Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

After months of negotiating and strike action, Health New Zealand and the union for allied health workers have reached a deal.

The Public Service Association (PSA) said its more than 12,000 members – including physiotherapists, anaesthetic technicians, and social workers – voted overwhelmingly to accept the union-backed offer. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/582490/health-workers-should-accept-proposed-collective-agreement-union

The new collective agreement included a pay increase of 2.5 percent from December 2025 and a further 2 percent from December this year, in addition to a $500 lump sum payment.

The union said there was also a commitment to a new pay scale for sterile sciences technicians (who work with medical devices in operating theatres and wards), to improve safe staffing and set up a $400,000 national professional development fund.

PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said while the union didn’t get everything it asked for, it accepted it was the the best offer it could get for now.

She put the result down to industrial action.

“These workers went on strike during the Mega Strike on 23 October 2025 as well as a further strike late last year and their actions have made a difference.

“This outcome after seven months of bargaining shows what workers can achieve when they stand together.”

Fitzsimons said allied health workers delivered essential care to New Zealanders every day and the settlement was recognition of their contribution.

She said voting was now underway for two other collectives that covered more than 4000 members including mental health and public health nurses.

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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/2026/02/25/health-nz-and-psa-reach-deal-after-months-of-negotiating-and-strike-action/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Wellington’s Mount Victoria tunnel is closed following a crash earlier this morning.

The tunnel is on a main route from Wellington city to the airport.

The transport agency says the tunnel is shut in both directions with police and contractors on site.

Motorists were advised to use an alternative route.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/25/wellingtons-mt-victoria-tunnel-closed-by-crash/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Two separate incidents on State Highway 1 in Kaiapoi, Canterbury, brought early morning traffic to a near-standstill.

Police were alerted to a two-vehicle crash on the soutbound side of the motorway about 5am on Wednesday.

Around the same time, a person stopped their vehicle in a lane on the northbound side, and was later taken to hospital.

Police were working to clear both lanes and said motorist should expect 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/2026/02/25/early-morning-traffic-incidents-close-state-highway-1-lanes-at-kaiapoi/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Wellington Mountain Bike festival kicks off this Friday with three days of racing, shuttle runs, food, beer and entertainment in three different trail spots around the city.

Local riders said up to 265km of trails made the capital a world-class riding destination worth celebrating.

They said riders in the capital were spoilt for choice.

Publicly accessible trails wind through the hills just a short pedal from almost every part of the city.

Matt Farrar – co-founder of festival organisers, Trails Wellington – said organisers could have chosen nearly a dozen locations to hold the events.

“We tried to get the right mix for beginner riders through to the more technical riders. Wainuiomata was perfect for the technical stuff as well as the family stuff. Matairangi’s so amazing being right in the centre of the city – we had to go with that one – and then Mākara’s our original famous mountain bike park, so they’re the three that gravitated to the top,” Farrar said.

Mākara Peak mountain bike park ranger Mark Kent said the sport’s popularity had exploded in Wellington over the last 20 years.

He said about 72,000 people visited the park – in the suburb of Karori – every year, and there was room for plenty more.

“Every second car coming into Karori on a Saturday has a bike on the back. The spinoff of that, the economic benefits for the cafe’s and for the bars in the suburb’s been fantastic and that’s similar across the city. Biking is social and so is going for a beer or going for a good feed afterwards as well,” Kent said.

The Wellington Off Road Riding Department, or WORD, runs skills courses for kids from seven to 17 years old.

The charity even has its own race team – Fast ForWORD.

Chief executive Nic Johnson said the festival was a chance to showcase the huge range of riding that had grown from trail builders’ efforts all around the city.

“Rotorua is very much one place, one network and same with Queenstown, you’re on the hill up at Skyline. Whereas we’ve got separate trail areas and it’s all a bit of insider knowledge about where the best trails are. We just need to connect them in a way and I think this mountain bike festival will do that. We’ve got three different venues over three days and people will get to taste a bit of each of them,” Johnson said.

Sixteen-year-old Ruben Armstrong said he would been taking advantage of the shuttles running in Mākara on Friday and competing in the Mt Victoria In’Duro Race on Saturday.

He said he loved riding the city’s terrain but it was the people he met out on the trails that made the capital so special for him.

“It’s awesome, it’s so buzzy. There’s always a good crew of people out. The trails are awesome, the location is awesome. It’s not a big drive out from the city. It’s always fun riding with people, everyone’s so friendly,” Armstrong said.

Co-founder of the Capital Kiwi Project, Paul Ward, said volunteers’ work building trails had helped provide access to the city’s green spaces, and was supporting planting and pest trapping efforts.

The work – along side Zealandia and groups like Predator Free Wellington – had resulted in a massive resurgence in indigenous wildlife around the city over the last 25 years.

“I grew up in Johnsonville in the nineties and my backyard was blackbirds, sparrows and possums and rabbits at night. Now I can open my door in the morning and hear kaka parrots, tui, kererū, kārearea the falcon and on the edges of Karori and places like Waimapihi you’re probably going to hear kiwi calling at night too,” Ward said.

The Wellington Mountain bike festival begins with a WORD-hosted youth ride, music, food and free shuttles trips about Mākara Peak Mountain Bike Park this Friday.

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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/2026/02/25/wellington-mountain-bike-festival-3-days-of-riding-racing-and-socialising/

Source: Radio New Zealand

A study of river catchments in the Tasman District aims to make native restoration easier for landowners, while also working to protect communities during extreme weather events.

Back-to-back floods last winter caused extensive damage to farms and rural properties, with crops inundated with silt, fences washed away and land lost to swollen rivers. The repair bill for the Tasman District Council alone was estimated at $50 million, while the costs of insurance claims from the event were estimated at $37.4m.

The feasibility study was being led by Kotahitanga mō te Taiao, an alliance of 17 organisations in the top of the South Island including iwi, local councils and the Department of Conservation, and environmental not-for-profit The Nature Conservancy Aotearoa New Zealand.

