Nancy Meherne is determined to keep surfing as long as she can ‘do a little jump’ to get on the waves
Nancy Meherne lives a simple life by the sea, gardening and riding the soft, mellow waves at Scarborough Beach just a couple of blocks from her house.
The 92-year-old’s now pumice-like board was made in New Zealand in the 1970s by a factory that churned out gumboots and other rubber and foam products.
Continue reading...Chair of National Māori Authority says country should adopt John Howard’s playbook or risk sparking local gangland wars between deported criminals
A prominent Māori leader has called for a dramatic response to what he labels Australia’s attempts to turn New Zealand into a “dumping ground” for criminals, suggesting Jacinda Ardern’s government should “turn the planes around”.
The executive chairman of the National Māori Authority, Matthew Tukaki, also raised concerns about a potential increase in gun violence in Auckland, saying the city “could see gangland wars similar to those that occurred in both Sydney and Melbourne in the early 2000s if we are not careful”.
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Continue reading...It wasn’t a financially astute move but it led to my TV series and helped me discover the truly important things in life
My entire experience of Auckland changed when I got a boat. It was the perfect antidote to a professional DJ lifestyle, where getting up at 5am to be on the water become immeasurably preferable to coming home at 5am from work. On trips out I began sticking my head underwater with such vigour that I somehow turned it into a whole new profession.
It didn’t happen straight away, of course. My 40-year-old, 14-foot beige fibreglass boat with a semi-reliable two-stroke engine, named Brown Thunder, only had so much range, and my real goal lay much farther offshore, tantalisingly out of reach. A place where tales of clear blue tropical water and huge fish swirled around a group of uninhabited islands, teasing me from the pages of marine magazines or the crusty lips of old salty sea-mates.
Continue reading...Critics say the wealthy will be able to buy their way in while citizens lose out on quarantine spots
A controversial New Zealand scheme that offers visas to wealthy foreign investors has resumed operating after a year’s hiatus due to the pandemic, prompting concern from overseas New Zealanders who fear it will place additional strain on the country’s overburdened managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system.
Martin Newell, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Grounded Kiwis, said the scheme’s resumption would prompt “disbelief” among New Zealanders overseas, who may lose out on MIQ spots to the investors.
Continue reading...Healthcare workers around the world have been on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic for almost two years, which put them through the darkest days of their careers. Five doctors who have worked in hospitals in Uganda, New Zealand, the US, India, the UK and Brazil told the Guardian about how the pandemic had tested them personally and professionally, but how they continue to find hope and resolve to keep working.
Thanks to Dr Peter Kavuma, Dr Dalilah Restrepo, Dr Yogesh Kalkonde, Dr Anne Menezes and Dr Megan Smith, who is also a spokesperson at the campaigning organisation EveryDoctor
Few cases and high vaccination rates, but these successes have come at a cost
As the Covid-19 pandemic hurtles towards its second anniversary, New Zealand will emerge from 2021 with some of the best health outcomes in the world, despite confronting its toughest few pandemic months.
This year New Zealand experienced its longest lockdown, its highest daily case numbers (222 in mid-November), more hospitalisations than in 2020 and a pivot away from the government’s ambitious elimination approach to one of strict virus control. But it can now boast a 90% double vaccination for the eligible population and one of the lowest per capita death rates, while its cases in the current outbreak are trending downwards.
Continue reading...Keith the cat is known locally for making off with everything from live eels to tradesmen’s boots
A New Zealand cat with a reputation as a talented thief has taken his habit to new lows by bringing home drugs and a pair of lacy black knickers, according to his owners.
Keith’s crime wave started three years ago, when he began stealing bras from nearby clothes lines and bringing home live eels from the local Heathcote river in Christchurch.
Continue reading...Border had been set to reopen to visitors and visa holders coming from Australia from 17 January
New Zealand has announced a suite of measures to strengthen its defence against the Omicron variant, including pushing back the start of its quarantine-free border reopening to the end of February.
The Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said the reopening delay will be disappointing for those who had made travel plans over summer, but added that waiting until the end of February would increase New Zealand’s overall protection and slow Omicron’s spread.
“Covid-19 keeps throwing new curve balls and we have to respond in a way that continues to protect lives and livelihoods without putting in place restrictions and lockdowns unless absolutely necessary,” Hipkins said.
Continue reading...Māori boy who died last week was youngest New Zealander to die with virus and the first child
The first death of a child with Covid-19 in New Zealand has prompted calls for Māori children to be prioritised in the next stage of the vaccine rollout, as the country grapples with racial inequalities compounded by the pandemic.
A Māori boy, under the age of 10 and who had tested positive for the virus, died last week, becoming the youngest New Zealander to die with Covid, the Ministry of Health confirmed. It is unclear whether Covid-19 was the cause of the boy’s death, as New Zealand records all deaths of people considered active Covid cases in its official count. It is the country’s 49th death of a Covid-positive person since the start of the pandemic. Māori make up an estimated 17.1% of the population but they have accounted for 32% of all Covid-19 related deaths.
Continue reading...At first I was full of dread but as I pressed on I noticed things I had never seen in daylight
I’m scared of getting lost in the bush. This is unusual for an essayist. Most of us like to go for a walk in disorienting landscapes and get completely lost so that we can write about it.
Rebecca Solnit wrote that getting lost is “a voluptuous surrender” but this sounds to me like walking in increasingly frantic circles, getting cold and hungry as night closes in, until you have no option but to dig yourself a little hole and cover yourself in leaves.
Continue reading...Aotearoa’s wild landscapes are world-famous but spectacular views are not confined to the walking trails – long-drop toilets also boast incredible panoramas
Be it the crest of an icy mountain peak, the depths of the dense native bush, or the slopes of sleeping volcanoes, New Zealand’s wild and remote landscapes are coveted by outdoor enthusiasts the world over. But what really sets the country’s nature apart from the rest is what is at one’s disposal when nature calls – spectacular loos with views.
These scenic spots – small, remote, and lacking in plumbing – are a curious quirk in New Zealand’s landscape, and offer up some of the best panoramas in the country.
Continue reading...Sperm Positive launched in New Zealand in 2019 in an effort to reduce the stigma faced by HIV-positive people
Olivia and Amy are sitting outside in the shade, trying to escape from New Zealand’s early-summer humidity. Amy, 10 months old, burbles happily in the background as her mother talks. She is healthy, happy, and oblivious to her status as a world first: one of a handful of babies born from the first sperm bank for HIV-positive donors.
The bank, Sperm Positive, launched in New Zealand in 2019, in an effort to reduce the stigma faced by HIV-positive people – and raise awareness that with treatment, the virus was undetectable and untransmissible. It grabbed international headlines when it was launched, but has been more than a publicity gimmick. Two years on, the bank is bearing fruit.
Continue reading...The unusual discovery in New Zealand waters is based on the remains of scat and scars on seal’s bodies
In a world first, New Zealand leopard seals have been found to feed on sharks, making them part of a tiny and exclusive club of marine predators that do so.
The study, led by Krista van der Linde of leopardseals.org, found shark remains in the scat of leopard seals, and visible signs of struggle with sharks on seals’ bodies, indicating the marine mammals predate on sharks, rather than scavenge their remains.
Continue reading...British tourists banned from entering France from Saturday; border controls in Portugal extended beyond 9 January to limit Omicron spread
New Zealand has detected its first case of the Omicron Covid-19 variant in a Christchurch managed isolation facility.
On Thursday afternoon, the director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said:
This is a person who is in managed isolation in Christchurch. The person arrived in New Zealand on a flight from Germany via Dubai that landed in Auckland...the people on that flight were transferred to Christchurch on a chartered domestic flight trip with all our usual protocols.
We fully expected we will find a case of Omicron and in fact, we are treating every border related case as if it were Omicron until proven otherwise. We have good protocols in place that are designed to stop the virus getting across the border.”
