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The Government has moved to close a legal loophole with a law to monitor child-sex offenders electronically for up to 10 years after they leave prison.
MPs took the rare step last night of allowing legislation to be introduced and made law in one sitting after Justice Minister Simon Power said the legal loophole posed an “unacceptable risk” to children.
Mr Power said law changes in 2007 had inadvertently threatened the ability of authorities to impose conditions on paroled sex offenders, such as where they could live, without their consent.
“That’s just unacceptable and obviously nonsensical if we were to have legislation that would keep our children safe. That would have led to a bizarre situation in which freed child-sex offenders would have had to agree to rules being put in place. It appeared they could be imposed only for the first 12 months.”
The 2007 changes had also created uncertainty around the length of time electronically monitored curfews could be imposed on child-sex offenders once they left prison.
Mr Power said the effect of yesterday’s changes was to restore what was believed to be the status quo before the 2007 changes. .
Under the changes, electronically monitored curfews could be slapped on former prisoners for up to 10 years..
“It literally is a public safety issue that had to be acted on with a considerable degree of urgency . I’m not going to muck around when it comes to the safety of children..”
But the Green Party is accusing the Government of ambushing it with a bill that it had been assured contained only “technical” changes.”
But the Green Party is accusing the Government of ambushing it with a bill that it had been assured contained only “technical” changes.
The attorney-general said the changes effectively gave the parole board the power to impose electronically monitored home detention for anything less than 24 hours a day for up to 10 years, based on an assessment of the risk of future offending.
Green MP Keith Locke said yesterday the Greens were not shown a damning report by Attorney-General Chris Finlayson ahead of time, which raised serious concerns about the law changes.”
Mr Finlayson’s report also questioned the bill’s “double jeopardy” nature. “The proposal in effect allows for long-term detention without charge or trial.
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“The state should not detain citizens solely on the basis of preventing future offending, nor should it punish offenders twice for the same offence,” it said
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There has been a sharp rise in the number of New Zealanders with no religious affiliation, new research shows.
In a study of 1000 people by Massey University, 40 percent said they had no religious affiliation compared to 29 percent 17 years ago.Fifty-three percent said they believed in God (although half of those said they had doubts), 20 percent believed in some form of higher power and about third said they didn’t believe or didn’t know.Just over a third of New Zealanders described themselves as religious.Professor Philip Gendall, who led the Department of Communication, Journalism and Marketing research team, said the view that New Zealand was a very secular country was supported by the relatively low levels of active involvement in religion. . –
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.”The survey shows that God is not dead, but religion may be dying,” he said
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Homicide inquiry after bashed woman dies
By CLIO FRANCIS – Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Police in Wanganui have launched a homicide inquiry after a woman who had been subjected to a brutal assault at the weekend died this morning.
The 44-year-old victim had suffered serious head injuries in the Titoki Street area, Wanganui in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Police communications manager Kim Perks said the woman – who has not yet been named – had been in the Intensive Care Unit in Wellington Hospital. .
"Late last night she was taken off life support and died in the early hours of this morning.
Detective Senior Sergeant Chris Bensemann said more serious charges would now be laid.
A 43-year-old Wanganui woman had already appeared in court on a charge of common assault and a 22-year-old Wanganui man on a charge of being an accessory after the fact to common assault.
The woman charged over the incident was due to appear at Wanganui District Court tomorrow.
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The male offender was due to re-appear onMarch 3 but police said this date may now be brought forward
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Key to look at bailout for F&P
and JIM KAYES Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Govt wants to keep F&P out of ‘the wrong hands’
F&P Appliances reels from crunch punch
Comment: Govt can’t be saviour of business
PrimeMinister John Key has signalled that the Government could step in as a last resort to prevent renowned whiteware maker Fisher & Paykel from collapsing.
Mr Key revealed yesterday that he had phoned F&P Appliances chief executive John Bongard after its shares plummeted to record low levels on the back of news of a slump in profits and ballooning debt.
He stressed that Mr Bongard had not asked for government help and that none had been offered.
"It's important to recognise that Fisher & Paykel is a profitable company . The company's problems appeared to be "temporary"… . They employ 1600 people in New Zealand.
"But I acknowledge that they are an iconic New Zealand company."
