NZTA secretly using cameras in city billboards
The Transport Agency has been secretly using cameras in billboards at city intersections to track cars and trucks. Phil Pennington spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.
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RNZ News
4 hours ago
- RNZ News
Wandering cows spark safety fears on Tairāwhiti's highways
Gisborne farmers are being called on to help prevent wandering stock from becoming a "road statistic" by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA). File picture. Photo: LDR Roaming stock are wandering onto Tairāwhiti's local roads and highways more than once a day on average. A Gisborne freight driver wants more to be done to address the issue after witnessing crashes and nearly hitting cows on roads himself. The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has called on the region's farmers to help prevent the animals from becoming a "road statistic". Data from NZTA and Gisborne District Council (GDC) showed there have been more than 450 incidents of roaming stock in just over a year on the region's local roads and state highways. Gizzy Moves owner David Connell drives across the country for work, and believes the issue of roaming stock is at its worst on the East Coast. "I've almost hit cows on three occasions in the last three years, all in the same spot... between the area around Nūhaka, and Iwitea to Wairoa," Connell said. As well as stock, he said he has also seen a countless number of goats "mowed over by everything in the middle of the night" between Gisborne and Hawke's Bay. Connell provided Local Democracy Reporting with dashcam footage from his vehicle, showing him nearly hitting cows in Wairoa last week. "I was also towing a heavy-laden trailer, so it was just by chance that I managed to squeeze them between the two that were on the road." There were another eight to 10 cows on the side of the road, not shown on the video, he said. "Cows are herd animals; once one of them is drifting, the whole lot's going." He believed accessways, gates, and fences on the main highways should be reinforced or improved. "I'm in commercial vehicles nine times out of 10, but if you were... in a little bl***y Yaris or a Swift... you're not walking away from hitting... a ton worth a cow, especially if you hit it at 100[km/h]". NZTA Hawke's Bay and Gisborne systems manager Martin Colditz reiterated its call to farmers to help "avoid their stock becoming a statistic on our roads". Property owners or farm managers should be mindful of their supervision, regularly check fences, and take extra care when moving stock on roads, he said. Colditz said NZTA Waka Kotahi was carrying out an inspection of SH35 and would work with the council to engage with property owners. They were also exploring how they could manage and enforce increasing occurrences of wandering stock, especially on SH35. "Wandering stock on our highways presents a risk to life, so please report them as soon as you can, either by calling 0800 4 HIGHWAYS, or 111 where there is an immediate risk to safety," said Colditz. Waka Kotahi worked closely with the GDC, which had a delegation to enforce stock control on the region's state highways via the Stock Control Bylaw (2017). There were 186 instances of contractors being called out to deal with wandering stock (horses, sheep, deer) on Tai Rāwhiti state highways between May 2024 and May 2025, according to NZTA. This included 157 callouts on State Highway 35 and 29 on State Highway 2 north and south of Gisborne. On local roads, GDC animal control team lead Ross Hannam said the council received 271 'requests for service' regarding the issue from 1 July, 2024, to 30 June, 2025. "Waka Kotahi have contractors to deal with stock on state highways," Hannam said. The council had received four requests for services for both SH2 and SH35, which were dealt with as quickly as possible, according to Hannam. He said the first thing the council did was remove stock from the road to make it safe. If the owner was known, they would contact them. If they couldn't contact the owner, they would impound the stock. "The big problem is horses within the city and townships up the coast. There are a lot of horse owners that don't have any land to hold their horses," he said. "Any stock not claimed is auctioned off. This is mainly horses, and there are two or three per year." He said the council issued fencing notices to repeat offenders. The council could not issue infringements under the Animal Control Act and bylaws. Federated Farmers Gisborne-Wairoa provincial president Charles Reynolds said farmers must be vigilant about fencing. He said he had no information on whether the issue of wandering stock was worsening in the region. Wandering stock was a bigger issue up the coast north of Tolaga Bay along SH35, he said. However, Reynolds believed incidences of livestock on roads were low relative to the hundreds of kilometres of farming fence lines in the district. The vast majority of farmers were aware of the safety threat to motorists - and their animals, he said. Storms and landslides that took out fencing were a known issue. "From time to time, gates may be left open by mistake, or by visitors to a farm. Trees and large branches can fall on fences, damaging sections and enabling animals to escape," Reynolds said. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
RNZ News
7 hours ago
- RNZ News
Study finds whānau businesses offer path to economic success for Māori
Professor of Māori Business Management at the University of Auckland Jason Mika. Photo: Supplied/William Chea/University of Auckland A new study has found that whānau-led businesses could be one of the most immediate ways to improve livelihoods within Māori communities. Published in the book Te Ahunga atu ki ngā Ōhanga Oranga Māori: Towards Māori Economies of Wellbeing , the study on whānau enterprise is co-authored by Professor Jason Mika and PhD candidate Xiaoliang Niu of He Manga Tauhokohoko, University of Auckland's Business School. Mika said for the purposes of the study a Māori-led business is a business that was owned and operated by Māori for the benefit of whānau, hapū or community. "These are the businesses that are formed by Mum and Dad teams, but actually end up roping in the extended whānau as either co-owners or employees." Mika (Tūhoe, Whakatōhea, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa) said what distinguishes these from other Māori-led businesses such as iwi authorities and large pan-tribal entities such as Sealord is first scale, they tend to be small- to medium-sized, and second they tend to be formed around using business to serve the needs of the whānau. These whānau enterprises offer a promising path towards economic success for Māori, he said. "One of the most immediate ways to improve livelihoods and wellbeing for whānau is what the whānau can do for themselves, through enterprise." The Māori Economies of Wellbeing research draws on case studies, interviews, and long-term engagement with Māori-led businesses. The investigation found that whānau enterprises demonstrate: One case study was Whangārei based company North Drill, whose work includes utility instillation, renewable energy instillation and drainage. But Mika said their mission was intergenerational wealth and wellbeing for their whānau and that extends to te Tai Tokerau in general. It also reinvested profits into collective goals like housing, education, and leadership development. "What they're really concerned about is providing opportunities particularly for rangatahi... you know school is not where they want to be or they've got abilities, they've got good values, they've got good ethics but are just looking for an opportunity," he said. Mika said North Drill was providing more than just employment to rangatahi but also education on financial literacy. "And in that way they are really concerned about how do they give back to their community." Mika said the goal was that young Māori could see a pathway in business once they left school, a path that ended not just with a job but with business ownership. He is calling for investors to recognise the potential of whānau businesses and said there were various organisations which were currently working to raise the investor profile of whānau businesses, so investors knew what they were looking at and what the opportunities were. "I think there's still a bit of a disconnect, I think the access to capital problem for whānau enterprise and Māori enterprise in general is still a challenge to be solved." Mika said whānau businesses had a point of difference, they could draw on mātauranga and Māori values to do business in a different manner. "One of the major things that sets the whānau enterprise apart is our identity as Māori, our values, our reo, our tikanga, kaupapa, mātauranga Māori. All of those are assets, they are cultural assets which whānau have available to them." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
7 hours ago
- RNZ News
Pay cuts on the cards for NZ netballers
New Zealand's best netballers may be turning to side hustles next season to make ends meet. Pay cuts for are on the cards in the ANZ premiership as the broadcast negotiations drag on. Sports reporter Jonty Dine spoke to Lisa Owen. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
