Category: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis are set to reveal the details of a support package aimed at helping Kiwis through the ongoing fuel cost crisis.

Willis has hinted it would be targeted towards low- and middle-income families.

There has been speculation it will involve adjustments to Working for Families, including the In-Work and Independent Earner tax credits.

Petrol prices in some locations have reached $4 a litre for premium, while diesel is up more than $1 a litre in the past month, Gaspy data shows.

About 20 percent of the world’s supply usually transits through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has cut off in retaliation over the US-Israel attack.

RNZ will be streaming the announcement from 12.30pm and blogging the updates as they happen. Refresh the page if you cannot see the video at the top of this page.

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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/2026/03/24/live-governments-fuel-crisis-relief-package-unveiled/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Bluebridge has cancelled a further two days’ worth of sailings for one of its Cook Strait ferries due to a technical fault.

The fault on the Connemara was found on Saturday and stopped sailing for the weekend.

The company has now cancelled the ship’s trips between Wellington and Picton on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Bluebridge website said safety was its highest priority.

“As a result, unfortunately the following sailings are cancelled while the ship awaits regulatory requirements to resume sailing.”

The cancelled sailings on Tuesday are Picton-Wellington 2pm and Wellington-Picton 8.30pm, and on Wednesday, Picton-Wellington 2.30am, and Wellington-Picton 8.15am.

Customers are being told by email and text messages but BlueBridge said there were limited re-booking options.

“Standby lists across subsequent sailings will be operating from each port, for affected customers to be added to,” Bluebridge said.

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

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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/2026/03/24/two-days-of-sailing-cancelled-for-one-bluebridge-cook-strait-ferry-amid-technical-fault/

Source: Radio New Zealand

An Ōpunake farmer who charged at a regional council staff member inspecting problems at his property has been told the courts will “not tolerate threats or intimidation” of people doing their jobs.

James Langton was fined $35,000 after pleading guilty to two charges of discharging untreated dairy effluent when he appeared for sentencing at New Plymouth District Court.

An inspection of Langton’s property on 9 October could not be completed when the dairy farmer became aggressive to staff and, on 12 October, he charged at a council officer and police had to intervene.

“This court will not tolerate threats or intimidation of council officers who are doing their job,” wrote Judge Jeff Smith in his decision which noted police were present.

Langton, who no longer operated the farm, was denied a 5 percent discount for personal remorse or otherwise good conduct due to the ‘regrettable’ charging of the council officer.

Council staff were investigating the discharge of untreated dairy effluent onto land and groundwater at the 40ha farm on Ihaia Road which could have contaminated groundwater and the Hihiwera Stream.

That visit followed seven earlier non-compliance notices from 2009 to 2022, five of which were related to effluent on the site.

Judge Smith said it was a ‘miracle’ the effluent in the 2025 incident had not made it to water after the inspection found effluent was being discharged directly from pipes rather than an irrigator and a broken outlet pipe was also discharging directly onto land.

The January sentencing was discussed at a Taranaki Regional Council Operations and Regulatory Committee on Tuesday.

The council’s compliance manager, Jared Glasgow, told the committee the decision to discard the remorse discount and the substantial fine showed the severity of the incident.

“We were appalled by the actions of the farmer. There is no place for intimidation or threats to our staff who are out in the community working to safeguard our environment,” Glasgow said.

“While we work really well with the vast majority of farmers, we hope the outcome of this case will act as a reminder that our staff are people and should be treated accordingly. Our staff are doing fantastic work and deserve to be treated with respect.

“This case is also a reminder of the importance of following resource consents and ensuring dairy effluent is disposed of correctly with zero chance of it entering waterways or groundwater.”

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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/2026/03/24/farmer-who-charged-council-officer-fined-35000-for-effluent-discharges/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The head of Contact Energy has brushed aside Winston Peters’ claims saying electricity prices in New Zealand are some of the lowest in the OECD.

New Zealand First is campaigning on splitting electricity suppliers into generators and retailers, in an effort to bring prices down.

Yesterday Peters told Morning Report the country was paying some of the highest power prices in the world.

