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Source: New Zealand Police (District News)
Police are responding to a one vehicle incident, where a vehicle collided with a parked car on Humber Street.
The incident was reported around 10am.
It appears one person is in a serious condition, and the Serious Crash Unit are in attendance.
Humber Street is closed between Ribble and Usk Streets, and Motorists are advised to take an alternate route.
ENDS
Issued by Police Media Centre
Source: New Zealand Police (District News)
The search for Michael MacGregor is continuing today.
Michael was last seen at the Rocky Lookout around 12:20pm on Monday.
Today Police are focusing on the Atiwhakatu Stream.
Police Search and Rescue, Land Search and Rescue volunteers and a specialist canyoning search and rescue team have been deployed.
Ground search teams will be searching near the Atiwhakatu Stream, and the canyoning team will be searching the water.
As there will be specialist teams in the water, Police ask that members of the public do not enter the stream. While they may have the best intentions, unauthorised people in the stream place both themselves and the specialists at risk.
Police extend our appeal for any information that may assist Police in locating Michael.
If you saw Michael, or have any information that may assist in locating him that you have not reported yet, please contact Police via 105 and reference event number: P055522968
ENDS
Issued by Police Media Centre
Source: New Zealand Police (District News)
A previous media release miss-spelled the name of the young person who died in a fatal train incident in Mount Maunganui on Monday 31 July.
We apologise for the error and for any confusion caused.
The correct spelling of her name is Jorja-Ray Smith.
ENDS
Issued by the Police media centre
New Zealand’s electropop icons Strawpeople return in 2023 with a brand new album, Knucklebones, which sees Paul Casserly and Fiona McDonald back together as the core of the project.
Knucklebones is a collection of all-new material produced by Paul and Fiona, and while the guts of the project is the work of the pair, there’s a cast of New Zealand music’s heavy-hitters including: Matthias Jordan of Pluto on keys, Nick Atkinson of Supergroove on sax, drumming legend Chris O’Connor on drums, Mark Hughes on bass and even a cameo appearance from legendary Auckland busker Luke Hurley on guitar.
Guitarist Chris van de Geer and bassist Joost Langeveld are also back; as players, producers and label owners at Bigpop, with the album being recorded in their Auckland studios. “It’s so cool to work with these guys again” says Casserly, “they live and breathe music. They’re kinda the godfathers.”
Strawpeople originally formed in the late 1980s when Paul Casserly and Mark Tierney met at student radio station 95bFM. Also there at the time was Fiona McDonald who went on to become part of the Strawpeople history.
Paul and Fiona had the idea to collaborate again during a combined 50th birthday celebration and the result is something she feels proud of: “I called Paul when we got the master back, and said, good job us.” For her, working with Casserly again was “a rare treat. Paul has always been my favourite writing partner. We usually agree on things and for some reason our outsized egos don’t seem to overlap.”
At the heart of Knucklebones is that familiar Strawpeople combo of sampled beats, bass, guitar, keys and more than anything, the voice of Fiona McDonald.
Knucklebones is now streaming on music platforms,
and there’s a limited vinyl run available from all good record stores.
Official website: www.strawpeople.co.nz
KNUCKLEBONES TRACK LISTING
1. Second Heart
2. Watch You Sleep
3. Baby It’s You
4. Love Diktat
5. The Sleepwalker
6. Paper Cuts
7. Knucklebones
8. Busker
9. Forgot to Forget
Produced by Paul Casserly and Fiona McDonald with Chris van de Geer, Joost Langeveld, Luke Berryman and Jacob Rush.
Second Heart, from the album Knucklebones, featuring Matthias Jordan on keys, Chris van de Geer on guitar, Chris O’Connor on drums.
ABOUT STRAWPEOPLE:
Strawpeople formed when Paul Casserly and Mark Tierney met at student radio station 95bFM in the late 1980s with the station’s production studio and its 8 Track Tascam recorder becoming the hub of the operation.
