Category Archives: New Zealand

New Zealand is losing bee colonies by the thousands, with an expert beekeeper warning bees may soon become endangered without human intervention.

The latest figures released by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) show New Zealand has lost over 90,000 bee colonies over the last two winter seasons.

Varroa mite infestation and toxic exposures are among the list as suspected causes.

Jessie Whitfield, founder of organisation Bees Up Top, spends most of her spring and summer rescuing hundreds of swarms of bees from exterminators, and reinstalling the hives on the rooftops and in the backyards of families and businesses around Auckland.

READ MORE:* Too many bees in Marlborough causes colony losses* No regional development cash to breed the 'perfect' varroa-resistant honey bee* Middle South Island bees suffer New Zealand's highest rate of colony loss* Wild bees set to save our honey industry from varroa mite but they need your help

She manages the hives, extracts the honey, and then delivers it in labelled jars.

She said bees were struggling to survive without the help of humans any more, due to Varroa mite parasites and the American Foul Brood (AFB) a fatal bacterial disease for honey bees.

Every year, a hive has to be treated two times with a special medicine to fight parasites and diseases. Bees left in the trunks of trees or in the wild will eventually die, Whitfield told Stuff.

Supplied/Joel McDowell

All spring and summer, Bees Up Top rescue swarms of bees that land in back gardens.

According to information on the MPI website, antibiotics used to manage common diseases for honey bee colonies such as AFB overseas, have developed resistance over time. But the use of antibiotics on hives is illegal in New Zealand.

Detective dogs have previously been used to sniff out bacteria in its early stages, and in 2020 MPI invested $50,000 into a project aimed at helping train detection dogs to reliably detect AFB, by creating a scent picture of the disease.

But if New Zealand keeps losing bee colonies at the current rate, the fashion, dairy, and meat industry, will be severely impacted, Whitfield said.

Bees pollinate cotton plants and flowers such as the clover and alfalfa and these are the types of things that cows and sheep are eating. It could really influence the way we dress and our dairy and meat industry if we keep losing bees.

Supplied/Joel McDowell

Jessie Whitfield rehoming a swam of rescue bees on to a rooftop.

They also pollinate one third of the world's food, which is basically every fruit and vegetable that has a seed and a pip. Without bees, we would be living on wind pollinated food such as grains and rice. They [bees] give humans a healthy diet.

The Ministry for Primary Industries has released a handbook offering practical guidance on how to plant strategically to feed bees, in an effort to ensure a wide range of flowering plants in spring and autumn, when bees are most at risk of pollen and nectar shortages.

Dr Angus McPherson, Trees for Bees farm planting adviser and trustee, said in a statement released by MPI, that bees all around the world are facing a number of threats, including pests, disease and pesticides.

The best weapon against these threats is to provide our bees with a steady supply of forage to help them stay healthy and strong, he said.

Steve Penno, MPIs director of investment programmes, said planting essential bee forage as part of farm management would ensure a viable and sustainable future for Aotearoa's bees, beekeepers, and farmers.

"Honeybee health is crucial because bees are the foundation of agricultural production in the New Zealand economy."

Originally posted here:

New Zealand bees may soon become endangered due to pest threat, expert warns - Stuff.co.nz

There were 28 new cases of COVID-19 in the community on Thursday.Video / Dean Purcell / Jed Bradley / Michael Craig / Getty

OPINION:

The chances of the Prime Minister's wedding going ahead are falling, but not because the groom reportedly tried to persuade a pharmacist to give his music-industry mates a rapid Covid-19 test they weren't eligible for.

The real threat to the nuptials is the Government's Covid policy now effectively being "let it rip".

This is denied, just as the Government denied in September it was moving from elimination to suppression. Watch for Jacinda Ardern to "utterly reject" she is comfortable with let it rip while her more fanatical online supporters viciously attack anyone who says otherwise.

Yet yesterday, ahead of Monday's first prime-ministerial announcements of 2022, Beehive strategists were ruling out either a further tightening of border settings or abandoning the traffic light system and returning to alert levels, except under the most extreme circumstances.

That's despite professors Michael Baker and Peter Davis arguing publicly we must immediately "turn down the tap" of overseas arrivals to avoid the imminent arrival of the highly contagious Omicron.

