Severe weather warnings are set to come into place this weekend as Cyclone Vaianu bears down on New Zealand.

Coromandel and parts of the Bay of Plenty are expected to be the worst-affected, though no part of the North Island will escape unscathed, forecasters warn.

A state of emergency has been declared for Northland as at 5pm, for an initial period of seven days, as part of the regional response.

• READ MORE: Tropical Storm Sinlaku strengthens, could hit CNMI as typhoon by Monday
• Other Pacific wild weather reports

The first warnings will be in effect from late Saturday night in Northland, before Vaianu makes its way south.

Most of the rain and winds will hit on Sunday, reaching the upper South Island by early afternoon.

The State of Palestine has submitted a written plea to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) asking it for an advisory opinion regarding Israel’s obligations not to obstruct humanitarian and development assistance in the territories it occupies, Al Jazeera reports.

In the submission, Palestinian officials affirmed the responsibility of Israel, as an occupying power, to not obstruct the work of the UN, international organisations, and third states so they can provide essential services, humanitarian aid, and development assistance to the Palestinian people.

Many states, as well as international groups, have submitted written pleas to the ICJ ahead of oral proceedings set to start next month.

• READ MORE: Israel threatens a second Nakba, yet denies the first ever happened
• First phase of Israel-Hamas ceasefire ends with no deal

Last July, the ICJ issued a historic advisory opinion determining Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”.

Widespread ‘torture’ of Gaza medics in Israeli custody
In a separate report, the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights accused the Israeli military of detaining more than 250 medical personnel and support staff since the beginning of the war on Gaza in October 2023.

More than 180 remained in detention without a clear indication of when or if they would be released, the physicians’ report said.

“Detainees endure physical, psychological and sexual abuse as well as starvation and medical neglect amounting to torture,” the report said, denouncing a “deeply ingrained policy”.

Healthcare workers were beaten, threatened, and forced to sign documents in Hebrew during their detention, according to the report based on 20 testimonies collected in prison.

“Medical personnel were primarily questioned about the Israeli hostages, tunnels, hospital structures and Hamas’s activity,” it said.

“They were rarely asked questions linking them to any criminal activity, nor were they presented with substantive charges.”

Where does Trump stand on the Gaza ceasefire?
With phase one of the ceasefire due to end today and negotiations barely started on phase two, serious fears are being raised over  the viability of the ceasefire.

President Donald Trump took credit for the truce that his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff helped push across the finish line after a year of negotiations led by the Biden administration, Egypt and Qatar, reports Al Jazeera.

However, Trump has since sent mixed signals about the deal.

Earlier last month, he set a firm deadline for Hamas to release all the captives, warning “all hell is going to break out” if it didn’t.

But he said it was ultimately up to Israel, and the deadline came and went.

Trump sowed further confusion by proposing that Gaza’s population of about 2.3 million be relocated to other countries and for the US to take over the territory and develop it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the idea, but it was universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries, including close US allies. Human rights groups said it could violate international law.

Trump stood by the plan in a Fox News interview over the weekend but said he was “not forcing it”.

Responding to DAWN’s referral of Biden, Blinken & Austin to the ICC for investigation for aiding Israeli war crimes, @alhaq_org‘s @SJabaren says:

“Finally, we see an effort to hold” accountable “US officials who have armed, financed and politically defended Israeli atrocities.” pic.twitter.com/yCpRaogE2I

— DAWN MENA (@DAWNmenaorg) February 28, 2025

‘Finally’ an effort to hold the US accountable, says Al-Haq director
Palestinian human rights activist Shawan Jabarin has welcomed a plea by the US-based rights group DAWN for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Joe Biden and senior US officials for aiding Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

In a video posted by DAWN, Jabarin, director of the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, said the effort was long overdue.

“For decades we have called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law, but time and again, the US has used its power and influence to block that accountability, to shield Israel from consequences and to ensure that it can continue its crimes with impunity,” Jabarin said.

“Now, finally, we see an effort to hold not just Israeli officials accountable but also those who have made these crimes possible: US officials who have armed, financed, and politically defended Israeli atrocities.”

Pacific protesters were prominent in the 17th week of Aotearoa New Zealand solidarity demonstrations for Palestine and a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in Auckland today.

Flags of Fiji, Tonga and West Papua were featured alongside the sea of Palestinian banners and at least one group declared themselves as “Tongans for Palestine – Long live the intifada”.

The rally in Auckland’s Te Komititanga — also known as Britomart Square, an urban rail transport hub — drew a large crowd of about 250 in the heart of New Zealand’s largest city shopping precinct.

• READ MORE: What to know about the ICJ’s historic ruling about Israel’s conduct in Gaza
• Israel’s war on Gaza live: Children killed as Israel attacks kindergarten
• ‘Ceasefire now’ protesters march on NZ naval base, demand Luxon upholds Israel genocide court order
• Other Palestine solidarity protests

Thousands of people have been taking part in the weekly protest rallies and marches across New Zealand since the war on Gaza began after a deadly attack on Israel last October 7 following 75 years of repression and occupation since the Nakba — the “catastrophe” — in 1948.

South Africa has warned that Israel is ignoring the World Court’s “on notice” genocidal orders about its war on Gaza.

The death toll is now more than 27,000 — and more than 900 Palestinians have been killed since the ICJ (International Court of Justice) ruled that Israel must take steps to prevent civilian deaths.

Speakers in Auckland today drew parallels between the Zionist settler colonial project in Palestine and NZ’s colonial history, saying the Waitangi Treaty was now under threat from NZ’s most rightwing government in history.

‘Right side of history’
The protest came just two days before Waitangi Day — 6 February 1840 — the national holiday marking the signing of the foundational Treaty of Waitangi between the British Crown and 500 traditional Māori chiefs.

“There are many things we can do in Aotearoa to stand on the right side of history,” said one of the organisers, Josie Sims of Solidarity Action Network Aotearoa (SANA).

“We’re calling on the NZ Defence Force to refuse their orders to go to Yemen. We’re asking for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, and we’re asking that this government takes a clear position on an immediate ceasefire.”

Protesters directed their criticism at the nearby American McDonalds and Starbucks fast food and coffee outlets for allegedly supporting genocide. They are among many companies being boycotted worldwide.

“Maccas, Maccas, you can’t hide, you’re making meals for genocide,” chanted the protesters in reference to the global chain providing free meals to the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) troops engaged in the assault on Gaza.

A scene examination is continuing at a construction site in central Auckland after a fatal shooting there shocked the city yesterday morning.

The gunman, 24-year-old Matu Tangi Matua Reid, was on home detention but allowed to work at the construction site.

He died at the scene in a shoot-out with police after killing two civilians with a pump-action shotgun. Six others were wounded, including two police officers.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘A sad tinge’ – Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown
• ‘I don’t think that anyone benefits from politicians speculating in a vacuum of facts’ – Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick
• READ MORE:  ‘Deep sorrow’ – PM on Auckland shooting deaths, says no national security risk
• Three dead in Auckland CBD shooting, including gunman, police confirm
• Fatal Auckland shooting: How it unfolded

The horror unfolded on the opening day of the FIFA Women’s Football World Cup in Auckland and a minute’s silence for the shooting victims was held at the first game at Eden Park last night when New Zealand defeated Norway 1-0.

Police officers in high-vis vests have today re-entered the high-rise building on the corner of Queen and Quay streets and at least seven police cars are at the cordoned off site.

A man working on the repairs at nearby Queen’s Wharf told RNZ the rules had been tightened at their site and people entering were being checked.

A commuter said there appeared to be extra security at Britomart Station transit hub this morning but he felt safe.

“It was every emotion yesterday,” he said, but he thought the city had coped well in the aftermath of the ‘shock and horror’ of the morning’s events.”

Brown said he supported Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s decision to call for a rahui in the CBD area, and the FIFA fan zone on Quay Street had been closed.

Ngāti Whātua has said this morning that no rahui is in place.

“[The] fan zone was right hard up against the dreadful event and it just didn’t seem to be right to be having a night of celebration right next door to something that had been so horrible,” he said.

“Ngāti Whātua called for, and I supported, a rahui on the area down there so we shut the fan zone and people, with a sad tinge, did go to the game at Eden Park, but with respect.

“They had the one minute’s silence, which was part of our culture and the correct thing to do, and then there was a wonderful game afterwards so, I think … the city took it well.”

‘Good end to dreadful day’
Brown said he had spoken to Prime Minister Chris Hipkins after last night’s match between New Zealand and Norway and they had agreed it was “a very good end to a dreadful day”.

He said FIFA officials had been “very sympathetic” about the shooting.

“They were very understanding, they were very concerned about the impact on the tournament, but also deeply respectful of the losses of — almost innocence — of the people here in Auckland CBD, plus of course the dreadful loss of life from this shocking experience.”

While he had been one of the people raising concerns about ongoing crime issues such as ram raids in Auckland, Brown said he was not thinking about anything on the scale of what occurred yesterday.

“It’s something out of the ordinary and I think this is one random person … and we shouldn’t possibly extrapolate that across the district, but crime on the streets with the ram raids is something which has got to be dealt with.”

Brown had praise for both the police and members of the public regarding how they responded to the unfolding crisis on Thursday morning.

“The police were wonderful, they responded bravely and promptly,” he said.

“People behaved very well considering what an appalling thing had happened.”

Violence like this has no place in city, says Swarbrick
There would be a time for political debate and discussions about how to prevent incidents like yesterday’s shooting, Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick told Morning Report, but that time was not right now.

“I very, very strongly want the message to be here that this violence has absolutely no place in our city or in our country, and we utterly reject it,” she said.

Swarbrick said her thoughts were with the whānau and friends of those who had died as well as those who had been injured, emergency service staff, and the workers who had experienced the traumatic event.

She said questions had been put to police officials at a briefing she attended yesterday, including about how the shooter had obtained a gun without a licence and while he was on home detention.

Swarbrick expected those questions would be answered “in due course” but said it was important the facts were “crystal clear” first.

“I don’t think that anyone benefits from politicians speculating in a vacuum of facts.”

The briefing had made it “very clear that this was a tragic but isolated incident connected to the workplace and that there is no outstanding associated risk”, she said.

Asked whether she believed a broader inquiry was needed to look into the use of home detention, Swarbrick said a number of reports commissioned by successive governments had identified evidence-based policies to address what was a complex issue, but that evidence was often “politically unpalatable”.

The rhetoric and debate around law and order was often reduced to “soundbyte-solutions”, she said, “things that politicians know will not work and oftentimes are contrary to evidence”.

She said New Zealanders deserved evidence-based interventions when it came to tackling crime.

“It is really clear what we have to resource in terms of evidence-based policy but it is the crunchy and the hard stuff which looks meaningfully at prevention, it’s not this knee-jerk ‘tough-on-crime’ nonsense.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

My daughter came into the kitchen early today to tell me her friends were downtown in Auckland at Britomart, the transit hub of New Zealand’s biggest city, and that a construction worker had just run past them saying a man with a gun was shooting people.

I immediately swept all the online news media and saw nothing and was in the process of suggesting to her that maybe her friends were pranking her when it broke on Breakfast TV.

I know the area this shooting occurred in well — I was there a few days ago; most Aucklanders will know it as it is a vital entry point to downtown Auckland. To have a mass shooting event there is utterly outside the norm for Aucklanders.

• READ MORE:  ‘Deep sorrow’ – PM on Auckland shooting deaths, says no national security risk
• Three dead in Auckland CBD shooting, including gunman, police confirm
• Fatal Auckland shooting: How it unfolded
• World Cup opener will go ahead despite shooting
• RNZ News crisis liveblog

As the reverberations and shock ease, there will of course be immediate political fall out.

Before all that though, first, let us acknowledge the uncompromising courage of our New Zealand police and emergency services. We all saw them sprint into that building knowing someone was armed and shooting people.

I am the first to be critical of the NZ Police, but on this day, their professionalism and unflinching bravery was one of the few things we can be grateful for on such a poisoned morning.

Let us also pause and mourn the two who were killed and 10 wounded. These were simply good honest folk going about their day of work and not one of them deserved the horror visited upon them by 24-year-old Matu Tangi Matua Reid.

Now let’s talk about Matu.

Troubling pump-action shotgun access
The media have already highlighted that he was on home detention for domestic violence charges and was wearing an ankle bracelet. This is of no surprise nor shock, many on home detention have the option of applying for leave to work — we do this because those on home detention still need to pay the rent, far more troubling was his access to a pump-action shotgun he didn’t have a gun licence for.

We know he had already been in a Turn Your Life Around Youth Development Trust programme.

Political partisans will try and seize any part of his story to whip into political frenzy for their election narrative and we should reject and resist that.

The banality of evil always tends to be far more basic than we ever appreciate.

There is nothing special about Matu; he is simply another male without the basic emotional tools to facilitate his anger beyond violence. In that regard Matu is depressingly like tens of thousands of men in NZ.

His background didn’t justify this terrible act of violence today and his actions can’t be conflated to show Labour are soft on crime.

Another depressing violent male
Matu is just another depressing male whose violence he could not control. There are tens of thousands like him and until we start focusing on building young men who have the emotional tools to facilitate their anger beyond violence, he won’t be the last.

He has shamed himself.

He has shamed his family.

He has shamed us all.

Today isn’t a day for politics, it is far too sad for that, the politics will come and everyone will be screaming their sweaty truth, but at its heart this is about broken men incapable of keeping their violence to themselves.

What a sorrowful day for my beautiful city.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

Three people have been killed in a shooting in Auckland central business district today, including the gunman.

Six people were also wounded, including two police officers.

Police say the situation is now contained.

• READ MORE:  ‘Deep sorrow’ – PM on Auckland shooting deaths, says no national security risk
• Fatal Auckland shooting: How it unfolded
• World Cup opener will go ahead despite shooting
• RNZ News crisis liveblog

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told media a witness called the incident in at 7.23am, reporting there was a man with a gun shooting inside a construction site on lower Queen Street.

The gunman moved through the construction site shooting a pump-action shotgun.

When he reached the upper levels he hid inside an elevator shaft.

Police attempted to engage with him, but the gunman fired further shots, before he was found dead a short time later, they say.

The New Zealand Herald reports Prime Minister Hipkins praised the “heroic” actions of emergency services.

He said there was no identified “political or ideological motivation” for the shooter and as such, there was no need to change the national security risk.

The government has spoken to FIFA organisers today and the Women’s Football World Cup tournament will proceed as planned with the opening match tonight between New Zealand and Norway.

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster later confirmed the dead gunman was on home detention and had previous convictions. He was named as Matu Tangi Matua Reid, 24, reports RNZ News.

Coster said the shooter was a worker at the construction site, and had an exemption from home detention to go to work.

At 7.22am police received multiple emergency calls about a person shooting a gun on the third floor of a building under construction on lower Queen Street. Commissioner Coster said officers arrived on the scene within minutes.

“The offender made his way up the building site, discharging his firearm on multiple occasions. Police entered in the building within 10 minutes,” he said.

The police commissioner said the gunman fired at police, wounding an officer, and shots were then exchanged.

“The offender was later found deceased.”

The wounded police officer was taken to hospital in a critical condition, but has since stabilised.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

RNZ News

New Zealand’s Media Freedom Council has called Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown’s exclusion of some media outlets from his budget speech today “unacceptable”.

In an appearance at Auckland Transport’s Viaduct headquarters, Brown took time out of pitching his plan to sell the city’s holdings in Auckland Airport to complain about road cones, his “not financially literate” councillors and target the “nasty” media.

Brown’s team invited journalists from only a few organisations to the announcement. RNZ was allowed in, but Stuff, TVNZ and Newshub were not.

• READ MORE: Other mayor Wayne Brown and the media reports

Stuff reported among those allowed in were “business leaders, former politicians and former rugby league coach Sir Graham Lowe”.

