RNZ Pacific

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s trip to Niue holds “profound significance”, the Niuean government says.

Luxon heads to Niue today and then to Fiji for his first trip to the Pacific since taking office.

Niue Premier Dalton Tagelagi said the trip “underscores New Zealand’s commitment to supporting the development of Niue and its wider Pacific partners”.

“Prime Minister Luxon’s visit to Niue aims to foster a deeper understanding of the Niuean people and to witness the transformative impact of the New Zealand government’s funding on a key infrastructure project.”

A Niue government spokesperson said “Niue emerges as the primary destination for Prime Minister Luxon’s Pacific outreach”.

“His engagements in both Niue and Fiji underscore New Zealand’s steadfast commitment to nurturing robust and meaningful relationships across the Pacific region,” the spokesperson said.

They said the groundwork for this trip dated back to December, when the two nations leaders met.

50 years of free association
On arriving in Niue, Luxon will meet with Premier Tagelagi, and celebrate 50 years of Niue’s self-government in free association.

Luxon told RNZ Morning Report it was important to have strong relationships across the Pacific.

“In Niue’s case this year is actually their 50th year of independence and free association – of what’s called a realm country — so it’s a great chance to make a trip to Niue with Premier Tagelagi and likewise with Fiji,” he said.

“It is a chance to meet a range of the leadership accross Fiji’s political system but also we have security and economic interests that we want to discuss together as well.”

It is also expected the Prime Minister will meet with business leaders in Fiji.

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

A Pacific regionalism academic has called out New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS and says the security deal “raises serious questions for the Pacific region”.

Auckland University of Technology academic Dr Marco de Jong said Pasifika voices must be included in the debate on whether or not Aotearoa should join AUKUS.

New Zealand is considering joining Pillar 2 of the agreement, a non-nuclear option, but critics say this could be seen as Aotearoa rubber-stamping Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.

New Zealand is considering joining Pillar 2 of the agreement, a non-nuclear option, but critics say this could be seen as Aotearoa rubber-stamping Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.

On Monday, Peters said New Zealand was “a long way” from making a decision about participating in Pillar 2 of AUKUS.

He was interrupted by a silent protester holding an anti-AUKUS sign, during a foreign policy speech at an event at Parliament, where Peters spoke about the multi-national military alliance.

Peters spent more time attacking critics than outlining a case to join AUKUS, de Jong said.

Investigating the deal
Peters told RNZ’s Morning Report the deal was something the government was investigating.

“There are new exciting things that can help humanity. Our job is to find out what we are talking about before we rush to judgement and make all these silly panicking statements.”

The Minister answers questions following his speech from media, including on the strategic environment, AUKUS Pillar 2, defence spending, leadership in ’s national security system, and bipartisanship in foreign policy. pic.twitter.com/BSSolJLhHQ

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) May 1, 2024

According to UK’s House of Commons research briefing document explaining AUKUS Pillar 2, Canada, Japan and South Korea are also being considered as “potential partners” alongside New Zealand.

Peters said there had been no official invitation to join yet and claimed he did not know enough information about AUKUS yet.

However, Dr de Jong argues this is not the case.

“According to classified documents New Zealand has been in talks with the United States about this since 2021. If we do not know what it [AUKUS] is right now, I wonder when we will?”

The security pact was first considered under the previous Labour government and those investigations have continued under the new coalition government.

Former Labour leader and prime minister Helen Clark said NZ joining AUKUS would risk its relationship with its largest trading partner China and said Aotearoa must act as a guardian to the South Pacific.

Profiling Pacific perspectives
Cook Islands, Tonga and Samoa weighed in on the issue during NZ’s diplomatic visit of the three nations earlier this year.

At the time, Samoa’s Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa said: “We don’t want the Pacific to be seen as an area that people will take licence of nuclear arrangements.”

The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga) prohibits signatories — which include Australia and New Zealand — from placing nuclear weapons within the South Pacific.

Fiamē said she did not want the Pacific to become a region affected by more nuclear weapons.

However, other Pacific leaders have not taken as strong a stance as Samoa, instead acknowledging NZ’s “sovereignty” while re-emphasising commitments to the Blue Pacific partnership.

“I do not think that Winston Peters should mistake the quietness of Pacific leaders on AUKUS as necessarily supporting NZ’s position,” de Jong said.

“Most Pacific leaders will instead of calling out NZ, re-emphasis their own commitment to the Blue Pacific ideals and a nuclear-free Pacific.”

Minister Peters, who appears to have a good standing in the Pacific region, has said it is important to treat smaller nations exactly the same as so-called global foreign superpowers, such as the US, India and China.

Pacific ‘felt blindsided’
When the deal was announced, de Jong said “Pacific leaders felt blindsided”.

“Pacific nations will be asking what foreign partners have for the Pacific, how the framing of the region is consistent with theirs and what the defence funding will mean for diplomacy.”

AUKUS is seeking to advance military capabilities and there will be heavy use of AI technology, he said, adding “the types of things being developed are hyper-sonic weapons, cyber technologies, sea-drones.”

“Peters could have spelled out how New Zealand will contribute to the eight different workstreams…there’s plenty of information out there,” de Jong said.

“They are linking surveillance drones to targeting systems and missiles systems. It is creating these human machines, teams of a next generation war-fighitng technology.

The intention behind it is to win the next-generation technology being tested in the war in Ukraine and Gaza, he said.

Dr de Jong said it was crucial New Zealand find out how this was and could impact “instability in the Pacific”.

“Climate Change remains the principle security threat. It is not clear AUKUS does anything to meet climate action or development to the region.

“It could be creating the very instability that it is seeking to address by advancing this military focus,” he added.

Legacies of nuclear testing
Dr de Jong said in the Pacific, nuclear issues were closely tied to aspirations for regional self-determination.

“In a region living with the legacies of nuclear testing in Marshall Islands, Ma’ohi Nui, and Kiribati, there is concern that AUKUS, along with the Fukushima discharge, has ushered in a new nuclearism.”

He said Australia had sought endorsements to offset regional concerns about AUKUS, notably at the 52nd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting and the ANZMIN talks.

“However, it is clear AUKUS has had a chilling effect on Australia’s support for nuclear disarmament, with Anthony Albanese appearing to withdraw Australian support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and the universalisation of Rarotonga.

“New Zealand, which is a firm supporter of both these agreements, must consider that while Pillar 2 has been described as ‘non-nuclear’, it is unlikely that Pacific people find this distinction meaningful, especially if it means stepping back from such advocacy.”

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

New Zealand’s Labour Party is demanding Winston Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic.

In an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today, Peters criticised the former Australian senator Bob Carr’s views on the security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

RNZ has removed the comments from the interview online after Carr, who was Australia’s foreign minister from 2012 to 2013, told RNZ he considered the remarks to be “entirely defamatory” and would commence legal action.

• READ MORE: Helen Clark on why AUKUS isn’t in New Zealand’s national interest
• Other AUKUS reports

A spokesperson for Peters told RNZ the minister would respond if he received formal notification of any such action. The Prime Minister’s Office has been contacted for comment.

Speaking to media in Auckland, opposition Labour leader Chris Hipkins said Peters’ allegations were “totally unacceptable” and “well outside his brief”.

“He’s embarrassed the country. He’s created legal risk to the New Zealand government.”

Hipkins said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon must show some leadership and stand Peters down from the role immediately.

‘Abused his office’
“Winston Peters has abused his office as minister of foreign affairs, and this now becomes a problem for the prime minister,” he said.

“Winston Peters cannot execute his duties as foreign affairs minister while he has this hanging over him.”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins on AUKUS and the legal threat.  Video: RNZ

Peters was being interviewed on Morning Report about a major foreign policy speech he delivered in Wellington last night where he laid out New Zealand’s position on AUKUS.

Hipkins told reporters he was pleased with the “overall thrust” of Peters’ speech compared to recent comments he made while visiting the US.

“I welcome him stepping back a little bit from his previous ‘rush-headlong-into-signing-up-for-AUKUS’,” Hipkins said. “That is a good thing.”

Hipkins said the government needed to be very clear with New Zealanders about what AUKUS Pillar 2 involved.

Luxon praises Peters
Speaking to media in Auckland on Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, when asked about Peters’ comments, said as an experienced politician Carr should understand the “rough and tumble of politics”.

Luxon said he would not make the comments Peters made, and had not spoken to him about them.

Peters was doing an “exceptionally good job” as foreign minister and his comments posed no diplomatic risk, Luxon said.

