Category: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

At Bexley’s Wetlands Grove, three dogs in a caravan bark enthusiastically, shoving their heads through an open window, jostling to see who has arrived at their Christchurch red zone home.

The deserted street is the last remaining road leading to the old Pacific Park subdivision overlooking the Avon River and the Avon Heathcote Ihutai Estuary, which was largely cleared of homes because of liquefaction after the 2011 earthquake.

The caravan’s owner shut the dogs away and directed RNZ to Moko, the informal leader of a ramshackle street community that had sprung up around buses, vans and cars.

Moko, who wanted to be identified by his first name only, had been living at Wetlands Grove for about 18 months, with numbers growing from three to 40 over that time.

“Some people work, some people don’t. Some people are here because mainly there is no availability (of homes). They’ve got pets, they got too many kids. It’s too hard to afford cause you gotta pay rent, and then you also got to pay power, phone, internet, and then food,” he said.

Moko was living in emergency housing when he was the victim of a home invasion.

His request to move was turned down, so he started living in his van four years ago.

Moko worked full-time as part of an on-call road crew and while his set up worked for him for now, he was finding it difficult to return to housing.

“It’s getting picked as suitable. There is a lot of judgment,” he said.

“You turn up to a viewing and you’ve got 30 other families there. We’ve got families down here, actual families. There is a lady with three or four kids that has to live out of her bus.

“We’ve got people coming down here who work but they live in a tent. It shouldn’t be happening.”

The council regularly removed rubbish and had delivered portaloos, Moko said.

“It’s better than walking 25 minutes to the closest one, only to find it has been shut because it has been tagged up or someone is sleeping rough in it,” he said.

One house remained in the red zone on Velsheda Street near Wetlands Grove after the owners turned down the Crown’s initial buy-out offer.

The house was sold to the council and quickly demolished in February.

Moko believed the owners had no issue with people living on the street, although the Wetlands Grove community has had problems with others who object to their presence.

“We’ve had people come down and try and do stuff, come down and throw eggs at our vehicles. I caught two young fellas just about to vandalise the portaloo, and their excuse? ‘My mum told us to, cause we don’t like you people’,” he said.

‘This is freedom’

Down the road, the windows of Ngawai Timu’s tidy campervan were trimmed with curtains and her home on wheels had running water, lights, a fridge, television and a chemical toilet.

Timu started living in a car before upgrading to her campervan a couple of years ago after deciding $470 per week rental payments were too much.

“All I felt was I was paying for somebody’s mortgage,” she said.

“I’ve paid my way and did my work and paid my taxes and all my life of hard work and still paying high rent. So I’ve come from Auckland, Hamilton to Christchurch to live for free,” she said.

“I have water, running, and can have a TV, and also my lights, my fridge. I have a dirty big fridge, everything I need is in this van.”

Ngawai said she was recently offered a short-term one-bedroom house as part of Kainga Ora transitional housing programme but rules and restrictions, including the frequent checks and not being able to bring her fridge or have space for her two vehicles meant she moved back into her van.

Many members of Timu’s family, including some of her children, had moved to Australia although a son lived nearby and being close to her mokopuna was important.

For now, van life was okay.

Timu looks out over the open land and the view of the ever-changing estuary and distant Port Hills.

“I’ve gone back to being eight, nine-years-old and living out in the country. This is what I’ve known to be freedom. Look at it, nothing there,” she said.

Between Timu’s van and the sweeping Canterbury landscape was a stark reminder of tougher times, with a small, one-man tent just visible in the long grass.

In the depths of winter, when Wetlands Grove was icy cold, his neighbours helped him to an old broken-down car to sleep.

‘Refugees in our own country’

Polly Stewart is sitting in the sun chatting to a friend when RNZ arrives, with a short blonde bob, colourful dress and immaculate make-up.

“I’m transgender. My former partner asked me to leave because she couldn’t cope with the idea, and as Fats Domino sang ‘I’ve found my freedom’,” she said, singing the words.

Stewart said the cost of housing kept her in her bus, with the pension enough to cover expenses and a few savings.

She said the prospect of a Kaianga Ora home was unappealing.

“Being here is sort of freedom for me. Whereas living in a Kaianga Ora apartment, no. It’s like being in prison,” she said.

