Category Archives: New Zealand

New Zealand’s gun buyback scheme suspended after data breach

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Police admit that at least one person had been able to access other firearm owners’ personal information online

New Zealand’s high profile gun buyback scheme, enacted by the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, after the Christchurch mosque attacks, has been thrown into disarray after police admitted that at least one person had been able to access other firearm owners’ personal information online.

The error became public on Monday when a gun lobby group said it had spoken to 15 people who were able to access information on a website where firearms owners registered weapons to be relinquished. It included their names, addresses, dates of birth, firearms licence numbers and bank account details, the group said.

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Jacinda Ardern unveils borrowing plan as PM puts Labour on election footing

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Leader pitches schools overhaul in party conference message aimed at nation’s voters as much as Labour members

New Zealand Labour has used its party conference to announce it would borrow money for “significant” infrastructure spending – a move long urged by businesses and economists – as it made its pitch to New Zealanders ahead of a 2020 election.

The party put its most popular asset, prime minister Jacinda Ardern, front and centre at the weekend gathering, which also saw the election of a new, female president, as it moved to address claims it has mishandled internal sexual assault complaints.

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Sex, violence, racism: how the Grace Millane and Christchurch trials challenge court reporting | Megan Whelan

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As New Zealanders grapple with graphic content and whether to name names, the media must ensure it toes the line of justice

The murder of British backpacker Grace Millane, and the upcoming trial of the man accused of the Christchurch terror attacks have led to widespread discussions about violence and racism and safety and sex. They also pose big questions around how journalists and editors handle graphic detail and court rulings.

The Millane case sparked intense public interest in New Zealand, including public vigils, international media attention and widespread public comment. A 27-year-old man was convicted of her murder. The man’s name and details that may identify him remain suppressed.

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New Zealand’s Whanganui River – in pictures

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Granted personhood in 2017 by the New Zealand parliament, the Whanganui is the first river in the world to be recognised as an indivisible and living being. But it still faces challenges from farming, forestry and development – and despite its beauty, the data suggests much needs to be done to nurse it back to full health

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New Zealand begins genetic program to produce low methane-emitting sheep

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‘Global first’ project will help tackle climate change by lowering agricultural greenhouse gases

The New Zealand livestock industry has begun a “global first” genetic program that would help to tackle climate change by breeding low methane-emitting sheep.

There are about six sheep for each person in New Zealand, and the livestock industry accounts for about one-third of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

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I live in a gang town and Simon Bridges’ zero-tolerance approach won’t help one bit | Morgan Godfery

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The ‘war on gangs’ rhetoric may be politically effective, but as a policy it fails, time after time

It took me almost 10 years to notice that the green ink snaking across my old man’s forehead said “Mongrel Mob”. I never thought the bulldogs wrapping around his hands meant gang member. I mean, he was a dog lover, and he was Dad.

You never really know your parents’ life before you were born, right, even when it’s written across their bodies. You only know the person who is, your mum or dad in the here and now, and it’s almost impossible to imagine they’re someone other people might fear. This is why it took almost 10 years to figure out that the thing on Dad’s head was the reason people were locking their car doors when our family was walking past.

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New Zealand launches world’s first HIV positive sperm bank

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Effort aims to reduce the stigma experienced by those living with the virus

The world’s first HIV positive sperm bank has been launched in an effort to reduce the stigma experienced by those living with the virus.

Sperm Positive has begun with three male donors from across New Zealand who are living with HIV but have an undetectable viral load, meaning the amount of the virus in a person’s blood is so low that it cannot be detected by standard methods.

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Women’s sexual histories have no place in a murder trial, as Grace Millane case shows

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The scrutiny of the Briton’s sex life at her killer’s trial was just one of the proceedings’ many disturbing elements

Violence against women is one of New Zealand’s most significant and pressing social issues. Every day police respond to hundreds of family violence incidents, and women continue to die as a result of men’s violence. In December 2018 New Zealand recognised the severity of a specific offence – strangulation – and implemented legislative reform to address its pervasiveness. Five arrests for strangulation were reported a day in February 2019 . I mention all of this because of the Grace Millane murder trial.

On 21 December 2018 she was strangled to death while visiting New Zealand. Her body was later found in a suitcase, buried, in the Waitakere ranges in Auckland. The man accused of her murder claimed her death was the result of consensual rough sex that had “gone wrong”. After a three-week trial, a jury of five men and seven women found him guilty of murder after less than six hours of deliberation.

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‘She was our sunshine’: father of Grace Millane speaks after man found guilty of her murder – video

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David Millane spoke to the media outside the high court in Auckland after a New Zealand man was found guilty of murdering his daughter, a student from Britain who was travelling around the world. With his wife Gillian at his side, he said: 'Grace was taken from us in the most brutal fashion. Our lives have been ripped apart. This will be with us for the rest of our lives. Grace was a beautiful, talented, loving daughter. Grace was our sunshine. She did not deserve to be murdered in such a barbaric way.'