It aimed to investigate the most affordable and effective ways of restoring native habitats across the lowlands of the Motueka, Moutere and Riuwaka rivers.

Small scale restoration work already underway

For Debbie Win and her family, a stand of mature forest in the middle of their Dovedale farm had always been precious.

She said they fenced the area several years ago and had undertaken dedicated work to trap pests and remove weeds like Old Man’s Beard. The work had transformed the forest floor, which was previously bare.

Now, tiny lancewoods, ferns and beech tree seedlings were scattered beneath the established trees.

Washouts were still visible after last winter’s floods last caused widespread damage across the district, including on the Win farm, cutting off access to stock, washing out a large culvert and scouring out the land.

“It was probably the biggest heartbreak I have ever felt, I got to the stage where I couldn’t walk out the door, our [place] was wrecked, I couldn’t even begin to process what had happened down the valley.”

Former orchardist Dave Easton had spent the past decade constructing a wetland in the place of what used to be an apple orchard, but was originally a wetland on his property near the Moutere Inlet.

He was reversing the work put in by his forebears, but thought they would be proud of what he had done. Easton had funded all the restoration work himself and did not want to think about how much he had spent.

“We’ve got 65 different native species that have been planted so we are trying to establish that biodiversity hub and if we protect it and do predator trapping then we get the birds, in my dreams I would love to have kereru nesting on the property.”

His son, Elliot Easton, who co-ordinates the Moutere Catchment Collective said much of the land in the catchment was heavily modified and had been used to grow apples, grapes, hops and graze stock, which had an impact on sedimentation in the nearby inlet.

He noticed many landowners were starting to think about their properties differently.

“A lot of the land, especially in the Moutere, is not actually that productive so you have a lot of stock that is sometimes there as maintenance, like glorified lawnmowers, so people are really keen to establish natives on marginal land and sometimes across their whole property.”

He said time and cost were the biggest barriers but since the group was formed five years ago, more than 500,000 native trees had been planted and 50 kilometres of riparian fencing installed.

“The inlet has had a particularly hard time with a lot of sediment getting in there so a co-ordinated approach to mitigating sediment and stabilising waterways by planting them up is really important.”

Sky Davies runs the Tasman Environmental Trust and owns a blueberry farm in the Graham Valley.

In the last few years, she and her husband had planted a couple of thousand natives on their property.

She said the planting was the easy part, it was the maintenance and keeping weeds at bay that was the hard part as it could be time consuming and costly.

“What we really need is some ways to make the finances of it stack up and having some practical ways of rewarding landowners for that work, that’s what will lead to more scale and landowners being able to do more of it.”

A restoration model that can be used nationwide

The Nature Conservancy Aotearoa interim director Erik van Eyndhoven said the study aimed to investigate the most affordable and effective ways of restoring native habitats and would also look at how to increase resilience during increasingly frequent storms.

“This catchment has just been hit by a couple of really big events this last winter and there is a view if you do native restoration in the right places and the right way, it can actually help with some of those storm surges and those flood peaks.”

He said the country needed to find innovative ways of funding restoration work.

“What other mechanisms can we leverage, things like carbon markets or emerging biodiversity markets … or finding people who are willing to pay for this work at scale, and making that accessible to landowners to help take some of the pain out of the equation for them.”

Kotahitanga mō te Taiao co-chair Hemi Sundgren said it was important to take a collective approach, because large scale restoration work could not happen alone, and iwi leadership, combined with community knowledge and technical science was critical when trying to address the challenges the environment was facing.

The organisation had a shared goal of restoring up to 15 percent of lowland forest cover in the top of the South Island.

“This rohe suffers, like any other, significantly from sedimentation so the restoration of the lowlands project and the catchments is really, really important. The approach that we take from the mountains to the sea, is a great values and principles-based approach.”

The study was expected to take a year with landowners and community groups across the Motueka, Moutere and Riuwaka river catchments being called on to share their experiences.

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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/2026/02/25/tasman-district-river-catchments-study-aims-to-protect-communities-during-extreme-weather/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Dual British citizens need UK passports to travel there from Wednesday – but can try their luck with an expired passport if they have to.

UK dual citizen Chris Betterton is among those outraged by the change to require British passports, describing it as a shambles, with “appalling communication”.

The move meant citizens of UK and Irish citizens needed a passport from one of those countries to enter Britain, and could be turned away at airport check-in if they did not have one.

However, the British High Commission confirmed on Tuesday additional temporary guidance had been given to airlines about travellers using expired (post-1989) passports. It said it was an operational decision for them whether to accept them.

“We recognise that this is a significant change for carriers and travellers, but we have been clear on requirements for dual British citizens to travel with a valid British passport or Certificate of Entitlement, in line with those for all British citizens,” said a spokesman. “At their own discretion, carriers may accept some expired British passport as alternative documentation.”

Emergency travel documents were available to some citizens if they urgently needed to enter the UK.

“In line with current practice, on arrival at the UK border, Border Force will still assess a person’s suitability to enter the UK and conduct additional checks if required.”

The House of Commons library guidance still said that operators were “unlikely to deviate from the guidance because they can be penalised for bringing inadequately documented passengers to the UK”.

The Board of Airline Representatives New Zealand declined to comment.

Betterton, who has a New Zealand mother but moved from the UK in 2017, said using an expired document was not a gamble worth taking. His parents were in their 80s and he may need to travel quickly if they became ill. He was also taking his family to visit next year.

The Wellingtonian wants a rethink, with an affordable and lifelong certificate of entitlement – which currently costs £589 (NZ$1330) – to make sure dual citizens did not have to bear ongoing costs.

Tremendous expense

“It’s been an absolute shambles, they haven’t given any explanation,” he said. “Like everything else, I don’t think they’ve thought through the consequences, I don’t think they’ve thought through the cost and expense, the fact they’re making it more expensive for British citizens to come to their own country than everybody else.