Last month, Carr travelled to New Zealand to take part in a panel discussion on AUKUS, after Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker organised a debate at Parliament.

⁦@radionz⁩ has edited the tape of NZ Foreign Minister interview this morning to remove shocking and unwarranted comments made about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr: https://t.co/6f1i1M4RSW

— Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) May 1, 2024

Former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark was also on the panel, and has been highly critical of AUKUS and what she believes is the coalition government moving closer to traditional allies, in particular the United States.

Clark told Morning Report today she had contacted Carr after she heard Peters’ comments, which she also described as defamatory.

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

A climate activist furious with the Aotearoa New Zealand government’s watering down of the proposed emissions pricing scheme says he hopes for stronger environmental representation from the Pāti Māori and the Green Party next year.

David Tong told RNZ Morning Report he wanted the proposed Agricultural Emissions Pricing Plan reconsidered, but acknowledged it could be rolled back even further after the next election.

Despite advice from the Climate Change Commission to base behavioural change on the rising price of carbon, farmers will now be charged the lowest levies possible.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: David Tong on the proposed emissions pricing scheme
• Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard on sustainable food production
• Other climate action reports

They will be able to manage and report their emissions as collectives.

More types of tree and vegetation cover can now be used to offset emissions.

Tong said it was a humiliating move for Green Party coleader James Shaw to be Climate Change Minister at the time of this decision.

Tong told Morning Report it was appalling that after years of lobbying the farming sector had been able to further erode an already flawed process that would have only reduced agricultural pollution by 1 percent.

He said having a pricing mechanism was good, but it needed to be effective in reducing carbon emissions.

‘Not fair on rest’
“In 2017, when New Zealand First-Labour coalition deal committed to putting agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme.

“Now five years later, after delay and prevarication, the entire sector — the biggest polluting sector in the country — has been given its own special deal and a commitment to have the lowest price possible.

“That’s not fair on the rest of us.

“I’d like to see all sectors paying the cost of their emissions. Farmers are just as any other sector — they are an emissions intensive trade exposed sector.”

He said the government had not locked in a strong process, but rather a compromised process that could still be rolled back further by National and lobbyists.

Those in the farming sector now coming out and attacking the scheme further demonstrated a lack of genuine engagement in negotiating towards a consensus deal between government and the sector, he said.

“The same agricultural lobby groups who are part of designing the system have come out to attack it. That shows that there is not a good faith engagement in the system and the government is trying to negotiate with organisations that operate that way.

Hope in minority parties
Tong was putting his hope in minority parties strengthening their commitment to environment policies and being able to influence decision-making.

“We’re hoping that in the coming election year there is a stronger environmental representation from Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party, and that this could be reconsidered,” he said.

“However, there is also the possibility that it could be rolled back to an even more compromised state.”

James Shaw declined to be interviewed on Morning Report, as did Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor.

Federated Farmers remains opposed to the government’s Agricultural Emissions Reduction scheme, despite changes in its favour.

The body said the policy was still too vague, and it would not agree to any pricing scheme until a review of the methane targets is undertaken.

Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard told Morning Report the government’s emphasis on targets based on generalised global data meant farmers had a hard time accepting the plan.

Signed up
“We signed up at the start on the basis that we would support a pricing mechanism that applies at the margin, that’s only there to incentivise the uptake of mitigations and doesn’t lead to emissions leakage,” he said.

“So go back to those original founding sort of principles for this. If we can get there, then, you know, we’d be on board, but at the moment, we’re not there.

“We believe the targets are too high. They’re not based on latest science around how stable methane actually impacts on warming.”

He wanted the government to establish data and targets “required for no additional warming from New Zealand agriculture”. Targets based on generalised global data should not apply to New Zealand farmers who already work sustainably, Hoggard said.

He believed there was a need to improve sustainable methods of global food production and that New Zealand does so within its own borders, so that others in the world need to follow that example.

“What the planet needs to do is actually improve the efficiency of food production elsewhere and in New Zealand we can still keep trying to do more and better,” he said.

“The solution is going to be developing more mitigations at the moment that the toolbox is pretty damn empty. There isn’t a lot we can do beyond just cutting production, and it makes very little sense when we’re one of the most efficient in the world.”

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

The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has knocked-back an attempt by one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest universities to axe more than 100 staff.

The Auckland University of Technology planned to make 170 academic staff redundant, but the ERA has now ruled that its process was flawed and breached the collective agreement.

Now the school may need to walk back its dismissals, and start all over again.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘A very callous and uncaring process’ – union organiser Jill Jones
• ‘This level of disruption and instability in our lives is just crippling’
• Other AUT academic crisis reports

ERA said AUT had called for voluntary redundancies too early, before the institution had even decided which positions to cull.

The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) is celebrating the ruling as a win. However, AUT says the union and the university have interpreted the decision differently and it would be seeking clarification.

Lawyer Peter Cranney, in an email to members of the TEU yesterday, said the ERA was considering a compliance order that would require AUT to withdraw all the notices it had already issued.

“Although a compliance order is discretionary, the [ERA] authority has indicated it will not decline the granting of the order it needed,” he wrote.

“The parties will now have three days to consider the matter; and if a compliance order is necessary, the AUT will need to comply within five days.”

Cranney said any compliance order would be issued by Friday.

Trust difficult to rebuild, says union organiser
TEU organiser Jill Jones said the decision meant people at risk of losing their jobs no longer were.

“It’s great because what it does show is our collective agreement has been respected by the Employment Relations Authority,” Jones told RNZ Morning Report.

But although staff members were “absolutely” thrilled with the decision of the ERA, there was a breakdown of trust with their employer and it would be difficult to rebuild it.

“Its been a long, hard road for these staff members. They’ve paid a very large price.

“These are members that really, really care about their students and the high price that they’ve paid for this bungled redundancy is that lots of things have happened.

“It’s felt as if, to them, it’s been a very callous and uncaring process and it’s going to be difficult to come back from that.”

With issues of trust and many staff feeling targeted and bullied, AUT had a “very big job” ahead to rebuild that trust, she said.

Frances* was one of the unlucky 170 to receive a redundancy letter.

“This level of disruption and instability in our lives is just crippling,” she said.

The ERA decision had not brought much comfort.

“It’s kind of a double-edged sword,” she said. “I’m really happy that we’ve seen some justice be recognised through the court system, but I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

Frances expected AUT to withdraw her notice of dismissal, but did not expect a happy ending.

“I’m not deluded, they’re still going to come for me I’m sure, but they’ll have to start from scratch and do it properly,” she said.

“That’s all we ask, that this is done properly.”

Poor handling of the situation had destroyed staff morale, she said.

“For three months, I’ve been feeling disengaged, demotivated, angry, upset, waiting, waiting, waiting for this letter,” she said.

“This whole process has been about targeting, humiliating, and bullying people.”

AUT seeks clarification of ‘complex findings’
An AUT spokesperson said the findings were legally complex and it regretted that a “procedural issue” highlighted had made staff more uncertain.

“Although the ERA has published its findings, it has not issued orders.

“AUT’s view of these findings differs from that of the TEU. AUT is endeavouring to clarify and resolve the issue promptly.

“Given the differing views between the parties it will therefore be necessary to return to the ERA tomorrow for clarification on some aspects.”

AUT said ERA’s findings found no bad faith in how it had acted — and AUT had formed a differing view of the collective agreement.

“The ERA has noted that AUT should have identified the specific positions potentially declared surplus and, at this point, written to offer voluntary redundancy to the people in these specified positions.

“Following clarification of the procedural issue we will write to those impacted by the decision to confirm the way forward.”

* Name changed to protect identity. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

An academic says hostage diplomacy is a well-known tactic of the Iranian regime and New Zealanders should not go to the country.

Topher Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray are understood to have been detained for months after entering Iran.

The New Zealand government negotiated for the safe release of the pair but has remained tight-lipped about the details.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘Iran is in the middle of a revolution’ – Massey University lecturer Dr Negar Partow
• Protests in Berlin, US cities in solidarity with Iranian women
• Iran protests: Why the country’s women are rebelling
• Other Mahsa Amini solidarity reports

A senior lecturer from Massey University who was born and raised in Iran, Dr Negar Partow, said there was a pattern of this kind of action in Iran.

However, she told RNZ Morning Report it was not necessarily naive for the couple to visit the country.

When they arrived in July it was much quieter than what it became when the unrest started in September after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was detained by morality police for allegedly not covering her hair properly.