Mr Bongard took an immediate 7. And I've made it clear to John Bongard I will stay in touch.1 million pay packet and other executives took a 5 percent pay cut after the company issued a profit warning on the back of tough trading conditions.5 percent cut yesterday to his $1.
Salaried staff will be rostered off for one day a month to help trim costs.
Salaried staff will be rostered off for one day a month to help trim costs.2 million. Its profit to March 2008 was $54.
Mr Key said there was "substantial weakness" in the international market.
Its shares nosedived from $1 to 65 cents after yesterday's news. It is not unique to Fisher & Paykel but clearly they are at the sharp end of that.
"It is logical that it would flow through to reduced sales by our exporting companies.
Mr Key refused to comment yesterday on whether F&P was on the list, saying he would not discuss individual cases."
As the worldwide recession deepens and the credit crunch bites, Treasury has drawn up a "watch list" of businesses the Government may be forced to help out if bank funding dries up.
"The Government does not want to become a primary banker. But the Government reserved the right to act in the national interest in some cases, he said. Other governments around the world have chosen to take that course and we reserve the option to do so. Other governments around the world have chosen to take that course and we reserve the option to do so."
F&P said it had been talking to "a number of potential strategic partners" and may look to raise new capital.
Mr Key indicated the Government might be prepared to bend foreign investment rules if that helped the company secure an investor.
"If [blocking an investment] meant the loss of 1600 jobs and the collapse of an iconic company like Fisher & Paykel, that would be unacceptable to me."
Shareholders Association chairman Bruce Sheppard said Mr Key should follow through on his pledge to bail out struggling businesses by backing F&P, an iconic New Zealand company that had to be kept afloat.
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Poor ‘terrorised by gangs’
Friday, 13 February 2009
GANG HOT SPOT: Pomare’s Farmer Cres is well known as a Mongrel Mob enclave, with at least nine families linked to the gang living there.
Aflawed Housing New Zealand policy has allowed gangs to take over too many of the country's streets, Police Minister Judith Collins says.
Pomare's Farmer Cres is well known as a Mongrel Mob enclave, with at least nine families linked to the gang living there.
The criticism comes after a woman and her two young children were allegedly threatened and forced from their Lower Hutt home by neighbouring Mongrel Mob members.
More than 50 police swooped on seven properties and arrested 10 gang members and associates early on Tuesday morning. Police told The that their officers avoided the area. The Government would act to disperse the groups. ..
"In a select committee I was on, Housing New Zealand actually confessed that they took gang affiliations into consideration when they housed them . That's not acceptable.. Poor New Zealanders who can't choose where they live . High and middle-income earners never have to deal with it…"
Housing NZ regional manager Pia Searancke said officials tried not to house rival gang members close to each other, or to place too many people from one gang in the same area. are the most terrorised by these gangs.
The Pomare accused who face a variety of charges, including burglary, intimidation and cannabis possession could be evicted from their homes for breaching tenancy rules if they had committed crimes in the homes or intimidated neighbours, she said. But the corporation did not always know if people were gang members.
The woman who was threatened would not comment to The yesterday. A tough approach to tenancy breaches and "zero tolerance" to anti-social behaviour would be implemented. Some gang members wanted better lives for their children.
Lower Hutt Mayor David Ogden said threatening women and children was "deplorable", but it was too easy simply to condemn gangs.
"Socially it's not a good thing to have all the state houses crammed together in huge areas," he said.
"Socially it's not a good thing to have all the state houses crammed together in huge areas," he said. "Quite often there are no doctors, shops or markets where they can get cheap food."
Housing NZ is in the early stages of a 10-year plan to revitalise Lower Hutt's state housing.
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Da Vinci’s soggy seabird free as a bird
By PAUL McBETH Tuesday, 20 January 2009
/The
ABSOLUTELY AIRBORNE: David Hyams takes off and heads seaward in his bamboo and cloth contraption over Wellington Harbour. Moments later, it crumpled into the harbour, a soggy mess. Then the flying contraption crumpled into the harbour in a soggy mess.
Leonardoda Vincidesigned it, a Wellington man built it, and a crowd of hundreds cheered it and for a couple of metres it soared.
