Timaru New Zealand's best tap water, officially
Timaru District Council's Water Plant Manager John Clemens celebrates the Timaru settlement of Seadown being crowned New Zealand's best-tasting tap water at the 2025 IXOM National Water Taste-Test competition with Emile Donovan.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Act Party leader David Seymour suggested 'bots' drove 'fake submissions' against his Regulatory Standards Bill
ACT Party leader David Seymour claimed 99.5 percent of the submissions received on the Regulatory Standards Bill were created using "bots". The Ministry for Regulation received approximately 23,000 submissions regarding a discussion document about the bill in January. In summarising the feedback, it found 88 percent of submitters opposed the proposed regulations, and 0.33 percent supported or partially supported them. But in an interview on this week's episode of 30 with Guyon Espiner , the newly-appointed deputy prime minister claimed most of the opposing submissions weren't valid. "You're smart enough to know that those 23,000 submissions, 99.5 percent of them, were because somebody figured out how to make a bot make fake submissions that inflated the numbers," Seymour said. The figures quoted were "meaningless" and represented nothing more than somebody "running a smart campaign with a bot". When asked what evidence Seymour had that the submissions were fake, he said it's because "we've looked at them. Because we know what the contents of them is". In a subsequent written statement to RNZ, Seymour said he was referring to "online campaigns" that generate "non-representative samples" that don't reflect public opinion. In a statement, Ministry for Regulation deputy chief executive policy Andrew Royle would not address Seymour's claims about bots directly. Royle said the ministry undertook a "robust process" to analyse all of the submissions received. "Our approach was carefully designed to reflect all submissions in the final analysis, noting there were many similar points made across most of the submissions," he said. The ministry's summary shows its process included a "qualitative" analysis of about 1000 individual submissions. Group submissions and submissions over 10,000 words were read separately. The rest were summarised using AI. There was nothing in the report about bots or other interference in the submissions process. Watch the full interview with David Seymour on 30 With Guyon Espiner . Subscribe to the podcast feed now to get every episode of 30 on your phone when it lands: On Spotify On iHeartRadio On Apple podcasts Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Otago Andrew Geddis said the use of the word 'bots' was disparaging. "I think he's using bots in that kind of colloquial sense, which is an incredibly dismissive way to refer to individual New Zealanders taking the time to actually engage with his proposal. "If he means some sort of artificial intelligence, computer-generated filling out of the forms without any human intervention, that would have been reported to him by his officials. There was no such report." ActionStation director Kassie Hartendorp said Seymour was trying to discredit any opposition to his views. "If he presents some evidence that there were bots involved, and there's probably ways to be able to do that, if he presents evidence, then fine. But otherwise, it just seems like an outlandish claim that isn't matching up with reality." Kassie Hartendorp (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Tuwharetoa) is the Director of ActionStation, a community campaigning platform. Photo: Supplied ActionStation and other campaigning organisations from across the political spectrum have previously created templates to help people write submissions. Hartendorp said those tools were not bots and meant make the submissions process more accessible. "The purpose of those submission tools is to be able to make it as clear and simple as possible, so that people, who might not ever have submitted before, or who don't have much time, can be involved with the democratic process." Clerk of the House of Representatives Dr David Wilson said he wasn't able to respond to Seymour's claims as the consultation in January was run by the Ministry for Regulation, but said there are protections in place against 'bots' during a select committee process. Similar claims about the impact of automated software were made during the submissions process on the Treaty Principles Bill in January, which attracted more than 300,000 submissions, but no evidence was found to support any such interference. "Our cybersecurity people were not aware that any of the submissions were made that way, and they do have security in place to alert them to if that was happening," Wilson said.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Fatal Kaikōura boat capsizing: Petrol fumes killed five passengers
Five people died and six were rescued after a boat they were on capsized in 2022. Photo: Stuff / Chris Skelton The deaths of five people in a boat capsize off the Kaikōura coast was caused by exposure to petrol fumes while they were trapped under the hull, a coroner has found. The Nature Photography Society of New Zealand members were two hours into a bird-watching excursion when the boat was hit by a whale and capsized in September 2022. The skipper and five other passengers survived. On Wednesday, coroner Alexandra Cunninghame publicly released findings into the deaths of Catherine Margaret Haddock, 65 and Susan Jane Cade, 63 of Lower Hutt, Diana Ruby Stewart, 68, Peter Charles Hockley, 76 and Maureen Pierre, 75 of Christchurch. All five were found within the air pocket under the upturned boat. The six survivors were either thrown into open water or managed to swim out from under the hull. The Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) had earlier found that the five passengers who died were trapped under the hull and flaws in the vessel's fuel system, which had not been identified when it was surveyed, allowed fuel to leak into the air pocket. Forensic pathologist Dr Hannah Elstub determined that the cause of death in each case was the result of petrol toxicity in a confined space. Sounds could be heard from under the vessel until around 17 minutes after the capsize. The coroner found exposure to as little as .14 litres of petrol in a confined space with the same dimensions as the air pocket under the boat could result in confusion, loss of consciousness and sudden