Continue reading...Older people described how they coped with enforced isolation, with some finding the experience positive
A trove of nearly 800 letters recording the lockdown experiences of older New Zealanders has been collected in a University of Auckland research project called Have Our Say. Researchers appealed for written accounts of lockdown to understand how older people coped with enforced isolation, and to amplify elders’ voices. The letter writers were all over 70. Many described the importance of daily routines, their experiences during historical crises and how they stayed involved in their community. The letters will be held by the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
Here are some excerpts from the collection:
Continue reading...The benefits of a single large tree can’t be replaced by a mown lawn or a seedling. With thoughtful planning we can keep them
The New Zealand parliament is about to have its third reading of an amendment bill informally known as the “housing intensification bill”. Its purpose is to relax the Resource Management Act (RMA), which currently restricts building height and intensity in cities, to meet the urgent demand for housing and address affordability.
While it is clear that housing affordability needs to be addressed to meet the needs of young and low-income New Zealanders, there are pitfalls to the speed at which the legislation is rushing through the system. Yes, we do need more houses, and we do need to intensify within our cities so that we don’t further impact the rural landscape as the tentacles of our cities spread into key food production and natural ecosystem areas.
Continue reading...The man is reported to have visited several different immunisation clinics and was paid by others to get the doses
New Zealand health authorities are investigating claims that a man received up to 10 Covid-19 vaccination doses in one day on behalf of other people, in the latest effort by members of the public to skirt tough restrictions on the unvaccinated.
The Ministry of Health said it was taking the matter seriously. “We are very concerned about this situation and are working with the appropriate agencies,” its Covid-19 vaccination and immunisation spokesperson, Astrid Koornneef, said.
Continue reading...Making substances illegal has never worked, simply because it fails to address the reasons why people use them
I once lived with a militant vegetarian who had grown up near an abattoir. With a thousand-yard stare, he’d talk about how its bloody runoff would seep into his local playground. He hadn’t touched meat since those days. You often hear this sort of thing from vegetarians and vegans: that if you looked at what went on inside (or even outside) a slaughterhouse, you’d switch to Quorn full-time. In a similar vein, if you want to quit smoking, I recommend watching someone go through lung cancer.
I could never look someone in the eye and tell them smoking isn’t both immensely pleasurable and cool-looking. What I would say is this: my mum was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2017. Over just a few months I watched her shrivel, become obscured by tangles of medical tubing, and begin to suffocate to death as her lungs filled with fluid. She died that same year, and it was a relief to know that her unimaginable suffering was over. I apologise if this description has either put a damper on your next fag break, or stressed you into taking a fag break when you didn’t even have one planned. As a former smoker, I can understand either scenario.
Eleanor Margolis is a columnist for the i newspaper and Diva
Continue reading...More parents in New Zealand are giving their babies indigenous names to foster links with their ancestry and culture
Nine-month-old Ruataupare Te Ropuhina Florence Whiley-Whaipooti will grow up speaking the names of her ancestors. She will learn she comes from a line of strong Ngāti Porou women, and that her ancestor, who was a staunch tribal leader, is her name-sake. She will grow to understand that her Māori name links her to whenua (land), her whakapapa (genealogy) and her Māoritanga (culture).
Ruataupare is one of an increasing number of babies in New Zealand to be given a Māori name. While Māori have never stopped giving their children indigenous names, there has been a marked increase over the past 10 years – a near doubling of Māori names registered since 2011.
Continue reading...The Ardern government does not believe that the fate of the Indo-Pacific rests on US-China rivalry
After the Biden administration’s announcement concerning the “diplomatic ban” of China’s Winter Games, Jacinda Ardern’s government has distanced itself from western allies once again – but it would be wrong to assume that Wellington has any illusions about China.
The US government confirmed this week it would diplomatically boycott the Winter Olympic Games to protest against China’s persecution of the Uyghur people in the country’s Xinjiang province. Australia, UK and Canada subsequently indicated they would join the boycott.
Continue reading...