Some reporters threatened to walk out of the event in protest, drawing this response from the mayor: “They weren’t invited, but some of the media have been pretty nasty. We did invite media who are sensible; and the media who are not weren’t invited, and have now decided, some of them, to bugger off — well, that’s all right with me”.

Stuff queried the mayor’s decision, and was told only a “select few journalists… we feel were best able to convey the mayor’s message” were invited.

Media Freedom Council chair Richard Sutherland — also head of news at RNZ — wrote to Brown shortly afterwards, to “express our deep concern about the attempted exclusion of journalists from today’s budget presentation in Auckland”.

In addition to RNZ, the MFC represents Newshub, Newsroom, NZME, Stuff, The Spinoff and TVNZ.

‘Today’s events troubling’
“Today’s events are troubling. The media plays a crucial role in informing the public and holding officials accountable. Denying access to journalists compromises the public’s right to be informed,” Sutherland wrote.

“Furthermore, we are aware that invitations that were issued were selectively targeted to specific journalists. It is imperative to ensure equal opportunities for all bone fide journalists to cover significant public events, irrespective of their perceived affiliations or perspectives.

“To be blunt, it’s unacceptable to cherry-pick journalists based on who you think will give you the easiest ride.”

Sutherland called Brown’s decision an “affront to the democratic process and an insult to voters”.

Brown did not take questions after his speech, saying he did not have time.

He has had a strained relationship with the media since taking the mayoral chains last year. Mediawatch in April described it as “frosty”, at best.

In January, as Auckland suffered its worst floods in living memory, he called journalists “drongos” in messages to friends, upset he had to cancel a tennis engagement to deal with the media. He later apologised.

He refused 106 media requests in his first month of office, granting only two.

‘Sell them all’
The guts of Brown’s speech was to convince his councillors that selling the city’s 18 percent stake in Auckland Airport was the only way to avoid massive cuts to services and rate hikes.

He has his deputy Desley Simpson on side. She told RNZ’s Midday Report she did not want to sell the shares at first, but had listened to advice and had been convinced.

She said the mayor’s second budget proposal was as good as it was going to get, and she hoped other councillors agreed to it.

“In my heart, I didn’t want to sell the airport shareholding. But professional staff advice has said ‘sell them all’. And you know, that’s a hard pill to swallow when in your heart, you want to keep them.

“It’s an emotional wrestle that I think a lot of people are struggling with.”

Simpson said selling shareholding was not just a short-term fix, and would save the council $100 million a year in debt interest.

The council’s debt is currently more than $11 billion.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A state of local emergency has been declared in Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest city Auckland today as heavy rain and thunderstorms affect the region.

Auckland’s Emergency Management duty controller said a band of heavy rain was expected to come across the Auckland region between now and 7pm.

Controller Parul Sood said that while there had been a lull in the rain further downfalls were possible with localised downpours of around 20 to 33 mm expected.

• READ MORE:  Body found at Whangārei caves during search for missing student
• RNZ live updates

She said Auckland Council had received about 490 stormwater related calls, the majority of which were to do with surface flooding, and only about 18 to do with flooding in homes.

Fire and Emergency has received 277 weather-related call outs today, most from Auckland.

Its on-call commander for Tāmaki Makaurau, Brad Mosby, said that about one third of the calls were urgent.

He urged people to avoid unnecessary travel and stay clear of floodwaters.

Meanwhile, thunderstorms continued to roll across the top half of the North Island.

Metservice said severe thunderstorm warnings were in place for South Waikato, Matamata Piako, Western Bay Of Plenty, Taupo and Rotorua until just before 4.30pm.

A severe thunderstorm Watch was also in force for Auckland, Coromandel Peninsula and the rest of Waikato and Bay Of Plenty.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand civil defence staff have sent out text alerts to residents in North and West Auckland today to avoid unecessary travel as thunderstorms brought localised downpours.

Those in Rodney, Helensville, Upper Harbour, Te Atatu and Henderson Valley received an emergency alert on their mobiles this evening as the rain has increased the risk of landsliding and flooding.

Bethells Beach, Piha, Karekare and Muriwai, which have been cut off since Cyclone Gabrielle, have also received the the mobile alert.

• READ MORE: Cyclone Gabrielle: New weather warnings for flood-hit NZ regions
• Follow RNZ live news blog

Areas north of Auckland were hit by the sudden torrential downpour this afternoon causing slips, road closures and surface flooding in towns including Mangawhai, Wellsford and Te Arai.

The intersection of State Highway 1 and Mangawhai Road is closed, say police.

Motorists are able to continue north on State Highway 1, but cannot access Mangawhai Road.

Police said there were slips in north-west Auckland, especially in Mangawhai.

Meanwhile, heavy rain warnings remained in place for Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne and the Coromandel — all regions devastated by last week’s cyclone — as they braced for more downpours this weekend.

Metservice said the heaviest rain for Hawke’s Bay would be during Saturday morning with the risk of thunderstorms.

An evacuation order has been issued for people in the Esk Valley ahead of the heavy rain. It took effect from 1.30pm today.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A state of emergency has been declared in Northland, Auckland, Thames-Coromandel and this morning Ōpōtiki and Tairāwhiti as Cyclone Gabrielle starts to wreak havoc across northern Aotearoa New Zealand.

In Whangārei, Civil Defence said today there was a high risk of tidal flooding in the central business district and the town basin.

It was urging residents to evacuate before the forecast high tide at 2pm and said shelter is available at McKay Stadium in Kensington.

• READ MORE: Thousands without power, evacuations begin as Cyclone Gabrielle hits NZ
• Northland declares state of emergency as Cyclone Gabrielle hits NZ
• Red weather warnings as Cyclone Gabrielle makes NZ landfall
• Cyclone Gabrielle in pictures with RNZ
• Cyclone Gabrielle closes in on Aotearoa: Warnings and forecasts
• Cyclone Gabrielle: Auckland sandbag stations run out of bags, people told ‘bring your own’ as storm approaches
• Follow RNZ’s live news coverage

Meanwhile in Thames-Coromandel, Civil Defence said the intensity of rain and wind would start to build-up from early afternoon in the region.

The eye of the storm was near the top of Coromandel.

And over the next 20 hours 400 millimetres of rain and wind gusts of 130 km/h are expected.

Civil Defence Controller Garry Towler said the eastern side of Coromandel would feel the full force of the storm.

Mass flight cancellations
Air New Zealand is preparing to resume flights tomorrow ahead of mass cancellations from the cyclone.

More than 500 flights were cancelled which saw around 10,000 international customers disrupted with 6500 of them needing to rebook.

The airline has added 11 domestic flights into its schedule and has changed six services into larger aircrafts, said chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty.

Residents on Great Barrier Island were totally cut off from the mainland– with high seas and strong winds continuing to get worse.

Izzy Fordham, chairperson of the island’s local board, said the wind was starting to roar through the island.

She said the island was “virtually cut off” from the mainland as no flights had come in since Saturday afternoon and there were no ferries either.

“The seas are huge,” she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Cyclone Gabrielle is forecast to bring large waves to some coasts for the next few days. Check out the significant wave height forecast for NZ here https://t.co/y7sa5Ofj1O ^PL pic.twitter.com/HGVYTGJoZt

— MetService (@MetService) February 12, 2023

Another house done, and onto the next . . . Volunteers working in Mount Albert community over the past few days helping those suffering from Auckland’s flash flood devastation have done us proud.

Tremendous work by everybody. Here are some random photos of our volunteer teams on the job.

Many thanks to everybody who has contributed.

• READ MORE:  ‘We lost everything’: Refugees, migrants draw on backgrounds to help flood victims
• Earlier volunteer photo gallery
• Other Auckland flash flood reports

Thanks to sponsors Chicking for supporting the community with hot meals for families in motels and volunteers.

And also thanks to Karla for the Bunnings Warehouse New Zealand donating safety equipment for the volunteers helping the community.

• Need help, please contact these numbers:
  Accommodation support: 0800 222 200
  Clothes, bed, and blankets etc: 0800 400 100
• Photographs by Red Tsounga, Aotearoa Africa Foundation community leader, and Ernestina Bonsu Maro

Mt Roskill volunteers after the floods

1 of 12

My family and I are lucky to have come through it unscathed, but my neighbourhood in Titirangi has been ravaged.

Many people here and around the wider region have lost their homes altogether.

I’ve seen people’s belongings out on the streets in piles ruined beyond repair, houses swamped and whole properties carved away by slips leaving them unlivable. It’s hard to imagine what that is like.

• READ MORE: Cyclone Hale: This is what the climate crisis looks like
• Other Auckland flash flood reports

And it made me angry.

Angry that this storm, and storms like it are now all made more intense by climate change that’s caused by industry that has been left to pollute unregulated for far too long. And this is only the latest in a series of similar climate floods in Aotearoa that have left people’s lives in ruin.

We’ve been let down by governments who have failed to regulate the dairy industry to cut methane emissions. They’ve failed to eliminate fossil fuels fast enough, and failed to redesign our towns and cities to be resilient enough.

They’ve known this was coming. Scientists have been saying it for years. Everyone’s been saying it. But still government has failed to act.

Confronting climate crisis
So as our communities come together to clean up after the floods and help make sure everyone has shelter, food and essentials, our resolve to confront and eliminate the causes of climate change is stronger than ever.

These climate floods have brought home the stark truth: People and communities are paying the price of a climate crisis that’s driven by corporate greed and governments unwilling to stand up to them.

I’ve also been inspired seeing the people coming together to help each other in a crisis. People helping out a neighbour, offering a place to stay, feeding tireless volunteers, donating bedding and clothes to the evacuation centres.

It shows me that we can work together to face the bigger challenges.

This is going to be a big year. With your help we can confront the dairy industry to reduce methane emissions. Together we can push our elected government to act to cut emissions from the biggest climate polluters.

• Tui Warmenhoven (Ngāti Porou) is the new chair of the board of Greenpeace and her home base is in Tairāwhiti, which was also recently hit by Cyclone Hale. She shares her personal perspective here: This is what the climate crisis looks like.

Nick Young is head of communications at Greenpeace Aotearoa. Follow him on Twitter. Republished on a Creative Commons licence.

The belt of torrential rain which has brought flooding and slips across northern New Zealand is currently mainly centred over the Waikato and Waitomo district.

But it is also reaching northern Taranaki and parts of the upper South Island.

A train was derailed in Te Puke due to heavy rain.

• READ MORE: Auckland floods a future sign – city needs stormwater systems fit for climate change
• GALLERY: Massive volunteer effort in tackling Auckland’s floods
• NZ’s first climate adaptation plan is a good start, but crucial questions about cost and timing must be answered
• With seas rising and storms surging, who will pay for New Zealand’s most vulnerable coastal properties?
• Other Asia Pacific Report coverage of Auckland’s flooding
• Follow RNZ live news updates

Residents in already hard-hit areas like Auckland, Coromandel and Bay of Plenty are on watch for thunderstorms and more heavy rain.

MetService now says there could be heavy rain and thunderstorms as far south as the Marlborough Sounds and the Rai Valley as well as Tasman.

It has put in place heavy rain warnings for Auckland, Waikato, Waitomo, Mount Taranaki, Marlborough Sounds and Tasman northwest of Motueka.

In other developments:

• At least three people have died and one person is still missing after slips and heavy flooding in Auckland
• A train has derailed in Te Puke due to rain on the tracks.
• Auckland and now Waitomo are under a state of emergency
• Heavy rain has completely cut off Coromandel and hit Bay of Plenty overnight
• A house has collapsed in Tauranga but no injuries were reported.
• An Interislander ferry lost power in Cook Strait but managed to restart its engines and arrived in Wellington about 9pm on Saturday

Officials say people in immediate danger should call 111, keep an eye on social media, and evacuate to a nearby shelter if they need.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Radar update: thunderstorm bringing heavy rain to Pukekohe

Keep an eye on the radar at https://t.co/7k3nmeeZKF

Severe Weather info https://t.co/qHyE5zzql5 pic.twitter.com/F97wV6fpU9

— MetService (@MetService) January 28, 2023

The extraordinary flood event Auckland experienced on the night of January 27, the eve of the city’s anniversary weekend, was caused by rainfall that was literally off the chart.

Over 24 hours, 249mm of rain fell — well above the previous record of 161.8mm. A state of emergency was declared late in the evening.

It has taken a terrible toll on Aucklanders, with four people reported dead. Damage to houses, cars, roads and infrastructure will run into many millions of dollars.

• READ MORE: NZ’s first climate adaptation plan is a good start, but crucial questions about cost and timing must be answered
• With seas rising and storms surging, who will pay for New Zealand’s most vulnerable coastal properties?
• Other Asia Pacific Report coverage of Auckland’s flooding

Aerial footage shows the scale of devastation following the #Auckland #floods as clean up gets underway.

Several houses can be seen damaged by large slips, while rivers could be seen overflowing.

More on this story: https://t.co/DgUHYaCFGS pic.twitter.com/aVTPq2D4Ij

— 1News (@1NewsNZ) January 28, 2023

Watching the images roll into social media on Friday evening, I thought to myself that I have seen these kinds of pictures before. But usually they’re from North America or Asia, or maybe Europe.

However, this was New Zealand’s largest city, with a population of 1.7 million.

Nowhere is safe from extreme weather these days.

Radar time lapse of the Auckland rain since yesterday morning

Look closely at the north-to-south line of torrential rain between 5-9pm directly over the city

Normally features like this move on relatively quickly, but not in this case, which was what made it so extreme pic.twitter.com/cv3jJaKr8R

— MetService (@MetService) January 27, 2023

How it happened
The torrential rain came from a storm in the north Tasman Sea linked to a source of moisture from the tropics. This is what meteorologists call an “atmospheric river”.

The storm was quite slow-moving because it was cradled to the south by a huge anticyclone (a high) that stopped it moving quickly across the country.

Embedded in the main band of rain, severe thunderstorms developed in the unstable air over the Auckland region. These delivered the heaviest rain falls, with MetService figures showing Auckland Airport received its average monthly rain for January in less than hour.

Record breaking rain in Auckland. Although the heavy band of rain has moved off to the east there is still a change of showers so the total for rainfall could climb even higher. The impacts of the last 24 hours will be felt by many in Auckland for a long time. Take care out there pic.twitter.com/kiIm6Tsrro

— MetService (@MetService) January 27, 2023

The type of storm which brought the mayhem was not especially remarkable, however. Plenty of similar storms have passed through Auckland. But, as the climate continues to warm, the amount of water vapour in the air increases.

I am confident climate change contributed significantly to the incredible volume of rain that fell so quickly in Auckland this time.

Warmer air means more water
There will be careful analysis of historical records and many simulations with climate models to nail down the return period of this flood (surely in the hundreds of years at least, in terms of our past climate).

How much climate change contributed to the rainfall total will be part of those calculations. But it is obvious to me this event is exactly what we expect as a result of climate change.

One degree of warming in the air translates, on average, to about 7 percent more water vapour in that air. The globe and New Zealand have experienced a bit over a degree of warming in the past century, and we have measured the increasing water vapour content.

But when a storm comes along, it can translate to much more than a 7 percent increase in rainfall. Air “converges” (is drawn in) near the Earth’s surface into a storm system. So all that moister air is brought together, then “wrung out” to deliver the rain.

A severe thunderstorm is the same thing on a smaller scale. Air is sucked in at ground level, lofted up and cooled quickly, losing much of its moisture in the process.

While the atmosphere now holds 7 percent more water vapour, this convergence of air masses means the rain bursts can be 10 percent or even 20 percent heavier.

Auckland bus way swamped pic.twitter.com/9XIcsm2Lrz

— Adam (@CrazyIdeasNZ) January 27, 2023

Beyond the capacity of stormwater systems
The National Institute of Water and Atmosphere (NIWA) estimates that over Auckland, one degree of warming translates to about a 20 percent increase in the one-hour rainfall, for a one-in-50-year event.

The longer we continue to warm the climate, the heavier the storm rainfalls will get.