death. The people who died were wearing inflatable life jackets which might have prevented them from being able to escape from under the upturned vessel and they all showed symptoms of petrol exposure consistent with inhalation and absorption of fumes. The TAIC made a number of recommendations relating to the maintenance and surveying of fuel lines, the use of inflatable lifejackets and the emergency response. The boat capsize highlighted failings in the emergency call system because the skipper had been able to call police, but the TAIC inquiry found the 111 system had caused "unnecessary delays". When police tried to give paramedics the accident's co-ordinates, a second fragmented tech system called CARD would not accept it because the sea was outside usual ambulance range and instead produced an error message. The TAIC chief commissioner David Clarke said while it was unlikely that any of these issues contributed to the outcome of the tragedy in this case, in other circumstances similar delays could be critical. "No action has been taken to address this safety issue," he said. Maritime New Zealand decided against prosecuting any individuals, organisations or businesses after an investigation into the tragedy. Cunninghame did not make any further recommendations in her findings. She said those relating to the emergency response were outside the scope of a coroner's enquiry, because the TAIC investigation concluded that a swifter response would not have resulted in a different outcome because of the short time frame in which the atmosphere under the vessel was survivable. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
The powerful women behind a social media ban campaign
Founding member of B416, Malindi MacLean Photo: Sharon Brettkelly A year ago, a group of rich-lister mums met with other high fliers from all walks of life and political hues with one thing in mind. Many were strangers to each other but the thing that united them was the push to bring in a law to get under-16-year-olds off social media . Such is the power of the group B416 and their cause that politicians from all corners came along to their launch last month, including ACT's David Seymour - who doesn't support a social media ban. It took place just days after National's Catherine Wedd put forward her Social Media Age-Restricted Users Bill, a private members bill. Since the launch, the move has faced criticism of moral panic, overreach and that a ban will risk the lives of vulnerable young people. But B416, which is co-chaired by entrepreneur Cecilia Robinson and includes multi-millionaire toy maker Anna Mowbray, says it is time to listen to parents who want to protect their children from social media harm. Founding member Malindi MacLean, who heads Outward Bound, says a lot of the criticism is from people who are not parents. "It's really important to keep [in mind] the lived experience of parents. They are day in, day out experiencing the impact of social media addiction, or addictive behaviours of their children. "A parent who has just been dealing with their teenager who is self harming or has sextortion or dealing with cyber bullying ... it's not something that you can argue with." The Social Media Age-Restricted Users Bill is in the biscuit tin at Parliament, which means it may never see the light of day before the next election. Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Koroi Hawkins Those arguing against a potential law that would force social media giants to use age verification measures on under-16s include retired district court judge David Harvey; youth mental health activist Jazz Thornton, Victoria University media lecturer Alex Beattie and the online counselling service Youthline. Judge Harvey says the proposed bill is flawed and could get the government in trouble with freedom of expression laws. There's also a risk that it will exclude the likes of YouTube, he says. Thornton believes a blanket ban will cause harm to the most vulnerable children and even lead to deaths; while Beattie argues social media can be a good communication tool for children and parents, and is not an addiction like smoking. MacLean says she welcomes the debate but her group wants progress. Hence the extensive billboard and social media campaign. She says the time and resources put into the campaign would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the influential group has tapped into many communities for contributions and support. "That just shows the appetite for change. The other thing is we've had a lot of support from organisations pro bono because most of them are human beings who also understand the issues." Wedd's private members bill is in the biscuit tin at Parliament, which means it may never see the light of day before the next election. That's not good enough for B416, which wants to see a policy by the end of the year, following Australia's world first law and trials of the age-verification technology already underway. Tech expert Danu Abeysuriya of digital firm Rush tells The Detail how the technology could work and why it is important for New Zealand to follow Australia and others. "We are a small nation and we don't represent a lot of revenue for large tech companies like Google, Facebook or X or Twitter. They focus on social media and to those companies our ad revenue is relatively small. CEO of digital firm Rush, Danu Abeysuriya Photo: Sharon Brettkelly "Whatever we have to do we should still attempt to be practical otherwise we risk being alienated from those platforms. The balancing act is aligning what we do with what the rest of the world does." Abeysuriya says there are a number of age verification options but one of the simplest would be a digital token that could be bought from the Warehouse or the local petrol station or even the child's school. Other technology could be used to put children off using social media, such as slowing down internet traffic. In this case the government would mandate Internet Service Providers such as One NZ to run traffic at half-speed in specific time periods. "It creates a bit of friction," says Abeysuriya. "If the TikTok video loads really slowly the kids might not watch the TikTok video, they might do something else like read a book." He says the solutions are ideas and nothing will be perfect. "The bravery to move is the thing that needs to happen here." Check out how to listen to and fol low The Detail here . You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter .
