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Source: Radio New Zealand

Christchurch City Council staff are backing away from a controversial plan to pump millions of litres of sewage out to sea as councillors prepare to vote on proposals it is hoped will take pressure off the city’s struggling treatment plant.

A plan put forward by the mayor to send partially treated sewage out to sea which prompted concern and condemnation has not been recommended by council staff.

Instead, staff backed a plan to increase aeration in the oxidation ponds, which would be more cost effective, less ecologically damaging, had mana whenua support and was easier to build and operate than the plan the mayor mooted.

Putrid stench plagues city

Residents in the city’s east have been plagued by the stench since a blaze destroyed parts of the Bromley wastewater treatment plant in 2021.

Complaints began to surge in October, with the regional council receiving more than 7600 reports from the east and city centre over summer.

The city council said heavy rain reducing oxygen and algae in the ponds worsened the smell.

In late February, the regional council issued an abatement notice to the city council requiring it to provide a comprehensive plan to comply with its resource consent or face prosecution.

Days later, mayor Phil Mauger proposed pumping around a third of the city’s sewage – between 45 to 55 million litres a day – into Pegasus Bay via the existing outfall pipe.

At the time, the regional council’s director of operations Brett Aldridge said the council was “surprised and concerned” by the comments.

On Tuesday, Aldridge said he was confident the council had now provided all the information required.

The regional council would do “a little bit of due diligence” and have its experts look at the council’s plans, Aldridge said.

“We will leave it to the city engineers to really get into the nitty gritty of what that design is and how it will be implemented.”

Aldridge confirmed the council’s two recommended options were not included in the response to the abatement notice.

The council had signalled longer term options were under development with a wastewater specialist, but did not set out specific options or proposed pathways, he said.

Two recommended options

In its report to councillors, council staff offered six options but said only two were viable and cost effective – increasing aeration to the ponds, or increasing aeration and diverting some partially treated wastewater around the ponds and out to sea.

Staff warned neither option addressed odours caused by excessive sewage loads or chemicals, equipment failures, those caused by extreme rain events or by things other than biological oxygen demand (BOD) – a measure of how much oxygen was needed to break down sewage into CO2 and sludge.

High BOD levels in the plant’s ponds were just one reason for the stench, but were the most significant cause, according to the report.

Increasing electrical supply to power the additional aerators could take four months, and staff proposed using diesel generators in the interim.

Staff costed the recommendations between $7.7 million and $11.2m to add differing levels of aeration, or between $12.2m and $16.6m to add aeration and then divert 400 litres a second of partially treated sewage to sea, either as needed (18 to 60 days a year) or year-round.

The most expensive option, to divert almost 2000 litres a second of partially treated sewage to sea for 243 days a year would cost $18.3m, had a very high risk of failure, and would take five months to implement.

Staff noted the partially treated wastewater would include BOD, enterococci, TSS (total suspended solids) and chlorine which could have effects on the ocean and public health, but that there had not been time to assess the ecological and health impacts.

If councillors backed aeration, the only resource consent needed would be for the temporary diesel generators.

If they chose one of the diversion options, they would need a new consent, which would be processed with priority and under the new wastewater regulations that came into effect in December, Aldridge said.

Two abatement notices in less than a month

In March, the regional council issued another notice over a series of illegal sewage discharges into Whakaraupō Lyttelton and Akaroa harbours.

The breaches prompted Banks Peninsula hapū Ngati Wheke to consider legal action over the failures and lack of communication from the council.

Ecologist Dr Mike Joy said discharging sewage to the ocean, rivers and estuaries was “Victorian”.

“We should be way past this kind of attitude that it’s all right just to dump the waste.”

Terms such as “treated wastewater” needed clearer definitions, he said.

“.. the word treatment can mean anything from just taking the lumps out to completely taking it back to drinking water.”

Assurances about the safety of chlorine did not relate to environmental impact.

“They mean safe in that the chlorine will kill bacteria that are harmful to humans – that doesn’t mean it’s safe for the environment or safe for the ecology of the near shore environments.”

Sewage discharge caused an influx of nutrients which drove algal blooms and potentially cyanobacteria blooms, resulting in “dead zones where the water becomes deoxygenated, and no life in any form can survive without oxygen”.

The idea the sheer quantity of water would disperse sewage was outdated, Joy said.

“This is this old saying when there were a hell of a lot less people on the planet that the solution to pollution is dilution, but it’s not that at all – the solution to pollution is assimilation.”

Nor did he think the council’s altered proposal was much of an improvement.

“It’s just another ambulance at the bottom of the cliff thing. To treat this discharge properly we need to create an industrial-type wetland where you grow flax and raupō and you harvest and compost it.”

Concern over new national wastewater rules

The proposal underscored the increased nutrients and pathogens that could be discharged under the new wastewater standards, Joy said.

“It was a completely backward step, and I think the city council’s trying to take advantage of the weakening of national regulations to allow more stuff to be dumped into the ocean.”

Joy disputed claims the standards would improve performance.

“The only performance that will improve might be the economic bottom line for these councils because they’ll be able to get away with dumping more of the stuff without treating it. It’s quite clear analysis … that much more of these contaminants will be allowed under this new legislation.”

Some bypass events could go on for weeks or months and could go completely unnoticed.