Given what we have already seen, how do we adapt? Flooding happens when stormwater cannot drain away fast enough.

So what we need are bigger drains, larger stormwater pipes and stormwater systems that can deal with such extremes.

The country’s stormwater drain system was designed for the climate we used to have — 50 or more years ago. What we need is a stormwater system designed for the climate we have now, and the one we’ll have in 50 years from now.

Another part of the response can be a “softening” of the urban environment. Tar-seal and concrete surfaces force water to stay at the surface, to pool and flow.

If we can re-expose some of the streams that have been diverted into culverts, re-establish a few wetlands among the built areas, we can create a more spongy surface environment more naturally able to cope with heavy rainfall.

These are the responses we need to be thinking about and taking action on now.

We also need to stop burning fossil fuels and get global emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases down as fast as we can. New Zealand has an emissions reduction plan — we need to see it having an effect from this year.

And every country must follow suit.

As I said at the start, no community is immune from these extremes and we must all work together.

Dr James Renwick, professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has acknowledged the way Aucklanders have come together and opened their homes to those in need, with the New Zealand government focused on providing the resources needed to get the city back up and running.

The new prime minister — just four days into the job — has been speaking to media after assessing flood damage and talking to locals around West Auckland this afternoon.

Hipkins was joined by Auckland mayor Wayne Brown and Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty in northwest Auckland.

• READ MORE:  Auckland thunderstorm: Furore over unsent Civil Defence warning texts
• Three dead, at least one missing, and airport closes in Auckland floods
• Auckland thunderstorm damage in pictures
• Follow RNZ News live updates

With three deaths now confirmed, the prime minister offered his condolences to the families of the deceased.

He said he was focused on supporting Aucklanders through this event and providing the full resources to get Auckland back up and running in the safest way possible

“I want to focus on getting Auckland through the next period.”

Hipkins said the government’s priority was to ensure Aucklanders were housed. He said there was an assessment of public and community housing underway today.

Having surveyed the damage, he said it was clear it was going to be a big clean up job after Auckland’s wettest day on record.

Watch a live stream here

PM Chris Hipkins and mayor Wayne Brown speaking.      Video: RNZ News

Hipkins said it was important for Aucklanders to avoid unnecessary travel and to stay out of the water.

He said this was the time to check in with loved ones and “take care of each other”.

He acknowledged the way Aucklanders had come together and opened their homes to those in need, when dealing with an unprecedented event in recent memory

The prime minister said Aucklanders should expect more rain — “don’t take the good weather for now for granted”.

Hipkins thanked those working in the emergency services, the lines companies, supermarkets and health sector.

‘Tough night for all’
Mayor Wayne Brown said last night was a “tough night for all”.

Brown said he shared concerns and worries for families deeply affected — especially those who had lost their lives.

He said the response to the storm last night took a lot of concentration, happened quickly and the response was way quicker than people believed.

“Everyone was out there way before [the emergency was declared] and lasted all night long.”

He said he followed the advice of the professionals when deciding whether to declare an emergency.

“It’s not something you do lightly.”

He said the council would review “everything that took place”.

‘Lessons to be learned’
Hipkins said he accepted people would have questions and observations — and there would be an appropriate time soon to go through those.

“There will be lessons to be learned from the experience.

“The most important thing is supporting Auckland through the next 24 hours and beyond.”

Duty Controller Andrew Clark from Auckland Emergency Management said the event was “beyond anything we’ve ever seen”.

He said rescuing people was the priority, while also providing shelter for those in need.

“We had a crisis within a crisis.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Auckland flooding: Third death confirmed after body found in Remuera house https://t.co/DW8P4F1kMG

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) January 28, 2023

Mayor Wayne Brown has shut down criticism that he was too slow in declaring a state of emergency after severe flooding in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city.

In a media stand-up late on Friday evening, Brown said he was following advice from experts and as soon as they said it was time to declare an emergency, he signed it off.

“It wasn’t as if nothing was happening before that,” Brown said.

• READ MORE: RNZ’s live news updates on Auckland’s wild storms

Brown said he was confident the state of emergency had been declared at the right time as it would have been “irresponsible” to rush ahead and declare the emergency just because the public was calling for it.

It was officially declared at 9.54pm and will remain in force for seven days.

He said it was “not my job to rush out with buckets”.

Evacuations underway
Meanwhile, evacuations were underway across the city as the wild weather flooded homes, caused slips and power outages.

Auckland Airport closed its international terminal due to flooding inside the building.

“Due to the damage, no domestic or international flights will be arriving or departing from Auckland Airport before noon Saturday, 29 January,” said an announcement.

The wild weather also led to the cancellation of Sir Elton John’s concert at Mt Smart Stadium just a few minutes before the singer was due to take the stage.

Earlier, RNZ News reported that residents in flood-prone areas of West Auckland were being asked to prepare to evacuate as the bad weather caused power cuts and car crashes across Tāmaki Makaurau, with a severe thunderstorm watch in place for the north of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Auckland Emergency Management said the severe weather across the city was worsening and it was trying to assess what action was needed.

‘At risk’ phone number
If lives were at risk, residents should phone 111 immediately, it said in a social media post.

It also asked people to check on neighbours, friends and family members but not to put themselves in danger to do so.

Aucklanders had faced a chaotic commute ahead of the long weekend for the city’s anniversary with some ferries cancelled, and crashes on the northwestern and southwestern motorways.

The north, and north west, areas of Auckland have been particularly hit by the weather, police said in a statement.

Auckland Anniversary Day on January 29 is a public holiday observed in the northern half of the North Island of New Zealand, being the region’s provincial anniversary day.

It is observed throughout the historic Auckland Province, even though the provinces of New Zealand were abolished in 1876.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Flooding has forced us out of studio. More to come

— Checkpoint (@CheckpointRNZ) January 27, 2023

Community organisers representing multiple Aotearoa struggles gathered at the Ponsonby Community Centre in Tāmaki Makaurau last Sunday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Ponsonby People’s Union (1972-1979).

Organised by former PPU activists, representatives of many Aotearoa social justice movements and struggles from around the country came together to honour the PPU’s work.

The gathering was simultaneously a birthday celebration; a communal remembering of activist history, and a hui to launch the important PPU commemorative book project.

• READ MORE: Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand
• The Dawn Raids: causes, impacts and legacy
• 50 years of the Polynesian Panthers: ‘It was a time of revolution’
• Polynesian Panthers: Radical group celebrates 50 years of activism in Aotearoa
• The Polynesian Panthers Party
• Other PPU and Polynesian Panthers reports

Taura Eruera was a founding member of Nga Tamatoa and the PPU, doing important food co-op work for the union. He opened the hui with a mihi whakatau.

PPU activist Farrell Cleary chaired the meeting and provided excellent introductions for all speakers.

The speakers
Roger Fowler co-founded the PPU and coordinated the group between 1972-1979. He spoke of how the PPU emerged from the Aotearoa countercultural movement; growing public opposition to the Vietnam War; Progressive Youth Movement activism, and Resistance Bookshop labours in Auckland.

Fowler paid tribute to his friend and PPU co-founder Cliff Kelsell. He acknowledged the writings of the Black Panther Party as formative to thinking concerning community activism — in particular, the writings of Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and George Jackson.

Fowler explained why Huey P. Newton’s concept of “intercommunalism” was vital for developing the PPU’s community resilience and network building praxis in Ponsonby from 1972.

He said the issues the Ponsonby community confronted were:

• people needing food;
• people needing protection from police harassment and racism; and
• local tenants needing assistance against unjust treatment from property owners.

Fowler spoke about the PPU’s food co-op, prison visitors bus service, and free community newspaper and leaflet work. He said the PPU used the food co-op as an organising tool to mobilise people for multiple community interventions.

He expressed concern that knowledge of activism in the seventies may be disappearing — but he acknowledged Nick Bollinger’s recent history Jumping Sundays as an important addition to keeping public memory of activist history alive.

Fowler paid tribute to the Polynesian Panther Party (PPP) — the PPU’s sister organisation — and acknowledged the Polynesian Panther Party Legacy Trust’s (PPPLT) contemporary community organising in schools.

Pam Hughes was an activist in the PPU. She spoke about the impact of the anti-Vietnam War Movement and the writings of Karl Marx upon her early life. She said she felt she possessed theoretical but not practical knowledge of struggle until she moved to Auckland and joined the PPU in the middle 1970s.

She spoke about the lives of working-class women who lived in Grey Lynn, Herne Bay, and Ponsonby at the time.

Hughes spoke of the terrible hardship these women endured: these women had to make the weekly choice of either paying their rents or buying food for families — they did not have the money to do both.

She spoke of the impact of the 1973 oil crisis; the racism Māori and Pacific people faced during the period, and the emergence of the Dawn Raids strategy as an approach to Pacific “overstayers” initiated by Norm Kirk’s Labour government — before the strategy was intensified under Muldoon’s National government.

Hughes said the PPU had stood up for collective rights and improved living standards in inner city Auckland. She acknowledged the PPU as an early forerunner to contemporary community development programme initiatives in Aotearoa today.

Fuimaono Norman Tuiasau is chairperson of the PPPLT and a former PPP member. He worked closely with the PPU from the early 1970s.

Fuimaono said he felt honoured to attend the 50th celebration for the PPU. He acknowledged all the brothers and sisters from different movements in attendance.

Fuimaono talked about the long, 50-year struggle of the PPU (and others) to uphold the mana of the poor, homeless, and lost in inner city Auckland. He talked about his deep alofa and gratitude for the PPU.

He told rich stories about the work the PPP did in partnership with the PPU. He told the story of how the PPP and the PPU worked together concerning the PPP’s Dawn Raids activist campaign.

Fuimaono talked about how the PPU, and PPP worked together to organise the PIG Patrol to monitor team policing in Auckland. He also shared the narrative of how the PPP assisted the PPU concerning tenancy eviction direct action activism in Ponsonby.

He acknowledged the PPU and his great friends, Roger Fowler and Lyn Doherty. He thanked the PPU for supporting the PPP.

At the conclusion of Fuimaono’s talk, PPP and PPPLT members Melani Anae, Tigilau Ness, Alec Toleafoa, and Fuimaono Norman Tuiasau stood together and sang the beautiful Samoan song “Ua Fa’afetai” to thank members of the PPU for their long years of community service.

Tigilau Ness is a distinguished community activist, musician, PPPLT trustee, and former PPP member. He worked closely with the PPU from the early 1970s.

He offered warm salutations to the PPU at the 50th birthday celebration event. He spoke of how the loss of Panther sister Ama Rauhihi’s brother Peter in Vietnam galvanised the PPP’s anti-Vietnam War activism.

He articulated the bonds of fellowship between the PPP and the PPU via song. He performed songs such as “Teach Your Children”, and “American Pie” for the audience. These songs were sung by PPU and PPP members travelling on buses together to visit prisoners in Auckland.

Ness spoke about the importance of sharing histories of struggle with the youth of today. He spoke humbly about the community organising work the PPPLT do today speaking to youth in schools about PPP history. He warned that if activists did not tell their historical narratives, then outsiders might come and potentially misrepresent those stories.

Nick Bollinger is an eminent broadcaster and creative writer. He has written the important 2022 Aotearoa Counterculture Movement history Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Bollinger evoked the 1960s as a period where communes formed, music festivals abounded, and younger Kiwis challenged social norms from hairstyles and dress codes to social assumptions concerning racism and sexism.

He talked about his book’s title and where the term “Jumping Sundays” came from. He said he wanted to explore ideas important to this emerging counterculture in his book. He wanted to explore whether ideas from this historical conjuncture had survived, been diluted, or had been hijacked.

Bollinger said he felt PPU’s ideas of community service still existed today in the lives and service of former PPU members. He talked about writing about the PPU in his book. He said that if we do not tell these stories, the stories will not survive. He quoted lines from Bob Marley’s renowned community struggle anthem, “No Woman, No Cry” to emphasise his point: “In this great future, you can’t forget your past.”

Alec Hawke is a Ngati Whatua activist and kaumatua. He collaborated closely with Roger Fowler and PPU members at the Takaparawhau Occupation in Tāmaki Makaurau in 1977-1978.

He talked about his early engagement in the anti-Vietnam War Movement as a high school student at Selwyn College in Tāmaki, and his involvement in anti-Vietnam War protests alongside the Progressive Youth Movement (PYM). Hawke spoke about the Takaparawhau struggle and said that Roger Fowler had asked protestors to remain peaceful as police arrested them at the Point in 1978.

Hawke said that Roger had supported Ngati Whatua kuia and kaumatua’s request that arrested protesters remain non-violent. He said Roger Fowler was the last person arrested at Takaparawhau because he refused to move off the wharenui roof!

Hawke thanked the PPP for always helping Takaparawhau protesters when his people called for assistance. He spoke about the death of his daughter Joannie at Takaparawhau: and how Tigilau Ness had written a beautiful song in tribute of Joannie. Alec said that Tāmaki Makaurau would not be the same place but for the work of Roger Fowler and Lyn Doherty.

Musicians Sam Ford and Trudi Green performed for the PPU in the 1970s. They played several fine songs after Alec Hawke spoke. As Sam and Trudi performed their music, guests gathered to converse, share food, and mix and mingle.

Huey P. Newton once said, “I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people.”

Alongside other organisations and movements, the PPU embodied this great alofa/aroha for others in their tireless community labours. Their work offers living inspiration for new generations today.

The author, Tony Fala, wishes to pay respects to the work of all former PPU members living and deceased. People can send photographs and stories by October 31, 2022, to Roger Fowler for the PPU book project at: roger.fowler@icloud.com People can learn more about the PPU by reading Roger Fowler’s contribution in the important PPP history edited by Melani Anae, Lautofa (TA) Iuli, and Leilani Tamu in 2015 titled, Polynesian Panthers: Pacific Protest and Affirmative Action in Aotearoa New Zealand 1971-1981. Nga mihi nui to Roger Fowler for providing insightful editing comments concerning this article.

The race for the Auckland mayoralty ends this weekend in the Aotearoa New Zealand local elections and polls indicate that either Pacific contender Fa’anānā Efeso Collins or Wayne Brown will claim the chains.

RNZ News spoke to some prominent Aucklanders about who they believe should get the city’s top job.

Former world heavyweight boxing title contender David Tua said he was firmly in the corner of Efeso Collins.

• READ MORE: It’s never been easier to vote right up until Election Day
• Other NZ local body election reports

Tua believed Collins would be a mayor for all, in particular the youth.

“At the end of the day they are our future and I believe he is a man the youth can relate to.”

Tua said Collins had a humanitarian nature.

“What he’s standing for is for the people, all the people. It’s always about the people and I believe that’s what he’s about.”

The ‘man for the job’
Advocate Shaneel Lal believes Collins is the man for the job due to the past support he has shown to the LGBTQI+ community.

Lal said Collins had progressed in his views and proved he had a backbone when he offered help during their campaign to ban conversion therapy.

“We need to give people room for growth, he advocated against same-sex marriage in 2012, the bill passed in 2013, in those 10 years he has come on a long journey of learning, that was 10 years ago and to me he clearly has changed.”

Lal said Collins had the temperament for the job.

“I also think Efeso is calm and collected and open to ideas and change, he has always been respectful to me and spoken with kindness even when he has disagreed with me.”

Former North Shore mayor George Wood is backing Wayne Brown.

“Wayne has already run a district council I think that will give him good knowledge of what it is like to run a local government organisation.”

Wood said Brown did have some room for improvement, however.

“He does have a tendency to say things off the cuff without realising the significance of what he is saying and it is an area he will have to improve that communication.”

Getting the balance right
Prominent activist Lisa Prager said Brown would get her tick.

“Wayne has the experience in both the corporate environment and also understands small local businesses so he understands what this city needs and how to get that balance right.”

Prager said council needed restructuring which Brown could deliver.

“I think it is excessive in its spending and failing to deliver the essential services that we all need.”