However, travelling in a Jeep — a US brand — might have created suspicions, she said.

NZ not especially targeted
The move against the New Zealanders was not especially targeted at this country, she said, with as many as 70 nations having citizens in Iranian prisons.

“The fact that Iran entered a revolutionary phase complicated the situation and gave the Islamic Republic the opportunity to use them and to create a hostage diplomacy. This is not particular to Aotearoa. They do it all around the world,” she said.

People with dual citizenship, diplomats, activists, and human rights and environmental advocates were especially vulnerable to attention from Iranian authorities.

If the couple had been focusing on environmental concerns that may have made them a target, she said.

“As the Islamic Republic becomes more and more challenged and de-legitimised by this revolution, these hostage crises will increase and they will use any opportunity as a bargaining chip.”

There have been conflicting reports on now the couple were detained.

Dr Partow said Iran used different models, including imprisonment or being detained in a safe house and not being allowed to communicate.

Richwhite and Thackwray would have had their passports confiscated and their cellphones removed with their Instagram posts stopping in July.

She believed they were not put in prison.

Tepid resoponse by NZ
Asked about the tepid response by the New Zealand government to the unrest in Iran, she said the government was trying to do a delicate balancing act while the couple were being detained.

Many Western governments had to resort to hostage diplomacy with Iran.

While Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has warned against visiting Iran due to the potential for violence, Dr Partow said it was important to remember the violence was being perpetrated by the security agencies not the protesters.

She said now that the couple had been freed, she was hopeful Aotearoa would take a stronger stance.

“Yes we have been too kind but I’m hoping that as we come out of this period and everybody’s back to normal diplomacy we will take stronger action against the Islamic republic,” she said.

“As the prime minister mentioned as well, this was a delicate diplomatic situation … we did have two New Zealanders inside Iran detained and I think that [strong criticism of Iran] would create more complications.”

Expulsion of ambassador
The expulsion of the ambassador, campaigning for oil embargoes, speaking out publicly to support the rights of Iranian women and human rights lobbying at the United Nations were among measures New Zealand should be considering.

“Now that we have been the victim of hostage crisis in the Islamic Republic that should give us much more importance into the project and we should actually work on it,” she said.

As for advice for potential visitors, she said: “Definitely not. Iran is in the middle of a revolution.”

Ordinary citizens were not in a position to offer help to foreign tourists and it was far better that they stayed away.

She said as the revolution approached the six-week mark, the response from authorities to the demonstrations was becoming even more violent and oppressive.

Asked about Act’s move to block a motion calling for a unified condemnation of Iran’s oppression of women’s rights unless Greens MP Golriz Ghahraman apologised for interrupting a speech made by party leader David Seymour in the House, she said it should be remembered that the Iranian government was now killing children and this was a more important consideration.

Deputy PM pleased couple released
The government is remaining tight lipped about what it took to secure the release of the couple.

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said Iran was a dangerous place and New Zealanders should obey the travel warnings not to go there.

Consular officials around the world did not judge New Zealanders who got into trouble —  instead they got on with the job of helping them regain their freedom.

“I’m just pleased we’ve been able to get them out.”

Robertson told RNZ First Up he could not comment specifically on the couple’s case — but he said it was important to understand the customs and rules of other countries — and to understand whether you should be there at all.

He said no doubt the pair would reflect on what they have been through.

Call for NZ govt to take strong stand
An Iranian-Kurdish journalist now living in New Zealand said the government needed to do more regarding the actions of Iran’s government.

Behrouz Boochani, who was granted refugee status in New Zealand in July 2020, said New Zealand should speak out loudly against the Iranian regime.

He said the current unrest was a revolution and was a call for regime change in Iran.

While there had been mass protests in the past, this year felt different because it involved more people and more cities.

He said he was delighted the couple had been freed. However, the Iranian community in New Zealand had been disappointed in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s response to the unrest in Iran to this point.

He said since Mahsa Amini’s death another 250 people had been killed, including more than 20 children.

“So we expect the New Zealand government to strongly condemn this violence and strongly support the protesters on the street and the people of Iran.”

The US and Australia have criticised the Iranian government’s actions and it was time New Zealand followed suit.

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

Once again Aotearoa New Zealand’s local elections were plagued by low voter turnout and a lack of engagement. Is the media coverage, or lack thereof, contributing to the problem — and what can it do to help?​

In dozens of campaign trail appearances, new Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown told audiences he planned to get rid of board members on the council-controlled organisations Auckland Transport and Eke Panuku.

But just days after his election victory, employment lawyer Barbara Buckett gave RNZ’s Morning Report what appeared to be surprising news on that repeated promise.

“There are legal processes and procedures that have to be followed [with board members’ employment],” she said.

“While he can influence, he certainly can’t interfere.”

Buckett added that the governing body of Auckland Council would have to consent to any changes to the boards.

Interviewer Guyon Espiner seemed startled.

‘He doesn’t have the power’
“So he doesn’t actually have power to do this?” he laughed. “He’s campaigned on something he can’t do?”

That reaction was understandable.

Despite admirable efforts from Stuff’s Todd Niall, the Herald’s Simon Wilson, The Spinoff and publicly-funded Local Democracy reporters, the promises and policies coming from mayoral candidates hadn’t received quite the same level of scrutiny they would have had if this were a general election.

If tough, fact-checking coverage was in comparatively short supply for the most high-profile mayoral election in the country, it was sometimes non-existent in ward races and less-heralded mayoral contests.

Pippa Coom, who lost her seat in Auckland’s Waitematā ward, told Mediawatch she didn’t see much coverage at all of her tight ward race against Mike Lee.

She said some media outlets didn’t publish their usual rundowns on ward races like hers, and as a result the “void was filled by misinformation and attack ads”.

“As a candidate I have to absolutely take responsibility for my own loss and for not reaching my potential supporters and not getting people out to vote,” she said.

“But the media coverage is such an important part of our democracy and our elections. So if it’s not there, it is going to … have an impact on election turnout and the result.”

Lack of coverage, engagement
The lack of coverage was matched by a lack of engagement from the public.

Turnout in this year’s election was around 40 percent across the country. In Auckland, it only reached 35 percent for the second election running.

Auckland Council carried out research where it quizzed non-voters on why they didn’t cast their ballot back in 2017.

The number one reason given was that they didn’t know anything about the candidates. Number two was that they didn’t know enough about the policies — and number three was that they couldn’t work out who to vote for.

In the weeks before the election, RNZ’s Lucy Xia vox-popped some Auckland students who told her that not only did they not vote, but they didn’t know the identity of the city’s mayor.

“I don’t really have an opinion,” one said. “Maybe for the prime minister next year. But for mayor? I don’t have views.”

The lack of engagement weighed on the mind of fill-in presenter John Campbell during last weekend’s episode of TVNZ’s Q+A.

Poorer suburbs lagged behind
In conversation with reporter Katie Bradford, he pointed to turnout in the poorer suburbs of Auckland, which — as usual — lagged behind richer areas.

“You have to say that a turnout below 20 percent in Ōtara is heartbreaking. It’s not good enough either,” he said.

“This is a dismal fail by someone.”

He went on to list some possible culprits for that — including central government, uninspiring local candidates and the election system itself.

There is some evidence pointing toward all of those.

In a BusinessDesk column, Pattrick Smellie said postal voting favours older homeowners, who are more likely to stick around at an address and to send letters than younger people and renters.

“It’s hardly news that no one under 40 has much experience of actually posting a letter. We’ve known for a while that postal voting skews local body voting to the asset-owning classes,” he wrote.

‘Boring’ consultation processes
Others criticised local government’s consultation processes, which are often boring and inaccessible for people with busy lives, along with the ratepayer roll which gives homeowners a vote for each property they own in different places.

But in response to Campbell, Bradford honed in on the media’s role in voter disengagement.

“I’m passionate about local government and there are lots of people out there who are. But how do we show people why it matters? It’s a frustration as a journalist,” she said.

Bradford told Mediawatch it was unclear whether the comparative paucity of media coverage on local government reflected a lack of public interest in the topic — or vice versa.

“It’s almost a chicken and egg situation. How much coverage the media does is so much based on what we think the public wants, and if people aren’t picking up the paper, or they’re switching off the radio or the TV when local government stories are on, they’re not going to run them,” Bradford told Mediawatch. 

TV and radio had particular difficulty producing interest stories about local government because council meetings aren’t renowned for creating interesting visuals or soundbites, Bradford said.

