The mother of the murdered British backpacker says she is tormented over 'the terror and pain she must have experienced at your hands'. Gillian Millane was speaking to a court via video link. Her daughter was killed in New Zealand in 2018.
A 28-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years for Millane’s murder.
Continue reading...The New Zealand man found guilty of murdering the British backpacker Grace Millane has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.
Speaking outside the high court in Auckland after the sentencing, DI Scott Beard said the killer's sentencing ended a 'long and difficult period' for the Millane family, but that they were the ones who had been given the life sentence.
Millane, 22, from Essex, arrived in New Zealand in November 2018 as part of a round-the-world trip. She died by manual strangulation on 2 December during sex in the man’s hotel room in central Auckland. The pair had met on the dating app Tinder.
Continue reading...Man, who has name suppression, to spend at least 17 years in prison after murder of British backpacker that shocked New Zealand
The New Zealand man found guilty of murdering British backpacker Grace Millane has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.
The man appeared in Auckland’s high court on Friday morning, and his sentencing was overseen by Justice Simon Moore.
Continue reading...City councillor says capital’s water issues may be ‘tip of the iceberg’ for rest of country
Wellington City Council has alerted Island Bay residents to another burst water pipe, frustrating the city’s residents who are weary of harbour pollution, streets filled with brown sludge and some homes with no water at all.
Since the start of the year the capital has had one water set-back after another. The iconic Oriental Bay was closed to swimmers on some of the hottest summer days due to dangerous levels of pollution, two major city wastewater pipes burst, dozens of homes lost water access, and streets were flooded due to worn-out infrastructure.
Continue reading...Venue says Singer’s beliefs – which include that parents should be allowed to euthanise disabled newborns – ‘do not reflect our values’
An event with Australian philosopher Peter Singer has been cancelled in New Zealand after outcry over his public stance on the morality of killing some disabled newborns.
Singer, best known as a proponent of the “effective altruism movement”, has previously written that parents should be allowed to euthanise disabled babies if they wish to.
Continue reading...Special rapporteur says successive governments have contributed to what she called a ‘human rights crisis’
When Leilani Farha touches down in a new city, the first thing the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing does is look up.
In Melbourne, Toronto, London and Dublin, the skies above are filled with cranes, Farha says, soaring across the skylineto construct new homes for their booming populations.
Continue reading...Singer ‘deeply upset and sorry’ for cutting short farewell concert in Auckland
Sir Elton John has said he is “deeply upset and sorry” for cutting short a concert in New Zealand after being diagnosed with a mild form of pneumonia.
The musician, 72, was performing at Auckland’s Mount Smart Stadium on Sunday when he lost his voice and broke down in tears on stage.
Continue reading...With seven months to go, the internationally acclaimed PM must tackle queries over whether she has done enough at home
It’s time for morning tea at the Allen Bryant retirement home in Hokitika, New Zealand, and a rattling tea cart is doing the rounds as the 50 residents talk politics. The South Island district is a Labour party stronghold, and the party was born up the road at the Blackball pub 100 years ago.
The residents who live at the home in the West Coast region are overwhelmingly Labour supporters, with backgrounds in mining and lifetime union affiliation. It was on the west coast that the party celebrated its centenary. And it is here that it is beginning to alienate its once-loyal fans.
Continue reading...The 32-year-old had been missing for a week after she went walking in Mount Aspiring national park
The body of the missing British hiker Stephanie Simpson has been found more than a week after she went missing, New Zealand police have said.
The discovery was made at about 1.40pm on Friday in the Pyke Creek area, a region in which police had devoted significant search resources, including two dog teams, 12 specialist search and rescue staff, thermal imaging drones and a helicopter.
Continue reading...Australian victim Lisa Dallow awake in a serious but stable condition two months after New Zealand volcano erupted
An Australian woman has come out of her coma, two months after the volcano eruption on New Zealand’s White Island, to be told the blast killed her husband and daughter.