Actor Oscar Kightley said as a fellow Samoan man, Collins was the clear choice.

“When you are Samoan you experience different aspects of life Aotearoa including prejudice and discrimination and when you’ve fought through that and succeeded it just gives you skills to see the bigger picture.”

Kightley said it was time for change.

“I love how he’s changed his approach from when he first entered council, I think he’s really listened to all the diverse voices out there.”

Making a difference
Well-known celebrant Ronny Franks is voting Brown.

“I think he would make a huge difference, I think there could be good changes, particularly with Auckland Transport and other areas that are sort of lagging behind at the moment.”

Franks believed Brown’s personality would serve him well in office, despite the occasional gaffe.

“He’s a no nonsense man, he probably does rattle a lot of feathers but when you have to get something done you have to get it done and there is a right way of doing it and he does things the right way.”

Monday was the last day to get votes in the post but there are vote boxes at supermarkets, transport hubs and council buildings around Tāmaki Makaurau.

Auckland has a population of 1.7 million.

• Voting closes at midday tomorrow – where you can vote

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A woman has been arrested for the alleged murder of two young children whose remains were discovered in suitcases in Manurewa, South Auckland, last month.

New Zealand police can now confirm that a 42-year-old woman has been arrested in South Korea.

Counties Manukau CIB detective inspector Tofilau Fa’ amanuia Vaaelua said South Korean authorities arrested the woman today on a Korean arrest warrant on two charges of murder relating to the two young victims.

• READ MORE: Clendon Park case: How forensic investigators work

The arrest warrant was issued by the Korean courts as a result of a request by NZ police for an arrest warrant under the extradition treaty between New Zealand and the Republic of Korea.

He said NZ police had applied to have her extradited back to New Zealand to face the charges and had requested she remain in custody while awaiting the completion of the extradition process.

“To have someone in custody overseas within such a short period of time has all been down to the assistance of the Korean authorities and the coordination by our NZ Police Interpol staff,” he said.

There were a number of enquiries to be completed both in New Zealand and overseas, he added.

Police said the children, believed to be aged between five and 10 years old, may have been hidden in the suitcases in an Auckland storage yard for several years.

The bodies were discovered on 11 August 2022 after a Clendon Park family won an auction for abandoned goods in a storage unit, without realising what was inside.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Despite total borrowings reaching $11.1 billion, the Auckland Council Group’s latest results show it has managed to weather the worst of the storm created by the covid pandemic.

But the super city’s statement to the NZX shows it will face some tough times ahead as it seeks to balance its next budget.

In June the council with New Zealand’s largest Pacific population — almost 250,000, more than 15 percent of the city’s total of 1.7 million — agreed to defer $230 million in capital works over the next three years to address a $150 million per annum shortfall in its operating costs.

• READ MORE: Other reports on Auckland’s covid recovery

South Auckland projects affected included a new Flat Bush multi-use centre, the upgrade of the Papakura park and ride and the Ōpaheke Park sports fields.

Auckland Council finance and performance committee chairperson Desley Simpson said a number of projects were impacted on by the cutbacks, but increases in revenue and operational savings meant it was now in a stronger position.

“The key point we considered when preparing our Recovery Budget last year was to provide significant support to the economic recovery of Auckland,” Simpson said.

“This proved to be crucial, with our ongoing capital investment programmes helping to counterbalance some of the anticipated economic pressures in Auckland, as well as supporting future infrastructure growth needs for the region.”

Council’s results ‘positive’
The council’s debt increased $757 million to $11.1 billion in the 12 months to June 30, while its revenue grew by $361 million to $5.7 billion.

Manurewa-Papakura ward councillor Angela Dalton said the council’s latest results were positive.

“I think considering the last few years we’ve had, they are pretty good,” she said.

“But I think the future budgets are going to be really tough for us and we are looking at some challenging times ahead.”

Dalton said the results need to be looked at in the context of the Auckland Council Group’s total asset base, which grew by $9.7 billion to $70.4 billion in the past year.

“Considering the huge drop in revenue we’ve faced we’ve still been able to build our city and work on capital projects like the Central Interceptor and City Rail Link. They are the big game changers for Auckland.”

Some council projects were delayed, but it still spent $2.3b on capital works, including over $1b on transport-related assets, $815m on water, wastewater and stormwater and $384 million on other assets.

Climate change funding juggle
Simpson said whoever won Auckland’s mayoral race would have to juggle funding for climate change initiatives, infrastructure and transport spending, community facilities and parks and reserves.

She said while some projects that were deferred might be brought back from the brink, some may be consigned to political history.

“We’ve come through the worst period any Auckland Council has had to deal with. But it’s not going to get any easier.”

Auckland mayor Phil Goff’s final budget was announced in June and included $600 million for new bus services, funding for electric ferries and buses and completion of key links in the city’s cycling network.

The budget’s climate change package will be funded by a targeted rate, generating $574m over 10 years, with plans to seek a further $482m in funding from the government and other sources.

• The political campaign for mayor is being keenly contested with a Pacific candidate, Fa’anānā Efeso Collins, narrowly leading opinion polls for the October local body elections.

Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ on Air. Asia Pacific Report is an LDR partner.

Celebrating Rotuman Language Week in Auckland’s Kingsland today took the form of colourful and thrilling cultural dances.

The dances were performed at the Trinity Methodist Church hall by members of the Auckland Rotuman Fellowship Group.

The group has sponsored a busy week of events, pleasing Rotuman community participants.

• READ MORE: ‘It’s never too late to reclaim this rich heritage’
• Rotuman Language Week
• Other Rotuman reports

The fellowship runs language classes in an effort to keep the culture alive.

Rotuman is listed as one of UNESCO’s endangered languages.

Rotuma is a Fijian-dependency island, but it is situated 500 km north of Suva and the island has its own distinct culture and language.

Less than 2000 Rotumans actually on Rotuma while about 10,000 live on the main islands of Fiji, and about 1000 live in Aotearoa New Zealand.

• The fellowship’s Rotuman Language Week programme

Explosive new data shows the sea level is rising twice as fast as previously thought in some parts of Aotearoa, massively reducing the amount of time authorities have to respond.

The major new projections show infrastructure and homes in Auckland and Wellington — as well as many other places — risk inundation decades earlier than expected.

For example, in just 18 years parts of the capital will see 30cm of sea level rise, causing once-in-a-century flood damage every year.

• READ MORE: Other climate change reports
• NZ SeaRise’s online tool — available here from 5am, today May 2.

Previously, councils and other authorities had not expected to reach this threshold until 2060 — halving the time to plan for mitigation or retreat.

The new information comes from a programme comprising dozens of local and international scientists called NZ SeaRise, which also includes GNS Science and Niwa.

It combines data about where land is sinking with the latest international sea-level rise projections.

The new information is a game changer, and will likely have serious consequences for climate adaptation planning, and could impact property prices.

Globally the sea level is expected to rise about half a metre by 2100 — but for large parts of New Zealand it could more than double that because of land subsidence.

Victoria University of Wellington professor and SeaRise programme co-leader Dr Tim Naish said: “We have less time to act than we thought.”

Wellington: Just 18 years or less before serious effects
Dr Naish said he was surprised how soon impacts would be felt in parts of Auckland and Wellington.

Some areas are sinking 3mm or 4mm a year — about the annual rate at which the sea is rising.

“[This] doubles the amount of sea level rise and it halves the time … you thought you had to deal with the sea-level rise that was in the original guidance documents that councils were using.”

Dr Naish described a case study of the road connecting Petone and Eastbourne in Lower Hutt, which would see 30cm of sea level rise by 2040.

This threshold is important because at that level a one-in-100 year storm which closes the roads and damages infrastructure could happen every year.

He said local and regional councils have been making plans for this threshold to be reached in 2060, giving 20 fewer years to plan and adapt accordingly.

Other places on Wellington’s south coast such as Ōwhiro Bay, Lyall Bay, Seatoun among others are also subsiding.

“You are going to see the impacts of quite damaging sea level rise much sooner than we thought …. roads and properties inundated.”

He said road and rail infrastructure on State Highway 2 at the Korokoro interchange in Petone is another highly vulnerable area.

The largest overall increases in the whole country are on the southeast North Island along the Wairarapa Coast.

Here, the sea level could be be up well over one and a half metres by 2100.

About 30cm of sea level rise is unavoidable because of the amount of climate gases already in the atmosphere.

Homes and crucial infrastructure in Auckland in the firing line
Dr Naish said vulnerable places in Auckland included the waterfront around the bays, Tamaki Drive, the Viaduct, areas around the Northwestern Motorway at Point Chevalier, St Heliers and Mission Bay.

He said many of these places already have issues during king tides, are close to sea level, and are sinking.

At the Viaduct the land is sinking about about 2.5mm a year.

“That almost doubles the rate of expected sea-level rise and halves the time you have.

“The city council, [and] the port authority are all going to have to start looking closely in terms of their future activities at this new information.”

He said in many parts of Auckland the sea-level would rise 30 to 50 percent faster than what was previously thought.

Meanwhile, he said parts of Thames township is also very vulnerable, and the sinking happening in the Hauraki plains means the stopbanks there have a shorter lifespan than previously thought.

Richmond in Nelson a hotspot
A major worry is the suburb of Richmond and nearby parts in the Nelson area which is subsiding at about 5mm a year.

“That whole area there has been a lot of development, new subdivisions, housing … the airport is very exposed, and that road around [the coast to Richmond] is vulnerable,” Naish said.

He said local and regional councils in the region have known for a long time there could be issues there with sea-level rise.

“There is going to be some really big challenges for that region.”

Online tool lets residents, authorities check
New Zealanders will soon be able to see for the first time how much and how fast sea-level will rise along their own stretch of coast.

The entire coastline has been mapped down to a 2km spacing.

The new advice combines data about where land is sinking with the latest international sea-level rise projections.

It will be an major new tool for councils, businesses and homeowners to assess risk from erosion and floods.

New data shows that sea levels are rising twice as fast as expected in New Zealand https://t.co/TUj5Vdr4nk

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) May 1, 2022

‘Information is power’
Dr Naish said the new data was important information and people should try not to be too overwhelmed.

“Information is power, so don’t be afraid of it.

“We still have time … but we don’t have time to sit on our hands anymore.

“If you’re a [council representative] or you’re a developer, or you’re a decisions maker in the coastal areas of New Zealand you need to start thinking right now what the plan is for adapting to that sea-level rise.

“Yes, it is a bit terrifying but there is still time and I think that is the way to look at it.”

The information is timely, coming hot on the heels of the climate change draft adaptation plan released last week.

It asks for public input on the plans, and on so-called ”managed retreat'” – abandoning areas where it is not possible or financially viable to live any longer.

Uncertainty about predictions laid out in tool
Dr Naish said uncertainty about the predictions were clearly laid out in the tool — but he said there was no question that there would be a response from property owners, the insurance and banking sectors to the new information.

GNS Science Environment and Climate Theme Leader Dr Richard Levy said until now, the risk from sea-level rise has been quite poorly defined for New Zealand.

“Current sea-level projections in the Ministry for the Environment coastal hazards guidance do not take into account local vertical land movements.”

Most of the information about sea-level rise was more or less extrapolated out from the global average.

NZ SeaRise is a five-year research programme comprising local and international experts from Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, GNS Science, NIWA, University of Otago and the Antarctic Science Platform.

It is funded by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment.

Climate change and warming temperatures are causing sea levels to rise, on average, by 3.5 mm per year.

This sea level rise is caused by thermal expansion of the ocean, by melting land based glaciers, and by melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Philippine presidential candidate and Vice-President Leni Robredo issued her marching orders for the crucial homestretch of the election campaign before hundreds of thousands of supporters, in a behemoth show of force meant to boost her numbers in the Philippines’ most vote-rich region Metro Manila.

Local organisers said some 412,000 “Kakampink” supporters of Robredo occupied the entire stretch of Macapagal Boulevard on Saturday — the same day the lone female presidential candidate celebrated her 57th birthday.

She also secured the endorsement of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and its United Bangsamoro Justice Party.

• READ MORE: Vice-President Leni Robredo’s full Pasay speech – Rappler video
• ‘The people would bring Leni Robredo to Malacañang’
• Other Philippine elections reports

And 8000 km away in Auckland, New Zealand, more than 200 “Kakampink” supporters staged a march and rally at Long Beach on the Anzac Day holiday marking the 2015 Gallipoli landings in Turkey and the military sacrifice of Australians and New Zealanders in two world wars.

It is understood that about 2000 of the more than 73,000 Filipino community in New Zealand — 1.6 percent of the population — are registered to vote in the Philippine elections.

Asia Pacific Report quotes an Auckland organiser who said: “We’re voting for Leni Robredo because she is the one to give the Philippines hope. She performed well as Vice-President.

More than 50 of some of the biggest names in the Philippine entertainment industry appeared onstage and endorsed Robredo, but she was still the brightest star of the night.

Many of those in the crowd had waited for close to 12 hours under the scorching heat. They did not leave Macapagal Avenue until after Robredo finished speaking at 11 pm.

Robredo slightly veered away from her stump campaign speech to lay down the game plan to help her catch up to the frontrunner, the late dictator’s son Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

He was holding his own rally a few kilometers away in Sampaloc, Manila.

Vice-President Leni Robredo’s full birthday speech. Video: Rappler

Robredo wished for three things from her supporters on her birthday: Actively fight the lies being spread about her online, continue knocking on people’s doors in their house-to-house campaign, and humbly open their hearts so they could convert more the unconvinced to join the so-called “pink revolution.”

“Pag ito pong eleksyon na ito ang magpapanalo sa mga kandidato kasinungalingan, kawawa ‘yung bayan natin. Kaya po ‘yung hinihiling ko sa inyo, sabay-sabay po tayo sa laban na ito. Sa ‘pag bukas po natin ng ating mga puso, sa pagpahaba natin ng ating mga pasensya, siguraduhin din nating pinapalitan natin ang mga kasinungalingan ng katotohanan,” said Robredo.

(If this elections would be won by candidates based on lies, then it would be sad for our country. That’s why I am asking all of you to join me in this fight. In opening your hearts, in becoming more patient, we are making sure that we would be able to replace the lies with the truth.)

She acknowledged the intensified black propaganda that her enemies have been hatching against her since her rallies started attracting thousands upon thousands of Filipinos.

Robredo is the primary target of disinformation networks, whose lies range from Robredo’s alleged affairs with several men to the false accusation that her campaign has been infiltrated by communists.

In turn, Robredo’s fierce rival Marcos benefits from this disinformation infrastructure, built by his clan over the years in an attempt to revise Filipinos’ memories of the atrocities committed during the 21-year martial law rule of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

But Robredo once again made a call for “radical love.” She told her most ardent supporters to turn the other cheek if their critics resort to foul, below-the belt-language.

Rise above the dirt, said the Vice-President, because they had a bigger fight to win on May 9.

“’Yung ayaw po nating ginagawa nila sa akin, huwag na po natin sa kanilang gawin, ‘di ba?… Ang mga kabataan ngayon, mas tumitino tayo, mas sumusunod tayo sa mga magulang natin, pag pinaparamdam sa atin ang kanilang pagmamahal. Ganoon din po sana ‘yung gawin ng bawat isa sa inyo,” said Robredo.

(The things we don’t like that they are doing to us, let’s not do the same thing to them, okay?… The youth these days, they become more upright, they follow their parents when they are shown love. May each of you do the same thing.)

It is crucial for Robredo to be issuing these marching orders in the National Capital Region (NCR), home to more than 7.3 million voters.

This is already her fourth show of force in an NCR city: At the start of the campaign period in February, more than 20,000 “Kakampinks” joined her “Pink Sunday” rally in Quezon City.

That number rose to 37,000 during her Camanava rally, which further ballooned to over 137,000 during her rally in Pasig City in March.