Together, Paul and Mark released three albums, starting in 1990, Hemisphere, Worldservice and Broadcast, the latter going on to platinum sales and containing the iconic songs Sweet Disorder and Trick With A Knife. But by the time Sweet Disorder won the APRA Silver Scroll award in 1995 the partnership had run its course with Mark moving overseas.
Greg Johnson and Fiona McDonald who were also part of 95bFM and had featured on Broadcast, becoming part of the next phase of the Strawpeople story, resulting in album Vicarious. Fiona stepped up as main collaborator and singer and Victoria Kelly’s string arrangements elevated the songs (she also wrote the track Porcelain). It was named Album of The Year at the NZ Music Awards in 1996 with the song Taller Than God charting. A remix album followed in 1997 called 100 Street Transistors.
In 2000 Paul returned to working with a range of singers and collaborators with a new album No New Messages. Bic Runga stepped in with a cover of The Cars song Drive. Victoria Kelly lent her considerable skills again and Leza Corban delivered the goods yet again with Scared of Flying, a reworking of a song by Greg Johnson.
2004 brought another album, Count Backwards From Ten. Another impressive group of vocalists joined the party including Pearl Runga, (No One Like You which was co-written by her sister Boh) Jordan Reyne, the late great Mahinarangi Tocker and Fiona McDonald, who returned with two songs.
In 2017 after a long hiatus, Paul and Fiona started working on new songs, resulting in the new album Knucklebones, releasing Friday 4 August, 2023.
strawpeople.co.nz/
STRAWPEOPLE DISCOGRAPHY:
Hemisphere (1991)
Worldservice (1992)
Broadcast (1994)
Vicarious (1996)
100 Street Transistors (1997)
No New Messages (2000)
Count Backwards From Ten (2004)
Knucklebones (2023)
Fonterra CEO Miles Hurrell says the revised forecast Farmgate Milk Price range reflects ongoing reduced import demand for whole milk powder from Greater China.
“When we announced our opening 2023/24 season forecast Farmgate Milk Price in May, we noted it reflected an expectation that China’s import demand for whole milk powder would lift over the medium-term.
“Since then, overall Global Dairy Trade (GDT) whole milk powder prices have fallen by 12%, and China’s share of whole milk powder volumes on GDT events has tracked below average levels.
“This reflects a current surplus of fresh milk in China, resulting in elevated levels of local production of whole milk powder, and reducing near-term whole milk powder import requirements.
“The medium to long term outlook for dairy, in particular New Zealand dairy, looks positive with milk production from key exporting regions flat compared to last year,” says Mr Hurrell.
Source: Department of Conservation
Date: 04 August 2023
This decision comes after the poisoning of approximately large 50 eucalyptus trees in the area, posing potential risks to the public with falling debris.
DOC’s Operations Manager Pēwhairangi/Bay of Islands Bronwyn Bauer-Hunt says: “Our top priority is the safety of everyone who visits this stunning reserve. Weare closing the affected section of the track immediately while we assess and plan our next steps.”
DOC staff are exploring various options in collaboration with hapū, Heritage New Zealand, and other stakeholders.
The proposed alternatives being considered involve felling the trees and removing them, felling them and managing the debris, or potentially letting the trees naturally fall – although this latter option is unlikely.
“We remain open to all possibilities at this stage, and transparency and consultation with our valued partners will be at the core of our decision-making,” says Bronwyn.
“We aren’t ruling anything out at this stage and our priority is to close the track to protect visitors to the area. The track area that will be closed will have minimal impact on visitors to the area with an alternate route available to loop people around the trees.”
DOC staff have identified a person of interest who is assisting them with enquiries into the matter.
Source: University of Waikato
Assuring resiliency in our built environment and safeguarding people and their homes is essential as the recent devastating impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle show.
Two projects at the University of Waikato have been awarded funding for work to reduce the exposure and vulnerability of homes to natural hazards.
Senior Lecturer in Climate Change Dr Luke Harrington, and a separate team led by Professor of Environmental Planning Dr Iain White and Senior Lecturer in Environmental Planning Dr Xinyu Fu, have been awarded Earthquake Commission (EQC) funding under the Toka Tū Ake EQC University Research Programme 2024.