Adelaide woman Lisa Dallow has woken from her coma in Melbourne’s Alfred hospital and is in a serious but stable condition.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern is doing a good job, but Waitangi reminds us of what we have lost
This week, to mark Waitangi Day, the Guardian is publishing five pieces of commentary from Māori writers.
I am ashamed to say this year was my first time at Waitangi.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern takes part in the Waitangi Day dawn service, serving up a barbecue breakfast. The prime minister was among the many to gather at Waitangi before sunrise as part of commemorations on the 180th anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi’s signing
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern has spent several days at the Waitangi treaty grounds, meeting Māori chiefs and iwi members
Continue reading...Our rage, protest and mamae are much easier to dismiss if the forum designated for such processes is not of our own making
This week, to mark Waitangi Day, the Guardian is publishing five pieces of commentary from Māori writers.
Bill English once said of Waitangi Day that New Zealanders were bored of the spectacle – the unnecessary controversy – and deserved a more positive national day. The language is deliberate in its exclusion of Māori as New Zealanders and dismissive of our mamae [pain]. Our anger is a bore and a buzzkill. He declined the opportunity to own those words at Waitangi in 2017, perhaps out of fear or contempt that he would be held accountable. We will never know – his party lost the election in September later that year.
Continue reading...Australian Daniel Ou Yang, 21, was on the Air New Zealand flight out of virus-struck Wuhan to Auckland. Here he writes about the stress of his evacuation
At 2.52pm, we arrived at Wuhan Tianjin airport.
The drive here was smooth, all the big wide roads with no cars on them. We made it through the checkpoints and arrived within an hour.
Continue reading...South Island’s southernmost region cut off amid fears paper mill could release toxic ammonia if chemicals mix with floodwaters
Part of New Zealand’s South Island has become cut off after days of torrential rains washed away roads, forced the evacuation of 2,000 people and saw the country’s MetService issue its first ever red weather warning.
The flooding across the flat agricultural plains of Southland, in the island’s southernmost end, came a day after hikers and tourists were evacuated from another part of the region, Fiordland, where more than a metre of rain had fallen in less than three days.
Continue reading...Drone footage shows extent of flooding in New Zealand's South Island. Southland, on the southernmost tip, has become cut off after floodwaters washed away roads. Two thousand people have needed evacuation amid storms that forced the MetService to issue their first ever red weather warning
Continue reading...The signing of the treaty marks the point at which Māori women began to be written out of history
This week, to mark Waitangi Day, the Guardian is publishing five pieces of commentary from Māori writers.
This year I’m not interested in the symbolism of what Jacinda Ardern does or doesn’t do or say at Waitangi. I’m looking to the Mana Wāhine Kaupapa inquiry. Nearly 30 years since it was instigated, the inquiry investigates the role of the Crown in contributing to the disadvantage that has inequitably burdened wāhine Māori since the Treaty was signed. At the end of this month a judicial conference will be held to consider the claims.
Continue reading...Fiordland in New Zealand’s South Island has been deluged by 1.1 metres of rain in the past three days alone, stranding hikers, causing landslides and washing away roads. The region usually receives about 10 metres of rain a year. Video from helicopters shows the extent of the destruction. Nearly 400 people in the township of Milford Sound have been cut off by the flooding after roads had to be closed
Continue reading...Two hikers injured by landslide as helicopters ferry those stranded to nearby town in South Island
About 100 hikers are being rescued by helicopter after becoming stranded overnight on popular bush tracks in New Zealand’s South Island when a month’s rainfall in a single day washed out roads and bridges and caused flooding and landslides.
Eight helicopters and waiting buses ferried the hikers stuck in shelters in Fiordland – and about 70 drivers trapped on the Milford Road – to safety in the town of Te Anau. Two of the hikers were injured when the hut they were sheltering in was hit by a landslide.
Continue reading...