“The actual wastewater treatment plants in many cases are OK, but the infrastructure that feeds into it is old and worn out and has illegal connections so when you get a heavy rainfall event you get a massive increase and they don’t have anywhere to store it.”

Sewerage infrastructure would come under more strain as climate change caused more extreme weather events, he said.

“It’s a massive and growing problem in New Zealand and it’s just another one of these [issues] of lack of spending on infrastructure that’s now coming back to bite us.”

Upgrades urgently needed

Taumata Arowai criticised what it called “[https://www.taumataarowai.govt.nz/home/articles/wastewater-standards-separating-myth-from-fact

misconceptions]” about the rules.

Spokesperson Sara McFall said more than 20 percent of the country’s wastewater plants were operating on expired consents and around half of underground wastewater networks were rated as in poor or very poor condition, so it was important to make the urgently needed upgrades affordable.

The council’s wastewater treatment plant operations manager Adam Twose presented to the Waitai Coastal-Burwood-Linwood community board in mid-March, and was clear the council was only able to consider the diversion plan because the regulations were “significantly more relaxed” than current consent conditions.

“Under the new wastewater standards, there’s the option to go a lot looser, so you’re allowed to discharge more contaminants to the environment,” he told the meeting.

He told the board there was a “high level” risk of the stench increasing if the council did not act, as well as risks to the plant itself, which had been operating “at maximum capacity and minimum redundancy” since the fire.

More oversight, more support

City councillor Yani Johanson said it was obvious the plan to put partially treated wastewater into the outfall pipe was not realistic.

“There are too many risks around it, too much concern around environmental impact, too many unknowns.”

He was frustrated aeration had not been suggested earlier.

“Many of us around the council table have asked for options to address what was going on and what was causing it for years. I welcome the idea that we can do more, but it’s frustrating it’s taken this long to get to that point.”

Johanson wanted better council oversight of the activated sludge plant project, due to be completed in 2028.

“While there’s some things being done, there’s no clear plan that the community can look at to hold us accountable for mitigating the impact on their health and well-being.”

He also wanted staff to prepare a plan to reduce the impact on the community.

This could include free GP visits, a register of vulnerable residents or distributing air purifiers, 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/2026/04/01/christchurch-council-staff-back-away-from-mayors-proposal-to-pump-sewage-into-sea/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The same government that scrapped the Lake Onslow pumped hydro project has put it on the fast-track list. But whether this country can pull off a project of its size is another question.

It was hyped as the answer to the country’s energy anxiety – a giant “battery” in the deep south that could keep the lights on when the lakes run dry.

But when the coalition government was voted in, the project was voted out, deemed too big and too expensive.

Now, the Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme is back – or at least, back in the conversation – thanks to a private consortium group, and somewhat ironically, the government has agreed to refer the scheme for possible fast-tracking.

“There’s a view that the fast-track system makes it a lot easier to consent to a lot of different things, but this is a really big project,” says Newsroom senior political reporter Marc Daalder, who has been covering the story.

“It’s hard to overstate how significant this would be, both in terms of its broader energy system and national economic impact, but also just in terms of the actual size of the thing they are proposing to build.

“And that’s the real question, right? People often say it’s hard to build things in New Zealand. Well, this is a really big thing. Can we build it?

“Recent history would suggest no, not without significant cost overruns and significant regulatory difficulty. The government likes to think that they have tackled those issues. I guess we will find out.”

Today, The Detail looks into the pumped hydro scheme concept, which is deceptively simple: pump water uphill when electricity is plentiful, then release it when it’s scarce, with energy stored at a scale never seen before in New Zealand.

Supporters say it’s exactly what’s needed to tackle the country’s biggest vulnerability – the dreaded “dry year”, when hydro lakes drop, gas runs tight, and coal-fired generation has to ramp up.

The Labour government liked the idea, but when they looked into it, the bill was around $16 billion, with years, likely more than a decade, before anything tangible would be delivered.

So in 2023, not long after being elected, the coalition government pulled the pin.

“The theory was, at the time, that the opposition to Onslow was that it was creating too much uncertainty in the market because it would have a really significant effect on the electricity market,” Daalder says.

“It would basically be buying a lot of power when power prices are low, in order to charge up the battery as it were, in order to pump that water up the hill, and then when power prices were high, it could be used to depress those because you could flick it on, like with the flick of a switch, and generate power.

“So it would bring up the low prices, but cap off the high prices; it would have quite a significant effect on the markets. There were concerns that people weren’t investing in new generation, as a result of that.”

But it turns out the project wasn’t dead in the water, with industry players circling and forming a private planning group. The Clutha Pumped Hydro Consortium includes former Meridian Energy chief executive and Transpower chairperson Keith Turner, former environment minister David Parker, Christchurch lawyer John Hardie, and Reserve Bank board chair Rodger Finlay.

Turner told RNZ’s Morning Report that they estimated their build would cost around $8-10b, and if successful, it could be up and running by 2035. International investors had already shown interest in the project, he said.

And now their plan is being considered for fast-track consenting that could, in theory, bulldoze through years of red tape – thanks to the same government that axed the scheme.

“I asked the Energy Minister, Simon Watts, who has spoken before about the chilling impact that the Lake Onslow project had on the electricity market, whether he was worried about it having a chilling effect,” Daalder says.

“He said ‘no’ but he said it is different because this is the private market, rather than the government making its decisions.

“I don’t know if that logic fully holds. We know that private players in the energy market can have significant impacts on investment decisions, so, for example, we often hear how the uncertainty over whether Tiwai Point would stay or go for five years – between 2019 and 2024 – meant that people weren’t investing in new generation because they thought if the smelter was going to close there would be all this power available.

“It’s hard to see why you would get a different result or a significantly different result, depending on who is actually funding it.”

In limbo

So, where does this leave Lake Onslow? Right now, it’s in limbo. Not quite dead, not quite alive, but very much in the realm of unfinished business with fast-track in its sights.

It was hyped as the answer to the country’s energy anxiety – a giant “battery” in the deep south that could keep the lights on when the lakes run dry.

But when the coalition government was voted in, the project was voted out, deemed too big and too expensive.

Now, the Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme is back – or at least, back in the conversation – thanks to a private consortium group, and somewhat ironically, the government has agreed to refer the scheme for possible fast-tracking.

“There’s a view that the fast-track system makes it a lot easier to consent to a lot of different things, but this is a really big project,” says Newsroom senior political reporter Marc Daalder, who has been covering the story.

“It’s hard to overstate how significant this would be, both in terms of its broader energy system and national economic impact, but also just in terms of the actual size of the thing they are proposing to build.

“And that’s the real question, right? People often say it’s hard to build things in New Zealand. Well, this is a really big thing. Can we build it?

“Recent history would suggest no, not without significant cost overruns and significant regulatory difficulty. The government likes to think that they have tackled those issues. I guess we will find out.”

‘Too much uncertainty’

Today, The Detail looks into the pumped hydro scheme concept, which is deceptively simple: pump water uphill when electricity is plentiful, then release it when it’s scarce, with energy stored at a scale never seen before in New Zealand.

Supporters say it’s exactly what’s needed to tackle the country’s biggest vulnerability – the dreaded “dry year”, when hydro lakes drop, gas runs tight, and coal-fired generation has to ramp up.

The Labour government liked the idea, but when they looked into it, the bill was around $16 billion, with years, likely more than a decade, before anything tangible would be delivered.

So in 2023, not long after being elected, the coalition government pulled the pin.

“The theory was, at the time, that the opposition to Onslow was that it was creating too much uncertainty in the market because it would have a really significant effect on the electricity market,” Daalder says.

“It would basically be buying a lot of power when power prices are low, in order to charge up the battery as it were, in order to pump that water up the hill, and then when power prices were high, it could be used to depress those because you could flick it on, like with the flick of a switch, and generate power.

“So it would bring up the low prices, but cap off the high prices; it would have quite a significant effect on the markets. There were concerns that people weren’t investing in new generation, as a result of that.”

But it turns out the project wasn’t dead in the water, with industry players circling and forming a private planning group. The Clutha Pumped Hydro Consortium includes former Meridian Energy chief executive and Transpower chairperson Keith Turner, former environment minister David Parker, Christchurch lawyer John Hardie, and Reserve Bank board chair Rodger Finlay.

Turner told RNZ’s Morning Report that they estimated their build would cost around $8-10b, and if successful, it could be up and running by 2035. International investors had already shown interest in the project, he said.

And now their plan is being considered for fast-track consenting that could, in theory, bulldoze through years of red tape – thanks to the same government that axed the scheme.

“I asked the energy minister, Simon Watts, who has spoken before about the chilling impact that the Lake Onslow project had on the electricity market, whether he was worried about it having a chilling effect,” Daalder says.

“He said ‘no’ but he said it is different because this is the private market, rather than the government making its decisions.

“I don’t know if that logic fully holds. We know that private players in the energy market can have significant impacts on investment decisions, so, for example, we often hear how the uncertainty over whether Tiwai Point would stay or go for five years – between 2019 and 2024 – meant that people weren’t investing in new generation because they thought if the smelter was going to close there would be all this power available.

“It’s hard to see why you would get a different result or a significantly different result, depending on who is actually funding it.”

So, where does this leave Lake Onslow? Right now, it’s in limbo. Not quite dead, not quite alive, but very much in the realm of unfinished business with fast-track in its sights.

Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here.

You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/04/01/the-resurrection-of-the-lake-onslow-pumped-hydro-scheme/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Explainer – A start-up company wants to carry out marine carbon dioxide removal in New Zealand waters. What is mCDR and why is it controversial?

Earlier this month, a boat chartered by the company Gigablue headed out to sea from Port Chalmers in Dunedin to an area of deep ocean off the Otago coast called the Bounty Trough.

The plan – according to a notice it filed with the Environmental Protection Authority in February – was to lower five circular ‘containment pens’ into the water, grouped around a central ring so the whole thing looked like a five-petalled flower.

The pens would float on the surface, with fine mesh nets hanging under them to contain 55kg of the company’s particles – small balls of cellulose embedded with iron and manganese.

For three weeks, they would drift in the ocean, with water samples taken every so often before the pens and particles were retrieved and taken back to land.

It was a vastly scaled-back version of a trial the company initially wanted to carry out last year, where up to 1000 tonnes of particles would have been put in the water and allowed to sink into the ocean.

Gigablue is one of a number of start-ups and research groups working in the growing field of marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR).

There are a range of different mCDR methods that have been proposed, but all of them have the same aim – to draw carbon dioxide out of our rapidly warming atmosphere and store it in the deep ocean.

If mCDR can be proven to work at scale, then it could be a vital tool to help cool the planet.