They and others are alarmed about the number of cases being caught at the border. In the week before the August 17 lockdown, just 35 border cases were discovered. In the last week, 208 were found, six times as many. Beehive strategists accept it is just a matter of time before an Omicron case is missed and creeps through. It could be today.

When that happens, Baker says the traffic light system isn't fit to handle Omicron, having not been designed for outbreaks. It's hard to disagree.

Anyone holidaying in Northland knows red involves very few restrictions in practice, with life indistinguishable from orange in the rest of New Zealand. Despite fears the police and Hone Harawira's Tai Tokerau Border Control would cause gridlock at the Auckland-Northland border, there is no sign it exists at all.

In Baker's view, the traffic lights should immediately be abandoned in favour of a tweaked level system.

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Davis, who is also former Prime Minister Helen Clark's husband, is even tougher. He says the New Zealand authorities "may have all but 'thrown in the towel' on preventing a community (and inevitably nationwide) outbreak of this particular variant of Covid in the immediate future".

The Beehive is unmoved. It says Monday's announcements are unlikely to include any tightening of the border, perhaps because it expects the High Court to rule that existing restrictions on New Zealand citizens already violate the Bill of Rights Act when the Grounded Kiwis case is heard in two weeks.

Despite Baker's concerns about the traffic lights, the Government says that along with high vaccination rates the system offers good protection through "public health measures such as social distancing, good hygiene, mask-wearing, gathering limits where necessary, and testing and isolating cases", while allowing everyone else to go about their daily lives and businesses to stay open.

It says the Government stands by the Omicron plan Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins announced on December 21, which confirmed the traffic lights to manage Omicron, with only areas in which it is discovered moving to red.

Even those local moves are uncertain. Although conceding Omicron will spread fast when it inevitably arrives, Hipkins said only that the Government "may" use red lights to slow it down.

The Government, he said, does not intend to use lockdowns unless the health system comes under considerable strain. "Even then," he said, "the strong preference is for the lockdown to be highly targeted."

Beehive strategists say Monday's announcements are likely to signal an aggressive campaign to encourage all eligible people to get a booster shot, and a gentler paediatrician-led vaccination campaign targeted at the parents of 5- to 11-year-olds. The Prime Minister will confirm that the already non-existent Auckland-Northland border has gone.

Business may welcome the Government's commitment that the international border will remain at least as open as it is now and that even local lockdowns are an absolute last resort. But that means businesses also need to start planning for major workforce and supply-chain disruptions within weeks.

Beehive strategists say New Zealand's existing public health measures and compliance are superior to those in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland or South Australia, so that comparisons with what is happening across the Tasman aren't valid.

But even in the best performing of those states, South Australia, more than 1000 new cases have been reported every day since late December and there are now 190 people in hospital out of its population of just 1.8 million, including 27 in ICU. That's the equivalent of over 3000 new cases every day in New Zealand, with well over 500 people in hospital and nearly 80 in ICU.

Those numbers are five or six times higher than we experienced at Delta's peak in November. If we follow New South Wales' experience, we'd currently have around 210,000 active cases, including 1500 in hospital, 115 in ICU and 40 on ventilators. Ardern passively waiting for this is a let-it-rip strategy.

For business, it's short-term case numbers that matter most. While perhaps only half of positive cases will experience symptoms, all are required to isolate.

Worse from a human-resources and supply-chain perspective, everyone else in their household must also remain home. Once the positive case has been released from isolation, the remaining household members must isolate for a further 10 days, meaning they will be isolated even longer than the original positive case.

This may sound no worse for business than what happened during lockdown. But that ignores that half a million essential workers kept going to work under the old level 4. Under level 3, it was 1.2 million, nearly half the workforce. This time, those essential workers won't be going to work, either because they are sick, test positive despite being asymptomatic, or live with someone who is.

While no one will starve, this has already disrupted food distribution in Australia, including basics like bread, milk and meat. People unable to work will include doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, so that most non-Covid health services will be suspended.

It will include teachers, despite schools being scheduled to open in a little over two weeks. Your children's plan to return to school is as at risk as the Prime Minister's big bash.

University summer school will be disrupted, as well as the start of semester one.