She is facing a tough battle against Marcos in NCR, which had delivered a landslide victory to him over Robredo in the 2016 vice-presidential race. The dictator’s son continues to enjoy majority support in NCR, based on the latest Pulse Asia Research Incorporated survey done in end-March.

That Robredo was able to pull off a 412,000-strong crowd in Pasay City on Saturday is also significant because two presidential contenders were also holding their own rallies in NCR that night: Marcos in Manila and Senator Manny Pacquiao in San Juan.

Robredo’s birthday crowd significantly dwarfed these rallies, however.

Local police estimated that 14,000 showed up for Marcos, while only 12,000 attended Pacquiao’s rally.

‘The people would bring Leni Robredo to Malacañang’

As Robredo spoke, the crowd along Macapagal Boulevard was at rapt attention. Many were straining their necks to get a better glimpse of their candidate while they used their fans bearing Robredo’s face.

The heat even at night was almost unbearable given the thickness of the crowd. Medics were working overtime, as people from different points of the boulevard fainted.

But even under these conditions, the “Kakampinks” were looking out for each other. They helped the organisers hand out boxes of bottled water and passed around snacks for those who needed to eat.

They did their best to give breathing space whenever someone in the crowd started feeling light-headed.

Mara Cepeda is a reporter for Rappler. Republished with permission.

New Zealand’s Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, says covid-19 case numbers have passed their peak in Auckland, the country’s largest city, but that people should remain vigilant.

Dr Bloomfield said there were 20,907 new community cases of covid-19, a further 15 deaths and 1016 people in hospital in today.

He said the latest analysis showed covid-19 case numbers had passed their peak in Auckland, and were tracking down in all three district health boards.

• READ MORE: Covid-19 update: 20,907 new community cases, 15 deaths and 1016 people in hospital

Dr Bloomfield said that analysis also showed case numbers nationally — not including Auckland — were also slowing. They increased just 1 percent in the seven days to March 20, compared to a 44 percent increase in the week ending March 13.

The pattern did differ by DHB, with cases still increasing in the South Island, although there were encouraging signs they were peaking in the Midland region and in the Wellington region.

He said case numbers appeared to be largely now following the modelling for a high-transmission scenario. Case numbers were higher than the modelling suggested, and Dr Bloomfield said this may be because most cases in New Zealand were the BA.2 subvariant.

Hospitalisations in the northern region were also levelling off.

“We’re watching carefully and the expectation is that they will start to drop as the week progresses,” Dr Bloomfield said.

“The average length of stay for people on wards in the Auckland hospitals who have been discharged is now 3.2 days compared to just over two days last month, and the average stay in intensive care is five days.

“This increase in average length of stay reflects that we’re now seeing that people who are needing longer care, they may even be over their covid infection but they have symptoms that need to be managed, often from underlying conditions.”

Watch the update 

Dr Bloomfield said that even though cases in hospital in Auckland were staying high, the number of new admissions each day was dropping quickly. But because those being admitted now were sicker and required longer care in hospital, the total number of people in hospital remained fairly steady.

Emergency department admissions testing positive remain highest at Middlemore, but they had fallen from 40 percent last month to 28 percent now. Auckland Hospital was down from 30 percent to 22 percent, while Waitematā was steady about 18 percent.

Whangārei’s ED positivity rate was still increasing, he said.

“Admissions in the rest of the country are growing and we will continue to see them grow.”

Dr Bloomfield said hospitalisation rates during the delta outbreak was about 8 percent, whereas the omicron outbreak had been about 0.9 percent.

“That hospitalisation rate will appear to increase over coming weeks, because as the cases drop yet people remain in hospital we’ll see the denominator decline much quicker … hospitalisations will decline but more slowly,” he said.

“The number of deaths each day is also likely to increase and will take longer to decline.”

He said staffing shortages were a major pressure on the health system, and there was real pressure in hospitals as well as care in the community, including rest homes.

‘Covid isn’t done with the world just yet’
Dr Bloomfield said New Zealand could expect ongoing waves of covid, and looking across the Tasman was instructive.

“The number of people hospitalised with covid in New South Wales never dropped below 950 after their first omicron wave … it’s now back over 1000 as cases started to increase again.

“In contrast, in Victoria the number of hospitalisations declined down to around 200 and remained steady there … so two quite different pictures.”

He said this showed New Zealand should expect to see a residual number of cases and people in hospital.

The UK had seen increased case numbers with the BA.2 subvariant, with Scotland hit hardest.

“Case numbers there are just below their previous peak, and hospitalisation figures the highest they have been since 2020. Globally it’s likely there will continue to be further waves of omicron and likewise there will be new variants of concern.”

He said New Zealand would face these just as other countries would.

“Covid isn’t done with the world just yet.”

Looking ahead
Tomorrow the government is due to announce if it will relax mandates, vaccine passes and the traffic light system as the omicron outbreak passes its peak in Auckland. Cabinet discussed reducing the restrictions yesterday.

Ahead of the announcement, Dr Bloomfield said New Zealand was still in the middle of a global pandemic which had thrown curveballs before and would continue to.

“We need to be prepared to redeploy the measures that we already have in place or have used in the past.”

He said there was a balance between protecting the population — particularly vulnerable groups — and only using restrictions for the extent they were needed.

At the moment, total ICU and HDU beds were about 60 percent occupied, he said. Each day hospitals were looking at the number of beds available and staffing those accordingly.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

An Auckland nurse says a lucrative incentive payment has not fixed the city’s dire hospital staffing shortage in Aotearoa New Zealand’s current covid-19 outbreak.

Nurses, midwives and others employed by the region’s district health boards (DHBs) have been entitled to an extra $500 on top of their normal pay for extra shifts overnight.

The scheme is being reviewed today and the clinical director in charge of co-ordinating the city’s health response, Dr Andrew Old, said it would continue if it was needed to address staffing shortages.

• LISTEN TO RNZ: ‘We’re in the eye of the storm now’ – Dr Andrew Old
• ‘We are tired, we are exhausted, we are short-staffed’ – Di McCulloch
• ‘The level of care you might expect [in hospital] is not as good’ – Sarah Dalton
• ‘It’s almost chaotic in terms of the response at this time’ – Tevita Funaki
• READ MORE: Ten deaths, 930 people in hospital, 19,566 new community cases

Dr Old said going into the pandemic Auckland’s hospitals had about 15 percent staff vacancies across the board which meant starting from a challenging position.

“So you then layer on top of that the challenge of Covid and it really has stretched the city.”

A nurses’ union delegate at Waitematā DHB, Di McCulloch, said while the $500 incentive scheme was popular, it had not been good for nursing overall because it led to exhausted workers and did not fix the staffing problems.

She said the nursing situation was dire.

Influx of unwell patients
“We continue to have an influx of unwell patients that normally enter the hospital and this has been compounded by omicron.”

She said once the subsidy ends the nursing shortages will continue and the DHBs will continue to redeploy non-clinical staff to fill the staffing gaps in wards.

Dr Old acknowledged how tired hospital staff in Auckland are.

“You know this has been going on for two years and the intensity has really stepped up in the last couple of weeks and I think certainly the city and the country are incredibly well served by the professionalism of the health workforce.”

Dr Old said the $500 payment was being reviewed today and there was the potential for it to be extended.

It aimed to ensure staff were available, particularly for hard to fill shifts such as overnights, he said.

“Look, we recognise people are tired, we’re asking them to go above and beyond and it’s just a recognition of the fact that actually everyone is really stretched.”

Hospitals just managing
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton described the current situation as a crisis and said hospitals were only just managing.

“People are going above and beyond, they’re doing everything they can to keep it safe for patients, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a crisis, it doesn’t mean that the entrenched short staffing that we were trying to deal with before covid hasn’t made this almost impossible to deal with.”

It was not just Auckland and a lot of surgery and outpatient appointments were being cancelled around the country, she said.

McCulloch said the border closure had made the nursing shortages worse because in the past there had been a reliance on internationally qualified nurses (IQN).

“So it’s become an ongoing issue, this has been going on for years within nursing and the nursing voice are saying that we are tired, we are exhausted, we are short-staffed daily on the ground.”

But McCulloch said that had “not been heard by the powers that be”.

In terms of dealing with New Zealand’s ongoing nursing shortage, McCulloch said New Zealand needed to keep its new nursing graduates working here.

She said that could mean bonding newly qualified nurses to working in New Zealand for a minimum of two years.

Auckland hospitals put care on hold
Auckland hospitals have put all but the most urgent care on hold to allow them to focus on covid-19 patients.

At the same time they are managing with 25 percent fewer staff as covid-19 cases continue to rise.

There were 19,566 cases and 930 people in hospital with the virus yesterday, more than two thirds of them in Auckland. Ten new covid-related deaths were also reported, taking the total to 151.

Dr Old said the region was grappling with peak hospitalisations and staff shortages due to the omicron outbreak.

“We’re in the eye of the storm now, so with cases thankfully coming down a bit but peak hospitalisations coinciding with near peak staff needing to be off to support their own family or off with covid themselves.”

But Dr Old said the number of staff vacancies due to covid-19 was starting to come down as coronavirus numbers start to drop and he was hopeful that things would improve this week.

He said there had been some limited cases of covid-19 positive staff working at Auckland hospital’s as the region dealt with the peak.

Serious challenges
“Those have been people where without them coming back we would have had serious challenges keeping those services going and so yes, coming back into environments where they’re only dealing with covid positive patients.”

Dalton said it was appalling to be in a position where in limited circumstances employers are encouraging staff unwell with covid-19 to go back to work.

“What they’re saying is they’re only doing that in covid settings and where otherwise there would be risk to life and limb effectively, so it’s a life preserving service.

“But to think that we’re in such a fragile state in terms of staffing that that has to be part of cover at the moment is really distressing.”

Dr Old stressed that urgent care was still available at the region’s hospitals.

“But anything that can be deferred essentially over the last couple of weeks really has been, so that’s pretty much all out-patient activity … and almost all planned surgery as well.”

Challenging to get support to South Auckland families
Auckland Pacific health and social service provider The Fono said it was run off its feet keeping up with the demands of a community struck by covid-19.

Chief executive Tevita Funaki said the service was looking after more than 900 active cases at one time.

“It’s not just the health challenges but also the whole welfare support and food and also other needs of the families.”

The service also had a number of staff getting sick or isolating due to covid-19.

The Fono had been using the network of churches in the Pacific community to distribute what was needed for families, Tevita said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says it is clear that the number of cases in Auckland is on the way down, but in Wellington case rates are increasing rapidly.

Dr Bloomfield and Chief Science Advisor Dr Ian Town held a media briefing on the Omicron response today.

Dr Bloomfield said there were 21,616 new cases of covid-19 in the community and 960 people were in hospital, including 22 cases in ICU or high-dependency units with two more deaths.

• READ MORE:  Covid-19 update: Two more deaths, 21,616 new community cases and 960 people in hospital
• Declining NZ covid-19 case counts – but record deaths and more to come
• Other NZ covid outbreak reports

In the Northern region there were 559 people in hospital, with 40 percent — some 233 — aged 70 or over, he said.

Dr Bloomfield said the country saw higher case numbers compared to modelling from before the outbreak, but it was clear that the number of cases in Auckland is on the way down.

There were 6085 new cases in Auckland today, up from 4730 yesterday and 4509 on Sunday.

Dr Bloomfield says while admissions were on the way down, the total number of people in hospital with covid-19 was continuing to increase. Peak hospitalisations typically lagged behind peak case numbers by about a week.

Shift to subvariant BA.2
He said New Zealand had seen an interesting shift to the omicron BA.2 subvariant rather than the BA.1 variant. This could help explain why there were more transmissions than expected in the high-transmission scenario modelling.

However, this may be in New Zealand’s favour because other jurisdictions overseas — for example, NSW and the UK, particularly Scotland — were seeing second outbreaks with the BA.2 variant, having already had BA.1 variant outbreaks.

He said Scotland was seeing its highest case rate in nearly two years and had about 1800 people in hospital with the variant, compared to the under 1000 in New Zealand. Scotland has a population of 5.4 million, comparable to New Zealand’s 5 million.

Watch the update:

Video: RNZ News

Dr Bloomfield said it was important to make sure people were “vaxxed to the max”. He said this was a change in language — where the previously talked about term “fully vaccinated” was two doses, it was a shift to talking about being up to date with vaccinations.

He said it was clear that protection against getting omicron and/or being hospitalised wanes over time with just two doses.

A report from the Northern Region from March 8 showed just 16 percent of people admitted to hospital had their booster more than two weeks prior.

“So fully 84 percent of those people were not fully boosted … so even though only a small proportion of our population now has not had two vaccinations it is really really clear that a booster protects people from being hospitalised and we know it also helps protect people from dying from omicron.”

He said that in the same two weeks prior to March 8, just one person admitted to ICU was fully boosted.

Wellington outbreak
Dr Bloomfield noted there was now a “pretty full on outbreak” in Wellington, with case rates increasing rapidly.

But he thought the outbreak in Wellington, including the Hutt Valley and Kāpiti Coast, had yet to peak.

There were 1584 cases in the Capital and Coast DHB catchment and 33 hospitalisations.

“I think the rate of increase is similar to what we may have seen in Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and others beforehand.’

Dr Bloomfield said the region with the highest case rate — per capita — right now was Tairāwhiti.

He said the DHBs (district health boards) had good plans in place, but when they had particularly high case numbers in hospital they did need to scale back some of their normal services.

He said some people were returning several negative RATs, but RATS were just “one tool” and not as accurate as PCR tests. He said people who had symptoms should assume they have covid-19.

Long covid
Dr Ian Town talked about long covid. He said most people who developed covid recovered completely, but the term “long covid” was generally applied to people who continued to suffer effects for at least 12 weeks.

It can include low energy, fatigue, shortness of breath and cough, headaches, low mood, difficulty concentrating, cognitive impairment, ongoing chest pains, a racing pulse, joint pains, aches and pains, weakness in muscle, ongoing changes to sense of taste or smell, and poor quality of sleep.

Dr Town said there was no suggestion the symptoms of long covid were psychological symptoms, and the key thing was to pace yourself and accept that more rest may be needed.

There was no specific treatment, but it was thought to be part of a post-viral immune response and the approach to long covid was “very much a framework of rehabilitation and pacing yourself and not overdoing it”.

“There isn’t a magic bullet in terms of the recovery.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The number of people with covid-19 who have died in New Zealand has now reached 105, with 14 deaths reported in the past two days.

There are more than 206,000 active cases of covid-19 in the community, with another 18,699 new community cases reported today.

The Ministry of Health announced seven further deaths of people with covid-19 today which, after another seven deaths yesterday, has taken the total death toll to 105.

• READ MORE: Covid-19 update: Seven further deaths, 18,699 new community cases
• Other NZ covid outbreak reports

But University of Otago professor of international health Dr Philip Hill said international statistics for deaths showed that New Zealand’s number could easily have been in the thousands had the country not had high vaccination rates and effective pandemic restrictions.

“I think what we are seeing is just how wonderful a vaccine we’ve got, that we’re having a massive covid-19 outbreak and not experiencing huge numbers of deaths.”

Hill stressed it should be remembered that covid-19 was continuing to kill New Zealanders, and just like earlier variants omicron was a life-threatening disease.

But he said that with covid-19 so widespread some of the deaths in the death tally so far include people whose death occurred because of other causes, while they also had the virus.

“The classification of these deaths has not been complete for many of them, which basically means that there are significant numbers of people who are dying of something else and that coincidentally have covid-19. That can be quite tricky to tease out.”

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said there were 853 people in hospital with covid-19, including 17 in ICU.

However, Auckland health authorities remain cautiously optimistic that the omicron outbreak may have peaked in the country’s biggest city, and community case numbers in the region continue to slowly fall, with 6077 cases reported today — down from 7240 yesterday and less than half the number reported last week.

‘These are clearly seriously premature deaths’
Epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson of Auckland University urged older people to take the risk of covid-19 seriously as the number of deaths from the virus continued to rise.