“I think their communication has been appalling. I did email the High Commission but they just ignored me. I’d like them to have announced it properly, like a good six months to a year ago. I’d also like there to be a grace period. And I’d like the certificate of enitlement to be much cheaper, and then that would be the obvious thing to do – now they’re not charging to transfer it between passports, you’ve got it for life.”

UK media was also now recognising the huge impact it was having on dual citizens including those who had to take up citizenship after Brexit, he said.

“We now need to go to the tremendous expense and waste of money of UK passports for the entire family rather than go on our New Zealand passports like our New Zealand friends can.”

Thousands of dual citizens from New Zealand had applied for passports since last month, many angry at what they believed was poor communication of a significant change.

UK MPs have called on the government to delay the enforcement of needing a UK passport or CEO.

NZ Post had been fielding complaints, too. Customer John Day said it took a month for his application to arrive in the UK, and at one point he and his wife were worried both had been lost – including the New Zealand passports they also sent – and his wife’s application has still not arrived.

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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/2026/02/25/absolute-shambles-dual-nationals-on-uk-border-change/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Government has long promised to be tough on crime, and legislation could see a major crackdown on retail crime – but within the retail industry, the proposed hard-line changes are controversial

The man behind the controversial moves to crack down hard on retail crime is one step closer to getting his way.

Sunny Kaushal has been on a 10-year mission to deal to retail criminals with harsher penalties and give retailers and the public more powerful tools to fight them.

The measures are now part of proposed changes to the Crimes Act 1961 and include the most disputed aspect, citizens arrests.

Submissions closed last week and they will now go to select committee.

If the amendment is passed into law it will be a victory for Kaushal, who has long fronted for dairy owners in the call for tougher laws. But it comes at a cost.

The government group headed by Kaushal, which was set up to give expert advice, has collapsed and three members quit before it was due to wind up, exposing deep differences within the retail industry.

Today The Detail talks to three journalists who have delved into the work of Kaushal and the Ministerial Advisory Group for Victims of Retail Crime (MAG).

The group was set up in July 2024 to tackle rising retail crime by providing independent, actionable, and evidence-based policy proposals. According to a government press release it was set up to advise on “changes to the Crimes Act 1961 to strengthen self-defence, anti-social behaviour policies, and security regulations”.

The Spinoff’s special correspondent, Madeleine Chapman, says she’d been thinking about Kaushal for years as he was often in the media speaking on behalf of small retail businesses, particularly dairy owners, around ram raids and other crimes.

After poring over pages of material about him, going back many years, Chapman says she was impressed by his consistent message.

“He has really been on the same beat for the whole 10 years.”

Kaushal has been calling for more police, longer sentences, and making it easier to charge people who commit the crimes, she says.

“Part of me goes: that seems kind of strange for someone who’s speaking and canvassing lots of opinions to have that same strong opinion the whole time.

“Another part of me was surprised that he has kept the energy and the momentum and I think that is why he has had such staying power,” Chapman says.

What emerged from her investigation was more than the story behind the group of retail leaders unravelling, it was about one man who continued to push through his campaign with a “little bit of tunnel vision” despite strong opposition from many parts of the retail industry.

“It is quite incredible that he has come against all these people, all of his colleagues saying all sorts of stuff. That has worked, they accepted the group’s recommendations and now it’s proposed legislation.”

Jimmy Ellingham, RNZ’s Checkpoint reporter, says when the government announced the Ministerial Advisory Group in 2024, it cited an 86 percent rise in retail crime over five years, while Kaushal pointed out that retail crime costs $2.7 billion a year.

“So this was set up in response to that and the objectives at the time were said to do the likes of empowering security guards at retail premises and give business owners of retailers more power to deal with shoplifting. There was also mention of facial recognition technology. This group was set up to look into those issues,” Ellingham says.

Ellingham and Checkpoint senior producer, Louisa Cleave, looked into ministerial advisory groups, compared their budgets and the time spent by the members.

“It’s not unusual that this was set up and the remit was a bit of a blank canvas. The minister Paul Goldsmith said on this show, ‘I want them to throw any and every idea at me’.’”

Goldsmith told Checkpoint he wanted them to push the barrow, though suggestions such as allowing people to use pepper spray to deter criminals was considered a step too far, says Cleave.

The group had a very good scope of experts but somewhere along the way, something went wrong, she says.

“There’s been one aspect that seems to be the most controversial and that’s the citizens arrest powers. We’ve heard from two quite strong groups, Retail NZ and the Police Association, since submissions closed last week that they have some serious concerns.”

Chapman says submissions show the concerns around arming security guards and making citizens arrests are shared by others in the industry, like petrol station owners.

“They were against any sort of citizens arrest or any sort of expectation that your regular retail worker should be trying to stop armed offenders. Currently what they do is say, ‘keep safe, make sure people are safe, the person will likely leave, call the police’.

“And then when you read the submissions some of them are quite strongly worded about how ridiculous this whole idea sounded.”

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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/2026/02/25/citizens-arrests-armed-guards-and-the-power-of-sunny-kaushal/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The number of rough sleepers known to outreach teams has dropped in Auckland, but those on the front line are treating the figure with caution.

Auckland Council’s latest tally shows the number of homeless people social services know of across the region fell from 940 in September to 668 in January – a decrease of 272 that almost matches the number of extra homes funded in that time.

It comes as the government plans controversial move-on orders for those begging or rough sleeping in public.

Council’s head of community impact, Dicky Humphries, said it was too early to tell if the quarter’s drop was a trend or seasonal dip.

“They carry a bit of hope but we do need to do some analysis as to why that might be the case,” he said.

“One quarter drop is not necessarily a trend so we will be looking to the next quarter figure and the one after that to see if this quarter is an anomaly or the start of a trend downwards.”