It's amazing the Beehive remains so sanguine. Family occasions, non-urgent healthcare, education and businesses are at immediate risk.

See the original post:

Matthew Hooton: Govt's stance on Omicron should have NZ worried - New Zealand Herald

Since 2015 there have been more than 250 reported incidents of contraband being lobbed over prison gates.

In the 2020/21 financial year there were more than 6700 incidents where contraband was found in New Zealand prisons. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon

Known as a 'throwover', it is just one of the ways people try to smuggle contraband into New Zealand prisons.

Corrections chief custodial officer Neil Beales said the packages could contain a variety of items.

"Those are likely, more than likely to have been drug related, sometimes it will be a cellphone also a popular item," Beales said.

"Sometimes it will be tobacco. Now tobacco is freely available outside of prison but inside prison it's a contraband item."

Beales said staff were rising to the challenge of catching prohibited goods.

In the 2020/21 financial year there were more than 6700 incidents where contraband was found in New Zealand prisons, he said.

That was down from 2019/20 year where about 7300 incidents.

It was a drop Beales attributed to lockdown, when visitors were unable to enter prison.

He issued a warning to anyone wanting to smuggle items behind the wires.

"You will be caught and where we're able to do so, we will prosecute you as well. Do not try and get drugs in to our prisons."

Beales said when he was an officer in the United Kingdom people would often throw dead birds stuffed with items over prison walls.

He had also seen tennis balls and people trying to fly things in with kites.

"Nowadays we have the introduction of drones. That's raised the risks of contraband coming over our fences incredibly."

Beales said a lot of what Corrections saw was incredibly sad, with some concealing drugs in the nappies of babies.

People were often pressured to bring drugs into prison, placing huge stress on them and their families.

"Contraband to me ... it's one of the things we need to keep fighting against."

Read more from the original source:

Drop in amount of contraband found in New Zealand prisons - RNZ

More than 10 kilograms of cocaine, believed to be linked to a syndicate allegedly importing millions of the drug from Colombia to rural Canterbury, has been seized.

Police arrested nine people, including five farmworkers, in November as part of Operation Mist, a 10-month investigation that saw officials seize 50 kilograms of cocaine in New Zealand and overseas. It is believed to be one of the countrys largest cocaine busts.

As part of the operation, Spanish police found 24kg of cocaine bound for New Zealand concealed in a container in a truck in Barcelona.

Detective Inspector Darryl Sweeney, the National Organised Crime Groups South Island investigations manager, told Stuff more than 10kgs of cocaine arrived in New Zealand before Christmas, and after the arrests.

READ MORE:* Group accused of involvement in Colombia-linked drug ring deny charges* More defendants named in alleged cocaine trafficking case* Colombian cocaine syndicate allegedly staffed by steady farmworkers in New Zealand* Six more people appear in court in relation to major cocaine bust

The cocaine, detected and seized by Customs, was in similar concealment methods allegedly used by the syndicate.

NEW ZEALAND POLICE/Supplied

Twenty-four kilograms of cocaine was allegedly found concealed in a truck in Spain destined for New Zealand.

We believe it was dispatched just prior to termination [of Operation Mist], Sweeney said.

This week we have been making inquiries with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Colombia to further our investigations in this case. Charges will follow.

Seven of the nine people arrested as part of Operation Mist have denied the charges and elected trial by jury.

All those charged are expected to appear at a Crown case review hearing on February 24, but the two who have not entered pleas will be expected to do so at Christchurch District Court appearances in January.

Do you know more? Email sam.sherwood@stuff.co.nz

Two of the defendants have been granted continued interim name suppression, but hearings on that issue will be held on February 24 or a date will then be set when the Crown and defence can present their arguments.

NEW ZEALAND POLICE/Supplied

Police have seized 50kg of cocaine in what is thought to be one of New Zealands biggest drugs busts.

The National Organised Crime Group (NOCG) and Customs operation has laid more than 60 charges against the nine arrested so far. Further arrests are expected. Of the nine arrested, seven were Colombian nationals and one was Argentinian.

The charges against the nine allege the group laundered more than $600,000, mainly in the United States. Police also seized about $300,000 in cash, a quantity of cocaine, and cryptocurrency wallets in the New Zealand raids.

Organised Crime Group director Detective Superintendent Greg Williams and New Zealand Customs intelligence service manager Bruce Berry earlier said police believed the group were operating in New Zealand for about two years.

NEW ZEALAND POLICE/Supplied

Thousands of dollars in cash was seized as part of the operation.

Williams said transnational organised crime groups were specifically targeting New Zealand, because we pay some of the highest wholesale and retail prices for drugs in the world, generating huge profits for them.

To maximise these profits, these groups are inserting their own people into New Zealand who set up importing pathways, distribute to local gangs, and move the money out of New Zealand as quickly as they can.

Since 2017, NOCG, police, Customs and overseas police agencies had dismantled 23 Transnational Organised Crime Group Cells (TNOC cells).

The joint investigation involved nearly 70 New Zealand police and Customs staff from several workgroups. The DEA, Colombian police, Spanish Customs service, and Cook Island Customs service were also involved.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/Stuff

Detective Superintendent Greg Williams and New Zealand Customs intelligence service manager Bruce Berry said police believed the group were operating in New Zealand for about two years.

Four of those charged have been remanded in custody, and five are on bail.

The full list of those charged after the police busts is:

Ruth Yanid Ramirez Alfonso, aged 38, a dairy worker, ischarged with participating in an organised criminal group involved in importing the class A drug methamphetamine and six charges of importing or attempting to import cocaine. The charges against her allege offending over four years from January 1, 2018. Remanded on bail after pleading not guilty and electing trial by jury.

Rene Bell, a 44-year-old Christchurch man, whose occupation is listed as licensee, faces one charge of allegedly money laundering $200,500 jointly with others on September 16, 2021. He is awaiting disclosure of the Crowns documents, and has delayed entering a plea. He was remanded on continued bail to January 18 for the plea to be entered.

Patrick Chand appeared by video link from Auckland to enter not guilty pleas and elect jury trial. He denies one charge of possession of cocaine for supply. He was remanded on bail to the Crown case review hearing.

Anderson Pelaez Garcia, a 28-year-old man from Southbridge, faces 10 charges. The charges include participating in an organised criminal group, five charges of importing cocaine and four charges of attempting to import cocaine. He denied all charges and elected trial by jury. He was remanded in custody to the case review.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/Stuff

Drugs were hidden inside various items, and the operation uncovered large quantities of cash.

Esteban Blanco Gaviria, 34-year-old dairy worker from Pendarves, is charged with being a member of an organised criminal group involved with importing the class A drug. He is charged with conspiring with persons unknown in Colombia to import cocaine, seven charges of importing or attempting to import the drug, and four counts of money laundering. The alleged offending happened over much of this year, and the organised criminal group charge alleges involvement over four years. The money laundering offences, totalling $605,000, are said to have happened in Christchurch, Rolleston, and Auckland. He pleaded not guilty and elected jury trial, and was remanded in custody.

Felipe Montoya-Ospina, a 34-year-old man from Hororata, faces eight charges. The charges include allegedly participating in an organised criminal group, four charges of attempting to import cocaine, one charge of importing cocaine and two charges of supplying cocaine. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and elected trial by jury at this first appearance. He remains in custody.

Maria Otero, a 30-year-old Rakaia woman, is charged with participating in an organised criminal group and one charge of attempting to import cocaine. She has denied both charges and is remanded on bail to the case review hearing.

A 24-year-old man from Hororata, who has continued interim suppression, faces 22 charges. The charges include participating in an organised criminal group between January 1, 2018, and November 10, 2021. He also faces seven charges of allegedly importing cocaine into New Zealand, seven charges of attempting to import cocaine, three charges of supplying cocaine and four money laundering charges totalling more than $600,000. Some offences were allegedly jointly committed with others. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and elected jury trial. He was remanded in custody.

A 29-year-old bar manager from Christchurch faces one charge of money laundering $10,000. He was remanded on bail to the case review hearing on February 24 with continued name suppression. A suppression hearing is then likely to be scheduled. He has been remanded to January 18 to enter his pleas.