Six of the 14 deaths in the past two days were people in their seventies.

Jackson said it was inevitable that the older population would feel the effects of the virus as it passed from kids to their parents and onwards.

But he said it was not just the oldest people in the community who were at high risk.

“These are clearly seriously premature deaths, this is not just old sick people who are going to die in the next few days, these are people who are losing years of a potential healthy life,” he said.

Stark wake-up call
Dr Jackson said the death toll in Hong Kong was a stark wake-up call for those writing it off as a mild illness.

“You just have to look at Hong Kong today; it’s a population of 7.5 million, so it’s only New Zealand plus a half, and they’re having well over 200 deaths a day. Their health services are overwhelmed. They’re in big trouble at the moment.”

Dr Jackson urged people to keep acting with caution to prevent the spread, and to seek medical advice if they were concerned about their health.

On Thursday the Ministry of Health changed how covid-19-related deaths are reported.

The death of anyone who dies within 28 days of testing positive for covid-19 is now reported.

This group is divided into three categories:

• where covid-19 is the clear cause of death;
• where there was another clear cause of death; and
• where the cause of deaths is not known.

Deaths will mount
By Thursday this week, 34 people had died where covid-19 was clearly the cause, two people had died of another clear cause after testing positive for covid-19, and the deaths of 48 people with the virus did not yet have a clear cause, the ministry said.

As covid-19 cases mount, increasing numbers of deaths will also follow as people progress through the disease, the ministry said.

“It important to remember that each of these deaths represents significant loss for family and loved ones.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Auckland health authorities remain cautiously optimistic that the omicron outbreak may have peaked in the country’s biggest city, even though 601 of the 856 people in hospital with covid-19 are in Auckland.

Clinical leads Dr Andrew Old, Dr Anthony Jordan and Dr Christine McIntosh at the Northern Region Health Coordination Centre gave details today on the covid-19 response.

Dr Old confirmed there were seven new deaths of people with covid-19 to report today.– the highest death toll in a day since the outbreak began.

• READ MORE: Covid-19 update: Seven new deaths reported, 20,989 new community cases
• Other NZ covid outbreak reports

Five of the deaths were in Auckland, one in Waikato, and one in the Southern region, reports the Ministry of Health.

One person was in their 50s, four were in their 70s, one was their 80s, and one person was in their 90s. Four were male and three were female.

The number of people in hospital has also risen to a record 856 people, with 20 in ICU —  including 10 in Auckland — and the total new cases today is 20,989.

The total number of publicly reported covid-19 related deaths is now 98.

“It highlights that although omicron is a mild illness for many people, for some it is not,” said Dr Old.

“Every death is a tragedy and our thoughts and condolences are with the families and loved ones of the people who have passed away.”

Cautiously optimistic
He remained cautiously optimistic about the situation in Auckland.

“Our three-day rolling average of cases is about 8500 per day, which is down from a peak of about 14,000.

“Today in Auckland was the first time since this started that we had fewer people in hospital with covid at 8am this morning than we did yesterday. One day is not a trend, but certainly that is the first time.”

At Counties Manukau, the number of people coming through the door at ED is lower than it was last week. It was too early to call it, he said, but there were some encouraging signs.

Dr Old said health services in some cases were managing on a day-to-day, shift-by-shift, or hour-by-hour basis.

“I would say that we are in a crunch at the moment, so a lot of our services are operating at what’s called minimum service delivery, so a lot of those sort of more routine, corporate type activities are being put on hold.”

He said authorities knew not every case had been detected, but there was good testing coverage, with about 15 percent of people enrolled with a GP in Auckland having been tested in the past fortnight.

Relatively young
The average age of people in hospitals is still relatively young, but as the total hospitalisations have risen, more older and vulnerable members have been affected.

Dr Old said this was a trend that matched those seen overseas, and omicron tended to have a long tail, with more vulnerable and older populations more likely to be affected towards the end of outbreaks.

“People need to remain vigilant to protect those in our families and communities who are at greater risk.”

He said it was a mild illness for most people but a more severe illness for other people you could pass it on to.

Another reason to remain vigilant is the problem of long covid, he said. What was known about long covid from other variants should give pause, he said.

He urged people to keep up mask use and good hygiene as it will make a real difference as we start to come out of the outbreak and beyond.

He said authorities were expecting hospitalisations to increase again this week and they have. As a percentage of current active cases this remains about 0.5 percent, and across the whole outbreak about 1.5 percent of cases have been treated in hospital.

Dr Old said that was likely to be an overestimate, because not all infections were being reported and counted.

‘We know it’s pretty tough out there’
Dr McIntosh said that in the peak of the outbreak the whole system was feeling the strain.

“We know it’s pretty tough out there and we know that you’re doing a phenomenal job.”

She said it was not just the staff in Auckland, it was the system and workers across the whole country who were supporting the health efforts.

She said it was important that people with severe or worsening symptoms to seek help and call 111 without delay.

“Your GP and healthline are there to help you if you need it … we would rather help and help you manage a worsening illness at the earlier stages than wait until someone is really dangerously ill.”

Dr McIntosh said there were pressures within GP practices and the primary care organisation leads were met with every day, and those issues are discussed.

“But indeed it is pretty stretched … the crunch is on.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Ngāti Whātua kaitiaki remain in bolstered numbers at the border between Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Tai Tokerau to stop protesters getting through.

Together with Navy and police staff at Te Hana, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua has turned around about 50 people from anti-vax and anti-lockdown groups throughout this morning.

Chief operating officer Antony Thompson (Ngāti Whātua) told RNZ protesters had come from both sides of the border to meet up, but none got through.

• READ MORE: 74 new community covid cases reported in NZ today
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

“About 20 to 25 who got started protesting … after probably about 10 minutes they were moved on.”

His team respected the right to protest but it was the wrong place and wrong time, with a growing covid-19 cluster in the Far North, he said.

“The majority of them [protesters] have dispersed, or gone home. And there’s maybe a handful of, I guess ‘hold outs’, that are hoping that more cars turn up and they can go through together.”

The rūnanga would much rather be vaccinating whānau than having to protect them from rule-breakers, Thompson said.

“Recently our whaea Dame Naida Glavish quoted ‘this hoo-ha, this hōhā’ and it really is.”

‘Incredibly disappointed’
Police said they were “incredibly disappointed” by those rallying.

In a statement this afternoon, police said more officers had been deployed to monitor “hīkoi” activity.

“Police have additional staff deployed, including our Iwi Liaison Officers, to both monitor the hīkoi travelling north as well as additional staff in Waitangi,” the statement said.

“Our focus is to ensure the current restrictions set out in the Health Order are adhered to by those involved as well as working to support our Iwi partners in Northland.

“We are working closely with our partners, including leadership of Te Tii Marae, who have indicated that the protesters are not welcome this year due to the risk posed by the delta strain of covid-19.”

Another group of protesters attempted to make it through Auckland’s southern border late on Tuesday evening, and some remained there today, blocking State Highway 1.

The chair of Te Rūnanga-Ā-Iwi-O-Ngāpuhi Wane Wharerau (Ngāpuhi, Te Māhurehure, Uri Kaiwhare, Ngāitawake ki te Waoku / Ngāitawake ki te Tūawhenua / Ngāitawake ki te Tairāwhiti, Ngāti Hine-Mutu) also put out a statement this morning.

The protesters were “particularly dangerous” attempting to get to Waitangi, he said.

Recognising ‘real Māori freedom fighters’
“It is disappointing that organisers are using He Whakaputanga, or the Declaration of Independence, as a means to bring attention to their cause.

“Ngāpuhi recognise and honour the real Māori freedom fighters whose lifelong activism and personal sacrifice meant something and moved our people forward; freedom fighters such as Eva Rickard, Dame Whina Cooper, Titewhai Harawira, Dr Matire Harwood, Rima Edwards, Matiu Rata, Sir James Henare, and Dame Cindy Kiro just to name a few.

“Almost every Ngāpuhi urupā has evidence of the thousands of whānau, some in unmarked graves,” he said, referring to those who died in the 1918 flu pandemic.

“Now, little more than 100 years after that pandemic, Te Tai Tokerau is at the point of a similar threat, but this time we have a vaccine at our disposal.

“We have not fought this virus for 20 months and tolerated the harsh restrictions around tangihanga, gathering at marae and visiting whānau, to abandon this plan now.”

New Zealand reported 74 new community cases of covid-19 today — the lowest tally for several days. There were 68 in Auckland and six in Waikato.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The calls for New Zealanders to get vaccinated are becoming more urgent by the day as covid-19 embeds itself in the community.

Two people have now died in the latest outbreak, the number of daily cases remains in the double figures and the virus continues to spread outside Auckland.

The government has announced a nationwide immunisation push for October 16 — dubbed Super Saturday — but one of Auckland’s leading Māori vaccinators is questioning what it will achieve.

• READ MORE: Ardern announces covid-19 vaccine certificate for NZ
• Alert level boundary map

Te Whānau o Waipareira runs two mass vaccination centres, and has given tens of thousands of Aucklanders their Pfizer shots.

Chief executive John Tamihere said the first he heard of Super Saturday was when Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins announced it at a media conference, saying it would be like election day, with clinics open all day and into the night

Tamihere said that would not cut it when it came to getting vaccine stragglers.

“They won’t necessarily turn up, the ones they are endeavouring to target. We have to go out into the streets and take each suburb street by street and to do that you’ve got to know where you’re sending and deploying your resources,” Tamihere said.

More resources rather than big show
“We would probably put a lot more resource into that campaign as opposed to big show days.”

The Ministry of Health today reported 29 new cases of covid-19 in the community, including five in Waikato.

Speaking at today’s government briefing, Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay said seven of the new cases in Auckland were yet to be linked to earlier cases, all of the Waikato cases were linked.

Yesterday, the death of a 57-year-old man from covid-19 was reported, along with 39 new cases in the community. Nine of those were in Waikato.

There have now been 22 cases in Waikato in the current outbreak.

One previous community case has been reclassified as under investigation, bringing the total cases in the outbreak to 1448.

There were also two cases detected in MIQ reported today.

7000 receive drive-through dose
But the recent six-day vaccination event at Vodafone Events Centre is being hailed a success after 7000 people received a drive-through dose.

Among them, many church members of the Assemblies of God Church of Sāmoa who know first-hand the harsh reality of the virus.

A father of seven who lost his battle with covid yesterday was a deacon at the church, and his wife is also in hospital with the disease.

Church spokesperson Jerome Mika said the community was grieving.

He said many members had been vaccinated at the drive-through event in the past few days which was a success due to the many community groups that had supported it.

“Community willingness to be able to just support and encourage their family members to come and get vaccinated.”

The experts agree.

Māori and Pacific leaders a must
Victoria University of Wellington immunologist Diane Sika-Paotonu said to be effective, any vaccination campaign must include Māori and Pacific leaders.

“They’re not just being called in right at the end to help make things work but rather they’re involved right from the outset at the design stage of any activities, events and interventions that are being planned.”

But one group argues they need the right information for that model to work.

Tamihere also heads the North Island’s Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency.

It is taking the Ministry of Health to court for refusing to hand over health data for all Māori that he said was vital to closing the “dangerous gap” in the vaccination rates.

It sits at just over 57 percent for a first dose compared with 81 percent of Pākehā.

“Tai Tokerau is way behind, the Bay of Plenty is way behind. These are Māori communities. It’s not that they’re stupid and dumb, it’s that they’re poorer and their priorities are different and it takes time to reach them.”

The Ministry of Health said it could not share the data because many of the people were not enrolled with Whānau Ora so officials were not authorised to hand it over.

The ministry will release information today on the most and least vaccinated suburbs in the country.

Yesterday 63,000 people were vaccinated as rates climb again after a month long dip.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

About 2000 people have turned up to a New Zealand anti-lockdown protest in Auckland’s domain arranged by Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki.

Those attending included gang members and one vehicle had a banner reading: “Let Freedom Reign”.

Police said they recognised people’s lawful right to protest, but under alert level 3 restrictions, the only gatherings allowed were weddings, funerals and tangihanga with no more than 10 people.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

A statement was expected later this afternoon, once the event is over.

Protests were also scheduled to take place in Wellington and Christchurch.

27 new community cases
Meanwhile, 27 new community cases were reported in New Zealand today, with five not yet linked to earlier cases.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has appealed to the 1.7 million people in the city to “roll up your sleeves” and get vaccinated immediately to help New Zealand cope better with the covid-19 pandemic.

Writing in The New Zealand Herald today to back the newspaper’s 90% Project for maximum vaccination, Goff said the the city should be aiming for a “summer of freedom for Tāmaki Makaurau”.

“It’s a much better scenario than staying at home in our bubbles, locked down at level 4, and at risk of a disease that may put you or your family in hospital,” he said.

• READ MORE: In spite of relentless media negativity, NZ’s covid story is largely successful
• Covid-19 update: 15 new community cases in NZ, all in Auckland, ministry says
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

“The first option is one we all crave. To help achieve it, we need to get as many Aucklanders vaccinated as possible, as soon as possible.

“Ninety percent of the eligible population is a good target, which is why I support The New Zealand Herald’s 90% Project. If we can get higher than 90 per cent, that’s even better.

Goff said that yesterday the city had hit the target of 80 percent of Aucklanders having had at least one dose, with more than half of that number becoming fully vaccinated.

“More than 20,000 people a day have been getting immunised, but more than 200,000 still need to book or get their first vaccination,” he said.

Stringent measures
“New Zealand did the right thing in putting in place stringent measures to stop the incursion of covid-19 into our community. We did better than almost any other country.

“However, new variants of covid, currently delta, make it really hard to stop community transmission and we can’t continue indefinitely closing down our economy to stop its spread. The human and financial costs are huge. And sooner or later we will have to open up again to the world.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at today’s covid media briefing that tools used in the future to fight covid-19 did not need to be as disruptive as the ones used now — such as lockdowns — as long as the country achieved a high vaccination rate.

Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield were speaking after the release of new modelling which suggests lockdowns may still be needed if the country achieved an 80 percent vaccination rate.

Ardern said vaccine certificates, better ventilation, some mask use, and the possibility of changing border restrictions so a full 14-day quarantine was not required could be used in the future.

But for now vaccination was the main tool.

“It all comes down to vaccination.”

Lockdowns needed in first phase
She said lockdowns were needed in the first phase of the pandemic because there were no vaccines and everyone had to be isolated.

“With vaccines, we can turn that model on its head,” she said, so positive cases could be isolated as others have the protection of vaccines.

“Children can’t be vaccinated. It will reach them. And we’ve seen it reach them in this outbreak,” she said.

The plan was never zero cases, but “zero tolerance” for covid, she said.

The Health Ministry announced 15 new community cases of covid-19 today, a drop of seven on yesterday.

Ardern said the government’s plan for the future, included aggressively isolating cases, catching cases at the border, and ensuring the health system was not overwhelmed.

“It’s not the Aotearoa way to leave anyone behind,” she said.

“There remains one simple message – Get vaccinated.”

Today was the second day that Auckland was at alert level 3 after five weeks in lockdown.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand’s Department of Corrections has revealed more details about the LynnMall terrorist’s violent behaviour while he was remanded in prison.

Thirty-two-year-old Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen was shot dead by police after stabbing six people inside Countdown LynnMall in West Auckland.

He had spent almost three years on remand in prison and at the time of the attack had only been out for seven weeks.

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He had been living at Masjid-e-Bilal in the Auckland suburb of Glen Eden.

The Department of Correction’s National Commissioner Rachel Leota said that while in prison Samsudeen was “non-compliant, with multiple incidents of threats and abuse toward staff”.

This included numerous times when he threw urine and faeces at staff as well as threatening violence and assaulting them.

In one instance at Mt Eden Prison, Corrections said he was unlocked for exercise but began arguing with staff and his behaviour escalated and he hit two officers.