Understanding how homeowners perceive and manage risk around extreme rainfall and flooding
When buying a home many of us look to past extreme events to see if a location is ‘safe’. But Dr Luke Harrington says that in a changing climate with rainfall intensification, this is going to be an increasingly poor way to perceive risk and prepare for future risk.
“We tend to consider the upper limits of recent floods as a proxy for the worst-case scenario. But our world is changing so future scenarios could be much worse.”
Dr Harrington’s research will look at people’s recent memories around extreme events, and historic rainfall data and past extreme events nationwide. This will be used to model plausible, record-shattering rainfall events that could occur over the next several decades at different locations.
“We want to ensure that homeowners and decision makers continue to build resilience based on evidence rather than thinking biased by recent disasters (or particularly a lack thereof).”
It is anticipated that the end data could be included in the EQC risk portal.
Dr Harrington will also collaborate with stakeholders to see how the information can be developed into storytelling scenarios to support and better prepare people.
“This project represents a crucial step towards building community resilience in a rapidly warming climate.”
Including land use policy and development practice to model future hazard risk
Hazard mitigation research focuses on understanding how hazards, such as flooding, may change over decades. But current methods fail to consider that urban development and the way we use land will look different in the future.
However, new research by the University of Waikato, will ensure we are better equipped for the future by applying property development practice, and regulation decisions to future hazard risk models.
A team made up of Professor Iain White, Dr Xinyu Fu, Dr Silvia Serrao-Neumann, Dr Sandi Ringham and Dr Rob Bell say this research fills an important gap and will provide a more complete understanding of how regulation and land development practice can impact risk exposure over long timeframes.
“There’s a pressing need for innovation in how we understand and model future residential growth to better link it to future hazards. Understanding the effects of different policies on future risk means we can make smarter decisions on where and how cities grow,” said Professor White.
The researchers will engage directly with the people and agencies concerned with urban development, to understand why they build the kinds of things they do where they do, and importantly, how policy changes affect their decision making.
The findings will be used to create a modelling tool to enable the simulation of different future residential land-use patterns under different hazard scenarios.
It will be of interest to a range of stakeholders including iwi, central government, insurers and property developers.
Source: New Zealand Police (District News)
Attributable to Inspector Will Loughrin, Waikato Police:
Waikato Police have received a number of tips from the public following yesterday’s appeal for sightings of a ute linked to missing man Tom Phillips.
One of these was a sighting of Tom himself at Bunnings South on Kahikatea Drive, early in the afternoon on Wednesday.
The stolen 2003 bronze-coloured Toyota Hilux flat-deck ute believed to have been driven by Tom was seen in Pokuru near Te Awamutu, in Te Rapa, and in Kawhia on three separate occasions on Wednesday.
Tom has also been disguising his appearance, such as in the attached photograph of him at Bunnings in Te Rapa, wearing a face mask.
Police continue to urge the public to report sightings of this vehicle, as it is the best chance we have to locate Tom and his three children and ensure their welfare.
We are following up on information received.
We are also appealing directly to those in the community who may be helping Tom and the children, to do the right thing and come forward.
Anyone who may have seen the Toyota ute anywhere in the Waikato area over the last few days is asked to please come forward to Police on 111, referencing file number 211218/5611.
ENDS
Issued by the Police Media Centre
Source: New Zealand Government
Morena tatou katoa,
Koutou kua tae ā kanohi mai, ā ipurangi mai,
Ki te whakatūwhera tēnei kaupapa matua,
E hāngai ana ki te haumarutanga o Aotearoa,
Tena tatou katoa.
Members of Parliament, Diplomatic Excellencies, industry and NGO representatives, public sector leaders and officials, distinguished guests, our MC, LT COL Glenn King, and the catering and security staff, welcome to you all.
In 2023 we do not live in a benign strategic environment.