She thought it would help if stories explicitly connected council decisions to nationally-significant issues like the housing crisis or Wellington’s ongoing problems with its water and sewage.

‘Maybe media partly to blame’
“All of this stuff is so important and I think people think it’s always central government’s fault. They don’t necessarily think there’s council involvement and maybe the media is partly to blame for not explaining that stuff enough,” she said.

“But it’s not just our job. It’s also the job of Local Government NZ and councils to explain that.”

Bradford backed the idea of giving local government a similar amount of attention as central government, which is covered round-the-clock by teams of press gallery reporters.

But the economics of that move likely wouldn’t stack up for newsrooms, which are already experiencing significant financial constraints, she said.

She thought reporters could help by targeting the broken parts of the electoral system and shining a spotlight on the things that keep people from engaging with councils.

“This election shows that turnout didn’t get any better despite quite extensive coverage, despite a big campaign by LGNZ and others.

“Whatever we have right now is not working,” she said. “Something has to change.”

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

Covid has now killed around 1700 people in New Zealand, but much of our news reporting and commentary has focused on how we’re moving on from the pandemic. Why is there such a mismatch between that media coverage, and the reality of a virus that’s inflicting more suffering and death than ever before?

On her show last week, Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan made a momentous announcement in an almost blithe, off-hand manner.

“The pandemic’s over for all intents and purposes but we’re still having to deal with this nonsense. Isn’t that ultimately why we’re feeling miserable because we all want a break? If I was in government what I’d do right now is ‘green setting guys, go for your life, party party, whatever’. Just for the mental break of it.”

The announcement that the pandemic is over would have been news to the families of the eight people reported to have died with covid-19 in New Zealand that day.

But du Plessis-Allan is far from an outlier in wanting to place a still raging pandemic in the rearview mirror.

Recently a senior Stuff executive sent staff a memo telling them their audience is “over covid” and has “actively moved on from covid content”.

It implored them to find cracker non-covid stories on topics including cons, crime, and safety, the cost of living, NZ culture, and stuff everyone is talking about.

Much wider group
Stuff’s audience is part of a much wider group that’s actively moving on from covid.

National leader Christopher Luxon just returned from a whirlwind overseas tour with the news that most people he met were no longer even talking about covid.

“It’s interesting to me I’ve just come back from Singapore, Ireland, and the UK. In most of those places we didn’t have a single covid conversation. In places like Ireland there’s no mask wearing at all.”

Luxon is right. Many places around the world have dropped their covid restrictions.

But even if we’re determined to ignore it, covid has remained stubbornly real, and is continuing to cause equally real harm.

In the United States, hospitalisations and reinfections are rising with the increasing prevalence of the BA.5 strain of omicron.

In the UK, about 13,000 hospital beds are currently occupied by covid patients. Hospitals are dealing with staff absences, exhaustion, persistent backlogs and problems discharging patients, and the UK government is considering bringing back restrictions if the situation gets any worse.

Same story as here
If that all sounds familiar, it’s because pretty much the exact same story is playing out here.

Association of General Surgeons president Rowan French delivered some dire news to RNZ’s Morning Report about hospitals’ current troubles with scheduling elective surgeries.

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it,” he said. “We don’t say that lightly but I think it is the worst we’ve ever seen it, particularly with respect to our ability to treat our patients’ elective conditions.”

French said those issues were exacerbated by a wave of covid-19 and winter flu.

Covid patients were taking up a lot of the beds that would normally be used by people recovering from surgery, and he couldn’t see an end in sight to the crisis.

There’s a jarring mismatch between that kind of interview and the concurrent harping about the need to move on from covid.

That’s producing cognitive dissonance, not just in the public, but among media commentators, some of whom are now bobbling between berating our minimal remaining efforts to mitigate covid-19 and lamenting the damage being caused by the uncontrolled spread of the virus.

Mental oscillations
In some cases, these mental oscillations can take place in mere hours.

On the morning of July 6, Newstalk ZB Wellington host Nick Mills had harsh words for the epidemiologists urging caution over covid.

“Michael Baker, let us get on with our lives. You go back to your lab. Do some intelligent work. Get paid truckloads of money doing it, and live in an extremely flash house. But for me, I don’t want to hear from you anymore. I want to get on with my life and our life.”

On du Plessis-Allan’s panel show The Huddle later that day, he had a different message about the severity of the latest wave.

“I’m absolutely terrified because it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” he said. “If we have to go back [to a red setting] – and it will all be based on hospitals gonna have to be overcrowded — these numbers are terrifying.”

Maybe if Nick Mills had listened more closely to Professor Michael Baker, his research on BA.5 wouldn’t have come as such a nasty surprise.

To be fair to these hosts, their contradictory approaches to covid are pretty relatable.

Sick of the sickness
Even without any hard data to hand, it’s safe to say many people are sick of the sickness, and some are prepared to live in a state of suspended disbelief to act like that’s the case.

But covid isn’t over, and now many leading experts are saying it may never be.

Last week The Project commissioned a poll which showed 38 percent of people agree with those experts. They believe covid is here for good.

Afterward presenter Kanoa Lloyd quizzed epidemiologist Dr Tony Blakely about whether those respondents were right.

“It’s possible,” he said. “It’s rolling on. Remember influenza in 1918, we still get influenza every year. This is a coronavirus. It could keep coming up every year.”

Dr Blakely is among a number of epidemiologists and healthcare workers who have gone to the media lately to deliver the message that there is still a pandemic on.

On last weekend’s episode of Newshub Nation, the aforementioned Professor Michael Baker compared covid to the “inconvenient truth” of climate change — a global threat that demands real change and ongoing action to mitigate.

Common sense safety
He went on to link covid precautions to another common sense safety measure.

“If you go out when you have this infection and infect your friends and family, you are going to be killing some people — just like drinking and driving,” he said.

At The Spinoff, microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles stuck with the driving metaphor, imploring people to make popping on a mask as natural as clicking in your seatbelt.

This recent flurry of cautious messaging stands in stark contrast to much of the media coverage over the last few months.

Despite the fact 10 to 20 people per day have been dying of covid-19, that is had a muted response outside of the pro-forma coverage of the Ministry of Health’s 1pm press releases.

When covid-19 has been covered, the death toll has usually been superseded in the news by complaints from businesses about the few restrictions that remain.

Maybe that’s not such a surprise. News organisations have a powerful commercial incentive to give their customers what they want, and as Stuff’s executive said, audiences have moved on.

Like drunk party guest
But, like a drunk party guest at 3am, coronavirus does not care that you’re tired of it and you want it to leave.

A month ago, Newsroom’s Marc Daalder made that point in a prescient piece headlined “Covid isn’t over, it’s just getting started“.

He said the media needed to adjust from covering covid as a crisis to seeing it as an ongoing concern like the road toll or crime.

“It’s no longer temporary. It’s here to stay with us. And I don’t think that journalists have really figured out how to cover it as a daily issue, just like we cover all of the other daily issues that are really problematic,” he said.

“In some respects, it’s a bit bigger because it has a much more serious burden in terms of deaths and hospitalisations and long covid than something like the road toll, but just because it’s not a temporary crisis anymore, doesn’t mean that we should be ignoring it.”

Daalder said reporters could reorientate their coverage, writing more human interest stories on issues like the impact of long covid, and looking forward at how the virus and the fight against it will evolve.

“I think we are poorly served by media coverage, after the peak of the first omicron wave, in which there was no looking forward to what’s going to be happening in the short term or the long term.

Omicron peaked … and then?
“There was just this all this focus on what would happen when omicron peaked, and then it did, and, and nothing filled the void after that. And so I think it’s quite natural for people to assume that covid is over.”

Journalists could also apply more pressure to the government over the continuing levels of preventable suffering and death being caused by cmicron’s spread, Daalder said.

He has advocated for the return of the alert level system, which he believes was much more simple and comprehensible than the traffic light system implemented late last year.

“There’s not really very much accountability journalism that looks at holding the government accountable for essentially abandoning vulnerable people to the whims of the virus,” he said.

“You have this sort of very strange juxtaposition in the [parliamentary] press gallery where the covid minister will be asked by one person: ‘Are you concerned about BA.5? It’s starting to spread in New Zealand. Should we be increasing our restrictions?’

“And then in the next breath, the question is ‘Why aren’t we in green? When will we ever get to green?’.

Better balancing
“I’m not sure that either of those get to the heart of the present issue, which is that the current settings aren’t aren’t even aligned with a non-BA.5 world.”