What Gigablue is doing has drawn particular attention, because its approach resembles a controversial type of mCDR called ocean fertilisation.

Gigablue says there are crucial differences that separate its approach from ocean fertilisation.

But experts RNZ spoke to say, regardless of definitions, all mCDR techniques are in their infancy, and their effectiveness and safety are yet to be proven.

Some say it’s also a big distraction from what the world should really be focusing on: cutting the emissions we produce in the first place.

What is ocean fertilisation?

University of Tasmania marine scientist Lennart Bach says all mCDR is “relatively nascent”, gaining traction in the last decade or so.

“There are start-ups that work in this space and the [academic] research is also really kicking off.”

There are a range of different mCDR methods – Bach’s own research focuses on an approach called ocean alkalinity enhancement.

Ocean fertilisation is another major area of investigation, with experiments dating back 20 years or more.

The premise of both ocean fertilisation and Gigablue’s approach, which it calls microalgae carbon sinking and fixation, is based on a natural cycle that already occurs in the ocean where phytoplankton (a type of microalgae) grow and die.

Just like trees, phytoplankton capture carbon dioxide as they grow, through photosynthesis. Most plankton are eaten, but some fall to the deep ocean as ‘marine snow’ when they die, taking the carbon with them.

Because deep, cold ocean currents take a long time to circulate, the carbon can theoretically stay there for decades, centuries or even millennia before it resurfaces.

As well as light, phytoplankton need nutrients, including iron.

But there are places in the ocean where iron is scarce – including large parts of the Southern Ocean.

Research has shown that if iron is added to the water in these areas, it can trigger phytoplankton growth. More algae equals a greater mass of marine snow, equals more carbon sinking into the deep ocean, and – eventually – less in the atmosphere as the surface ocean absorbs carbon dioxide to replace what’s been sunk.

Does it work – and is it safe?

In theory, ocean fertilisation can sequester extra carbon, Bach says. “We have lots of model studies that can show that.”

In reality, each step in the sequence is exceptionally tricky to measure and prove in reality, he says.

“The problem is that the biology is so complex, there’s so many pathways in which things can go wrong or things can happen unexpectedly.”

Ocean fertilisation takes place in an ‘open system’ – in this case, an unbounded ocean.

James Kerry, a senior marine scientist at European NGO OceanCare and adjunct research fellow at Australia’s James Cook University, says that increases the complexity of observing and measuring any effects – good and bad.

“The ocean is a very dynamic, chaotic system,” he says.

“It is very, very difficult, and we see this with marine CDR in general, to predict how a particle or a substance that you add to the ocean will actually behave.”

To show that ocean fertilisation works, three main things have to be measured: efficacy, additionality, and permanence.

Efficacy requires proof that however you choose to encourage phytoplankton growth actually works – whether it’s on a particle or free-floating blooms in the ocean.

Additionality involves showing that more phytoplankton are growing, and storing more carbon, than if you hadn’t done anything.

Something called ‘nutrient robbing’ is a particular problem here. Adding iron, without adding the other nutrients the plankton need, can ‘rob’ those nutrients from another part of the ocean where plankton might have otherwise bloomed naturally, turning the whole premise into a zero-sum game.

There could be large geographical or time differences involved – making it hard to know what may or may not have otherwise happened.

Permanence is being able to show that the carbon absorbed by the phytoplankton is actually stored, and stays stored.

Many things can interrupt this process – including the fact that phytoplankton are at the beginning of marine food chains. If they’re eaten or decompose in shallower waters, then most of the carbon they’ve absorbed will be rapidly recycled back to the surface ocean and atmosphere.

Even for the small proportion of plankton that sink to the deep ocean, long-term sequestration is not guaranteed. In general, the deeper the plankton sink, the longer the carbon is stored, but research has found that even at depths of 1000 metres most of the carbon returns to the surface within decades.

In the meantime, ocean fertilisation also comes with risks.

There’s potential for creating harmful algal blooms, reducing oxygen in deep ocean ecosystems, and affecting marine food chains.

Helene Muri, a senior scientist at Norwegian climate and environmental research institute NILU, says “much better monitoring” is needed for every single stage of ocean fertilisation and other forms of mCDR.

“Research is still needed on several core questions before specific methods could be considered safe and effective at scale,” she says.

It was hard to distinguish between the effect of something done deliberately and what might have happened naturally anyway, “especially given sparse observations offshore and at depth”.

“Tracking where that carbon goes in the ocean interior, and whether it later resurfaces, is also really challenging.”

What does the law say?

For all these reasons, ocean fertilisation – and marine geoengineering in general – has become a focus for international laws governing the ocean.

New Zealand is among members of something called the London Protocol, which governs marine dumping.

In 2008, London Protocol members agreed that ocean fertilisation is covered by the protocol, and that it should be restricted to “legitimate scientific research”. In 2013 they agreed to an amendment that would heavily regulate all marine geoengineering, with ocean fertilisation the first to be added to a list of techniques.

New Zealand has not ratified the amendment, which remains non-binding, but international convention means New Zealand is expected to still act in line with what it has agreed to.

At home, New Zealand’s own laws governing the exclusive economic zone prohibit dumping, and ‘placement of matter’ unless there are specific exclusions.

That includes marine scientific research – which is why Gigablue has been able to carry out some limited ocean trials to date.