Other people living at Wetlands Grove did not wish to speak to RNZ, including a man who said there was no point because news coverage would not change a thing.

“We’re not homeless by the way, we’re refugees in our own country,” he said.

Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger said some people would criticise the council for paying for portaloos and rubbish collection in Wetlands Grove, but the council needed to keep conditions safe.

“It makes sense to me that you should because that’s sanitary stuff. You imagine if it wasn’t there,” he said.

“The piece of road they are parking on is out of the way, so to speak, it’s high, it’s dry. It’s not down in the bits that flood, or anything like that. I understand it still has street lights running on it. If that is where they have ended up, sadly at this stage, we have to do something to make sure it is sanitary otherwise it could turn into an absolute disaster.”

The council’s citizens and community general manager, Andrew Rutledge, said there was no set end date for the provision of portaloos and rubbish collection.

“We have been clear that this is a temporary situation as that space will be needed for ecological restoration works in the future,” he said.

With Pacific Park’s final house now gone, the council had started work on its plans for the area.

Rutledge said the river regeneration plan detailed the restoration of tidal wetlands in the area.

All infrastructure such as roads, power, water and wastewater services would be removed in the next 12 to 18 months and the council would soon start the process of closing all remaining roads.

Wetlands Grove would become wetlands once more, so Moko, Timu, Stewart and others would once again need to move on.

Five housing providers – Comcare, Emerge Aotearoa, Christchurch City Mission, Housing First Otautahi and the Christchurch Methodist Mission – work together to try to help people who are homeless.

Housing First Otautahi spokeswoman Nicola Fleming said there had been a massive jump in housing waiting lists since the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We’ve got 103 on that wait list at the moment, which is horrendous. Before Covid it sat at about 70, after Covid it’s jumping and just jumps all the time. We can’t house people fast enough,” she said.

That wait list was only for people who were classified as chronically homeless, which meant they had been without a home for at least a year.

In addition to community housing, Housing First Otautahi also helped people into private rentals and supported them as they re-adjusted to home life.

Fleming said a lack of housing remained a key problem and while more central or local government-supplied housing was much-needed, a quicker fix could be found in private landlords working with providers.

“They get rent paid every week by the government through MSD and they get market rent paid. It’s never missed whether the property is vacant or not, so that’s a massive bonus for someone,” she said.

“They don’t have to manage the property and don’t need a property management firm, we do that through our community housing providers. We visit with really great kaimahi, staff, who visit once or twice or sometimes four times a week if someone is in crisis.

“There is the other side that you are doing something great for someone in your community and you feel good that you can offer someone a home. So it’s a really lovely thing to do.”

At Wetlands Grove, a communal tent had been set up to create a more homely feel.

Moko wanted to make more of the expanse of green land around him, with dreams of putting in sheep to keep the grass down and provide food.

He pointed to a break down in mental health and housing services as reasons the Wetlands Grove population would keep growing.

Asked what Moko wanted for himself and others he replied, “humbleness and love”.

“It is okay to be not okay but never judge a book by its cover, that’s all. If you want to come down and talk to us, come down and talk to us. We’re not bad people,” he 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/2026/03/03/community-forms-in-remains-of-christchurch-red-zone/

Source: Radio New Zealand

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/03/duo-biking-around-the-world-say-nz-drivers-are-the-most-aggro/

Source: Radio New Zealand

With geothermal energy exploration underway and torrefied wood pellets already in use, New Zealand could look to turn away from fossil fuels

It’s already used to rear fish, grow flowers and to lure tourists, but a site near Taupō is the world-leading next step in geothermal energy that could truly deal to our reliance on gas.

Two hours’ drive away in Kawerau, work is underway on another cutting edge energy project that could deal to our reliance on coal.

Today The Detail looks at both projects in response to feedback on our podcast about the government’s planned $1 billion Liquified Natural Gas plant, when listeners urged us to look at alternative, fossil-free energy under development.

Deep Heat is the name given to the supercritical geothermal energy project where an international group of scientists is working on a plan to drill between four and six kilometres into the earth’s crust to reach superhot fluids.

It’s a first for New Zealand, it’s got $60 million in public money through the Regional Investment Fund, and the first hole at Rotokawa Geothermal Reservoir is expected to be drilled by late next year.