Read the original post:

10kgs of cocaine, believed to be linked to Colombian syndicate, seized - Stuff.co.nz

Business

14 Jan, 2022 06:47 PM3 minutes to read

By RNZ

Low-deposit lending restrictions and other lending law changes are locking prospective homeowners out of finance they would have qualified for weeks ago, financial advisers say.

The proportion of home loan applications that result in loans has fallen from 36 per cent to 30 per cent since the start of December, according to data from credit reporting agency Centrix.

Centrix estimated the lending slowdown amounted to almost $2 billion, with home loans dropping from an average of 30,000 per month to 23,000.

Financial Advice New Zealand chief executive Katrina Shanks said the changes were supposed to protect vulnerable borrowers from unscrupulous lenders, but had unintended consequences, putting would-be borrowers at a big financial disadvantage.

She said a survey of mortgage advisers identified a significant reduction in pre-approvals not being renewed and cuts to lending levels because of the new requirements of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA).

"Within two days we had 300 stories of clients who had not been able to obtain a mortgage or it had been more difficult, or had been reduced, or declined altogether," she said.

"The issue with the CCCFA is that it's a very wide net that's captured all New Zealanders, not just those who are vulnerable. It's made the affordability test so hard now that the average New Zealander who was not vulnerable cannot obtain the credit they could previously."

In some cases, Shanks said banks were refusing loan applications or drastically cutting the amount they would lend because people were spending too much on takeaway food and coffees.

Centrix managing director Keith McLaughlin said there had been a dramatic drop in the number of loans since the CCCFA came into effect on December 1.

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"The early signs are that the market is struggling with managing the new CCCFA legislation," he said.

"It's causing a delay in the processing of applications, it's increasing the cost, it's increasing the disclosure that's required by the borrower and ultimately those costs will be passed on to the borrower."

Shanks has written to Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark asking for a review of the legislative changes.

Act leader David Seymour has called for an inquiry, while chief executive of mortgage brokers Squirrel, John Bolton, has started a petition to Parliament because he believes the legislation could make many borrowers turn to lenders of last resort.

Credit reporting company Equifax separately found consumer credit demand plummeted by more than 30 per cent in the three months to December, while demand for home loans dropped by 35 per cent when compared to the same quarter in 2020.

Equifax New Zealand's managing director Angus Luffman said the plunge was predominantly caused by lockdowns.

"Extended lockdowns in Auckland have impacted demand leading to big declines across all major retail credit products," he said.

"The percentage falls are exacerbated by the huge volume of home loan enquiries recorded in the December 2020 quarter. Demand reached fever pitch during this period, so it's important to factor into the equation."

- RNZ

Read more here:

New lending restrictions lock prospective homeowners out of the market - New Zealand Herald

WELLINGTON, New Zealand On the windswept coast of Chatham Island, about 500 miles east of mainland New Zealand, stands a statue of a thick-jowled, cheerful man, his gaze fixed on the endless sea stretched before him.

The memorial honors Tommy Solomon, who for decades has been mythologized as the last full-blooded member of the Moriori people, the native Polynesian inhabitants of the island. Today, many New Zealanders remember Mr. Solomon, who died in 1933, as the last survivor of a culture that drifted into extinction.

Except it hadnt.

After Mr. Solomons death, a few hundred people with at least partial Moriori heritage remained. Over the decades that followed, they survived cultural marginalization in a country where children were taught in school that Moriori were inferior to the dominant Indigenous group, the Maori. And now they are fighting to establish themselves in the national consciousness as a thriving native people.

A milestone came late last year when New Zealands Parliament approved a settlement over historical injustices suffered by the Moriori. The government agreed to pay the group 18 million New Zealand dollars ($12.3 million), hand over a range of property and grant a degree of control over cultural sites important to the approximately 2,000 people who now identify as Moriori.

I never thought wed get here, to this stage, to see such praise, said Elaine Goomes, an elder who had traveled to Wellington, the capital, from Chatham Island, which is known as Rekohu among the Moriori. Its a new day.

The history of the Moriori is one of peaceful isolation and violent subjugation.

Their origins have been the subject of debate. According to the groups oral history, Moriori traveled directly from Polynesia to Chatham Island and its surrounding islets almost a millennium ago. Maori explorers, the Moriori legend holds, joined them only centuries later.