Behaviour escalated again
“When being moved to the management unit his behaviour became escalated again, with threats made toward staff. He then assaulted staff again before force was used and he was secured in a cell in the management unit,” Leota said.

For his last year behind bars Samsudeen was moved to the maximum security Auckland Prison with oversight from the Persons of Extreme Risk Directorate.

This is the same unit set up to manage Christchurch mosque attacker Brenton Tarrant.

The directorate looks after offenders identified as presenting an extreme and ongoing risk of serious harm and/ or having the capability and intent to seriously threaten the safety of prisons and the community.

Because Corrections identified Samsudeen as having “potentially violent extremist views” it got advice from the Countering Violent Extremism forum as to how to best support and rehabilitate the prisoner.

“Attempts were made to provide him with mental health support while he was in prison, however, he refused to engage. He also refused to meet with a Corrections psychologist while in prison.”

The Countering Violent Extremism forum and Corrections then decided to contact the local Muslim community.

Did not engage
The department wanted him to meet with an imam and talk about his spiritual beliefs. This happened twice, but Corrections said he did not engage in a meaningful way.

Prior to Samsudeen’s release from prison the department, police and partner agencies created a plan to keep the community and staff safe from the extreme risk that his violent extremist ideology presented – this included where he might live on release.

The terrorist told Corrections he did not have family, friends or support people able to assist him and would require help, but that he had previously lived at a mosque, although was unwilling to consider it again.

Public housing was not available because of the current demand and Samsudeen eventually said he would consider a mosque.

Leota said Corrections met with police and the Masjid-e-Bilal manager who was told the context around his charges, his risk profile and the conditions he would have when released into the community.

The mosque’s manager told Corrections he would consider it, but wanted to meet Samsudeen first.

The pair met while he was in prison and the address was approved.

Regular communication
During the seven weeks Samsudeen was in the community, Corrections said it had regular communication with the manager at Masjid-e-Bilal and his lawyer.

The department had also started an application to the High Court for strengthened restrictions due to concerns about his escalating risk.

It also looked at charging him for the lack of engagement with both a private and Corrections psychologist, but was told it was not sufficient enough to be considered a breach of his conditions.

Leota said she was confident that Community Corrections staff were using every lawful avenue available to monitor, assess, mitigate, and manage his risk.

“He was a very, very difficult person to manage, and was increasingly openly hostile and abusive toward probation staff.

“Despite this, staff continued to work hard to engage him in his sentence, and attempt to have him participate in treatment and activities aimed at reducing his risk of violence, which he consistently refused.”

Leota said she believed Community Corrections’ contact with him exceeded the minimum level for someone subject to supervision and staff worked exceptionally hard to prevent the potential for serious harm to be caused by this person.

“They, and all of us, will always ask what more could have been done to prevent the horrific offending that occurred on Friday,” Leota said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Name suppression for the man responsible for yesterday’s New Zealand terror attack at a west Auckland supermarket has been revoked, but his name cannot be published yet.

The High Court has given his family who live overseas at least 24 hours to seek further suppression orders.

The Sri Lankan national was shot dead by police after stabbing six people inside Countdown in LynnMall.

• READ MORE: NZ mall stabbings a terrorist attack by ‘lone wolf’, says PM Ardern
• Other RNZ reports

Suppression orders prevented details about his identity and background from being made public.

The government filed an urgent application last night to have the court orders lifted, so details about the man’s identity and background could be made public.

In a judgment last night, Justice Wylie said there was no longer any proper basis for the suppression orders.

But he said the man’s family live overseas and lawyers needed time to contact them to take instructions.

He said he could consider extending the 24-hour period if needed.

Isis propaganda
However, it can be revealed the man was sentenced in July to one year of supervision after he was found guilty by a jury in the High Court at Auckland of two charges of possessing Isis propaganda that promoted terrorism.

He was found guilty of another charge of failing to comply with a search, but he was acquitted of a third charge of possession of objectionable material and a charge of possessing a knife in a public place.

The state had sought to charge him under the Terrorism Suppression Act, but failed after a High Court judge ruled that planning a terror attack was not an offence under the law.

Because he had already spent three years in custody awaiting trial, he did not receive a further prison term for his offending.

Despite that, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said he had been under surveillance since 2016, because of his support for a violent ideology inspired by Islamic State.

The man was being so closely monitored by a surveillance and tactical team that police shot him within 60 seconds of the attack starting.

On the radar of authorities
He arrived in New Zealand in October 2011.

He first came to the attention of authorities in 2016, when police formally warned him about posting anti-Western, pro-Isis, extremist content on the internet.

The man had also at some point told a worshipper at an Auckland mosque that he wanted to go to Syria to fight for Isis.

In a July 2020 judgment, Justice Downs said in May 2017, he had booked a one-way flight to Singapore but was arrested at Auckland Airport.

When police searched his apartment, they found a large hunting knife under the mattress on the floor and secure digital cards containing fundamentalist material, including propaganda videos and photos of the man posing with a firearm.

He was remanded in custody and in June 2018, he pleaded guilty to distributing restricted publications. In August 2018, he was sentenced to supervision, Justice Downs’ 2020 judgment said.

But the day after his sentencing, he went and bought the same model of hunting knife that police had earlier found under his mattress.

Arrested again
He was arrested again and another search found a large he had a large amount of violent Isis material, including one video about how to kill “non-Muslims”.

This time, the state sought to charge the man under the Terrorism Suppression Act, for planning a terrorist act.

But Justice Downs said that in itself was not an offence under the law.

In his decision, Justice Downs said: “Terrorism is a great evil. ‘Lone wolf’ terrorist attacks with knives and other makeshift weapons, such as cars or trucks, are far from unheard of.

“Recent events in Christchurch demonstrate New Zealand should not be complacent. Some among us are prepared to use lethal violence for ideological, political or religious causes.

“The absence of an offence of planning or preparing a terrorist act … could be an Achilles heel.”

Justice Downs said it was not for the courts to create such an offence.

“The issue is for Parliament,” he said.

A copy of Justice Downs’ judgment was provided to the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General and the Law Commission.

High Court trial
The man finally stood trial in the High Court at Auckland in May this year, on lesser charges.

A jury found him guilty of two charges of possessing Isis propaganda that promoted terrorism and one charge of failing to comply with a search.

He was acquitted of a third charge of possessing objectionable material and a charge of possessing a knife in a public place.

The man was sentenced in July.

In her sentencing notes, Justice Fitzgerald said the two publications on which he was found guilty were “nasheeds” – religious hymns.

Both were classified by the Censor as objectionable and contained Isis imagery and lyrics.

Justice Fitzgerald did not accept the explanation that he was listening to them to improve his Arabic language skills.

“Rather, I accept that the broader context to your possession of these nasheeds, which included a range of other materials relating to Isis or Isil, suggests that you have an operative interest in Isis.

“In other words, I do not accept that you might have simply stumbled across these and other Isis-related materials in your research of Islam or the historic Islamic State,” she said.

Report raised further flags
A pre-sentencing report raised further flags.

“The report writer suggests that you support the goals and methods of Isis,” Justice Fitzgerald said.

“The report writer concludes that the risk of you reoffending in a similar way to the present charges is high.

“It suggests that you have the means and motivation to commit violent acts in the community and, despite not having violently offended to date, as posing a very high risk of harm to others.”

Given he had already spent three years in custody awaiting trial, the man was sentenced to one-year supervision.

There were restrictions on his use of electronic devices, the internet and social media.

“The Police and Community Corrections clearly have concerns that you pose a not insignificant risk to the broader community,” Justice Fitzgerald said in her sentencing notes.

“I do not know whether those concerns are right and I sincerely hope that they are not, though having regard to all of the materials available to the court, I can say that they are not wholly fanciful.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Cook Islands has suspended the travel bubble with New Zealand after NZ officials reported new covid-19 community cases in Auckland.

Four new community cases have been reported by health authorities — including an Auckland nurse — taking the total to five.

The new cases are all linked to yesterday’s first case in Auckland, which has been confirmed as delta variant.

• READ MORE: Covid-19: Four new NZ community cases include nurse at Auckland City Hospital
• NZ covid-19 live updates

“While the epidemiological variance and transmission link for the community case in New Zealand is still being investigated, we must act swiftly here to minimise exposure risk for the Cook Islands so we remain safe,” said Prime Minister Mark Brown.

This alert level change will mean that international inwards passenger arrivals for 72 hours through to Thursday have been suspended.

The pause on international arrivals will allow Te Marae Ora Ministry of Health to test arriving passengers from August 11.

This also means domestic travel to the Pa Enua from Rarotonga is suspended until Thursday.

Passengers can return to NZ
Passengers can return to New Zealand from Rarotonga. Passengers from Pa Enua can return back to Rarotonga.

The alert level change and travel bubble suspension was announced after a 58-year-old Devonport man tested positive yesterday in Auckland, New Zealand, after visiting a GP. He was infectious from August 12.

The man, who was not vaccinated, and his wife travelled to Coromandel over the weekend. His wife was fully vaccinated.

He is considered to have become infectious on August 12. There were 23 locations of interest, 10 in Auckland and 13 in Coromandel.

Auckland and Coromandel went into level 4 lockdown for seven days – and the rest of New Zealand for three days – from 11.59pm (NZ time) last night.

While announcing the nationwide alert level change last night, Prime Minister Brown said the Cabinet made the decision based on the information available “at this time, all necessary precautions have been considered”.

“While the epidemiological variance and transmission link for the community case in New Zealand is still being investigated, we must act swiftly here to minimise exposure risk for the Cook Islands so we remain safe,” Brown said.

Cooks Cabinet to meet
“This is a good time to remind ourselves of the need to practice good hygiene measures, and to actively tag in with Cooksafe and Cooksafe+.”

The Cook Islands Cabinet will meet again today to consider new updated information received and next steps.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said last night the positive case could not be confirmed as delta until genome sequencing was confirmed today, but every recent MIQ case had been delta.

Today Ardern confirmed that all five cases were the delta variant.

“We’ve seen the dire consequences of taking too long to act in other countries, not least our neighbours … the (family) bubble is back,” she said.

Ardern said the delta variant was potentially twice as infectious and more liable to cause severe illness.

“We are one of the last countries in the world to have the delta variant in our community. This has given us the chance to learn from others.”

She said delta was a “game-changer” and there needed to be a rapid response to stop the spread.

“We only get one chance.”

Ardern said physical distancing was even more important given how easily delta can be transmitted – including through the air. There would be a 48-hour window for people to relocate in New Zealand.

Cook Islands News stories are republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Groundswell NZ organised the “Howl of a Protest” in more than 40 towns and cities across New Zealand over recent environmental regulations, the “ute tax” and a Pacific seasonal worker shortage.

Co-founder Laurie Paterson said the “ute tax” was the issue people pointed the finger at, but farmers were also unhappy with the bureaucratic approach to the national policy statement for fresh water management.

From July this year, people buying new electric vehicles (EVs) could get as much as $8625 back from the government. The scheme will be funded through levies on high-emission vehicles from 1 January 2022.

• READ MORE: See how the day unfolded with RNZ’s live blog here

About 100 tractors made their way into central Auckland, along the motorway to Queen Street and the Ellerslie race course.

Some farmers heading into Auckland missed the turnoff to the city and took the scenic route, driving their tractors over the Harbour Bridge.

Hundreds joined the convoy with a lap of the downtown area before gathering at Ellerslie Events Centre.

Traffic crawled through central Dunedin as dozens of vehicles taking part moved through the city from midday.

5km ute and tractor convoy
Utes and tractors stretched for more than 5km on Dunedin’s Southern Motorway.

The Otago Regional Council said five bus routes, which operate throughout large parts of the city, were delayed due to congestion.

Opposition National Party leader Judith Collins attended the protest along with a cohort of party MPs.

The National Party is among the most ardent critics of the government’s electric car rebate scheme and has said it will immediately reverse the policy if returned to power.

Collins addressed a large crowd of protesters in Blenheim during the protest.

She said she thought it was important to show her support for farmers.

Collins called on the government to listen to the concerns of those in the primary industries.

‘No farmers, no food’. Video: RNZ

Climate crisis ‘demands urgent action’
The Green Party acknowledged farmers have been asked to accept significant change, but said the climate crisis demands urgent action.

Greens environment spokesperson Eugenie Sage said she would like to hear some solutions from the protesters, rather than complaints.

She said the government had provided huge support to help farmers make changes.

Act Party leader David Seymour said farmers were fighting an uphill battle against regulation.

Seymour said the Labour government was doing some things well, but in other respects their approach, such as bringing in national-level rules for winter cropping, should be localised.

Seymour said many farmers also disagree with Significant Natural Areas, or SNAs, which are designed to protect remnants of native habitats.

Labour MP for Wairarapa Kieran McAnulty told RNZ that most of the farmers he had heard from told him the protest did not represent their views.

Farmers doing their bit
He said most farmers had been doing their bit for a long time, and he worried the protest would paint all farmers as climate deniers who did not care about the environment.

“I know that’s not true but I would hate for that to be the image of farmers as a result of today … there are legitimate concerns but obviously those concerns have always been heard and discussed with government,” he said.

“If we are going to get the best value for our products we need to show that we are environmentally sustainable, that we are climate friendly, and that we have ethical products.”

McAnulty said there was a very strong economic argument for the proposed changes, the farming leadership bodies and the majority of farmers were on board with them, and the protest would undermine the good consensus work done in the past four years.

“That’s what the farming leadership bodies are saying, they’re on board with this — Federated Farmers is on board with this. Unfortunately that message is being lost with today’s protest.”

One of the farmers’ demands is that the government scrap its national policy statement on freshwater which came into effect last September.

The reform introduced regulation on fencing off waterways, reporting nitrogen use and changes to winter grazing practices to protect animal welfare. Groundswell NZ says that should be down to individual catchment groups and regional councils.

Concessions already made
But Forest & Bird freshwater advocate Tom Kay said the government has already made concessions for farmers in the reforms.

“The current situation is unworkable, we have a massive freshwater crisis, we have a climate change crisis, we have a biodiversity crisis.”

He says the system up to now, with very lax rules on freshwater, doesn’t work.

For farmers leading the way and taking action like planting along waterways, the policy statement won’t be a problem at all.

“This is to bring up those laggards at the bottom end.”

A lot of farmers’ demands have been listened to by the government, he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Days after being condemned by the largest Pacific Island capital — Port Moresby, the Economist’s Global Liveability Index has been criticised in Auckland by one of New Zealand’s most respected “green” columnists.

The criticisms come from different ends of the spectrum — Port Moresby was third to last in the 140-nation survey while Auckland, with the world’s largest urban Polynesian population, was top.

Both results were thanks to city responses to the global covid-19 pandemic.

• READ MORE: Auckland is the world’s ‘most liveable city’? Many Māori might disagree
• Parkop challenges ‘least liveable cities’ ranking for Port Moresby
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National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop had roasted the Economist index, criticising the “irresponsible” criteria used in in the index assessment and called for a rethink about his sprawling city of Port Moresby (pop. 391,000).

“This is a harsh verdict on our city, which we have worked so hard to build,” Parkop said.

Leading Māori academic Associate Professor Ella Henry of Auckland University of Technology also criticised the criteria saying few indigenous tangata whenua people would agree with Auckland/Tāmaki Makaurau (pop. 1.6 million, with 11.5 percent Māori) being the world’s “most liveable” city.

“In particular, I would argue that many Māori whānau in Auckland do not enjoy the benefits of this supposed ‘liveability’,” she said, citing negative employment, health, housing, poverty and digital divide statistics.

Global ‘low bar’
However, while New Zealand Herald commentator Simon Wilson, celebrated for his environmentally progressive views on Auckland, today welcomed his city’s success, he also  criticised the global “low bar” that had contributed to the Economist result.

“It sure puts covid into perspective, doesn’t it? Auckland … is now the world’s most liveable city. And it’s all because of our response to the pandemic,” he wrote.