Humphries said across the region, homelessness had been increasing for some time and numbers could fluctuate.

The count included those working with people experiencing the extreme end of homelessness to those rough sleeping or living in cars.

“Any figure that we have, counted that way, is a sub-set of a much larger figure that is unknown to everyone,” he said.

“There’s a lot of work that’s happening between the social services sector, council and government so it is a figure that we would like to see fall, ongoing.”

Heart of the South business association general manager, Audrey Williams, said it had noticed an increase in homeless people turning up in recent weeks.

“Since the government started talking about moving people out of Auckland, our numbers have increased. We’re still only at about 15 not huge levels but it has definitely increased and the mental health state of the newcomers is a lot more severe than we’ve ever noticed before.”

Williams said it had not seen a drop in rough sleepers in south Auckland.

Local community liaison officers talked to new arrivals living on the street and she said it appeared they had been told to leave the main city centre.

“They’ve been told that they’re not allowed to rough sleep in the central city, they are told that by the security guards, by the locals,” she said.

“People have taken that as factual ‘you can go somewhere else you’re not allowed to be here in Auckland city’.”

Williams said the business association worked with social agencies and in the last 18 months had helped 30 people get a roof over their head and wrap-around support.

The homeless count was in a Regional Homeless Activity Update, to council’s Community Committee, by council’s homelessness lead Ron Suyker.

The report pointed out that the 272 decrease in rough sleepers coincided with the provision of 207 extra housing places in the Housing First programme, which “has had a positive impact”.

But Suyker said several registered community housing providers that offered wrap-around support and housing for the homeless were exceeding the caps on their contracts.

“The demand is greater than the capacity they have been provisioned to manage,” he said in the report.

“Government target settings in relation to the reduction of reliance on emergency housing have seen an impact, reflected in this report’s numbers, on the ability for homeless tangata to access emergency housing.”

That change was made in October 2024, and between September that year and January 2025 homeless numbers in Auckland jumped 53 percent.

Suyker said the council had provided support to several business associations responding to increased street homelessness in their areas.

“Physical and mental health issues, along with addictions, are presenting in most cases of rough sleeping and individuals needs can be incredibly complex,” he said.

The government funded an extra 300 Housing First places in September last year in a bid to curb homelessness, and the housing ministry said almost 200 rough sleepers had been housed as a result.

The Housing First programme helped people who were chronically homeless into stable, long-term homes and its manager Rami Alrudaini said that showed there was a need for more housing – he did not believe the move-on orders would help.

“We are now seeing the impact of that investment with more than two thirds of those places already filled and now they’re introducing move on enforcement which undermines the very investment they have made, by making it harder for people who are already doing it tough to access the support and housing they need.”

At Wellington’s Downtown Community Ministry (DCM), chief executive Natalia Cleland said there were not enough homes to go around.

DCM was allocated 30 of the extra 300 places in the one-off government provision and had managed to house 10 rough sleepers in the last two months.

Cleland applauded the government for supporting the programme, and the private landlords who leased their homes to people in need, but said there were not enough homes.

“We still have a huge number of people under our service that are waiting for housing that have signed up to Housing First who have said, ‘I’m sleeping rough, please help me to get a home’,” she said.

“Ten is great, but there’s at least 52 people as of today that are rough sleeping under our Housing First service that don’t have access to or a clear pathway to housing.”

Cleland said many homeless people were waiting for housing.

“It’s not that someone’s rough sleeping and needs to be walked down to DCM for support. It’s that they’re rough sleeping and they’re waiting for a home to move into.”

Auckland Council’s Community Committee would discuss the regional update and impact of move on orders on rough sleepers this Thursday.

Its chair, councillor Julie Fairey, expected discussion to be robust.

“The increase in funding for Housing First places has helped. This is part of the frustration, we know what will work here, the sector has been very clear about what is needed which is more funding for services like Housing First.”

She said there was widespread recognition that anti-social behaviour was a problem that needed to be addressed but questioned whether move-on orders would be effective.

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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/2026/02/25/number-of-auckland-rough-sleepers-drops-advocates-say-true-figure-remains-unknown/

Source: Radio New Zealand

A crash on State Highway 1 in Kaiapoi, Canterbury, brought early morning traffic to a near-standstill.

The Transport Agency said a crash shortly after 5am on the Kaiapoi River Bridge on Wednesday blocked the northbound lanes as well as one lane southbound.

It said motorists should expect 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/2026/02/25/crash-blocks-lanes-on-state-highway-1-at-kaiapoi/

Source: Radio New Zealand

A hack at a second healthcare portal is being labelled a concern and a worry by a cyber security consultant who also used to work at the National Cyber Security Centre.

MediMap has shut down access to its platform while it looks into how it was breached on Sunday.

Health New Zealand is supporting it but said as a privately owned company, it is MediMap that is solely responsible for its security and it needs to do everything it can.

“I think any incident involving health information is concerning,” Jan Thornborough from Outfox told RNZ.

“Because we expect our most sensitive information to be well protected.”

That’s what Health NZ says too.

Its digital services acting chief information technology officer Darren Douglass said New Zealanders expected companies involved in healthcare to secure systems and platforms so private information was safeguarded.

MediMap is widely used in the likes of aged residential care, disability services, hospices and community health for prescribing and giving medication, and administration.

Facilities using it are now back to manual pen and paper.

Palliative Care Nurses New Zealand said it was very worried by the breach.

“Palliative care nurses are deeply concerned about the impact this may have on the safety, privacy, and delivery of care for our patients,” the group said.

“Any disruption places vulnerable patients at risk.”

In a message provided by the Nurses Organisation, one of its members at George Manning Lifecare and Village in Christchurch said staff were worried for their residents.

“Since MediMap stopped working we have had to double the number of registered nurses on each shift just to give medication, this requires a paper form from the pharmacy, everything from paracetamol through to controlled drugs requires a second checker to observe and sign along with the registered nurse administering,” they said.