Hundreds lined the waterfront yesterday to watch Mr Hyams' attempt to fly a model of one of Leonardo's flying machines above Wellington Harbour.
Applause turned to laughter as "pilot" David Hyams followed the advice of the crowd by steering clear of the sun in his bid to fly like Icarus. "If you conceive it, plan it and promote it, you fly it.
Being the architect of the experiment, and with some hang-gliding experience to his name, Mr Hyams felt he was the one to take the risk.
The attempt was part of the Birdman Family Flying Fiesta at Frank Kitts Park and a promotion for the Leonardo da Vinci Machines Exhibition at the New Zealand School of Fine Art on Queens Wharf."
The model, built in two weeks out of split moss bamboo and cloth, was based on Leonardo's glider, but Mr Hyams said that, to have a realistic chance of flying, it would need a wingspan of 14 metres, a tail and a harness for the pilot. If organisers can secure sponsorship before the end of the exhibition on February 15, they hope to build more Leonardo machines to fly into the harbour. .
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GE activists call for trials to be ended
By DAVID WILLIAMS – Tuesday, 20 January 2009
GE-Free New Zealand will seek an urgent meeting with the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) today to revoke the consent for a 10-year genetic engineering field trial close to Lincoln.
Last week, Plant & Food Research suspended genetic engineering trials while it investigated two environmental control breaches in the first year of a decade-long field trial of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and forage kale.
"They've (Plant & Food) shown that they're not fit to actually carry out this duty," she said.
GE-Free president Claire Bleakley said the breaches needed to be considered an offence under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act..
"For the safety of the public and the export market . the trial needs to be closed down forever..
In its decision approving the trial, Erma stated potentially significant adverse effects from the trial were negligible after taking into account containment provisions and controls."
The trial's consent should be revoked and Plant & Food directors held accountable for not taking reasonable steps to prevent the breach, Bleakley said.
An initial report into the breaches, provided to yesterday, verified two environmental control breaches at the site by not preventing open flowering and not killing living brassica material after the trial finished.
Erma communications manager Lesley Meadows said yesterday the breaches will be "registered as an incident" but any enforcement would have to be taken by Biosecurity New Zealand.
Plant & Food's internal review of procedures has to be completed by January 26.
The Biosecurity NZ report demanded all genetically-modified material at the site be removed and killed by January 14, which Plant & Food confirmed had happened.
The final harvest of kale plants was completed in early September, but the flowering brassica was found by Soil & Health Association spokesman Steffan Browning in late December.
A Biosecurity NZ spokeswoman said yesterday the incident was regarded as serious non-compliance and it was reviewing a range of enforcements.
The Biosecurity NZ report showed Plant & Food dobbed itself in for the breaches less than half an hour after stating to in an email the brassica stalk removed from the site had "no open flowers".
One of Erma's conditions was the site be monitored monthly after the final harvest to detect GE "volunteer" plants.
He also said up to seven flowers had already opened or were developing on the one stem.
Browning said yesterday the plant on which the open flower had been found was "months old".
Auckland-based Plant & Food spokesman Roger Bourne said as far as he was aware only one bud had flowered but more would have opened if the brassica had not been removed. .
"That's one of the things we're looking into," he said.
Monitoring was regular enough to remove the flowering brassica, but the plant itself was "quite long" and had been missed.
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Sex attack on Dutch tourists in Southland
By MARK STEVENS – Thursday, 15 January 2009
A pair of Dutch tourists have been sexually assaulted and robbed in Southland.
The attack happened at 6.40am today at a camping ground in Tuatapere, western Southland. They were threatened with a knife before the woman was sexually attacked.
Detective Sergeant Dave Nelson said a man entered the vehicle that the pair – a 22-year-old woman and a 25-year-old man – were sleeping in.
The attacker was disguised.
"He has demanded cash from the victims before fleeing the scene," Mr Nelson said. Police believe a second person was waiting outside the vehicle.
The victims are being cared for by Victim Support and Invercargill police.
Mr Nelson said a burglary in the town, also earlier today, was being investigated to determine whether it was linked to the robbery and sex attack.
Last August, two young English women endured a two-hour sex attack in their campervan north of Gisborne, despite trying to negotiate with their attacker to spare them.