However, the larger trials it wanted to do were found to constitute marine dumping by the EPA, which also had concerns about the environmental effects.

As reported by RNZ, Gigablue was last year seeking changes to regulations that would create an exclusion for marine carbon dioxide removal.

What about companies wanting to commercialise?

The London Protocol amendment says that any ocean fertilisation activities should be designed to answer questions that add to scientific knowledge.

“There should not be any financial and/or economic gain arising from the experiment,” it states.

This creates problems for any company wanting to get carbon credits issued and verified, if its technology fits within the definition of ocean fertilisation.

James Kerry says he believes that is why Gigablue – which already has a contract to deliver 200,000 carbon credits by 2029 – is keen to distinguish its technology as something else.

“The distinction determines which international rules and safeguards apply to the activity that GigaBlue is proposing to undertake.”

Gigablue, for its part, has said it needs to be able to verify credits in order to fund the research that will provide the evidence base for its technology.

Helene Muri says the practice of pre-selling credits for carbon removals is relatively common – especially for proven forms of carbon sequestration like forest planting. However, credits should not be issued before the method is proven, she says.

“If payment helps fund development, but credits are only issued after verified delivery, that can be defensible.”

She, and others RNZ spoke to, support New Zealand ratifying the London Protocol amendment and using its assessment framework to decide which activities can go ahead.

“Fund and permit responsible, open and transparent research to build evidence,” Muri says.

“But resist policies that enable rapid commercialisation until ecological risks are actually bounded and safeguarded, international law compliance is demonstrated, and [monitoring, reporting and verification] is robust.”

Where else is this happening?

Marine carbon dioxide removal research is happening in many other locations, including the US, Canada and Australia, which are considering the same challenges as New Zealand.

A Canadian senate report published last month recommended its government should “create a regulatory framework that enables innovation and balances risks with opportunities”.

However, the report was focused almost entirely on a different type of mCDR that is limited to harbours and rivers, rather than open ocean systems.

James Kerry says the ongoing lack of global regulation has allowed a “broader pattern” of activity to develop, where mCDR approaches are hyped before there’s robust evidence that they work or can be scaled up.

He raises the example of Running Tide, an ocean fertilisation start-up that attracted blue-chip investment from the lies of Microsoft before it closed down in 2024.

“Running Tide dumped around 19,000 tons of matter in Icelandic waters in total in 2023 under a research permit,” he says.

“It’s also worth noting that after Running Tide went bust in 2024, they did not clean up the material they had dumped in the ocean.”

Without careful regulation there was a “real risk” that commercial mCDR activity would move ahead of the science and safety, he says.

He also believes novel tech like marine carbon dioxide removal risks distracting from or delaying actual emissions reductions.

“”You always begin with the narrative, ‘Climate change bad,’ which is true. ‘We need to address the problem,’ which is true.

“And then the third part which comes is, ‘Here’s our solution, which is the one that’s going to work.’ And that’s where I object.”

However, he says that – based on documents released to RNZ – New Zealand agencies have so far “largely” handled the situation appropriately.

Late last year, Earth Sciences New Zealand was awarded an $11 million Endeavour Fund grant to carry out its own research into marine carbon dioxide removal, including ocean fertilisation.

Notably, its research will not actually deploy any mCDR technology, “so avoiding technological, environmental and social-licence barriers”.

Instead, it plans to use naturally-occurring algal blooms to test advanced models and new marine carbon tracking technologies, among other things.

The agency declined an interview about this work for this story.

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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/2026/04/01/marine-carbon-dioxide-removal-is-a-big-idea-with-big-hurdles/

Source: Radio New Zealand

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/04/01/parents-do-have-a-favourite-child-according-to-research/

Source: Radio New Zealand

David Tamihere’s convictions have been quashed, 36 years after he was found guilty of murdering two Swedish backpackers, but what happens next and could he get compensation from the government?

In a decision released on Tuesday, the Supreme Court directed a retrial but said it was up to the Crown to decide whether one should be held.

The court found there was a fundamental error in Tamihere’s 1990 trial which made it unfair – and the Crown case had changed so “radically” since then that it had not actually been tested by a jury.

Tamihere was convicted of the murder of Urban Höglin, 23, and Heidi Paakkonen, 21, in 1990. The couple was last seen in Thames in April 1989 and Höglin’s body was found in 1991. Paakkonen’s body has never been found.

If the Crown decided not to pursue a retrial for Tamihere, who was now in his 70s, he would be eligible to apply for compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

The decision on whether to hold a retrial rested with Auckland Crown solicitor Alysha McClintock.

She said told RNZ on Tuesday that there was now a process to follow.

“It will consider many factors, focussed on what available and admissible evidence remains to meet the Solicitor-General’s prosecution guidelines test and – if there is sufficient evidence – where the public interest now lies,” she said.

According to the Ministry of Justice, a person would be eligible for compensation if their convictions had been quashed and criminal proceedings had finished and they had been imprisoned for all or part of a sentence for that conviction.

Payment of compensation was at the discretion of the government and Cabinet had to be satisfied a person was innocent on the balance of probabilities along with suffering losses that could be compensated and compensation being in the interests of justice.

Tamihere spent 20 years in prison, so if he was eligible for compensation, he could receive an annual amount of $150,000 for each year in prison, an annual amount of up to $100,000 for loss of income for each year, an additional $75,000 a year for time on restrictive bail or parole, up to $50,000 to re-adjust to living in the community, an amount for costs incurred when challenging conviction and an amount for large financial losses between $50,000 and $250,000.

This could mean upwards of $3 million in Tamihere’s case.

The government could also decide to make a public apology or statement of innocence, the Ministry of Justice website said.

If an application for compensation was made, Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith would decide whether the application would be further assessed.

That assessment would focus on whether the person was innocent on the balance of probabilities, whether it was in the interests of justice to pay compensation and how much should be paid.

The minister could also seek independent legal advice on any aspect the application.

Tamihere’s case would be called in the High Court at Auckland on 13 May.

The Crown Law Office said it was likely a decision would have been reached by then but the court date would be pushed back if it had not.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

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

LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/04/01/david-tamiheres-double-murder-convictions-quashed-what-happens-now-and-could-he-get-compensation/

Source: Radio New Zealand

Hospital admissions for sepsis have risen steeply in the past 20 years, with new research showing infants, people over 70, Māori and Pacific peoples and those living in areas of high deprivation more at risk.

Sepsis is an acute, life-threatening condition that happens when the body’s immune system has an extreme response to an infection, damaging the tissues and organs.

Globally it was estimated to be responsible for one in three deaths, with more than 166 million cases reported in 2021, and in New Zealand, it was responsible for almost five percent of all deaths – nearly four times as many as car accidents.

The research from the University of Otago, Wellington, titled “Temporal trends in sepsis hospitalisations and mortality in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2000-2019” and published in The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific, found hospitalisation rates increased by 78 percent between 2000 and 2019.

There were 217 admissions per 100,000 people in 2000, which increased to 386 admissions per 100,000 people in 2019.

Māori and Pacific peoples were 1.7 and 2.3 times respectively more likely to be hospitalised with sepsis than those of non-Māori, Pacific or Asian descent, and more than one-and-a-half times more likely to die of the condition.

Patients living in areas of high socioeconomic deprivation were twice as likely to die from it than those in the areas of least deprivation.

Lead author Sharla McTavish, a Tangata Tiriti PhD student from the Department of Public Health, said the study was the first to report long-term epidemiological trends for all public hospital admissions for sepsis in Aotearoa.

Sepsis had a large impact on health and wellbeing, she said – in total, it caused about 260,000 hospitalisations and 27,400 deaths over the two decades.

The number of hospitalisations had increased significantly year-on-year, but the number of deaths had remained comparatively stable, with survival rates improving markedly, particularly for those aged over 70, she said.

But she said cases were likely to continue to rise as the population aged and the number of people living with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, increased.

“People living with multiple long-term health conditions are at higher risk of developing sepsis, and where this is combined with inequalities, such as household overcrowding, the risk increases even more.”

Otago public health Professor Michael Baker, another of the study’s authors, said taking action to prevent the condition should be high on the government’s list of priorities.

“Many cases and deaths from sepsis are preventable, but we need to use all the public health measures we have to combat the toll it is taking on New Zealand families.”

Health NZ has been approached for comment.

Sepsis Trust NZ founding trustee Dr Paul Huggan said sepsis created a significant burden for the healthcare system.

“Around one in five sepsis patients require intensive or high dependency care, yet only half receive treatment within the recommended three-hour window, which is well below global best practice, and is putting lives at risk,” he said.

“We have strong international evidence which shows investing in early recognition and prevention will reduce hospital stays, ease pressure and costs on ICU and our ACC system, and deliver strong economic returns.”

HNZ’s national chief quality and patient safety officer, Dr Sarah Jackson, said the agency would read this study with interest and welcomed the opportunity to explore its findings further with Dr Huggan.

The agency recognised that sepsis was a life-threatening condition that could appear suddenly, with signs that were subtle and often under recognised. “New Zealanders can be assured we treat it with the seriousness it demands.”

Sepsis Trust NZ chief executive Ally Hossain said progress was being held back by a lack of coordinated action, and a national sepsis action plan was needed.

“This plan must address sepsis prevention, early recognition and treatment, the careful use of antibiotics and wider public health surveillance, as well as providing equitable and effective wraparound support for sepsis survivors, particularly in the first 12 months following hospital discharge,” she said.

She said New Zealand was already falling behind comparable countries, and it was costing lives.

“We know that millions of dollars would be saved within even the first 12 to 24 months of the action plan’s implementation, let alone the number of deaths it would prevent.”

Cancer and surgical patients were most at risk, she said, so improving their outcomes could reduce hospital stays and lessen pressures on ICUs.

In 2017, the 70th World Health Assembly asked countries to adopt prevention, diagnosis and management of sepsis a priority, and develop a national action plan by 2030. “Comparable countries”, including Australia, Switzerland, parts of Canada, the UK, Belgium, Ireland, and the USA, had already adopted them.

The trust had created resources for use in hospitals to help staff recognise sepsis early, and choose the right treatment. “But as it stands at the moment, this has not been implemented nationwide.”

Hossain said after meeting with the health minister Simeon Brown late last year, he had sent a letter saying he had passed on the trust’s requests to HNZ for consideration, and Hossain said frontline clinicians had been very supportive.

A spokesperson for Simeon Brown’s office said the government was focused on prevention and improving health outcomes for all New Zealanders, including for conditions like sepsis, and encouraged health agencies and stakeholders to work together to strengthen coordination.

HNZ’s Dr Sarah Jackson said consideration of a national sepsis action plan was ongoing.

She said the agency endorsed sepsis pathways and e-learning developed by the Health Quality and Safety Commission and Safety New Zealand, and was developing a national empiric antimicrobial guideline to improve the efficiency and consistency of the use of antimicrobials, which are used to treat sepsis.

“The implementation of e-vitals across hospitals will also help with early recognition of sepsis and response to acute deterioration. This system identifies patients whose condition worsens due to severe infections and sepsis, which triggers a clinical graded response, to bring urgent care quickly to the sickest patients.”

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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/2026/04/01/steep-rise-in-sepsis-hospital-admissions-over-last-two-decades-research-reveals/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Defence Lawyers’ Association does not believe the Crown has the evidence to pursue a retrial of David Tamihere.

Tamihere was convicted in 1990 of killing Swedish tourists Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen on the Coromandel Peninsula.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court quashed the convictions and directed a retrial – a decision that rests with the Crown.

The court found there was a fundamental error in Tamihere’s 1990 trial which made it unfair – and the Crown case had changed so “radically” since then that it had not actually been tested by a jury.

Te Matakahi co-chair and criminal barrister Elizabeth Hall did not believe there was public appetite for a retrial.

“Will the Crown retry Mr Tamihere? I’m willing to bet if there was a public vote on whether that should happen the answer would be a resounding ‘no’.

“Mr Tamihere has paid a very high price, personal price, for our justice system getting something wrong.”

She said the Crown was obliged, however, to consider whether it should try the case again.

“That involves a thorough consideration of the available evidence, the prospects of the prosecution being successful but also really strong consideration of … public interest.

“So, is it in the public interest that a retrial be brought after all of this time? And there are very strong arguments that could be made that the evidence that the Crown would have available to them simply isn’t enough to even get over that first hurdle, nevermind considering whether there are … public interest considerations.”

Hall said if the Crown decided against a retrial, Tamihere had a strong claim to compensation – however, his chance of success was remote.

“Most people who are wrongfully convicted – certainly my clients who come to me and say, ‘Now what? What about compensation?’.

“The reality is you tell them that compensation is almost impossible to achieve in New Zealand.”

Hall said she could count on one had the number of people who had had successful compensation claims.

“Obviously Mr Tamihere would have very strong grounds and … if there is no retrial and he has essentilly been acquitted, and paid that very high price of being wrongfully convicted following an unfair trial – it would be difficult I think to see how he could not be compensated.

“But don’t forget compensation is money, it does not bring back the life he has spent behind bars.”

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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/2026/04/01/crown-unlikely-to-have-evidence-to-pursue-david-tamihere-retrial-defence-lawyers-association/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The man who murdered Gurjit Singh at his Dunedin home will be sentenced on Wednesday.

Singh, 27, was found dead on the lawn of the property in January in 2024 after being stabbed more than 40 times.

His 35-year-old killer, known only as Rajinder, was found guilty of murder following a High Court jury trial last year.

During the trial, the Crown said Rajinder left DNA evidence at the scene and lied to police, while Rajinder’s defence lawyer called the evidence flawed and said his client had no motive for murdering his former employee.

Prosecutor Richard Smith said the case was not “rocket science”, with Rajinder’s blood and hair found at the scene, his hair in Singh’s hands, and evidence he had searched for a route to Singh’s house on the night of the murder despite telling police that he did not know where he lived.

Defence lawyer Anne Stevens KC said Rajinder had volunteered to be medically examined and consistently denied murdering Singh, saying DNA presented a degree of likelihood, not a guarantee.

A complicated love triangle was aired during the trial involving Singh, his widow Kamaljeet Kaur and Rajinder.

Smith said Kaur rejected Rajinder’s marriage proposal through a broker in 2022 before marrying Singh the following year, and Singh had also rejected Rajinder’s plan to marry his sister.

He said both rejections were motive for murder, with the killing happening shortly before Kaur was due to arrive from India to live with Singh.

Stevens called the argument a Crown “fantasy”, saying Rajinder was not upset to find out she had married Singh and it was instead Kaur’s family who approached his family twice to pursue a marriage.

She said he had been happily married since January 2023.

Smith said Rajinder lied to police about how he cut his hand, initially suggesting he had a chainsaw accident before changing his story to a bike crash, despite a doctor suggesting the wound was inconsistent with a fall onto gravel.

Instead, he suggested Singh had tried to defend himself and Rajinder had cut himself during the pursuit.

Smith said Rajinder bought a “murder kit” including gloves from Bunnings and a knife and neck gaiter from Hunting and Fishing the day before the murder but did not tell police about the purchases.

Stevens said it did not make sense for her client to buy the items using his own bank account, suggesting they were bought for his work as a fibre-optic cable technician.

In summing up, Justice Dunningham said there was no dispute that Singh was violently attacked but the jury needed to decide whether Rajinder was responsible.

‘He was living a good life’

After the jury’s guilty verdict Singh’s father Nishan Singh said he hoped Rajinder would be jailed for life after ruining their lives.

Through a translator, he said he believed Rajinder might have been motivated by his son’s wife rejecting an earlier marriage proposal.

“He has ruined not just our lives but his family life as well. I just hope he someday he confesses why he did it and that will give me more peace in life,” he said.

His son was hardworking and had been supporting his family, he said.

“He was living a good life.”

A deadly night

On the night he died, Gurjit Singh was hanging out with friends at a pizza party in Helensburgh.

His friends told the court he was in good spirits because his wife would soon be arriving from India to live with him.

They last saw him alive when he left about 10:30pm.

The next morning Dhruval Aery checked on Singh after receiving panicked messages from a mutual friend, arriving to find his unresponsive and bloodied body on the lawn.

Police videos from the murder scene showed signs of a violent struggle inside, with a large broken window and blood stains on the ground, hand rail, furniture and wall.

Singh’s widow Kamaljeet Kaur was preparing to move to Dunedin when she was told her husband had been murdered.

Almost 80 police staff were involved in the murder investigation.

Wife pleads guilty day before sentencing

On Tuesday Rajinder’s wife Gurpreet Kaur admitted getting rid of evidence in the murder investigation.

Evidence of her involvement was suppressed during the trial until she pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice at the High Court.

She admitted hiding her husband’s shoes in a bathroom bin after police visited her workplace and told her Rajinder was being charged.

Tiny fragments of glass consistent with a shattered window from the murder scene were found on the shoes.

Gurpreet Kaur will be sentenced in July.

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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/2026/04/01/rajinder-man-who-murdered-gurjit-singh-to-be-sentenced/

Source: Radio New Zealand

The West Coast polytechnic Tai Poutini will become a campus of the Open Polytechnic next year.

The institute is among the last four polytechnics remaining in super-institute Te Pūkenga.

Vocational Education Minister Penny Simmonds said the other three, Northtec in Northland, the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki and the joint Wellington region institute Weltec and Whitireia, would become stand-alone institutes from 1 January.

However, they would be placed in a federation with the Open Polytechnic aimed at supporting institutes that were relatively weak financially.

Simmonds said the changes were aimed at creating a strong network of regional-led polytechnics.

“This is a major milestone in rebuilding a vocational education system that is locally led, financially sustainable, and focused on delivering the skills New Zealand’s regions need,” she said.

“It means training can better reflect the needs of local employers, support key industries, and ensure vocational education delivery aligns with workforce demand.”

Open Polytechnic chief executive Sharon Cooke said Tai Poutini would become a regional campus within the polytechnic.

She said it would provide face-to-face learning with the Open Polytechnic’s online and blended-delivery courses.

“This model allows us to bring the best of both worlds – local delivery where it matters most, supported by national scale and expertise,” she said.

She said the change would ensure polytechnic courses continued on the South Island’s West Coast.

Ten other polytechnics became independent institutions at the start of this year.

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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/2026/04/01/west-coast-polytechnic-tai-poutini-to-become-open-polytechnic-campus-next-year/

Source: Radio New Zealand

A grand old dame who survived World War I and emigrated from Europe to New Zealand with a Kiwi solider has made a surprise visit to Te Papa to see an exhibition which tells her story.

Torty the tortoise is well over a hundred years old and had been taken care of by three generations of the same family.

She was brought to New Zealand by Stewart Little, a stretcher bearer who cared for her in Greece after she was run over by a French gun cart. He shipped her home in his rucksack in 1916.

After Stewart Little died, Torty was cared for by his son and daughter-in-law. After their deaths, Little’s late grandson and his wife Christine Little took on caring duties.

On Monday, Christine Little took Torty on an impromptu visit to see Te Papa’s Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War exhibition, which featured a replica of the tortoise.

“We thought we would just pop into Te Papa and see if we could grab a photo with her replica. But she caused quite a sensation, and the next thing we had many staff and lots of members of the public very interested to meet her.”

Torty’s story began when Stewart Little spotted her run over on a road. Christine Little said he was not expecting the animal to survive, so was surprised to see this resilient little tortoise had stood up and was carrying on trying to walk, despite her quite serious injuries.

“And given that obviously he was a man of kindness and compassion, being part of the medical corps, he picked her up and looked after her. I mean, she was, after all, wounded in the war.”

Christine Little’s husband was one of Stewart Little’s grandchildren and she said Torty once lived with Christine Little’s mother-in-law in her rest home.

“It is a complete family affair.”

If Torty could talk, Christine Little thinks she might want to thank Stewart Little for the kindness he showed lifting her out of the mud that day in Greece.

“And I guess that she would have some pretty horrible stories about what she saw during that time in the war. She’s also had a number of adventures along the way, like being stolen in the 1930s and turning up in a circus in Dunedin!”

Now well into older age, Torty still makes school visits and had her Te Papa outing but mostly her days were spent with a regular routine of waking about 8am, eating and sleeping and then bed at 5pm.

“She’ll wander out onto my lawn. She lives out just in my backyard, which I’ve let grow, and it’s grown into a bit of a meadow. And she’ll graze. Just eat until she feels tired and ready for a nap, and then she’ll have a nap. And then she might wake up and have some more to eat, and that’s sort of how her day goes.”

In the next couple of weeks Torty would go into brumation and wake up in September. It’s not known how long she could live for, but the family had a plan for when she passes on.

“A number of years ago we had a discussion about this as a family. It has been decided that when it’s her time, she will come back to the Manawatū and she will be buried with Stewart and his wife, Maud.

“So that’s all been organised with the cemetery and it’s all good and that is what will happen.”

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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/2026/04/01/torty-the-tortoise-who-survived-world-war-i-visits-te-papa-exhibit-which-tells-her-story/