“This process makes each medication round longer and means the risk of residents not receiving their medicine on time is high.”

Jan Thornborough from Outfox said it was the right move by MediMap to close its platform down to put a halt to further damage.

“So usually in the first 24 to 48 hours, it’s really important for them to assess what’s happened so that they can contain the risk and preserve any evidence so that when they get the right experts in, they can investigate it properly and actually find out exactly how the hacker got in,” she said.

“And once they’ve contained the problem and they understand the scope of it, then they can determine what the impact is both on the service itself, but also for their customers and implement an appropriate recovery plan for them.”

MediMap said the breach, which it called unauthorised activity, resulted in patient records being modified.

It said this involved information like resident names, dates of birth, assigned prescriber, location of care and resident status.

Thornborough said users of software or platforms had their own responsibilities as well as the companies providing it.

“Really this is a wake-up call for all New Zealand organisations, if they haven’t worked it out yet that cybercrime is not going away,” she said.

“We’re all operating in a digitally connected environment these days and they need to take ownership of where they put their information and who they trust holding on to it because at the end of the day, it’s a shared responsibility between the business and the vendor of a particular piece of software or a portal.

She said software or platform users had to do their own due diligence.

“And until the general consumer says ‘okay, I expect this level of security’, they’re not going to get it, basically.”

The latest health portal breach comes after a top-level review into the earlier Manage My Health hack was already underway.

Health Minister Simeon Brown, who called that breach unacceptable, commissioned the review and said there were lessons that needed to be learned.

The review started on 30 January and was expected to provide a final report on 30 April.

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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/2026/02/25/medimap-health-portal-hack-a-wake-up-call-cyber-security-expert-says/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Lyall Bay businesses are excited by the prospect that beaches along the south coast in Wellington could soon reopen after being off-limits since since the Moa Point treatment plant failed catastrophically pumping millions of litres of untreated sewage into the sea.

On Tuesday Wellington Mayor Andrew Little said the current blanket direction for people to stay off south coast beaches was not sustainable when water testing results showed little risk.

The impacts of the untreated sewage being discharged into the Cook Strait on south coast beaches has been monitored now for over two weeks, and Little has hinted a change in policy could be coming.

“What we are looking at being able to say to people is: ‘here are the results, this is what it shows, the risk is pretty low, you make your own decision about whether you want to go onto the beach and and have a swim in the sea’.”

A rāhui is in place on the southern coast from Ōwhiro Bay to Breaker Bay which covers anything the water touches or can touch with the high or low tides.

Anna Janiec owner of the Polish Sausage Company which is located in Lyall Bay Junction said businesses had really felt the impact of people not going to the beach in the past few weeks.

“We don’t see new people coming. There is no people wandering around. Obviously no one on the beach. People with dogs that come for walks are not here. So we can feel it.”

She said if the beaches were safe for people to return to, she would expect it to boost business.

Kate Necklen founder of Wonderland Chocolate had also seen less people in the area.

“We’ve certainly seen less people come through our tasting room.”

“It would be awesome to see people back in the Bay and I know there’ll be plenty of surfers out there who want to get back in the water,” Necklen said.

Botanist general manager Kais Letfi said they had seen a 20-25 percent decrease in customers.

“I’ve had to cut hours, I’ve had to reduce wages,” he said.

He said they could not wait for the beaches to reopen.

“Hopefully it brings people back to Lyall Bay and we can start working again.”

Vicky Shen owner of Seaview Takeaways hoped that if the beaches reopened it would bring more people to Lyall Bay.

But would people even swim at the beaches if they reopened? Most of those RNZ spoke to wouldn’t be diving straight in.

“I think if I see others swimming, maybe. But I would have to be 100 percent sure that it is safe,” Janiec said.

“I’m not really a beach swimmer myself but my kids swim in the beach and they’d certainly go into the water once it reopened for sure,” Necklen said.

Shen was also willing to dip her toes back in the water, but also a little wary of getting a skin rash from bacteria in the water.

Letfi said he would put his trust in the council and swim once it was safe to do so.

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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/2026/02/25/lyall-bay-businesses-excited-at-prospect-of-wellington-south-coast-beaches-reopening/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Young people are facing more psychological distress and finding it harder to get specialist help, a new report says.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission has released a snapshot of mental health and addiction services in the year to June 2025, using data from the NZ health survey.

It revealed 23 percent of people aged 15 to 25 had experienced high or very high psychological distress in the four weeks leading up to the survey – up from 8 percent 10 years ago.

The commission’s chief executive, Karen Orsborn, said more work was being done to find out exactly why.

“We know that for young people, they live in a very rapidly changing world. They experience challenges due to what they see around climate change and financial challenges and the world at large. Online safety fits into there as well,” she said.

Young people were also struggling to access specialist care – like psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, with almost 400 fewer getting help than the previous year.

That was bucking one of the positive trends in the report which found, across all ages, about 6500 more people were able to use specialist services than the previous year – at total of 164,555.

Orsborn wanted to see the system really focus on reaching young people.

“The earlier somebody can have access to services when they need it… they do have better outcomes in the longer term. So getting that early access is really important,” she said.

“There’s a lot of really positive initiatives underway. So we have seen some great things happening and it’s really just keeping that focus, keeping that leadership and the actions to really make a difference for change.”

Across all ages, the report showed a mixed bag.

The number of people being turned away when they were referred to specialist services had increased.

However, waiting times had decreased, likely because there were 557 more specialist mental health workers than in March 2023, the report found.

There was still a 20 percent vacancy rate for psychiatrists.

Orsborn said the commission was carrying out its own detailed study to try to find out more about what is behind the statistics.