It won’t replace the $1b Liquified Natural Gas plant planned to open in Taranaki as early as winter next year, and it could be decades away from being a commercial prospect. But Tim Groser, chair of the Supercritical Geothermal Project board, says New Zealand has the best chance “to try to be the first country to actually crack the engineering problem”.

“It will actually be as close to what I’d call a silver bullet in terms of what is really required on climate change,” says Groser, a former climate change minister.

He describes supercritical geothermal energy as the heat that can be extracted from fluids when they exceed 370 degrees Celcius and can be brought to the surface and still maintain the pressure at 220 bars.

“What this does is convert the form of the fluids into more like a gas which has greater density and produces approximately three to four times as much energy as conventional lower heat, lower pressure geothermal steam does. It’s a massive gain of bang for the buck,” says Groser.

He says his expert advisers tell him New Zealand is probably as big as any resource in the world in terms of supercritical geothermal energy. It lies at very shallow depths compared with most other geothermal countries and the rock is “highly permeable” enabling the geothermal fluids to flow more easily through the rocks.

In Iceland, a geothermal energy leader, work on a third supercritical energy extraction project is underway, after the previous two efforts failed. Groser says New Zealand is working closely with Iceland on the engineering challenges. The work is potentially dangerous but the biggest risk is the failure to be able to bring supercritical fluids to the surface because of the lack of technology to deal with the extreme aspects of the fluid, such as its highly corrosive nature.

“Will New Zealand ever be able to access this renewable energy? Absolutely dead certain. The question is when. Is it in our generation or will we have to wait another generation or maybe a half generation for the technologies that are being developed now,” Groser says.

Something that already is on track as a commercially viable renewable energy is just a couple of hours’ drive away in Kawerau, where Australian company Foresta is building a $300m factory to make torrefied wood pellets made from forestry waste.

The small black pellets are already in use, and being lined up to replace coal at Genesis Energy’s Huntly Power station, says Bioenergy Association head Brian Cox.

A number of high power users like Christchurch hospital, Canterbury University and food processors already have biomass-fuelled boilers but the Foresta plant would be the first in the country to commercially produce the torrefied pellets, he says.

“Additional to the domestic market is the export market, because in Asia – South Korea, Japan – there are power stations of a similar design to Huntly Power Station and so they would be potential customers.

“We get a number of calls from South East Asia from people who are looking to purchase wood fuel and the one they would really like would be the black pellets.”

As a biofuel they formed part of a plan called the Integrated Bioenergy Programme that the association submitted as an alternative to the proposed LNG plant, says Cox.

It proposed ways to free up constrained and expensive supplies of gas and electricity by speeding up biomass use.

“We haven’t had any response at all from the government because they’re focussing on the LNG option,” he says. “We’re saying, look, why can’t we repurpose the infrastructure we already have by smart thinking of converting from using that existing boiler on particular fuel.

“Some of it would be black pellets, some of it would be white pellets, we can use the cheaper chip.”

Cox says there’s enough forestry waste to meet higher demand for biomass. A small amount of carbon emissions comes from transporting and harvesting the wood but the fuel itself is carbon neutral.

“So, we need to look as a country at the holistic aspect. It is not just a forest contractor or a grower that needs to be dealt with, it’s all of us.

“It’s a fuel which is under our control.”

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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/2026/03/03/how-supercritical-geothermal-energy-could-change-our-future/

Source: Radio New Zealand

A retired law professor who’s sat on military court panels believes the charges laid in relation to the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui are unprecedented.

The Navy ship sank in October 2024 off the coast of Samoa after hitting a reef, spilling hundreds of thousands of litres of diesel and oil into the ocean.

Now, three naval officers face a court martial – a specialised military court that tries members of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

The charges include negligently causing a ship to be lost, which is punishable by up to two years in prison.

Former Auckland University professor Bill Hodge, who was in the military and served on courts martial, believes such charges have never been laid.

“We haven’t lost a ship like this in peacetime, ever, so it must be unprecedented in that regard,” he said.

“I think you can safely say it’s not only unusual … this is a unique case.”

A court martial trial is heard by a judge and a panel of senior military members.

The panel would need to carefully consider the case given there’s no precedent, Hodge said.

“Judges like to look at precedent, judges like to look at what all the other judges are doing in similar cases around New Zealand.

“This court martial doesn’t have that luxury, but on the other hand, these are responsible senior officers with a tremendous amount of experience and common sense.”

Hodge said the charges were laid under the Armed Forces Discipline Act – rather than the Crimes Act – which contains offences that don’t apply to civilians.

“The civilian world doesn’t include, for example, malingering, it doesn’t include AWOL, … desertion, … disobeying a lawful order … bringing the service into disrepute,” he said.

“There’s a whole range of things that are absolutely necessary to discipline in a uniformed service.”

However, if the officers were found guilty, they could serve time in a civilian prison, he said.

Lesser punishments could include being dismissed from the Navy, or forfeiting rank or seniority, Hodge said.

The NZ Defence Force said the date and location of the trial are yet to be set.

Defence Minister Judith Collins said she was aware of the charges, but would not comment further, given the matter is before the courts.

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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/2026/03/03/naval-officers-charged-over-hmnzs-manawanui-sinking-unprecedented/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police have made the arrests, but now they are trying to find the victim after an aggravated robbery in Auckland.

They say a group of six people allegedly threatened a woman at Ellerslie Train Station on Monday afternoon before taking her personal belongings.

Auckland Transport staff saw the incident and alerted police, who then tracked the group on the rail network using cameras and arrested them.

Police said they now want to contact the victim, who was wearing a grey hooded top with a Nasa space agency logo on the front.

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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/2026/03/02/police-looking-for-victim-of-alleged-aggravated-robbery/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Biosecurity New Zealand is widening its trapping zone in South Auckland after finding three more male Oriental fruit flies.

A single male fly was found in Papatoetoe last week – and on Monday, three more males were trapped in the suburb.

“The finds in our traps, following last week’s detection of a single male fly in the suburb, are not unexpected and shows our enhanced surveillance and inspection is working,” said Biosecurity New Zealand Commissioner North Mike Inglis.

Inglis said there was no evidence of a breeding population.

“We continue to bolster our network of traps in the controlled area to ensure good coverage near to each fly detection. The lures we use in the traps are very strong and attract the fly,” he said.

Restrictions on the movement of fruit and vegetables have been in place since Wednesday last week, and Inglis said today’s detections meant the restrictions had been extended.

Signs would go up on roads in the new controlled area to remind locals the restrictions were in place.

A detailed map of the controlled area and a full description of the new boundaries and movement controls is available on the Ministry for Primary Industries’ website.

“We have successfully eradicated fruit fly from New Zealand 15 times, so we have very strong and detailed operational plans to guide our work and that includes a comprehensive trapping and inspection programme,” Inglis said.

Residents in the area where movement restrictions were in place were being asked to put fruit and vegetable waste into bins provided by Biosecurity New Zealand.

“Our people will be continuing their work on the ground, engaging with the local community and sharing information with residents in the newly extended controlled area,”Inglis said.

The Oriental fruit fly did not pose a risk to humans but would hit the horticulture industry if it was allowed to establish in New Zealand.

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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/2026/03/02/oriental-fruit-fly-trapping-zone-widens-in-south-auckland-as-more-flies-found/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Bridge engineers say the NZ Transport Agency’s work to update how bridges are designed and assessed should at most have a “minor positive” impact.

Two trucking groups have expressed worries that NZTA is missing an opportunity to make more highway bridges able to carry heavier trucks in future, especially if that applies to the Roads of National Significance.

The agency said its new measures were “not anticipated to have a significant impact on existing bridge stock or the construction of new ones”.

The recently formed Bridge Engineering Technical Society at Engineering NZ agreed, based on what NZTA had said.

“It is our understanding that the update to the design (vehicle) loading model, to be applied to new bridge designs, has been done to address risks associated with accommodating heavy vehicles on our roads,” the society told RNZ.

“These have arisen from evolutions in the heavy vehicle fleet make-up, as well as bridge design and construction practice in recent times.

“Our understanding is that the risk relates to maintaining the standard margin between evaluation (day-to-day) loadings and design capacity for longer, continuous span bridge construction that has become more common.”