Daalder said news organisations should find ways to balance their commercial incentives and the public interest role of journalism when it comes to important, but not always clickable, stories like covid or climate change.

“There’s an extent to which you should follow what audiences want. And you shouldn’t necessarily be trying to force something down their throats that they don’t want.

“But with something like covid, where it’s such a huge, important thing that’s happening, and that’s going to keep happening, regardless of whether you write about it or not.

“I think that’s where you know that that mission of journalism to tell the truth really comes in and overrides maybe some of the audience imperatives.”

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

New research shows the pandemic has hit Pacific students harder than others, but many schools are successfully addressing the problem, an educational leader says.

The Education Review Office (ERO) said two thirds live in Auckland, where schools have been closed more than three times longer than the rest of the country.

Pacific students have also faced greater barriers to learning because they are less likely to have access to the internet or a computer at home.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘Some of these kids coming back to school are really concerned that they are so far behind’ – ERO chief executive Nicholas Pole

ERO chief executive Nicholas Pole said there was a risk that covid-19 will have long-term effects on their education.

“Through this study we’ve seen academic achievement for Pacific learners go backwards overall,” he told RNZ Morning Report.

“We are seeing lower levels of attendance back at school, so Pacific learners have been slower to return, and both Pacific learners and their teachers are reporting that they are concerned about their progress and their achievement in school.”

He said there was already evidence they were dropping out of school at a greater rate than other groups. At the end of November attendance was only 47 percent and achievement also fell over the year.

Pacific students love learning
But the ERO study also found Pacific students loved learning and teachers had been doing an excellent job but through a tough covid-19 period.

Many schools were seeing innovative approaches to compensate for this being successful.

Pole’s organisation was keeping a close eye on what was working.

Getting the basics right was an essential starting point.

“Our first message is, so that you’re maximising the time on learning and the time at school, first and foremost there’s got to be a real push on getting attendance and engagement back in learning up,” he said.

“Schools need to understand where their learners are at and where they’re behind and tailor their programmes to that to address the gaps in that learning. We’ve seen some schools absolutely go to strength to strength and achieve rates at the end of last year in NCEA [National Certificate of Educational Attainment] were above those of the previous two years.

“We’re looking at what those schools have been doing. They’re tailoring their programmes around the needs of their kids, including flexible timetables.

After-school tuition boosting outcomes
“They’re providing after-school tuition at the weekends and really doing everything they can to boost outcomes.”

Pole said students also felt covid-19 had made them anxious and it had been overwhelming moving in and out of lockdowns.

“Some of these kids coming back to school are really concerned that they are so far behind and schools have got to acknowledge that,” he said.

Some schools had made a point of allowing students to ease into their day, allowing space to reflect and take in their situation.

He said making schools interesting places to be and making it fun and allowing kids to experience a sense of achievement helped bring academic engagement.

Families needed to do their bit too, which had been the case during lockdown, he added.

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

Deeper and and more rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are needed to limit the worst effects of global warming, a climate scientist has warned.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a report that global emissions of CO2 would need to peak within three years to stave off the worst impacts.

Without shrinking energy demand, reducing emissions rapidly by the end of this decade to keep warming below 1.5C will be almost impossible, the key UN body’s report said.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘If we don’t achieve deep and rapid reductions during this decade… then limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is out of reach’ – IPCC vice chair Dr Andy Reisinger
• ‘We are one of the highest emitting countries in the world – James Shaw
• ‘It’s a huge challenge and we’ve got to do it so quickly’ – Professor Ralph Sims
• ‘The window is almost closed … we need to take action immediately’- Professor James Renwick
• READ MORE: Climate change: IPCC scientists say it’s ‘now or never’ to limit warming

Even if all the policies to cut carbon that governments had put in place by the end of 2020 were fully implemented, the world will still warm by 3.2C this century.

At this point, only severe emissions cuts in this decade across all sectors, from agriculture and transport to energy and buildings, can turn things around, the report said.

IPCC vice-chair Dr Andy Reisinger told RNZ Morning Report the world was “pretty much out of time” to limit warming to 1.5C as agreed in Paris in 2015 and subsequently.

“What our report shows is that the emissions over the last decade were at the highest level ever in human history.

“But on the positive side, that level of emissions growth has slowed and globally we’ve seen a revolution in prices for some renewable energy technologies.” That had led to a rapid uptake of solar and wind energy technologies, he said.

“Also policies have grown. About half of global greenhouse gas emissions that we looked at in our report are now covered by some sort of laws that address climate change.”

The report said the world would need “carbon dioxide removal” (CDR) technologies – ranging from planting trees that soak up carbon to grow, to costly and energy-intensive technologies to suck carbon dioxide directly from the air.

Governments had historically seen these technologies as a “cop out” but they were needed alongside reducing emissions,” Reisinger said.

“The time has now run out. If we don’t achieve deep and rapid reductions during this decade, much more so than we’re currently planning to collectively, then limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is out of reach.

“And the world collectively has the tools to reduce emissions by about a half by 2030.”

NZ has ‘squandered 30 years’, says Shaw
Climate Change Minister James Shaw says Aotearoa New Zealand has the political will to tackle climate change but it would have been a lot easier if it had begun decades ago.

“We are one of the highest emitting countries in the world on a per-capita basis and what that means is we’re now in a situation where having essentially fluffed around for three decades the cuts that we need to make over are now far steeper than they would have been.”

“Our country has squandered the past 30 years,” Shaw told Morning Report.

He said the Emissions Reduction Plan to be published next month would set out how the country would reduce emissions across every sector of the economy.

“I think what’s different about the plan that we’re putting out in May is that it’s a statutory instrument”, he said, and was required under the Zero Carbon Act. It would have targets to reduce emissions to the year 2025, 2030 and 2035.

Shaw said measures like the clean car discount scheme were working.

New Zealand’s agricultural emissions had not reduced, he said. This was the year when final decisions would be made on whether agriculture was brought into the Emissions Trading Scheme, and the whole sector was involved in the process.

There were farms up and down the country doing a terrific job on emissions but like every sector there was a “noisy group” which was dragging the chain.

“I think the charge that Groundswell are laying that we are not listening to farmers is ‘total bollocks’, he said.

Shaw noted the IPCC report said 83 percent of net growth in greenhouse gases since 2010 had occurred in Asia and the Pacific — and that New Zealand, Australia and Japan, as a group, had some of the highest rates of greenhouse gas emissions per capita in 2019.

Cut consumer demand
While past IPCC reports on mitigating carbon emissions tended to focus on the promise of sustainable fuel alternatives, the new report highlights a need to cut consumer demand.

Massey University emeritus professor Ralph Sims, a review editor of the IPCC report, said one of the overarching messages is that people needed to change behaviours.

Despite New Zealanders having an attitude that our impact was small, in fact the country had some of the highest carbon emissions per capita, he said.

“We need people to look at their lifestyles, look at their carbon footprints and consider how they may reduce them.”

One of the easiest for the individual was to avoid food waste, he said.

Sims was involved in the transport chapter and said it was a key area for New Zealand.

“It’s the highest growing sector, and makes up for 20 percent of the country’s emissions.”

Faster electric vehicles change
He did not believe the country was transitioning fast enough to electric vehicles, and government assistance needed to be ramped up.

Electric vehicle prices would also reduce over time and a second hand market would make them more affordable, he said.

Sims said New Zealand needed to “get out of coal” and some companies were already reducing their coal demand.

Though New Zealand’s coal industry was small, exploration was still on the table and just last year the Southland District Council granted exploration at Ohai, he said.

Methane emissions need to reduce by a third by 2030, which Sims said is “a major challenge, and highly unlikely” to be achieved in New Zealand.

Victoria University of Wellington professor of physical geography James Renwick said curbing greenhouse gas emissions was still possible, with immediate action.

“The advice from the Climate Change Commission does show that we can peak emissions in the next few years and reduce and get down to zero carbon dioxide hopefully well in advance of 2050,” he said.

“It’s impossible to overstate the dangerous threat we face from climate change and yet politicians and policy makers and businesses still don’t act when everything’s at stake. I haven’t really seen the political will yet but we really need to see action.”

Technologies available at present to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere were not able to operate at the scale needed to make a difference to the climate system, he said.

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

New Zealand does not have enough nurses or ICU beds, warn healthcare figures as their workforce braces for omicron.

The College of Critical Care Nurses told RNZ Morning Report that the country was currently short of at least 90 ICU beds if there was a major omicron outbreak.