“New Zealanders are being screwed. We’ve gone from being a very competitive pricing regime for New Zealand businesses and houses – in fact it’s a cutting-edge advantage in the good old days, against overseas competition – to now paying some of the highest prices in the world.

“This is a critical industry and [New Zealanders have] lost control of it and they’ve been paying a fortune to many foreign owners as a consequence. That’s the reason why our economy’s dragging along the way it is,” Peters said.

Peters would not be drawn on how companies retailing power – after generating it themselves as wholesalers – would be compelled to step back from the model or how a proposed split would be managed.

“You’ve got these other bodies, the public bodies, saying, oh, this will be too difficult. This will just be, logistically, not possible. The answer is, get out of the way and let people who do know what they’re doing do it,” Peters said.

Peters said the government needed to step in and stop profits from energy supply being funnelled to overseas interests.

Contact dispute Peters’ claim

But on Morning Report today Contact CEO, Mike Fuge said New Zealand First was “tapping in” to concerns over fuel and the conflict in the Middle East.

“We have some of the lowest prices in the OECD. We always rank in the bottom third in terms of affordability and a lot of those other countries that we compete with in that zone are actually getting subsidies, so we’re doing that off our own bat, and I think that’s some thing a lot of Kiwis can be proud of,” Fuge said.

He said the company worked hard to be transparent in their retail arm and investments into power generation.

“We’ve invested $2.4 bil in the last five years with a further $2 bil in the next five years. We’re one of the most scrutinised sectors in this country and the Electricity Price Review looked at us very hard and came up with the conclusion that the gentailers were in the right structure,” Fuge said.

He said New Zealand’s energy prices were dictated by supply and the country needed more resilient and sustainable energy sources.

“With the energy prices globally, Kiwi households are doing it tough at the moment and I think – whether we disagree, and we do disagree, with New Zealand First’s position – they’re tapping into frustration around high energy prices – particularly petrol and diesel at the moment,” Fuge said.

Fuge said – as a wholesaler/generator – Contact had supplied package prices to second tier energy retailers as well.

“The wholesale market we have, [has] helped the growth of a tier two retail sector and we have one of the most dynamic tier two – or separated – retail sectors globally,” Fuge said.

“The reality is we are investing aggressively to bring renewable energy on in this country and the returns we make are actually lower than the regulated section of the industry and lines companies.

“We have brought on over 5% of the total demand in this country in the last five years.

“We are building for ordinary kiwi homes right now. We have already completed significant projects, Tauhara and Te Huka 3 [geothermal power stations which came online in 2024]. We have five projects in train at the moment. We are commissioning the battery at Glenbrook. The fact is we are building and we are building as fast as we can go,” Fuge said.

Fuge said the country’s sustainable energy potential could more than twice exceed the existing market.

“If we can get on and build that we can attract new industries here. We can attract food processing, we can potentially expand the aluminium smelter, we can support data centres.

“There is plenty of electricity to go round. The challenge for the nation at the moment is what’s being imported and what’s going on in the Middle East,” Fuge 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/2026/03/24/contact-energy-ceo-dismisses-nz-first-plan-to-split-electricity-suppliers/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Antarctica New Zealand says it is aiming to get its detailed business case to revamp Scott Base in front of Cabinet for approval in June.

This is about two years after the project was reset amid concerns over cost blowouts.

The agency said the first draft of the detailed business case was ready ahead of schedule in January and shared with agencies monitoring the job.

“The timeline has not slipped,” chief executive and chief science advisor Professor Jordy Hendrikx said in a statement.

Work on detailed designs and costs was carrying on ahead of the case going to Cabinet.

The latest Treasury report available on the project, from six months ago, rated it as ‘amber’ – in the mid-range, where red shows big problems and green is good – and said it was “moving at pace, but is sure-footed”.

The report mentioned “accelerated” arrangements for getting it built, with an end date put at December 2030.

The base project was among a dozen or so public projects rated “high profile, high risk”.

A $60 million wind farm upgrade had earlier been delayed by a few months.

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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/2026/03/24/scott-base-plan-ready-by-june-antarctica-nz/