It also captured the effects due to multiple heavy vehicles following each other (“platooning”), which was more likely to occur with longer span bridges compared to shorter spans, it said.

NZTA has said the “effects of platoons of vehicle travelling at minimum spacings” in the same lane could be “substantially greater than those resulting from the previous evaluation loading”, so it had caught its bridge rules up to account for it.

However, Transporting NZ said “platooning” was not a factor as New Zealand roads were not the sort that allowed for it much if at all, so bridges should not be designed as if it was.

“Platooning trucks is highly unlikely to happen in New Zealand for the sheer reason that we don’t have enough multi-lane highways to do that,” it said.

“This is our concern, [that] they’re worrying about something that will likely never happen here.”

The society made the point it was not uncommon that design standards were revised periodically to take into account increased knowledge and understanding, improvements in technology and changes in demands such as traffic loading, “especially heavy vehicle configurations”.

“Based on available information, we concur in principle with NZTA’s response that any cost implications of the changes in the design loading model will not have a significant impact on new bridge designs.

“While any implications depend on the bridge type and/or material, in many cases the marginal increase due to the updated design (vehicle) loading, taken as a portion of the overall total weight of the structure, would not require significant additional material.”

The evaluation loading for existing bridges was amended some in mid-2022 and the updates for new bridge designs ensured consistency.

“It appears that the changes which NZTA have introduced should not have a significant impact on the industry, or a minor positive one.”

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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/2026/03/02/changes-to-bridge-design-need-to-at-least-have-minor-positive-impact-engineers/

Source: Radio New Zealand

There are concerns that a former soldier sentenced to home detention for filming young people using a bathroom for six years is now volunteering at a Palmerston North food rescue charity.

Adrien Bell, who also goes by the surname Bennett, has volunteered at Just Zilch since the New Year break.

Just Zilch takes donations from local suppliers, such as supermarkets and cafes, and distributes the food to people in need.

It’s understood other volunteers weren’t initially told of Bell’s history, although some are now aware.

Just Zilch said although it can’t comment on individual volunteers, it’s important to properly address concerns.

Open Justice reported in 2024 that Bell, a former army corporal, was sentenced to 10 months’ home detention after he admitted one charge each of committing an indecent act on a young person and possessing an intimate visual recording, and two charges of making an intimate visual recording.

A court summary said Bell put a hidden camera in a bathroom of a home, capturing images of naked people between 2014 and 2020. One of the victims was a girl aged 11-13, and other victims were in their teens.

Videos of them were found on Bell’s laptop, Open Justice reported.

A Just Zilch volunteer, who RNZ has agreed not to name due to worries they would lose their position at the charity, said Bell hadn’t caused problems with his behaviour there.

But, they felt his presence around vulnerable people – volunteers and people who received food donations – was a concern. They said young people would also volunteer at Just Zilch and work at its Featherston Street location, in central Palmerston North, at the same time as Bell.

The volunteer was told by a fellow charity worker who Bell was and to Google the Open Justice story, which was also published on the RNZ website.

“It was like, ‘Oh my god.’ I knew I had seen that story. I knew when I saw him that I knew him from somewhere, but I couldn’t think where.

“He makes no secret of the fact he’s ex army, but there’s no story as to why he gave up the army.

“Basically every day I do a shift the army comes up in conversation.”

Another former volunteer told RNZ they wouldn’t feel comfortable with Bell’s presence.

In a statement to RNZ, Just Zilch board chairperson Angela Rowan said: “While we’re unable to comment on individual Just Zilch employees or volunteers due to privacy reasons, given the nature of these concerns it is incredibly important to us that they are addressed properly in a way that respects all people involved.

“The safety of our volunteers, employees and clients is a non-negotiable,” she said.

“We balance our obligations to our people with our kaupapa and mission to minimise waste and support food security in our community, while upholding our values of kaitiakitanga, manaakitanga, without judgement, and justice.”

RNZ asked about the charity’s policies and procedures for vetting volunteers.

“We have identified ways to improve how we onboard people, and are working with professional advisers to support this mahi,” Rowan said.

Open Justice reported that Bell was no longer working for the army by the time he was sentenced.

He could not be reached for comment.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/02/former-soldier-and-sex-offender-adrien-bells-volunteer-work-sparks-concern/