Some archaeologists, however, argue that the Moriori descended from successive groups of Maori who traveled to the Chatham Islands from the New Zealand mainland, perhaps around the year 1500.

What is not in dispute is that the Moriori developed a separate culture over their centuries of inhabiting the islands.

While some prominent Maori scholars have asserted that the Moriori language is a dialect of the Maori language, Moriori note that about 70 percent of the words in their language are different from their Maori counterparts.

Perhaps more important was the Moriori culture of pacifism. This tradition developed in part because of the small size of the Chatham Islands and the groups small population, which peaked at about 2,000 people in the 18th century. A belief known as Nunukus Law held that if Moriori used violence outside strictly limited circumstances, their bowels would rot.

That pacifism is central to the historical injustices that the Moriori suffered, which have been chronicled in books like Guns, Germs and Steel, by the geographer and historian Jared Diamond, and Cloud Atlas, by the novelist David Mitchell.

The Moriori held to the tradition when Europeans arrived on the islands in 1791, bringing with them diseases and pests, and again, after fierce debate, when two Maori tribes that had fled brutal conflict arrived in 1835. Despite being fed and welcomed by the Moriori, the two tribes sought to claim the islands.

Maui Solomon, a grandson of Tommy Solomon and the chief Moriori negotiator in the newly completed settlement talks with the government, describes what came next as a genocide. Upward of 300 people were killed, and the remainder were enslaved by the Maori. Many subsequently died, he said, from kongenge the Moriori word for illness arising from deep despair.

By 1870, just 100 Moriori remained. That year, a government court established to resolve property disputes awarded 97 percent of land on Chatham Island to one of the Maori tribes on the basis of its conquering of the Moriori.

Over the next century, myths sprang up regarding the Moriori. Ministry of Education publications promoted the now-debunked idea that the Moriori initially lived on New Zealands main islands and were pushed out by more advanced Maori. The story was used to justify Europeans colonization of Maori, portraying them as just one wave of settlers.

Michael King, New Zealands most prominent historian, who died in 2004, wrote that nobody in New Zealand and few elsewhere in the world has been subjected to group slander as intense and as damaging as that heaped upon the Moriori.

As a child, Maui Solomon said, he was told by his social studies teacher that a distinct Moriori culture was a fiction. A lot of our people turned their face away from their Moriori identity, because it was a source of pain and hurt and confusion, he said.

The raising of the Tommy Solomon statue marked the beginning of a small cultural renaissance. The Hokotehi Moriori Trust, the groups main representative body, has worked with musicians, writers and software designers to publish traditional songs and stories and produce a Moriori-language learning app.

Many Moriori hope the government settlement will reinforce that renaissance and help affirm their Indigenous identity alongside Maori, who make up 17 percent of New Zealands five million people. Andrew Little, the government minister in charge of treaty negotiations with Maori, said in Parliament that the settlement had started a journey of revival, reminding the rest of the world, including the rest of New Zealand, that the Moriori are a proud people.

The settlement took years to achieve in part because of legal challenges from the Maori tribe Ngati Mutunga, whose leadership continues to claim exclusive authority over Chatham Island and fears that amends to Moriori could affect its own settlement. About 700 people, with a mix of European and Indigenous ancestry, live on the Chatham Islands today.

The chair of Ngati Mutungas representative body did not respond to a request for an interview.

Maui Solomon said that while he wished the pact had gone further, the negotiating team and our people are satisfied weve done everything we can in this generation to get a settlement. We probably couldnt squeeze any more blood out of that reluctant government stone.

Rahiri Makuini Edwards-Hammond, a Moriori student who witnessed the final approval of the settlement in Parliament, said that it would bring long-awaited recognition.

We know who we are, we know what we went through, we know what our karapuna went through, she said, referring to Moriori ancestors. But more than anything, from my perspective, this is finally something that can be acknowledged by other Maori, by tauiwi non-Indigenous New Zealanders and by people around the world.

Read the rest here:

Revival for New Zealand's Moriori Nearly Pushed to Cultural Death - The New York Times

University of Auckland physics professor Shaun Hendy, whose work on Covid-19 scenario modelling has helped inform the New Zealand government's response to the pandemic.