Where to get help:

• Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737 any time to speak to a trained counsellor, for any reason
• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 or text HELP to 4357
• Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 / 0508 TAUTOKO. This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends
• Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 or text 4202
• Samaritans: 0800 726 666
• Youthline: 0800 376 633 or text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz
• What’s Up: 0800 WHATSUP / 0800 9428 787. This is free counselling for 5 to 19-year-olds
• Asian Family Services: 0800 862 342 or text 832. Languages spoken: Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Hindi, and English.
• Rural Support Trust Helpline: 0800 787 254
• Healthline: 0800 611 116
• Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155
• OUTLine: 0800 688 5463
• Aoake te Rā bereaved by suicide service: or call 0800 000 053

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

Sexual Violence

Family Violence

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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/2026/02/25/youth-facing-more-psychological-distress-finding-it-harder-to-get-specialist-help-report/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Nearly two years before Mukzameel Ali pleaded guilty to killing his son, he spoke to RNZ national crime correspondent Sam Sherwood on several occasions, with his explanation about what happened.

“If I’m guilty, I’m guilty…”

It was 12 June 2024, four days after Mukzameel Ali’s nine and a half month old son had died from what police had called non-accidental blunt-force trauma.

Then working at Stuff, I had spoken to Ali on two occasions since his son’s death. He had strongly denied being responsible.

In my first conversation he told me: “I didn’t do anything wrong, because I was trying to save my son. He was my son, I loved him so much. I was trying my best.”

It was during my third call that he told me his efforts to give his son CPR may have caused injuries that led to his death, but said it “wasn’t intentional”.

He said he was “worried” about what might happen to him and was “angry” about what he did.

“Because I didn’t do that on purpose, but if that would’ve resulted in that then – I feel very bad.”

Two days later Ali was charged with murdering his son, and on Monday he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter.

It was revealed the little boy died as a result of blunt force trauma resulting in a crushing injury to the abdomen.

Possible causes included a punch, kick or stomp and the nature of the injury was such that he would’ve been crying and in obvious discomfort until ultimately losing consciousness. He would not have survived longer than 30 to 60 minutes after the blow.

With his guilty plea, I look back at my interviews with Ali, his explanations and what actually happened that day.

‘I didn’t do anything wrong’

Two days after Mustafa Ali’s death, I was on the phone to his father Mukzameel Ali.

It was 10 June, and I was covering the baby’s death for Stuff.

A day earlier Detective Inspector Graham Pikethley had issued a media release about the death of a 10-month-old in Te Kuiti. The little boy had been brought unconscious to Te Kuiti Hospital, where staff alerted police.

“Tragically, despite the best efforts of medical personnel, he was unable to be resuscitated,” Pikethley said.

“An initial examination showed the baby boy suffered violent, blunt-force trauma. We believe these injuries were not accidental.”

A homicide investigation was under way and police had been speaking to family members including the boy’s parents.

“They are working with us as we establish what occurred in this young child’s life and how he came to be so badly injured.”

After hearing of the case, I began searching on social media and saw a post on Facebook naming the victim as Mustafa Ali. I then found his family and messaged his parents.

I did some further investigating and spoke to one of Mukzameel Ali’s colleagues. The colleague said Ali was staying with him and I could call back.

About an hour later I was on the phone to Ali, then aged 21.

At the beginning of the interview, he told me that he had recently been in Fiji and when he got home he noticed his son had been unwell. He said they took him to the doctors and he was given some antibiotics.

He told me that on the day of Mustafa’s death, he was home alone with his son as his wife was out at a birthday party.

While Mustafa was in his care, he said he still was not feeling well. He gave him some Weetbix, but he did not eat much.

“Then after that, I gave him the bottle of milk that was left over to finish up and he was sitting down in the ballpit. I put him down there and he was watching TV, but he was still looking dizzy and sad,” he told me.

He said he continued doing chores around the house.

“I came (in) and he (Mustafa) was almost like sleepy. He was sitting down but his head was going down so I made him another bottle of milk and tried to feed him.

“Maybe he drank almost half a bottle and then he vomited all of it out suddenly.”

He said he began taking his son’s clothes off due to the vomit.

“He was not good. His eyes became very big and he was like choking up or something. He wouldn’t breathe and I got shocked, and I got nervous, I was scared.

“I don’t know what to do because I was alone, home by myself and that’s my first time having an encounter that… nothing came up in my mind, my mind was all empty. “

He told me he began “tapping” on his son’s bum and back to see if he could get a reaction from his son.

“I tried to give him CPR… still didn’t respond and I just lifted him up and ran straight to the hospital. And lucky that’s when my wife arrived, so I gave Mustafa to her. I told her ‘he choked, something’s blocking, he cannot breathe, let’s just hurry up and take him the hospital’.”

He told me that staff at the hospital gave him oxygen when they arrived, but they were unable to save him.

During the interview I asked him what police had told him so far. He claimed police said Mustafa died from internal bleeding from his liver. I said police had stated he died from blunt force trauma, but Ali said he did not know how that had been caused, and suggested someone else may have done something to him earlier.

I also asked Ali if his son had previously been injured. He told me there had been an incident where while holding Mustafa he had fallen down some stairs. He said Mustafa suffered a collarbone fracture, fractured ribs as well as bleeding on his head.

He said Oranga Tamariki were involved and Mustafa stayed with his grandparents for several months before coming back to live with his parents.

I asked Ali if he was worried he could be charged in relation to his son’s death.

“Maybe because I am the only one who was there at the moment and I am maybe the one who caused him like to suffer all that. Maybe because I did it in the wrong way,” he told Stuff.

“I don’t feel good. I feel scared because nothing came up in my mind.”

During the interview he denied being responsible for his son’s death.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, because I was trying to save my son. He was my son, I loved him so much. I was trying my best.”

The following day police held a press conference. During the conference police were asked about Ali’s comments to me.

Police said they were aware of the comments, but that there were some “inconsistencies” from people associated with Mustafa and what police believed caused the injuries.

I wanted to clarify the inconsistencies so I called Ali again.

I brought up with him what police had said and asked for his response. He told me he had not told the police the full story, and that he had “missed some of the things”.