“Britain has just delayed lifting all restrictions by another month. The fast rollout of vaccines in the US has stalled at around 50 percent, because nobody really knows how to persuade the remaining half of the population to get the jab.

“European and Asian countries alike slide in and out of covid crises. The nightmare that is India seems almost beyond redemption. This is a terrible tragedy.

“Here in Tāmaki Makaurau, meanwhile, we enjoy the luxury of debating the future of yachting contests, school zones and cycling on the harbour bridge.

“Yes, for now and at least into the near future, Auckland has every reason to think of itself as the world’s most liveable city. But the bar is very low.”

Wilson also wrote that it was not very encouraging that the Japanese city of Osaka had been placed second on the index.

What to crow about?
“The Japanese city has uncontrolled covid and is set to be half submerged by even a minimal rise in sea levels,” he observed.

“Here [in Auckland], though, setting covid aside, what else have we got to crow, or complain, about?” Wilson continued.

“We’re tremendously liveable, obviously, if you own property – and cruelly not so if you don’t. We’re tremendously liveable if your life doesn’t oblige you to get stuck in traffic, but not so much, etc.

“Some of us have reasonably well-paid future-focused jobs while others of us are precariously clinging to the gig economy, or are on minimum wage, or are not in the productive economy at all.

“The fact is, measuring liveability is a spurious business. The only markers that count should be the ones that acknowledge we’re doing well when we’re all doing well.”

While I am always happy to celebrate any accolades my country and city might garner on the international stage, seeing Auckland/Tāmaki Makaurau awarded the top ranking in a recent “most liveable cities” survey left me somewhat flummoxed.

In particular, I would argue that many Māori whānau in Auckland do not enjoy the benefits of this supposed “liveability”.

This is important, given Māori comprised 11.5 percent of the Auckland population in the 2018 Census. Roughly one in four Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand are living in the greater Auckland region.

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The survey was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sister company of The Economist, and looked at 140 world cities. Auckland was ranked 12th in 2019, but took top spot this year for one obvious reason:

Auckland, in New Zealand, is at the top of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Liveability rankings, owing to the city’s ability to contain the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic faster and thus lift restrictions earlier, unlike others around the world.

Most cities in Europe plunged in the rankings this year as the EIU’s liveability index incorporated new indicators related to covid-19 https://t.co/8555hY1f2U

— The Economist Data Team (@ECONdailycharts) June 9, 2021

Alternative liveability criteria
Each city in the survey was rated on “relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure”.

Overall rankings depended on how those factors were rated on a sliding scale: acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable, intolerable. Quantitative measurements relied on “external data points”, but the qualitative ratings were “based on the judgment of our team of expert analysts and in-city contributors”.

The methodology, particularly around culture and environment, seems somewhat subjective. It’s predicated on the judgement of unnamed experts and contributors, and based on similarly undefined “cultural indicators”.

To better understand the living conditions of Māori in Auckland, therefore, we might use more robust “liveability” criteria. The New Zealand Treasury’s Living Standards Framework offers a useful model.

This sets out 12 domains of well-being: civic engagement and governance, cultural identity, environment, health, housing, income and consumption, jobs and earnings, knowledge and skills, time use, safety and security, social connections and subjective well-being.

The Māori experience
Applying a small handful of these measures to Māori, we find the following.

Housing: According to recent reports, Auckland house prices increased by about NZ$140,00 on average in the past year. That contributed to Auckland being the fourth-least-affordable housing market, across New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, the US, UK, Ireland, Canada and Hong Kong.

Next to that sobering fact, we can point to estimates that Māori made up more than 40 percent of the homeless in Auckland in 2019. We can only assume this rapid increase in house prices has made homelessness worse.

Poverty: Alongside housing affordability is the growing concern about poverty in New Zealand, and particularly child poverty. While there has been an overall decline in child poverty, Māori and Pacific poverty rates remain “profoundly disturbing”.

Employment: As of March 2021, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment recorded a Māori unemployment rate of 10.8 percent, well above the national rate (4.9 percent). This is particularly high for Māori youth (20.4 percent) and women (12.0 percent).

Health: Māori life expectancy is considerably lower than for non-Māori, and mortality rates are higher for Māori than non-Māori across nearly all age groups. Māori are also over-represented across a wide range of chronic and infectious diseases, injuries and suicide.

The digital divide: The Digital Government initiative has found Māori and Pasifika are among those less likely to have internet access, thus creating a level of digital poverty that may affect jobs and earnings, knowledge and skills, safety and security, and social connections.

Making Auckland liveable for all
Taken together, these factors show a different and darker picture for far too many Māori than “liveable city” headlines might suggest.

I say this as someone who has lived in Auckland for the majority of the past 60 years. It is a city I love, and I acknowledge the grace and generosity of the mana whenua of Tāmaki Makaurau, with whom I share this beautiful whenua and moana.

I am also part of a privileged group of Māori who enjoy job security, a decent income, a secure whānau and strong social networks.

But, until we address and ameliorate the inequities and disadvantages some of our whānau face, we cannot truly celebrate being the “most liveable city in the world”.

Dr Ella Henry is an associate professor at Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff wants tougher measures against people ignoring New Zealand’s covid-19 health guidance.

He said it was frustrating to learn one of the two community cases confirmed yesterday was not isolating while symptomatic.

Goff said if New Zealanders followed the rules, as most people had done in the past, then the country would get through the crisis.

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“But what’s hugely disappointing to me … is that there are some people maybe through ignorance, maybe through irresponsibility, that haven’t followed the rules and that puts all of us at risk,” he said.

Goff said he understood that taking a highly punitive approach to those who break the rules may well be counterproductive by discouraging them from getting a test if they did have symptoms.

But he said, for example, that he would like police to sanction people for not wearing masks on public transport.

“If we think that somehow we’re immune or not covered by the rules and we go out and we flout them, that’s when we get the spread and you know we’ve all got the example of Melbourne, just across the ditch from us and the huge impact and deaths and in economic and in personal disruption that caused,” he said.

Government moved decisively
Goff said the government had moved decisively to stop any super spreading events in Auckland.

He said the authorities may also want to consider making it mandatory to wear masks inside in a public place such as a supermarket at alert level 3, not just on public transport as is currently the case.

Goff acknowledged moving to alert level 3 was hugely disruptive and effected major family events such as weddings, as well as restricting funerals to only 10 people.

“It’s something you really don’t want to do but the alternative option of not doing that, we’ve seen that big gatherings like weddings have lead to the super spreading of covid-19.”

He said a quick and efficient roll-out of the vaccine would help Auckland to get out of the situation of repeatedly going into level 3 restrictions.

He said there had to be some priority in vaccination after the health workers and the frontline border staff.

Some priority needed
“There has to be some priority to the region that is just getting hammered time and again because we are the gateway city, but we can’t avoid that that’s where the international airport is for the country but because we also have more than a proportionate share of those quarantine facilities.”

Goff said he wanted to thank the overwhelming number of staff and students at Papatoetoe High School who had done the right thing.

He said they had all been tested twice for covid-19.

“The fact that one of the dozen that weren’t tested was one of the ones that showed up with symptoms, I mean that just shows you overwhelmingly people can do the right thing, but it only takes one or two people to let the side down for that to undermine our overall efforts.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Minister of Covid-19 Response Chris Hipkins says he is hopeful a lockdown can be avoided in New Zealand’s largest city after a community case of covid-19 surfaced in Auckland yesterday.

He told RNZ Morning Report preliminary results from genome sequencing suggest the woman’s case was linked to a recent Defence Force cluster.

He later announced this afternoon there had been no additional community cases linked to the latest Auckland case – which has now been directly connected to the Defence Force cluster – and there would be no change to the alert status (level 1).

Today’s media briefing by minister Hipkins. Video: RNZ News

The Auckland CBD can reopen, but the government will make mask wearing on public transport in the Auckland region mandatory on an “ongoing basis”.

Earlier, in the RNZ interview Hipkins said: “That’s looking pretty encouraging. We won’t get the final result of that until later on this morning but it is looking more likely that we will be able to identify a link with the defence group that we’re also dealing with, that will be very very helpful if we can do that.”

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The minister said there were a few more pieces to the puzzle to come, but that enough information would be available to make a decision this afternoon on whether to change covid-19 response levels.

The woman in her 20s, who had no connection with the border or managed isolation, lives at the central city Vincent Residences apartment complex.

The minister said investigations, involving CCTV footage analysis, would determine whether the virus was spread from a nearby quarantine isolation facility.

RNZ reported that residences had not been told of the outbreak when its reporters arrived at the scene yesterday, with one man saying he had been rejected from getting tested at two centres because they were too busy.

Other residents, he said, had avoided self-isolating at the building when they were told by leaving immediately.

Testing team dispatched
Hipkins said a testing team was dispatched to the building, but that the process took time and that health officials didn’t have an unlimited number of staff available.

“My understanding is Auckland regional public health officials were liaising with the building manager. They did send people to the building, but it may have taken them some time to get there.

“I was assured last night that the testing team arrived on site, so we’ll get an update on that later on this morning.”

The woman who has the virus, a student at Auckland University of Technology, works at the A-Z Collection clothing store on High Street. She developed symptoms on Monday, went for a test on Tuesday and was told to isolate. Health officials say she called in sick on Wednesday, but after talking to her boss put on a mask and went in.

Hipkins would not be drawn on whether the case should be investigated by WorkSafe, but said it was a disappointing situation.

“My message to all employers, up and down the country, is that if someone rings in sick and says ‘I need to stay home’, well, do everything you can to support them to do that. When it’s related to Covid-19 there is additional financial support available to businesses if they need that.”

His comments were echoed by Auckland Mayor Phil Goff. He told Morning Report incidents where people go into work when sick could not be allowed to happen again.

‘Basic rule to follow’
“One thing that stands out in this case – the most basic rule that we all have to follow is, if you’re sick with symptoms please stay at home,” he said.

“Particularly if you get tested and are advised to stay at home, you have to follow that advice. It’s unbelievable that a person arrives at work after they’ve been tested before they have the results.

“Obviously if her story is true, any suggestion that pressure was put on employees showing symptoms to come to work, that’s just crazy. That can’t be allowed to happen.”

Goff also urged all Aucklanders to take a precautionary approach and use face masks and the QR code.

“The advice that we get from the Ministry of Health this afternoon is going to be critical. Auckland Council is taking a precautionary approach … we’ve closed the library, we’ve closed the art gallery, Auckland University is closed and people are doing exams online.”

Officials are tracing the woman’s movements over the weekend.

On Saturday, she went to Smith & Caughey’s on Queen Street and Red Pig Restaurant on Kitchener Street. On Sunday and Monday she bought takeaways from Starbucks Queen Street, Sunnytown Restaurant on Lorne Street, and the Gateau House on Queen Street.

About 100,000 Aucklanders who work in the CBD were urged to work from home today.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Alert level two looked like alert level “zero” today after more than a month of lockdown in Auckland when I caught a local bus into downtown.

There were people in every facet of business smiling and frowning just like Auckland in the old pre-covid days.

The barber shops, coffee shops, takeaways were busy as people returned to their normal routines of keeping their businesses open.

What was disappointing, however, was there was no social distancing on the bus – or elsewhere, even though the bus signs said a maximum of 39 people.

Was I taking a risk? I suppose I was but that is the price you pay when you’re a journalist.

Did anyone on the bus feel threatened? No, a few had face masks on … even fewer people were wearing gloves.

Scent of a hairdo
I could smell the scent of the woman in front of me with her hairdo, which was fragrant and pleasant – so much for keeping your distance.

There were others on the bus, like a woman who sat across from me looking really busy as she answered her phone.

The others looked busy too as we picked up passengers on the way to Newmarket where young men and women would alight. And again there was no social distancing.

Whether they were girlfriends and boyfriends, I wouldn’t know but the sheer joy of seeing each other was something to behold after such a long time of being locked away.

Westfields at Newmarket was open, and it seemed that nothing new had happened. Again I was aghast at the no social distancing.

It was appalling to say the least. It was like the shackles had been taken off and people had come out to play on a sunny day.

Onehunga was busy as the mall returned to business, you couldn’t get a place to park your car, which was a far cry from level 4 or even level 3.

Thai pie and coffee
The joy of having a chicken and mushroom pie and a coffee made by the Thai couple down the road before I caught the bus was palpable. Finally, I could return to something normal – even though it was bad for me.

As were the kids at the playground in Onehunga, I saw from the bus. They were going down the slide after lockdown, and their joy was unbridled.

I stopped off at AUT University – where I study. It was closed with a QR barcode on the door which I didn’t bother to try.

Next was a trip to High Street, it seemed nothing had changed, just as busy as ever.

Auckland, had returned to normal it seemed. Covid-19 has been banished …or has it?

Story and pictures by Sri Krishnamurthi

Covid L2 ... or L zero?

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A New Zealand doctors’ union fears the Waitematā District Health Board is covering up mistakes that led to seven of its staff contracting covid-19 coronavirus.

Staff from Waitākere Hospital tested positive for the coronavirus after patients from St Margaret’s Hospital and Rest Home in Auckland were moved there.

The Resident Doctors Association said the the District Health Board (DHB) had failed to answer questions about the outbreak and workers at the hospital were increasingly nervous.

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The seven people who contracted covid-19 at Waitākere Hospital were all nurses, but Dr Deborah Powell from the Resident Doctors Association said it could have been anyone.

“It could’ve been a cleaner, it could’ve been a resident doctor, it could’ve been a laboratory phlebotomist.”

It was not yet clear how the nurses caught the disease.

Health officials are investigating whether they were infected through environmental contamination, after the DHB ordered an urgent review into the outbreak this month.

Unions want answers
Dr Powell said the unions representing hospital workers wanted answers now, and their repeated questions to the DHB had fallen on deaf ears.

“The unions have said to the District Health Board ‘we’re not interested in blame here, we’re interested in what went wrong so we can learn from it, that’s what we do in health’. We don’t get better unless we understand where we’ve made mistakes or we could’ve done things better.”

Unions wanted to know why the nurses and doctors treating patients infected with covid-19 were able to move between wards and why their personal protection equipment appeared to have failed, Dr Powell said.

Dr Powell also wanted to know why the St Margaret’s patients were taken to Waitākere Hospital in the first place.

“When we went into lockdown, vulnerable workers in health were moved away from the frontline, they were moved away from potential covid cases and quite a few of our North Shore people were put at Waitākere, the vulnerable people, because it was meant to be kept away from covid. The covid ward is at North Shore hospital.”

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the patients were moved to Waitākere Hospital because of the level of care they required, and because “it was also closer to their whanau in their community”.

Waitematā DHB declined RNZ’s request for an interview. RNZ also contacted some of the elected members of the DHB, but all declined to comment.

Review details
The urgent review’s terms of reference obtained by RNZ revealed a little more detail.

It showed the panel was reviewing Waitākere Hospital’s infection, prevention and control measures, as well as the use of PPE, training, rostering and the management of patients.

However, it is not investigating how the staff contracted covid-19 – this was being done by Auckland Regional Public Health.

Dr Bloomfield said he expected to be given a copy of the review today.

“The important thing here is we learn from each of the instances we have had so that we can then update our approach and policies nationally, which is what we’re intending to do here,” Dr Bloomfield said.

Dr Powell said the review process had lacked transparency.

“There’s a feeling of cover up here, which is utterly unnecessary and unhelpful, so I think that’s making people more nervous.”

The Waitematā District Health Board has indicated the review will be made public at the end of this week.

No new coronavirus cases
The Ministry of Health reported no new cases of covid-19 today as the country prepared go relax lockdown rules to alert level 2 on Thursday.

The number of confirmed and probable cases remains at 1497, with 1147 confirmed.

Two people are in hospital – one in Middlemore Hospital and one in North Shore Hospital – but there are no patients in ICU and there have been no further deaths.

Dr Bloomfield said 12 more people have recovered – 93 percent have recovered overall.