Chair Tania Mitchell said intensive care capacity had been a sticking point for other countries during the outbreak, and New Zealand was under-prepared.

“We know compared to other areas in the OECD that, even for business as usual, we have a low number of intensive care beds per head compared to other countries, and that puts us on the back foot going into this.”

She said more beds were always welcome, and there was a $644 million increase in funding to hospitals and ICUs from the government to cope with covid-19 that was announced in December.

But there was real concern it would not be enough, and there were not enough intensive care nurses.

“In intensive care we’re actually struggling to cope with business as usual,” Mitchell said.

“That’s to do with bed numbers, but most importantly nursing numbers — you can build new building, and increase more beds much easier than you can create the nursing resources.”

It is likely more cardiac and cancer patients would have surgery delayed, to help free up ICU beds.

Urgent work on immigration could help, she said, and nurses wanting to come to or remain in New Zealand should be prioritised, and assistance with shifting here made available.

Quarter of nursing workforce could be out of action
Nurses and other health workers becoming sick with omicron as an outbreak spreads was going to strain healthcare provisions, Nurses Organisation industrial officer Glenda Alexander said.

“If we lost a quarter of them even, at any one time … which is predicted, it is going to put immense strain on already tight staffing levels.

“But it’s not just hospital nurses, our workforce who work in aged care, primary health care, those people on the frontline doing vaccinations and taking tests — it’s right across.

“If you imagine a quarter — at least, of those people not being able to be a work, because it won’t just be their own health, it’s the health of their families as well, that they have to address.”

Alexander said nurses were already carrying the burden of long understaffing problems, and they would likely have to prioritise only urgent and necessary work — “just life preserving services only, so no elective surgery”.

“If we’d planned for a pandemic five years ago, as we were predicting nursing shortages, that would have helped immensely right now, but we can’t actually grow [nurses] as quickly as we need right now. It is a stressful situation.”

Māori vaccination rates still a concern to health sector
Māori health providers are in a race to vaccinate children and boost adult immunisations before omicron spreads widely.

They expect the number of people getting booster shots and vaccinations for their children to increase now people are coming back from holiday.

Māngere health provider Turuki Health chief executive Te Puea Winiata told Morning Report many people were working on pulling the rate up.

Ministry of Health data shows 93 percent of the wider Counties Manukau DHB population is fully vaccinated, but Māori lag behind at 84 percent.

Manurewa, Papakura and parts of Māngere were particularly low, Winiata said, and mobile vaccination clinics were being used to help reach some of those areas.

“What we’ve done is to focus on particular suburbs or particular areas in those suburbs, to do a bit of a boost to those areas.

“On an ongoing basis [we’re using] communication, messaging to our communities, making sure that we understand the issues on whānau perhaps not coming forward.”

Vaccine rollout still ‘good numbers’
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins earlier told Morning Report there were still good numbers of people coming forward for vaccinations, particularly for boosters, but the summer break had slowed that rate for all New Zealanders.

Winiata said staff have reported that vaccination slow-down is now recovering for Māori in her area.

“We had a big surge of people getting boosters before Christmas. And interestingly the surge in weekends before Christmas is now reversed — lots of people are coming in during the week and fewer at the weekend.

“But … in the week of the 17th when a number of people were coming back to work that was a bit of a leverage for people to think about being vaccinated, who weren’t.”

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

Rising covid-19 cases at the border are increasing the risk of the omicron variant spreading in Aotearoa but a leading epidemiologist says the country still has time to prepare for an outbreak.

Today there were 43 covid-19 cases identified at the border, a jump from 23 cases yesterday, and the Ministry of Health believes the majority are omicron.

But New Zealand still has time to keep omicron out and prepare the population before the virus enters the community, says University of Melbourne epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, originally from New Zealand.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘If New Zealand embraces omicron in, the trick is to manage it well’ – Prof Tony Blakely (duration 8′:52″)
• READ MORE: NZ covid-19 update: 19 new community cases reported in New Zealand today, 43 cases at the border
• Australia: 35k new cases in NSW, 22k in Victoria, Tasmania warns of surge
• Fiji: 2 deaths, 580 new cases in third wave

Looking at New South Wales probably hitting its peak with omicron cases, he told RNZ Morning Report there were lessons for New Zealand to better manage an outbreak.

He said there was a huge “five-fold” undercount of cases because those infected with omicron were more likely to be asymptomatic. There could be up to 180,000 infections a day, he said.

His explanation for nearing the peak was: “It makes sense because of that number of infections per day … the virus exhausts the number of people it can infect because you’re chewing up all the susceptibles.”

He said there was a massive shortage of rapid antigen tests in Australia which was “just appalling”, thereby disrupting employment and the supply chain.

‘Flipping lessons to NZ’
“So flipping this to lessons for New Zealand: Get heaps of rapid antigen tests in before you get omicron and change your surveillance systems, or at least have them ready to go to pivot to being less reliant on PCR when the numbers of omicron go up.

“And follow some of the UK example of getting some free rapid antigen tests out towards citizens who have got some ready for when omicron arrives.”

He said New Zealand could take a few more steps to keeping covid-19 out because it had “the advantage of learning from pretty much every other country”.

“Try and keep the borders really strong which New Zealand has excelled at and wait for better vaccines that have wider coverage and not let omicron in. I think the chances of pulling that off are remote because omicron will get in at some point.

“The second option is, somewhat controversially, to embrace omicron.”

Blakely said omicron was “way less severe” thereby reducing the number of people that died or had to go to hospital.

“Omicron is less dangerous than delta … we’re talking somewhere between 1-5 percent of the mortality risk of a delta infection.”

Good immunity against delta
He said studies showed people who had had omicron then had good immunity against delta.

“So if New Zealand embraces omicron in, the trick is to manage it well.

“But there are other things to do in the next six weeks for New Zealand, which is boost like crazy, try and get at least two-thirds of the over 60 population boosted … before omicron comes in and get the public ready.

“Have a plan in place, mandatory masks when the case numbers get to a certain point.”

University of Canterbury professor Michael Plank said new cases in MIQ was a steep rise from last year, when most days, there were just two or three new cases arriving.

“What that really shows, there is a high risk at the moment of the virus leaking out.”

He said it mirrored international data showing infection rates were higher than ever, in some countries.

No assumptions over MIQ
Professor Plank said New Zealanders could not assume managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) would keep the variant out.

New testing rules will come into effect for arrivals into the country, with travellers required to return a negative test result within 48 hours of departure, rather than 72 hours.

Professor Plank said it was a helpful step, but he would like to see rapid antigen tests also used, for a final check on the day of departure.

“These tests return a result in about 20 minutes so these can actually be done on the day. They won’t catch every last case but even if they only caught say 50 percent of cases prior to getting on the flight, that would be a help.”

Professor Plank said Aotearoa needed to buy as much time against omicron as possible, to roll out boosters and child vaccinations.

“If you’re eligible for that booster dose, don’t delay, don’t wait for a few weeks, because it could be too late by then.”

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

A co-founder of the Polynesian Panthers says the government should allow overstayers to remain in New Zealand after it formally apologises for the Dawn Raids later this month.

An emotional Minister for Pacific Peoples, ‘Aupito William Sio, also revealed today harrowing details of his own family’s subjection to the notorious police raids of the 1970s.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday acknowledged the racist policies of National and Labour governments that targeted overstayers by their Pacific ethnicity, despite those of European descent making up the majority of illegal immigrants at that time.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘We have not sought compensation, you cannot compensate my family, my dad’s already passed away’ – Polynesian Panthers co-founder, Manase Lua (duration 4′:53″)
• ‘For me it’s really important to see what has happened in the past in particular in the damn raids within the wider trajectory of history of Pacific peoples within Aotearoa’ – Green Party spokesperson for Pacific people Teanau Tuiono (duration 3′:56″)
• READ MORE: Other articles on the Dawn Raids

Ardern will apologise on behalf of the state at a commemoration event in the Auckland Town Hall on June 26.

But social Justice advocate and co-founder of Polynesian Panthers Will ‘Ilolahia says it is not enough for the government to belatedly apologise and that any so-called compensation for the injustice should be paid by opening up pathways to residency for people now in similar circumstances.

“There has been terror in our society that money can’t pay for,” he said. “What is more beneficial for our people in society is pathways to residency for the present overstayers here.

“We’ve got overstayers here whose children are head boys and head girls. We’re got overstayers here those children have the potential to represent our country, but they can’t because they have no papers.