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On every issue important to Māori this government is failing

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Only in its absence do I miss the Māori party, which achieved huge amounts despite a system stacked against it

New Zealand is probably the only country in the Anglosphere where the Indigenous people make up a disproportionate share of the parliament. Māori make up only 16% of the country’s population, but make up 23% of our representatives, holding 27 seats in the 120-seat House. Māori lead every single parliamentary party as well, bar Jacinda Ardern’s Labour.

You might struggle to find a country where a minority exerts more governing power, and demographic defiance, than Māori in New Zealand.

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Grace Millane trial: New Zealand man found guilty of murdering British backpacker

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A jury in Auckland has decided a 27-year-old, whose name has been suppressed, knowingly killed the British tourist

A jury in New Zealand has found a 27-year-old man guilty of murdering British backpacker Grace Millane.

Her parents David and Gillian, who had sat through the three-week trial in Auckland’s high court, sobbed at the verdict.

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Bohemian Rhapsody and a BBQ: Stephen Colbert visits Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand

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Prime minister collects chat show host from the airport in first episode of ‘The Newest Zealander’

The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert engaged in potentially copyright-infringing carpool karaoke with prime minister Jacinda Ardern and pranked Lorde at a barbecue – aka a “New Zealand state dinner” – as he made good on a promise to get as far away as possible from news about Donald Trump.

The chat show host got straight to it in his sit-down interview with the New Zealand prime minister for Tuesday night’s opening episode, called the “Newest Zealander”, pleading to become a citizen and offering to marry Ardern and partner Clarke Gayford.

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A weeping sore – Jacinda Ardern must clean up New Zealand’s political donations mess

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New revelations about party funding are a stain on the country’s reputation for transparency

Complacency can be a nation’s greatest foe.

New Zealanders, buoyed by their country’s high ranking in global transparency measures, see little to learn from other states when it comes to cleaning up politics.

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Australia braces for electric scooter boom as confusion reigns over state laws

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Some retailers are giving inaccurate advice to shoppers in states where it is illegal to ride e-scooters on public roads or footpaths

Retailers are preparing for a Christmas boom in the sale of electric scooters, even though it is illegal to ride them on public roads or footpaths in several states.

Federal and state regulation has struggled to keep up with the technology, leaving consumers at risk of inadvertently breaking the law.

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Behrouz Boochani, brutalised but not beaten by Manus, says simply: ‘I did my best’

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After six hellish years inside Australia’s offshore detention regime, Boochani reflects on the country that rejected him, his new-found freedom and the friends he left behind

“One day,” Behrouz Boochani said, observing the bleakness of the abandoned Manus detention centre, its dark form illuminated by wood stripped from the buildings being burned for light, “we will meet in some other place, far away from here.”

That was two years ago, in the middle of a warm November night, when Boochani helped smuggle this reporter into the decommissioned Manus Island detention centre where 400 men were holding out against being forcibly removed: rationing their dwindling supply of food and medicine, guarding against the violent police crackdown they knew was coming, repairing the freshwater wells that had been deliberately spoiled by the retreating guards.

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‘You ruined me’: New Zealand’s abuse survivors speak at landmark inquiry

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Survivors are given a voice at first public hearings of investigation into historical abuse of thousands of children in state and faith-based care

On the morning Annasophia Calman is due to testify in public about a childhood destroyed at the hands of her father and the state, she eats scrambled eggs on toast and paces back and forth in the hallway outside her hotel room.

“My daughter rang up and she goes, ‘Mum, I’m so proud of you. You’re finally going to do it. It’s going to be over for you,’ ” Calman says. “But I knew it wasn’t over until I actually did it.”

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Today, Aotearoa New Zealand stands with Behrouz Boochani as a counterpoint to the politics of hate | Golriz Ghahraman

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How poignant that Behrouz was freed from Australia’s grip and welcomed by Christchurch, a city that knows prejudice only too well

Today our world is a little freer, a little fairer, and a little more hopeful. Today, one less innocent man is incarcerated in Australia’s detention camp on Manus Island, guilty only of seeking refuge from persecution. Behrouz Boochani was no ordinary detainee. The Iranian Kurdish journalist and author became the voice of Manus detainees, and with it the persistent conscience of us all as we learned of the atrocities committed by the Australian government on its remote Pacific island detention camps.

How poignant that he was finally freed to visit Christchurch, a city that knows only too well the violence and suffering borne of prejudice. A city that wrapped its arms so warmly around its refugee community after a terror attack just seven months ago, to heal their wounds and stand for inclusion. Behrouz has said that Christchurch has taught the world about kindness this year. He is also quick to note that the prejudice that leads to violence against refugees is the same that underpins policies allowing cruel treatment of them by governments such as Australia’s. For him, the plight of refugees and displaced persons across the globe right now is connected to the fear-mongering politics of Donald Trump and Scott Morrison.

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Behrouz Boochani calls Christchurch welcome a ‘reminder of kindness’

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Official reception highlights New Zealand’s differences with Australia over immigration

The city of Christchurch has welcomed Behrouz Boochani with a civic reception and a traditional Māori mihi whakatau – a formal welcome – as his presence, and liberty, in New Zealand once again underscores the country’s political differences with Australia over immigration.

Boochani was formally greeted from the plane by the mayor of Christchurch and the city’s Māori leaders, who told him he was welcomed by the mountains, the rivers, and the people of the city.

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