There have been a series of serious attacks in recent years on young tourists travelling around New Zealand.
In November, 2006, Dutch honeymooners in the Bay of Islands were held up at gunpoint at Haruru Falls.
The women, in their late teens, were at Tokomaru Bay, when a man forced his way into their campervan and subjected them to a range of indecencies. . In February, 2007, a 23-year-old English tourist was sexually assaulted in Kaikoura.
Anyone with information is asked to call their local police station, or Mr Nelson on 03 211 0400
. They want to hear from anyone who saw suspicious activity, people or vehicles in the Tuatapere area last night or earlier today
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Farewell to plane engineer
By JO McKENZIE-McLEAN – Saturday, 27 December 2008
A memorial service celebrating the life of a Christchurch engineer killed when an Air New Zealand plane crashed off southern France will be held on Monday.
The Airbus A320 crashed into the Mediterranean on November 28, killing seven people. Two German pilots, four Air New Zealand personnel and a Civil Aviation Authority engineer were aboard.
French authorities have recovered the bodies of six people killed in the crash, but they have yet to be identified.
Noel Marsh, 35, of Rolleston, was in France as an engineer on the handover flight of the Airbus.
Cook's remembrance service was held in Christchurch on Sunday.
The other New Zealanders who died were senior A320 pilot Captain Brian Horrell, 52, engineers Murray White, 37, and Michael Gyles, 49, and Civil Aviation Authority inspector Jeremy Cook, 58.
More than 200 friends, family and work colleagues remembered Cook at the Wigram Air Force Museum, including Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe.
Marsh had two young boys with wife Tracey, who is pregnant with their third child.
Air New Zealand spokeswoman Tracy Mills would not say if Fyfe would attend Marsh's service.
Bill Marsh, of Otatara, on the outskirts of Invercargill, travelled to France this month to visit the crash site with other grieving relatives of those killed. They had just built a home in Rolleston, south of Christchurch, and Marsh's father, Bill, was going to help them move.
The Washington Post said this week that no useful information has been gleaned from the cockpit voice recorder or the flight-data recorder.
Mills said French authorities had not contacted Air New Zealand with any updates since early this month.
The lack of progress had frustrated aviation safety experts on both sides of the Atlantic because the twin-engine A320 was considered a workhorse of airlines around the world, and the cause of the crash was keenly awaited.
The lack of progress had frustrated aviation safety experts on both sides of the Atlantic because the twin-engine A320 was considered a workhorse of airlines around the world, and the cause of the crash was keenly awaited.
.30am at the Harewood Crematorium chapel
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Police paint portrait of likely killer
– Friday, 26 December 2008
Police are developing a psychological profile of the murderer of Christchurch prostitute Mellory Manning.
Detective Inspector Greg Williams said a "portrait" of the killer was being developed by a team of clinical psychologists, and he had received an international study of 45 murderers of prostitutes.
She had not been robbed, other than of her shoes.
The way Manning was "discarded" gave an insight into how the attacker viewed her, Williams said.
The narrow timeframe was "extraordinary", Williams said.
Also, no attempt was made to hide Manning's body it was dumped in the Avon River, where it would be found relatively quickly which could suggest she did not know her attacker.43pm on Thursday last week indicated she was unharmed, and her watch had stopped at 10.
A text message at 10.
The police profiling unit in Auckland was also working to compare the Manning case with other cases, including comparing the injuries she suffered.59pm, possibly when entering the river.
He wanted to focus on "that last punter" the last person to pick her up from the corner of Manchester and Peterborough streets.
Williams declined to speculate further on the motive or make-up of the attacker, saying it could lead to people becoming sidetracked.30pm and 11pm, he said. .
An Indian man in a white Honda-like car and the driver of a dark-coloured four-wheel-drive vehicle with tinted windows and highly polished wheels are asked to approach police.
Williams has appealed for all people in the central Christchurch area around the Manchester Street-Peterborough Street corner on Thursday night last week, particularly Manning's clients, to come forward.
The Indian man was in the area at 10. Discretion was assured, Williams said.30pm, he said.15pm and the four-wheel-drive vehicle at 10. I expect to be able to release more information on these vehicles at a later date.
"We know there were other vehicles in and around there at the same time."