Phil Walter | Getty Images

Two of New Zealand's top Covid-19 experts are taking legal action against their employer, the University of Auckland, over its response to the harassment the scientists have faced from the public amid the pandemic.

Shaun Hendy, a physics professor, and Siouxsie Wiles, an associate professor of medical science, filed separate claims with the Employment Relations Authority, against the vice chancellor of the University of Auckland.

Hendy and Wiles claimed their employer had "responded inadequately or not at all to their health and safety concerns" amid harassment from members of the public who "disliked or disapproved" of their commentary on the coronavirus.

According to a ruling dated Dec. 24, the Employment Relations Authority approved the pair's requests to move their claims up to New Zealand's Employment Court.

The ruling stated that Hendy and Wiles had "suffered vitriolic, unpleasant, and deeply personalised threats and harassment that has had a detrimental impact" on their physical safety and mental health. It also said the harassment they faced has not only continued but has been "getting worse and 'more extreme' in nature."

Hendy's work on Covid-19 scenario modeling has helped inform the New Zealand government's response to the pandemic. Meanwhile, Wiles was named the 'New Zealander of the Year' in 2021 for her prominent role in explaining the science of the coronavirus pandemic to the public and media.

The scientists said they are "expected" to provide public commentary as part of their employment. However, this is something that the vice chancellor denied, though acknowledged that they are "entitled to do so."

Hendy and Wiles started raising concerns about the harassment in April 2020. According to the ruling, they had suffered harassment via email, on social media and video sharing platforms, as well as in the form of in-person confrontations and threats of physical confrontations.

For example, the ruling detailed how Wiles had been the victim of "doxing," where someone's personal information is shared online. She had also received an "associated threat to physically confront her at her home."

In addition, Hendy was physically confronted in his office on the university campus by someone who threatened to "see him soon."

According to the ruling, Hendy, Wiles and another colleague were urged in a letter from the vice chancellor in August to keep their public commentary to a minimum. The letter also suggested that they take paid leave to enable them "to minimize any social media comments at present."

However, the vice chancellor denies instructing the scientists to minimize their public commentary, claiming it "merely advised the applicants that doing so is an option they may want to consider."

Hendy and Wiles aren't the only Covid experts to have been the subject of harassment amid the pandemic.

Chief White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has talked about receiving death threats, which have required him to be protected by federal agents.

See the rest here:

New Zealand Covid experts take legal action against employer over harassment from public - CNBC

Feature

From having a name the principal couldn't pronounce at school to hitting the shot to win the WTC - it's been some journey for Ross Taylor

When you're a half-Samoan kid from Masterton, life has some possibilities laid out for you, but other paths seem steep and narrow. This being a small town deep in rural New Zealand, there's always the chance paddocks could be in your future. If you were into sports, the region is better known - like many of this description are - for rugby.

So if you've got shoulders the size of a milking shed, your fast-twitch fibres are in good order, and you have height, there's gotta be a No. 8 jersey somewhere with your name on it, right? The principal at your primary school might have mangled your actual first name, Luteru, to the point where your mother just brought your one Anglicised given name to the front of the queue, but rugby announcers, even in the provinces, are by now well-versed with the Polynesian names on team rosters.

But there was always the matter of the bat hitting the ball like a fearsome peal of thunder, and in those moments, the prosaic stuff - who you are, where you're from - tend not to matter. And when you're hitting, no matter how withdrawn and affable you are, or how nervous you might feel, coaches, teammates, and opponents see a strut. Don't feed that rasping cut of his. Beware of those booming drives. And for the love of all that is holy, stay the hell away from those pads.

In international cricket, things are more complex. This is not a good New Zealand side that you are a part of. In fact, it is said, perhaps not uncharitably, that it is one of the worst. When in this context, you become captain, and hole out to deep midwicket playing that shot that is one of the foundations of your game, there are questions about responsibility. Or worse. On the global scale, New Zealand is a broad-minded and generous place. But even in New Zealand, athletes from certain ethnic backgrounds find themselves the subject of more cynical strains of criticism than others. You're never told you don't have the talent.