Qualification for citizen
“But the fact is they pay tax and surely that is enough qualification to be a citizen of New Zealand… We’re only talking about 10,000 people here.”

The Polynesian Panthers was formed in June 1971 to campaign for equality, justice and indigenous rights.

Another of its co-founders, Manase Lua, told Morning Report that something more meaningful then just words needed to be offered if justice was to be truly served.

The Pasifika leader, whose parents were targeted in the Dawn Raids, said residency would provide a just and fair settlement of past grievances, so that others would not experience a similar trauma and sense of worthlessness as his own family did in the mid-1970s.

“Compensation is the wrong word and that just sparks division among our communities,” he said.

“We have not sought compensation, you cannot compensate my family, my dad’s already passed away. He was a dawn raider who came here and contributed towards this country, paid tax all his life and never got into trouble with the law, he came here illegal but he wasn’t a criminal – he came here to seek a better life.”

The Minister for Pacific Peoples, ‘Aupito William Sio, revealed his own family was subjected to a dawn raid, describing the helplessness felt at the time by his father and the screams of terror of family members.

‘A bang in the early hours’
“We had just bought a house a year or two before and my parents were quite proud owners, putting roots into New Zealand and then to receive a bang in the early hours of the morning,” he told Morning Report.

“We were all awakened because of the noise, there was a man standing there with a flash light in my father’s eye, my mother clutching him so he doesn’t do anything that might hurt the police because it was his home. He felt there was a great deal of disrespect shown… to be treated like that – we were treated like animals.”

He said the apology would help raise up a mirror to New Zealand society and show how racism had inflicted hurt and trauma on a people who had simply responded to the call to fill labour gaps and wanted to live dignified lives.

Talking openly about the raids after an acknowledgement of injustice by government would hopefully help young Pacific people see their place in society as one hard fought and of value.

“I hope that it would empower them. I hope it gives them a sense of confidence that they are valued as human beings, that their heritage as peoples of the Pacific is something to be held tightly and to be treasured and I hope that this gives them a better understanding of what their grandparents and parents have endured and the sacrifices that were made, ‘Aupito said.

“That they stand on the shoulders of those giants and that they should be proud, not ashamed and recognise Pacific peoples have continued to provide a strong and positive contribution to the fabric of Aotearoa.”

He said Ardern and her cabinet would make decisions regarding what practical actions should accompany the apology.

Green call for residency
The Green Party’s spokesperson for Pacific people, Teanau Tuiono, echoed the calls for residency. He told RNZ Morning Report the government apology was significant and a start, but needed to be backed by substantive action, which should include educating people on the raids and offering legal pathways to contemporary overstayers.

“They came here for exactly the same reasons that our parents and our grandparents came here in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and the ’80s and the important thing also to remember here is that they are also essential workers and they have helped carry us through the pandemic,” he said.

“For me it’s really important to see what has happened in the past in particular in the damn raids within the wider trajectory of history of Pacific peoples within Aotearoa.”

National leader Judith Collins also backed the government apology. She told RNZ Morning Report that it was a sad time in New Zealand history and that anything beyond an apology was up to the prime minister.

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

Afghanis who say they have witnessed torture and murder at the hands of Australian soldiers want the chance to testify in court as well as compensation, a journalist says.

Australia’s Defence Force Chief Angus Campbell announced yesterday that there is information to substantiate 23 incidents of alleged unlawful killing of 39 people by 25 special forces personnel in Afghanistan.

He was commenting on a four-year inquiry that found “credible information” supporting allegations of war crimes by the country’s special forces.

• READ MORE: Afghans recall days when Australians unleashed dogs, gunfire
• Australia funds evidence of war crimes in Afghanistan inquiry

Major-General Paul Brereton’s report also said junior soldiers were often required by their patrol commanders to shoot prisoners to get their first kill in a practice known as “blooding”.

The inquiry also found evidence soldiers gloated about their actions, kept kill counts and planted phones and weapons on corpses to justify their actions.

One victim had told him four of his family had been killed – two brothers and two cousins.

In another village he spoke to a number of victims about their bad experiences and they described “murders after murders”.

“One man did say to me that he wanted to look up in the eyes of these killers and ask them why did they kill so many innocent Afghans.”

Another man he interviewed could not stop crying as he likened the sound of bullets from a gun with a silencer to “drops of water”.

“These families… have been telling me that they want to get justice, that they want to make sure this is a transparent process and that those responsible are brought to justice.”

They have asked him if those directly affected will get the chance to fly to Australia to give evidence in courtrooms there, Sarwary said.

Many of the people involved were very poor and they had also asked him about their chances of receiving compensation from Australia.

Sarwary said that the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission has demanded that Australia adopts a transparent process as it lays charges against the perpetrators and there should be compensation for victims.

‘We crossed a very bad line’ – ex-soldier
The Brereton inquiry heard from more than 400 witnesses, including former SAS paramedic Dusty Miller, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2012.

He told the ABC he witnessed a number of unlawful killings and has since struggled with “psychological wounds”.

He said he felt vindicated after reading the report and was in no doubt that some of the soldiers needed to go to jail for their crimes. It might be hard for the Australian public to accept such behaviour had occurred, he said.

“We’ve got this proud ANZAC tradition that we’re trying to uphold but unfortunately it’s like finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real.

“We crossed a very bad line and we crossed it for a number of years and we need to pay that price now.”

The report also warned that more killings would be revealed in the future and Miller said he was sure that is true.

Some soldiers’ lives had been ruined by what they had witnessed in Afghanistan. It also meant the end of his own military career, Miller said.

‘Everybody knew what was going on’
“Everybody knew what was going on. It was a day-to-day occurrence. We normalised it… you certainly had to go along with what was happening because the alternative would have been professional suicide. You’d have been ostracised.

“There was no way you would have flagged this with the commanders or speak up – that would have been unthinkable.”

Miller said the commanders must have known what was happening especially as they had debriefs after every mission.

However, it was “a minority group” who acted badly and the majority of men he served with were “honourable” although they operated in a “dog eat dog” aggressive environment.

Clear differences between NZ and Australian troops, says author
Investigative journalist Jon Stephenson, the co-author of Hit and Run, the book which led to the Operation Burnham Inquiry, said there was a difference between the way Australian forces behaved and the conduct of New Zealand forces.

“It’s clear that for Operation Burnham the allegations concerned civilian casualties but they weren’t deliberate. The New Zealand forces were involved in an action in Afghanistan that led to civilian casualties but they didn’t intend for those people to die,” Stephenson told Morning Report.

“Whereas in the Australian case, there’s a clear difference, in that they deliberately planned and carried out unlawful actions, alleged war crimes – shooting people who were in their custody and posed no threat or civilians.”

Australian and New Zealand troops worked together in some places, such as headquarters, but they did not go out in large numbers on missions together.

After New Zealand troops had bad experiences working with the US in Afghanistan a decision was made that New Zealand troops would operate as independently as possible so they would not be “contaminated” by some of the behaviour they saw.

In some cases they did support missions, but generally they acted on their own or with the Afghans, Stephenson said.

Australian federal police will investigate the specifics and decisions will be made about which troopers should be prosecuted over the 39 alleged murders. This process may take years, he said.

“It would be my expectation, based on what I’ve heard, and the people I’ve spoken to, that there will definitely be a large number of prosecutions.

“It’s inconceivable to me given that, for example, people have been shown on camera shooting unarmed young men in a field who posed no threat, that there will not be successful prosecutions, convictions and some people will serve serious jail time.”

Defence Force chief General Angus Campbell identified a significant problem with what he called “toxic warrior culture” in Australian forces and this was not seen in the New Zealand forces.

However, Stephenson said it is important for New Zealanders to consider if their troops had served as many rotations in the same same high intensity conflict areas and had lost as many troops in conflicts as the Australians did whether such a culture might evolve.

He believes that NZ troops would not have resorted to this type of behaviour.

“I think there are significant cultural problems in the Australian military. They have got a very different attitude towards indigenous people than our troopers have.

“That’s not to say that our forces have acted impeccably at all times, but I do think there are significant cultural differences, training differences between New Zealand and Australia.”

With New Zealand’s smaller numbers it was also easier to identify bad behaviour.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Former Green Party MP Keith Locke says his contemporaries should stay out of the New Zealand cabinet in order to remain critical of Labour while also working constructively with it.

Any cabinet positions offered to the Greens by Labour would be a favour, not a necessity, and likely require the smaller party to soften its criticism.