Aotearoa New Zealand is facing more geostrategic challenges than we have had in decades – climate change, terrorism, cyberattacks, transnational crime, mis and disinformation, and competition in our region which, up until recently, we thought was protected by its remoteness.
The changes in the domestic and international security environment mean our response and preparedness must change too.
We need the strategies and the capabilities to respond.
We need cohesive societies where facts, reason and tolerance unite us.
And how New Zealand responds to the challenges must be proportionate, predictable, and avoid unnecessary securitisation.
Because we Kiwis stand for a peaceful world for all people.
It’s what we owe to our children, and our grandchildren.
New Zealanders deserve to live forever in a free liberal democracy, with a stable climate, and personal safety, underwritten by a rules-based international order that provides for travel, trade, and making the most of what the world has to offer.
This means we must be prepared to equip ourselves with trained personnel, assets and materiel, and appropriate international relationships in order to protect our own defence and national security.
And we are.
This government has increased military and intelligence spending in order to modernise our capabilities across land, sea and air. We have our most precious assets, our people, deployed to hot spots around the world.
But defence procurement and sustainment for contingency are decades-long projects. It’s just not possible to buy reliable capability in an emergency.
These emerging threats do not require an entirely new foreign policy response. Our independent position, coupled with targeted investments and strengthened ties with partners and allies puts us in a strong position to face the future.
A year ago we commissioned the Defence Policy Review, to provide a roadmap for the future of Defence as part of the national security of New Zealand, and to do so in the context of the rapidly changing conditions we see around us.
One of the first actions the Chris Hipkins government took was to speed up work on that review.
The Prime Minister added Defence to my existing responsibilities overseeing the intelligence agencies, and coordinating the response to the terrorist attack on the Christchurch mosques, because he wanted to ensure the review made the most of the insights available from across out national security system. This is what I have done.
Today we are releasing two documents as part of the Defence Policy Review.
DEFENCE POLICY STRATEGY STATEMENT
The first is the Defence Policy Strategy Statement.
The Strategy Statement assesses the world as it is now, from a Defence perspective, and identifies the principal challenges: climate change and strategic competition.
And it lays out strategy, goals and options for how we can respond to these challenges in pursuit of:
We will do that by acting early and deliberately in pursuing and protecting our defence interests, particularly in – and for – the Pacific.
We will strengthen understanding in and of our region, including by amplifying Pacific voices in the world.
We will enhance our many partnerships, particularly with our sole formal military ally, Australia, and the Pacific Islands Countries who are more family than just neighbours.
And we will improve the effectiveness of our combat and other military capabilities, including Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief.
Because we have a proudly independent foreign policy we will pursue our interests in our own Kiwi way. The Strategy Statement is underpinned by four principles that represent some of the core of what it means to be a New Zealander:
FUTURE FORCE DESIGN PRINCIPLES
The second document we are releasing today is the Future Force Design Principles.
This is a guide for future investment planning out over the next 15 years.
The FFDP lays out 11 guiding principles that need to be considered when deciding what Defence capability is needed when making investment decisions, to be applied with varying degrees of priority.
These principles include the extent of our combat capability, our resilience in the face of changing circumstances, our ability to expand or reduce our capacity, the strength and nature of our partnerships, and our embrace of leading-edge technology.
The FFPD is a bridge between the Strategy Statement and a future Defence Capability Plan. That Capability Plan is where decisions on the next range of investments will be considered.
NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY
Defence is a fundamental part of New Zealand’s national security system, however is but one of many parts.
I am releasing today New Zealand’s first National Security Strategy, Secure Together – Tō Tātou Korowai Manaaki.
This strategy is the government’s direction to the whole national security community on how to navigate the dynamic security environment – an environment where are threats, but also many opportunities.
It fulfils the intent of many of the findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on the Christchurch Mosques, and meets New Zealand’s commitment under the Boe Declaration for all Pacific Island Forum members to develop their own national security strategies and help foster a more transparent and secure region.
At its heart the National Security Strategy is a whole-of-society vision for a secure and resilient New Zealand.
