Calls to curb price rises for burial and cremation fees
Funeral directors are calling on councils to curb price rises for burial and cremation fees, ahead of this year's local body elections. Funeral Directors Association chief executive Gillian Boyes spoke to Charlotte Cook.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
37 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Council calls for tougher dog laws as attacks and euthanasia rates climb, rescuers overwhelmed
Auckland Council impounded over 12,000 dogs last year - more than half were euthanised. As shelters overflow, many like this are never reclaimed, prompting urgent calls for law reform. Photo: Auckland Council / Supplied Auckland Council is pushing for stronger powers under the Dog Control Act 1996 to address the growing number of roaming and uncontrolled dogs. Despite this, frontline rescuers and local leaders say the crisis requires immediate on-the-ground action. Saving Hope Foundation volunteer Jo Coulam said rescue groups were overwhelmed and felt abandoned. Coulam criticised the council's desexing pilot for not targeting the right communities and highlighted that rescue groups carried too much of the burden. Saving Hope has rehomed 637 dogs and puppies in the past month, with 46 requests received in a single day. "We spoke, in May, about the Kāinga Ora houses and now, as we predicted, we have newborn puppies dumped on train tracks and in rubbish bins," she says. "Rescues like ours are left to do the hard work, while trying to educate owners, but we can't do it alone. "By 1pm that day, we'd already had 32 more, including a mum and a litter of newborn pups. It's out of control." Frontline officers are stretched thin as Auckland Council faces record numbers of roaming dog reports. Photo: Auckland Council / Supplied Manurewa MP Arena Williams said the situation had worsened over the past two years, affecting families and elderly residents, particularly in South Auckland. "This is why I've been calling on the mayor and Councillor Josephine Bartley to pull together a taskforce," she said. "Central and local government need to work together for Aucklanders. "Roaming dogs have got out of control in the last two years in Manurewa. Our kids and elderly people are at risk. "Dog attacks are up and we're now seeing roaming packs of unowned dogs. Manurewa needs new solutions to deal with this rapidly escalating issue. "National has spent a lot of time telling councils what to cut . This is an opportunity for ministers to do something constructive, and actually help Auckland with something that will genuinely benefit people in Manurewa and other communities affected." Auckland Council animal management manager Elly Waitoa said public safety was their top priority and dog owners must take responsibility for their pets. Waitoa said, while desexing dogs was not the council's responsibility, it was stepping in , because of the scale of the problem. She said the council sought stronger enforcement powers through legislative reform, which could include establishing conditions such as requiring fencing upgrades before a dog is released, mandating desexing in certain cases and introducing mandatory reporting of serious dog attacks to enable timely intervention. "We've got children being attacked, people being attacked, animals being attacked," she said. "Children can't go to school, because they're being terrorised by aggressive dogs. "They can't walk to their local shop because of dogs. "We don't have unlimited resources. It is the dog owner's responsibility to desex their dog, but we are doing everything that we can at this stage with the funding that we have. "We're calling for more tools, like mandatory fencing standards and hospital reporting of dog attacks. It's about giving councils real options, when education alone doesn't work." Children cross the street on their way to school - safety concerns are rising as roaming dog incidents increase. Photo: Auckland Council / Supplied In the past year, the council received 16739 reports of roaming dogs, 1341 reports of dog attacks on people and 1523 reports of attacks on other animals. Only 42 percent of dogs were reclaimed by their owners and more than 6000 were euthanised - more than half of all dogs impounded. ACC claim data suggests the actual number of dog attacks is likely higher. Most serious attacks involving children happened in the family home and went unreported to council, said general manager Robert Irvine. "Introducing mandatory hospital reporting would allow us to intervene and put measures in place to prevent attacks from happening again," he said. To help reduce attacks and improve enforcement, Auckland Council is asking the government for powers to: "These changes make good common sense and would greatly improve our ability to protect Aucklanders from dog-related harm," said Irvine. "They would not affect the majority of dog owners, who we know are responsible." Council regulatory and safety committee chair Josephine Bartley said most dog owners were responsible, but stricter rules were now necessary. "There is a group that just doesn't seem to care. Their actions are putting our communities at risk, particularly our tamariki, so having stricter rules around things like fencing and desexing has become necessary." Manurewa-Papakura councillor Daniel Newman said local board budgets were insufficient to respond to the scale of the problem. "I don't want to have to be looking around at local boards trying to fund desexing vouchers and what-have-you," he says. "This has to be a regional response to a region-wide problem." SPCA national community outreach manager Rebecca Dobson said the council-SPCA pilot only began in June and was too early to judge. "Since 2022, SPCA has desexed 1294 dogs in Auckland. That's part of a national programme that's seen 55000 animals desexed and more than 200000 unwanted litters prevented." She said meaningful progress required a significantly larger investment, estimated at more than $75 million. "Rescue groups, SPCA, councils, vets and communities are all grappling with the fallout of people not desexing their pets. None of us can fix this alone. "Desexing needs to become a priority for all pet owners." Dobson also noted that enforcement was the council's role, not the SPCA's. "The public should contact their local council when it comes to roaming dogs, dog attacks or public safety issues. SPCA works under the Animal Welfare Act, focused on cruelty prevention." The council has committed $5.9 million to increase patrols and community education, and said further funding proposals were being prepared for next year's annual plan. The message to dog owners is clear - keep your dogs secure, desexed and under control. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
RNZ News
8 hours ago
- RNZ News
Tagata o te Moana for 19 July 2025
In Tagata o Te Moana this week Sam Kauona is again vying to become President of Bougainville. An agreement is signed that may end the political impasse in New Caledonia. Nauru gets closer to a controversial seabed mining deal. The NZ government in a fit of pique ignore Cook Islands 60th anniversary celebrations. All these stories and more from the RNZ Pacific team. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
19 hours ago
- RNZ News
Is an inheritance relationship property
RNZ money correspondent Susan Edmunds. Photo: RNZ Send your questions to I'm about to receive an inheritance from a family member. I'm wondering, will this become relationship property? My partner and I have been living together for three years, and I'm wondering whether he'll be entitled to half. I spoke to Mark Henaghan, a law professor at the University of Auckland about this. He says no, it won't automatically become relationship property, but there's a pretty big caveat to know about - if it gets intermingled with anything that is relationship property, it will. That means, if you take your inheritance and use it to pay off the mortgage on the home you both live in - if you have one - it becomes relationship property. If you want to keep it separate, you need to hold it in a separate account and use it for separate purposes. Henaghan said, if you used it for something separate, but then your partner helped increase its value, they might then be entitled to a share of that increase. Generally, relationship property is assets you've gained during the relationship, such as the family home and contents, even if one of you brought it into the relationship, your earnings through the period, your investments and non-personal debts. Separate property refers to things like inheritances and gifts, heirlooms, taonga, property under a trust and property, apart from the family home, that was acquired before your relationship began. If you have questions or think you might need a contracting-out agreement, which can be used to keep property separate, a lawyer will be able to help. Is it better to get health insurance now or put the same amount of money aside each month into a manage fund to pay for your health needs as you age? I asked my 78-year-old aunt, who has lots of health conditions and is now paying $10,000 a year for insurance, and she wishes she did the managed-fund thing. Health insurance seems to turn you down so easily and they won't touch you, if there's ACC involvement - the dilemma my mum is facing now with trying to get knee surgery. At least a managed fund would give you freedom, but I guess it depends on your appetite for risk in the short term. This is a really interesting question. I looked at the cost of health insurance this week and you're right, it gets dramatically more expensive as you get older and more likely to need it! I can see why the managed-fund idea appeals, but I think there are a couple of problems with it too. You'd need to have a good idea of how much you want to have saved, which is probably quite hard to predict, particularly because the cost of treatments can change a lot, as technology improves and Government funding changes, among other things. As you say, there is a risk that you'd need treatment before you'd built up enough money to pay for it. It would also take a fair amount of discipline to stick to that as a separate savings and investment goal, especially when you're young and have competing financial needs. Then, when you're older, it would require discipline again to keep the money aside for potential future health needs, when you might have other things you want to fund. I asked Genesis Advice financial adviser Edward Glennie what he thought. He said health insurance made more sense. "The problem is people might think they are putting money aside for their health needs, but the line can easily be blurred with somebody's income needs in retirement," he said. "Then, when they need to access the managed funds/investment to pay for an operation or medical treatment, the money might not be there. "A better solution is to keep health insurance in place and just increase the annual excess. You could, say, make it $5000 and then perhaps put savings aside to cover the excess, when or if they need it. "Having a managed fund is not really freedom, because unless you are extremely disciplined, the money might be used for something else. "The only time I've seen someone do it was when they were extremely wealthy, when they have the money already to pay for any surgery. They can afford to self-insure for their medical needs. "Building up a meaningful capital base via managed funds for someone like your aunt, aged 78, would take too long and potentially leave her open to too much risk in order to generate the returns needed to pay for expensive surgery." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