“I was not feeling good, like nothing was coming in my mind,” he said.

“I was not thinking right straight away because just after what happened they took us to give our statement, so I was not in the right stage to give statement so that’s why some of the part has missed out.”

I was confused as to what he was referring to, and asked further questions but he would not go into specifics but said he wanted to speak to police “straight away”.

‘If I’m guilty, I’m guilty’

On 12 June, I called Ali for a third time.

I asked him about the blunt force trauma police said had been inflicted on his son on the day of his death.

“The only thing I was doing like I was trying my best to save my son. That’s all I can say. If that could’ve happened from me, from doing it, but that wasn’t on purpose. Like I was trying to save his life.”

I pressed him further, asking what happened that day. He repeated that Mustafa was choking and could not breathe, so he tried to make him breathe and was giving him CPR.

I put to Ali that he now knew it was him who caused the injuries to his son.

He said yes, but then corrected himself and said he was not saying it was him but what happened “wasn’t intentional”.

He said he was “worried” about what could happen to him

“If I’m guilty, I’m guilty.”

He later brought up that it might have been someone “behind my back” who caused injuries earlier.

“So when I was giving him the CPR so that would’ve caused that injury to become more big and cause his death,” he said.

I asked him how he felt about what happened, and he replied: “I feel angry what I did”.

“Because I didn’t do that on purpose, but if that would’ve resulted in that then – I feel very bad.”

The interview ended shortly after.

Two days later Ali was charged with murdering his son.

Police would later interview me about my conversations with Ali. I told them that in my third interview with him I felt Ali was admitting to being responsible for the injuries his son suffered that day, but that it was not intentional.

The guilty plea

Nearly two years after my third interview with Ali, he appeared in the High Court at Hamilton and pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, as well as charges of assault with intent to injure between 1 February 2023, and 31 May 2023, and assaulting a person in a family relationship between June 2023 and June 2024.

The agreed summary of facts, obtained by RNZ, talks about Ali moving to New Zealand from Fiji in July 2022. In September 2022 he met Tauvalea Law at their Te Kuiti workplace.

They began a relationship shortly after and Law became pregnant in January 2023. Ali “immediately expressed concern” about the prospect of having a child before he was settled in New Zealand, the summary says, and encouraged Law to terminate the pregnancy.

Law wanted to keep the baby, and initially misled Ali to believe she had miscarried. The relationship continued, and Ali became aware she was still pregnant months later when he found a pregnancy scan she had hidden from him.

An argument ensued.

“The defendant was angry and slapped Ms Law about the face repeatedly. Ms Law was lying on her back on the bed and the defendant was sitting on her thighs. She tried to get him off and scratched his face. He pushed her down, placing his hands on her upper chest and around her neck before jumping on top of her with his knees on her abdomen.”

Law didn’t require medical attention and there was no harm to her pregnancy.

In mid-July 2023 the couple married, shortly before Mustafa was born.

“At times, the relationship between the defendant and Ms Law was volatile. On several occasions when angry with Ms Law, the defendant pushed and/or punched her.”

After Mustafa was born the family lived at a Te Kuiti property. Two extended family members related to Ali also lived at the address.

On 8 June 2024, Law woke up Mustafa crying about 6am. She settled him in bed between her and Ali and went back to sleep.

About 8am Law got up as her son and husband slept. She left home about 10.50am having asked Ali to give Mustafa a bath and feed him in advance of family celebrations to be held later that day.

Ali and Mustafa were home alone.

The summary says that Mustafa had been unwell with a high temperature and was displaying signs of being unsettled in the days prior.

As Ali told me at the time, sometime after Law left he fed Mustafa a bottle and some Weetbix. The baby vomited and was unsettled.

“The defendant tried later in the morning to feed him again, unsuccessfully. Frustrated, the defendant attempted to force-feed Mustafa the bottle causing prominent bruises to his chin. Unable to feed or settle the baby, the defendant became stressed and angry.

“During this time, the defendant caused a fatal injury to Mustafa through a violent blow directed to his abdomen.”

Law arrived home about 2.15pm, and was met at the front door by Ali holding Mustafa in his arms.

The baby was “floppy and cold to the touch”.

“The seriousness of Mustafa’s condition was immediately apparent to Ms Law who ran outside with Mustafa in search of assistance. The couple then drove direct to Te Kuiti Hospital.

“Mustafa was pronounced deceased shortly after arrival at the hospital.”

Mustafa died as a result of blunt force trauma resulting in a crushing injury to the abdomen.

“The impact of the injury lacerated his liver, and the wall of the large bowel in two locations. There was also bruising to the diaphragm, small bowel mesentery, and back of the abdominal wall. The lacerations caused bleeding into the abdominal cavity, and ultimately death.

“The relatively close location of all of the internal injuries to each other supports a suggestion the trauma was due to one impact of significant force. Possible causes of the trauma could include a punch, kick, or stomp.”

The injury to Mustafa’s liver was so severe the bleeding into the abdomen commenced immediately after the injury was inflicted and continued uninterrupted until he died.

“The nature of the injury is such it can be expected Mustafa was crying and in obvious discomfort until a decrease in blood pressure will have led to him becoming increasingly drowsy and ultimately losing consciousness.

“The extent of the internal injury was such that Mustafa will not have survived longer than 30 to 60 minutes after the blow was inflicted and it is quite possible death occurred more quickly than that.”

The summary of facts says that when Ali initially spoke to police he said Mustafa began to choke while feeding and, as he told me, the injury was likely caused by his subsequent attempt to perform CPR.

He described carrying out chest compressions which included using two hands on Mustafa’s chest and, effectively, punching him in the stomach.

A postmortem revealed Mustafa had abscesses caused by ulceration around either side of his larynx, which would have caused “significant discomfort” when ingesting food such as Weetbix.

