.”

Because his partner earned above the threshold and they had no children, he was not eligible for Jobseeker support or the fuel payment.

“We’ve gone from two incomes to one, and it was a real smack in the face hearing that some families will get $50 a week, but people like me get nothing.

“I’m unemployed, I can’t get assistance, and I can’t even afford to fill up my tank to go to interviews that I’m applying for.”

Living in a semi-rural area, he said public transport was not an option.

“There’s no buses where we live. We pay rates towards buses in nearby towns, but they don’t come through here.

“If I want to use public transport, I have to drive to another town first, which defeats the purpose. Logistically, it just doesn’t work.”

He said fuel costs were shaping daily decisions.

“I used to spend about $120 a week on fuel commuting. Now I’m rationing everything I do. I’m getting to the point where I might have to turn down interviews because I won’t be able to afford to get there.”

Douglas believed the government’s response had fallen short.

“It honestly felt like a smack in the face. It feels like [the government] waited until things got really bad before doing anything, and then the response was to help a small percentage of people and tell everyone else to just deal with it.

“This is going to affect everything, food prices, supply chains, everyday life. It’s not just petrol, it flows through the whole economy, and I don’t think the response matches how serious this is,” he said.

*RNZ has agreed not to use the surnames of both people featured in this story.

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LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/26/rural-based-carer-job-applicant-despair-over-lack-of-fuel-support/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Facial recognition technology (FRT) trials are underway in 18 Briscoes and Rebel Sports stores across the North Island, the country’s fourth big retailer to have announced a move to adopt or test it.

Foodstuffs’ separate chains in the South Island and North Island have deployed it permanently in 28 supermarkets, and hardware giant Bunnings is about to test it.

Briscoes Group is already halfway through a year-long trial which began in September 2025, outlined on its website.

“A thorough process is in place to ensure we do not negatively impact customers,” it told RNZ.

Retailers use FRT to create a biometric template of every shopper’s face, then check it against a watchlist of known risky people. Images that do not match are deleted quickly, they say.

Proponents say retail violence is growing and the tech makes stores safer.

In the UK, the ongoing debate about FRT in stores has also been about its use to combat shoplifting: “So much theft is driven by addiction – cameras alone won’t solve that,” a police outreach worker told the BBC.

Asked by RNZ if Briscoes anticipated the tech would cut down on theft, it said removing violent people from stores “as a byproduct, may reduce the loss”.

“However, this was not the reason for the FRT trial, this is about the safety of our team members and customers.”

Six other big retailers not using it yet

Briscoes is using a system that Auckland company Auror launched in NZ last September.

Auror said in an email to the sector earlier this month: “In New Zealand, leading retailers are already operating ASR (Auror Subject Recognition), building practical experience with governance frameworks, community engagement, and day-to-day controls that maintain trust while protecting teams.”

It declined to identify which retailers when RNZ asked.

Bunnings and Briscoes were among 11 big box retailers and supermarkets that signed a statement in June 2025 supporting facial recognition to “protect workers and customers” following the Privacy Commissioner giving a cautious tick of approval to the Foodstuffs trial.

Of the others who signed, The Warehouse Group, Farmers, Mitre 10, Woolworths, Spark, and One NZ said they were not currently using FRT. Michael Hill Jewellers did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Violent, threatening or aggressive’

Bunnings is about to begin its own trial in two Hamilton stores, Te Rapa and Hamilton South, in April.

“The FRT system is calibrated to an accuracy level of 93 percent – meaning only matches with an accuracy rating of 93 percent will trigger an alert,” it said online. In Australia it uses a system from Hitachi.

Foodstuffs North Island is using FRT in 15 Pak’nSave stores and 10 New Worlds.

Foodstuffs South Island has deployed it in three Christchurch stores, where a trial ended in January.

“Only people who have previously been violent, threatening or aggressive in our stores are entered into the FR watchlist,” the South Island chain said on its website.

It told RNZ on Wednesday: “We’re taking this step by step. The stores in the trial were picked for a reason – they’ve got solid reporting processes, experienced teams and they’ve been dealing with threatening and harmful behaviour, so they’re well-placed to see if this makes a difference on the shop floor.

“We’re still working through the results, and any call on adding new stores will come down to what’s actually working, how it stacks up from a privacy point of view and whether stores have the right systems and know-how to use it properly.”

The four big retail groups all said only trained staff used the system. They all said they had done privacy impact assessments and engaged with the privacy commissioner.

Bunnings recently had what observers considered a partial win against a challenge in Australia to its use of FRT.

Auror, perhaps not surprisingly, saw it that way: “In Australia, the recent Bunnings appeal decision has opened the door to exploring how FRT can be used in retail settings for the purpose of crime prevention and safety. This decision gives retailers greater confidence,” said the company, which last September said it had only recently become comfortable that the tech was accurate enough in identifying people that it should begin offering it to retailers.

Bunnings on its website said in New Zealand it had engaged a Māori digital sovereignty expert to align with tikanga Māori and also got independent research to understand what New Zealanders think about FRT.

Tech not linked to police

Briscoes said it let customers know about the trial with signs on the store doors.

Only people who posed a risk to team members and customer safety were uploaded to its watchlist, it said in a statement. That comprised customers who offended against staff or were threatening physically or verbally aggressive, and any known to carry weapons.

The system was not linked to police. Instead, a manager would call police to remove someone, but not approach the person themselves for safety’s sake.

Staffers were grateful for it, Briscoes said.

“We will consider any future deployment based on the reduction of harmful events across the full trial period.”

Rule three of the recently finalised national biometric code said companies using FRT must tell people it is being collected and why, say how long data is retained for and make it clear how they can complain or access and correct any of their biometric data that is held.

Auror said its system allowed retailers to focus only on known high-harm offenders, and had multiple points where humans intervened, but with strict access controls.

“It does not allow retailers to retain data of regular shoppers, it reduces bias by prohibiting the collection of sensitive characteristics, and ensures data is not shared between organisations.”

Auror also operated an automated number plate recognition system for stores that generated over 10,000 reports of potential theft or assault or similar crimes to police a month. But it did not provide police access to FRT information, it said.

‘The last thing you want to do… is to violate consumer trust’

Following Bunnings’ announcement, Massey University marketing professor Bodo Lang warned a botched rollout of facial recognition technology could be costly for retailers – and said a business should signal its intention well before implementation.

“Many, many companies spend tens of thousands, or sometimes tens of millions of dollars in advertising to build their brand and get people in the store.

“So the last thing you want to do as a business is to violate consumer trust and I think by front-footing the issue, providing transparent information, you can avoid any erosion of trust.”

He believed most people would accept it in retail as a “necessary evil” but such support could be easily lost.

“I think the public opinion would swing hard against it if they had a sense, a perception, an inkling that this might also be used for other purposes.”

Assurances it was for “one purpose, and one purpose only”, was therefore key to public buy-in.

Security consultant Nicholas Dynon said New Zealand was a laggard on research into how people felt about the tech, with just some data from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner on public attitudes towards privacy, including FRT.

“So we do have some numbers – but they are very limited and they are general,” said Dynon, who wrote ‘Licence to Operate’ for the National Security Journal about public buy-in of FRT.

“What we don’t have is that sort of objective peer-reviewed understanding of how the public in New Zealand feels about FRT.”

Research in other countries showed acceptance varied depending on the environment, and that it had low rates of social licence in retail, compared to, say, at airports, he said.

Dynon also called into question the justification often used for deploying facial recognition, that retail violence was on the up and up.

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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/2026/03/26/briscoes-group-trialling-facial-recognition-tech/