It commits us to acting early, working together, and having an integrated approach across:
These themes are the updated National Security and Intelligence Priorities. When we came to government the priorities for the national security system were highly classified. If the public didn’t even know what the priorities were, then how could they have their say or contribute to improving the security of country?
There was nothing at all good about the events of the 15th of March 2019 and the 3rd of September 2021. However those horrific events were the start of more mature national conversation about national security.
That’s a conversation that in my view – and in the Prime Minister’s view – was long overdue.
Because matters of national security are meaty and complex. They are of fundamental importance.
But safeguarding our national security cannot be left to government alone.
We are all responsible for the security of our New Zealand, of our partners, our friends, and this planet that we all share.
Today Kiwis want to know more about the national security challenges we face, and crucially they want to be part of the discussion about how we can address them.
And we all do need be engaged in the conversation about our national security and the threats to it.
Because it is how New Zealand respond to threats – to terrorist attacks, to the changing geostrategic environment, to technological change, to mis and disinformation, to the climate crisis, and more – that will ensure our country continues be admired in the world.
New Zealanders are known for our values of peace, tolerance, freedom, human rights, and fairness for everyone.
We are respected for our proven independence, our trustworthiness, and the fact we put our money where our mouth is by investing in capabilities to protect ourselves and our partners, and participating in disaster relief and peacekeeping around the world.
And we are also respected for having the guts to speak up honestly and with cool heads when it is in our interests to do so – because we deal with the world as it is, even as we strive for better.
The first National Security Strategy is an important milestone in that national conversation. It is consistent with the two Defence documents I have also released today. It is a clear statement of our principles and commitments to the world, and a guide for where will go next as a proud, independent, peace-loving Pacific country that aspires for our people to one day be able to say that they again live in a benign strategic environment.
Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou koutoa.
More information about the announcement is available here.
Source: New Zealand Government
The Government has released the first two documents of the Defence Policy Review and New Zealand’s first National Security Strategy.
“The world today is contending with a range of complex and disruptive security challenges,” Prime Minister and Minister for National Security and Intelligence Chris Hipkins said.
“In recent years our country has experienced terrorist attacks, growing disinformation, and cyber-attacks on critical national infrastructure.
“The domestic and international security environment has changed and our preparedness needs to change too – to be clear-eyed on risks and to put in place the right capabilities to be effective.
“The earlier we act, the more secure New Zealand will be for our children and grandchildren.
“As we scan the international horizon, we need to keep our eyes wide open to the emerging issues and threats to New Zealand and our interests.
“These emerging threats do not require an entirely new foreign policy response. Our independent position, coupled with targeted investments and strengthened ties with partners and allies puts us in a strong position to face the future.
“These plans represent an important step in how we are protecting our national security and advancing our national interests in a more contested and more difficult world,” Chris Hipkins said.
The Defence Policy Strategy Statement sets out New Zealand’s Defence goals and how we seek to achieve them, now and into the future.
The Future Forces Design Principles is a bridge between the new Defence strategy and the options for the investment required to deliver it. It will be the basis for a new Defence Capability Plan.
The National Security Strategy, Secure Together – Tō Tātou Korowai Manaaki, is the government’s direction to the wider national security community on how to navigate the changed environment. The updated 2023 National Security and Intelligence Priorities align with the Strategy.
“We take the world as it is, not how we would like it to be. It is essential to respond appropriately to the full range of national security threats to New Zealand and our interests,” Defence Minister Andrew Little said.
“That is what forms the assessments and strategies in the documents released today, all of which are tightly aligned and interdependent.
“We are investing to modernise our capabilities across land, sea and air, and are strengthening our relationships with friends and partners in the Pacific and beyond.
“As we work to safeguard our national security we will be proportionate, predictable and avoid unnecessary securitisation,” Andrew Little said.
This set of documents outline where the Government will be focusing its national security efforts, including:
Work will now commence on a new Defence Capability Plan which will outline what resources, people and capability, are required to meet the challenges ahead.
The updated National Security and Intelligence Priorities are:
Minister Little’s speech to launch this event is available here.