There was also bruising behind each of Mustafa’s ears and a large bruise on the top of his head which were not visible externally. The pathologist said the bruises could have been caused up to 18 hours before Mustafa’s death.

“The bruising behind the ears may be consistent with an attempt to force feed the baby while holding his head, however the defendant has not provided an explanation that could account for the bruise to the top of his head.

“The pathologist cannot comment on the force used to inflict the bruise other than to say it was not sufficient to cause any kind of skull fracture or brain bleed.”

The pathologist also found fractures to Mustafa’s left ribs, but said they could have been the result of resuscitation attempts.

As for the CPR explanation, the pathologist ruled the force required to cause Mustafa’s internal injury “is not consistent with any CPR procedures”.

While Ali has admitted responsibility for the fatal blow, the exact manner in which it was delivered remains unknown.

RNZ asked police for comment on Monday about the investigation into the incident where Ali said he fell down the stairs with Mustafa.

A police spokesperson said police and the Crown had reviewed the circumstances surrounding the case.

“No charges have been laid in relation to the earlier incident, as there was insufficient evidence to do so.

“As the matter remains before the court for sentencing, we’re unable to provide further comment at this time.”

An Oranga Tamariki spokesperson told RNZ that in 2024 they completed a Rapid Practice Assessment into their involvement with the case.

“As a result of this assessment, recommendations from the report were commissioned regionally and nationally to support process and practice.

“As this matter is still before the courts, Oranga Tamariki is unable to comment further.”

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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/2026/02/25/if-im-guilty-im-guilty-what-a-father-who-admitted-killing-his-son-told-a-journalist/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The agencies governing energy use in New Zealand are urging lines companies are being urged to consider flexible pricing and other ‘non-network’ solutions instead of building more powerlines and poles.

In an open letter published today, the Commerce Commission, the Electricity Authority and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) said doing so could reduce the cost for consumers and improve the performance of the electricity system.

The letter, sent to electricity distributors across the country, warned the country’s electricity system was “changing rapidly”.

“Renewable generation is growing, bringing greater variability and intermittency,” the agencies wrote.

“At the same time, overall demand is projected to rise as gas supply declines, transport electrifies, and more industrial and commercial processes transition to electric technologies.”

New Zealand’s electricity demands will grow by 35-82 percent by 2050, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment estimated last year.

Investment in distribution infrastructure needed long lead times and was “slow and costly to change once initiated”, the letter said.

“Non‑network solutions offer significant, quantifiable potential to reduce costs and defer network upgrades.”

They could also buy more time before distributors committed to major upgrades, and allow network owners to improve their forecasting of demand and usage.

One of the most significant options was shifting electricity use away from peak times, the agencies wrote.

At the moment, New Zealand’s electricity network is built to handle peak demand, which only occurs a few times a day for short intervals.

A recent report published by EECA found that nearly 2 gigawatts of power being used at peak hours could be shifted off-peak, saving the country up to $3 billion in infrastructure costs.

The technology to do was was increasingly available, the letter said.

“New distributed energy resources (DER), including solar, batteries and smart, controllable devices, are becoming more affordable and more widely deployed.”

Some progress, but not enough

Electricity Authority networks general manager Tim Sparks said the three regulators wanted to give lines companies “a nudge” to think beyond more poles and wires.

“We’re concerned that the distributors are not consistently considering non-network solutions, even though we all know these options can improve efficiency and reduce long-term costs for consumers.”

There was “real untapped potential” but limited progress to date, Spark said.

“Some distributors have begun to move into this area, and they have experimented with trying non-network solutions, but they’re not doing it consistently, and not all of them are doing it.”

Non-network solutions included anything that took pressure off the network by either using less electricity, or shifting use to different times to spread the load more evenly, he said.

“It could include things like smart devices in homes and businesses, like EV chargers, rooftop solar and batteries, controlled hot water cylinders.”

Price flexibility was a “critical” part of the solution, the letter said.

Sparks said some distributors already offered lower off-peak pricing, or an ‘hour of power’-style deal, but that could go even further.

“You can also get controlled load pricing, for example, where consumers can sign up to get a lower price for allowing some of their key demand to be controlled remotely.

“The consumer may not even notice it, but the hot water cylinder can be used to shift demand and reduce pressure on the system.”

Ripple control, which was already used in some locations for electric hot water cylinders, was one type of controlled load shifting, he said.

EECA chief executive Marcos Pelenur said there was other technology available that was “not even new” and went a step further.

“There are a number of technologies like home energy management systems that are two-way, they’re a bit more dynamic, and they can help manage not just a hot water cylinder.”

Pelenur said there were “some great examples” of work happening already, but it was patchy.

“There’s lots of interesting, good work to point to, but we would like to see it at-scale across the whole country,” he said.

“I would like to see all the distributors start their planning meetings by looking at these non-network solutions as the first thing they do for their plans around managing the networks.”

The letter also mentioned rooftop solar installations as a form of distributed energy that could reduce peak demand, and feed back into electricity networks.

Widespread subsidies have seen rooftop solar and battery installations skyrocket in Australia over the last 20 years.

No subsidies are available in New Zealand. Labour and the Greens campaigned on generous subsidies at the last election but the current government has not moved to implement anything similar.

Neither Sparks nor Pelenur would be drawn on whether a subsidy programme would help to drive uptake in New Zealand, saying it was outside their agencies’ scope.

However, Sparks said the Authority had made recent changes to reward rooftop solar owners who fed energy back into the network at peak times with negative charges or rebates.

“We’re [also] proposing to increase the amount they’re allowed to export. And that will allow the people with rooftop solar and batteries to contribute to the system, and also, of course, sell more electricity into the system and be rewarded for that.”

The Authority was still consulting on that proposal, he said.

Pelenur said the open letter invited feedback from distributors, which the agencies would consider and also present to the Ministry for Business, Information and Employment.

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LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/25/power-concerns-lines-companies-urged-to-consider-non-network-solutions/