Still, life is not without its trials. You have a growth in your eye that comes on so gradually you don't notice you're not picking bowlers out of the hand under lights any more. The Test schedule for New Zealand goes cold just as your own form is running hot. And oh, just to drive the point home, you literally get hit in the balls - a missed reverse-sweep in the nets leaving your gonads in such a state they require surgery, the injury forcing you to miss matches.

If we're being critical, there is the matter of only briefly having threatened to push the Test average past 50 (although, if you play the majority of your innings on pitches where even normally unremarkable seamers can spit venom at any time of the day, these can feel like fantasy numbers). Could that conversion rate have been higher? We're nitpicking.

If you're that kid from Masterton, though, with the name the principal can't pronounce, you might look back and think that for all the publicly-played out travails, dramatic turns, and blows both physical and emotional, there could hardly have been a more gratifying road for you.

Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo's Sri Lanka correspondent. @afidelf

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Farewell to the kid from Masterton - ESPNcricinfo

The New Zealand Herald is bringing back some of the best premium stories of 2021. Today we take a look at the pandemic's impact on careers

Employers are already keenly aware that labour shortages in many sectors, exacerbated by border restrictions, have made it hard to recruit staff in many sectors.

Now research strongly suggests that bosses need to worry about retaining their current workers, too.

The latest instalment of AUT's Wellbeing@Work survey, which covers intentions to jump, should ring alarm bells for employers, says the academic behind the rolling survey of 1000 Kiwi workers.

Read how workers' intention to leave their current job has risen sharply during the pandemic.

I'm 40 years old and work in a very good paying job in a low-cost-of-living area of New Zealand. I paid off my mortgage last year and am now focusing on saving 50 per cent of my salary for retirement.

My plan was to save for five more years to get me to a total of $250,000 in shares, cash and KiwiSaver and then reassess my life. I don't want to stop work then. I just want to look at different job options.

Trouble is ... I really, really don't like my job.

Do I hold on for five years in my current job just for the money?

Mary Holm looks at what you should do in this situation.

Many people dream of handing their notice to their boss and taking off on a global trip, in pre-Covid times, or just not having to wake up to an alarm clock every morning.

But what would it take to retire at 50 or just be financially independent enough to stop working the day job when you want to?

The best tips and tricks from the experts.

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Covid and your career - The 'great NZ resignation'; What to do if you hate your job - New Zealand Herald

The United States women's national team will compete with Czech Republic, Iceland and New Zealand in the 2022 SheBelieves Cup, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced on Wednesday.

The tournament will run Feb. 17-23, starting with a pair of doubleheaders at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. The final day of games will be held at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas.

- ESPN+ viewers guide: LaLiga, Bundesliga, MLS, FA Cup, more- Futbol Americas on ESPN+: USWNT, MLS, USMNT, NWSL

The U.S. will open the tournament against the Czechs on Feb. 17, followed by a game against New Zealand three days later. The Americans will conclude the tournament against Iceland on Feb. 23.

"These will be the first matches of what will be a really important year, and as focus on World Cup qualifying, the SheBelieves Cup will be extremely valuable for the continued development of the team," USMNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski said in a statement.

"As a coaching staff, when we are integrating newer players, we need as many games as possible, and all three of our opponents are very hard to play against. They will all be highly motivated to have the chance to play in this great tournament, so we're not only looking forward to competitive matches, but also playing in front of fans, as there was only limited attendance at last year's tournament in Florida."

The tournament was first contested in 2016, with the USWNT winning the inaugural edition. France took top honors in 2017, followed by the USWNT in 2018 and England in 2019. The Americans have since won the past two editions of the tournament.

The match involving the USWNT and the Czech Republic will mark just the second ever between the two teams. In January 2000, the USWNT defeated the Czechs 8-1 in Australia at a tournament.

The USWNT has played New Zealand 18 times, most recently a 6-1 victory in group play in July at the 2020 Olympics in Japan. The USWNT got goals from Rose Lavelle, Lindsey Horan, Christen Press, Alex Morgan and two own goals.

The USWNT has played Iceland 14 times, with the last encounter being a 0-0 tie in 2015 during Algarve Cup group play.

The rest is here:

SheBelieves Cup - USWNT to face Czech Republic, Iceland and New Zealand in 2022 edition - ESPN