The two parties are meeting again today to thrash out areas they can co-operate on in government.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘It’s important that the Greens be an independent and critical voice working co-operatively and challenging from outside the Cabinet” – (Duration 5m:31s)

With Labour holding an election night majority, the Greens are not needed in a formal coalition arrangement.

The parties met twice last week in the prime minister’s office and will do so again later today, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expecting to complete talks this week.

Locke told Morning Report: “I think the Greens have to recognise that people voted for them because they like the Green vision and policies but also where possible to advance the progressive agenda with Labour.

“I think the best way forward on that… what we need really is a co-operation agreement whereby the Labour and the Greens work together to progress certain agreed issues and bills.

“The agreement could provide for easy Green access to Labour ministers, harmonious working relationships between the two parties on select committees, etc.”

He thought the Greens should avoid cabinet positions if possible.

“Because Labour has a complete majority, they would be granted as a favour not a necessity. The Green Party would not have any leverage and there would be an implicit understanding that the Green caucus would soften its criticism of the Labour government.”

The Greens should push for change using the Parliamentary positions they already have, he said.

“Take for example Ricardo Menendez-March fresh from Auckland Action Against Poverty. I think he could really provoke more change in the welfare area by speaking out, linking up with the lobby unions, using Parliament as a platform, and linking up with the [welfare] minister.

“If it is Carmel Sepuloni, in the past [she] hasn’t been able to achieve much change because she hasn’t been given the budget … but pressure from the Green Party inside and outside Parliament might have an effect.

“The Greens have produced many changes over the years.”

But he said it was a “completely new situation now” with a confidence and supply agreement “completely irrelevant”.

“The Greens in any case should reserve the right to abstain or vote against the budget,” he said.

“Change can be made and it’s important that the Greens be an independent and critical voice working co-operatively and challenging from outside the cabinet.”

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Greens better off as independent, says Delahunty

By RNZ News

An Australian police raid on public broadcaster ABC risks having a chilling effect on freedom of the press, its editorial director says.

Police officers left the ABC’s Sydney headquarters more than eight hours after a raid began over allegations it had published classified material.

It related to a series of 2017 stories known as The Afghan Files about alleged misconduct by Australian troops in Afghanistan.

READ MORE: Why the raids on Australian media present a clear threat to democracy

ABC editorial director Craig McMurtrie told RNZ Morning Report the message the raids sent to sources and whistleblowers who wanted to reveal things in the public interest was concerning.

LISTEN: ‘Chilling effect on freedom of the press’ – Morning Report

“We’re concerned obviously about a chilling effect it has on freedom of the press,” he said.

The stories, by ABC investigative journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, revealed allegations of unlawful killings by Australian special forces in Afghanistan and were based on hundreds of pages of secret Defence documents leaked to the ABC.

McMurtrie said the ABC believed it had acted lawfully and stood by its reporters.

And so it’s off into the night for the six AFP officers. For nine hours they’ve searched through ABC emails and documents. I think there’s a big question for the Australian public: is this what a free press looks like? Thank you all for your interest today. Regards, JL. pic.twitter.com/EXnXhyOPQQ

— John Lyons (@TheLyonsDen) June 5, 2019

‘Not cavalier’
“It’s not as though we’re cavalier about these things. We have exhaustive quality control and checking processes and we always strive to act in the public interest.

“It is our job as journalists to hold government authorities and agencies to account and that is why this is so important.”

Police officers leaving the ABC’s Sydney headquarters took with them two USB drives containing a small number of electronic files, which were sealed in plastic bags pending a review by ABC’s lawyers, the broadcaster reported.

AFP technicians password-protected the files and police will be unable to access them until the two-week period of review is over.

Police searched for article drafts, graphics, digital notes, visuals, raw television footage and all versions of scripts related to The Afghan Files stories. Thousands of items were found which matched search terms listed in the warrant.

ABC investigations editor John Lyons ended up live tweeting the raid and said it was a “bad, sad and dangerous day” for Australia.

Australian police raided the Canberra home of a News Corp journalist on Tuesday but said the raids were not linked.

Unauthorised leak
They alleged there had been an unauthorised leak of national security information in a story by Annika Smethurst in April 2018 which said the government was considering giving spy agencies greater surveillance powers.

News Corp, controlled by media baron Rupert Murdoch, called the raid “outrageous and heavy handed”, and “a dangerous act of intimidation”.

Police questioning of journalists is not new, but raids on two influential news organisations sparked warnings that national security was being used to justify curbs on whistleblowing and reporting that might embarrass the government.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.
• More Australian media raids stories
• The Afghan Files

After five years and 1000 shows I’m switching off the 4am alarm.

This is my final week on Morning Report and I’d like to tell you why I’m leaving, what I’ve learned and what I won’t be apologising for.

I’ll leave the why question until the end but firstly, thank you. Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of people – 464,000 according to this week’s GfK radio survey – who listen to Susie Ferguson and I present the programme.

WATCH VIDEO: Guyon Espiner on his reo journey during last year’s Māori Language week

With Corin Dann joining Susie from next week and Indira Stewart presenting the First Up programme at 5am, leading into Morning Report, I’d expect those numbers to increase.

So thanks for sharing your mornings with me. I know I haven’t always made it easy for you.

Maybe we got off to a rocky start you and I. ‘Bring back Geoff Robinson’ was a constant refrain back in 2014, when I replaced the 39-year veteran of the programme. ‘Thugs on Radio’ read one headline in The Press, as Christchurch listeners mounted a letter writing campaign in response to some of the more robust exchanges. And that’s my home town, so they weren’t going easy on me.

And fair cop. Sometimes I got the tone wrong. Sometimes I headed down to the wrong path with a question line (although I have learned that when an interviewee responds with, “good question”, it rarely is).

Put anyone on the radio or TV and the audience will find things to like and dislike. That’s their right and I’ve always seen it as part of the contract. You get the platform, you take the hits.

But there are two major things people have complained about over the last five years and I am not sorry for either of them. I am not sorry for speaking te reo Māori on the radio and I am not sorry about interrupting politicians.

You might remember the backlash when about two years ago I started to use more te reo Māori on Morning Report. The messages streamed in. Diatribe, gibberish and rubbish were some of the less offensive descriptions. Listeners invited me on a daily basis to leave to a ‘Māori station’ and one texted to ask “when are you going to get a grass skirt and put shoe polish on your face”.

For a Pākehā from a privileged background it was a small insight into racism in New Zealand, a tiny sliver of what some people must put up with every day.

But slowly that receded and now the main complaint I get is that I speak te reo Māori too quickly. Slow down. We want to learn, they say. So thank you for that too.

I want to acknowledge the support I have had from te ao Māori. Broadcasters and te reo Māori champions Scotty and Stacey Morrison have been great mentors. Within RNZ, Shannon Haunui-Thompson, and before her Mihingarangi Forbes, have provided huge encouragement. Ngā mihi ki a koutou mō tō koutou tautoko.

While I had thousands of complaints from Pākehā, I’m not aware of one complaint from Māori. Not one. So to other Pākehā worried about how they’ll be received for using te reo Māori: from my experience, if you put the work in you will be rewarded and embraced. Karawhiua e hoa mā.

The other thing I am not sorry for is interrupting politicians. I know some of you swear at the radio and have even thrown things. Admit it.

I’ll make a deal with you. The day politicians give straight answers to legitimate questions I’ll hear them out and move on to the next question. Until then, they need to be dragged back on track or they’ll just read out the talking points in a non-answer to a question you never asked. They will run down the clock until they are saved by the pips.

So my time is up. Why? Some of you may have read that I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes about seven months ago. That is not the reason I am going. Well, that is not entirely true.

About 25,000 New Zealanders live with this incurable disease every day. If you manage it well and have good support there is almost nothing you can’t do. So it’s not a physical thing.

But lying in hospital last September I had one of those moments. What do I really want to be doing with my career?

The satisfaction I got from doing The 9th Floor series of interviews with former prime ministers came to mind (yes I was probably the only person in the ward thinking about Mike Moore and Geoffrey Palmer at 2am). I want to get back to long form and investigative journalism.

I’m staying at RNZ so you can judge here on the website and on the radio whether I’ve been successful or not.

But most of all I am leaving because I love it. I love Morning Report and I don’t want to lose that. I know for some of you I haven’t achieved this, but my aim is to never outstay my welcome. Mā te wa e hoa mā. Thanks for listening.

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.