Samoan NZ sports veteran to run for Lower Hutt mayor
Tags:
To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following:
See terms of use.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

RNZ News
5 hours ago
- RNZ News
Immigration visit law change doesn't go far enough
Pacific advocates say a proposed law change for out-of-hours immigration visits, like dawn raids, doesn't go far enough. The contentious enforcement practice involves immigration officers searching homes for people they have reasonable grounds to believe are liable for deportation between 6pm and 8am. It has been criticised for targeting Pacific people, particularly in the wake of the dawn raids era. Teuila Fuatai reports. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.

RNZ News
5 hours ago
- RNZ News
NZ firm Vantaset sets sights on UK, US law enforcement agencies
Chief executive of Vantaset, Craig Steel, and former Olympic swimmer Moss Burmester. Photo: Supplied What is claimed as a first-of-its-kind workplace performance service from New Zealand is gaining global attention from law enforcement and defence agencies. Vantaset was founded by New Zealand performance strategist and former sports coach Craig Steel. Developed over seven years at a cost of $7 million, the framework has grown into a paid service model designed for government and corporate clients. Steel said critical agencies were a focus for his business, especially those in the Five Eyes nations. The online platform is designed to improve business strategy and increase workplace performance through a framework based on high-performance sport environments, similar to how a coach would oversee a team or athlete. A number of trials are in discussion with police forces in North America and the United Kingdom. They have also signed agreements with a specialist consulting firm that supports government security and law enforcement agencies throughout Europe and North America, including the FBI. However, Steel said because of the sensitive nature of their work, he could not disclose their name. "They work with all of the law enforcement agencies right across Canada and a very high number in the US, including the likes of the FBI. "They're branded, but they can't disclose their brand so the FBI can't disclose the brand. But yes, they are a very legitimate agency of about 160-odd people. "They're domiciled in Canada, but they have agents right throughout the Americas, right down into South America, up into Canada and Alaska, etc. Plus they also do work into Europe. "You turn up to their office, and I've been there many times, and they don't even have a number over the door, it's quite interesting." It's not Vantaset's first foray into police environments. Nine years ago they were brought on to improve performance with New Zealand Police by then-commissioner Mike Bush. Following pilot programmes in Counties Manukau, Auckland City and Southern Districts, Bush used an early iteration of the programme to align the vision and prevention-first strategy for all 14,000 staff working out of more than 300 stations around the country. At that time Bush had noted police were dealing with declining public confidence, poor productivity, falling retention, engagement, levels and morale. Bush wanted a single programme, rather than relying on previous performance management mechanisms that didn't have the same reach across the organisation. Steel said an example of this was streamlining aspects of the organisation, including reducing the more than 6000 job descriptions within the police to a handful. A New Zealand Police case study in 2017 said: "Within 18 months of deploying Vantaset's transformation programme, Bush had lifted public trust and confidence from the 56 percent as it was following the COI to 81 percent. Further to this, an impressive 90 percent of Kiwis said they were either 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' with the service police was now providing; a number many times greater than those enjoyed by similar nations. What's more, he achieved this while reducing crime across New Zealand by 20 percent. " Police said in a statement they have had a partnership with Vantaset for approximately nine years, but the contract would not continue past 30 June 2025. Chief executive of Vantaset, Craig Steel. Photo: Supplied Steel said the basis for the service came from three decades of research into the psychological breaking point of elite athletes to improve workplace performance. He said the conception was understanding why athletes collapse under pressure. "They do that at a very precise point, so it's at a point where a person comes to believe that the challenge they're up against is greater than the vision they have of themselves. "So what that said to me is that irrespective of the nature of the sport or the nature of the athlete, people capitulate at a very precise point. "What I identified was what I call the layering, which is essentially the process that athletes unconsciously work through that leads to that, what I found was that that was identical in every athlete and the people that we started sharing it with started saying to us, this is a monumental breakthrough in human performance, but we needed to test it. "So as a result of that, what I looked at was if that's what causes capitulation, what would happen if we reverse engineered it? So we take the modeling or the methodology, we invert it, so we start to look through a different lens and say, if we apply the same rationale, but in reverse, can we increase the point at which an athlete capitulates? "In other words, extend it - and what we found is that every time we tested it, people produce personal best within two weeks." The sports connections do not end there - former Olympic swimmers Moss Burmester and Anthony Mosse are among the team, as is former All Blacks manager Darren Shand. Burmester used Steel's approach to performance when he was competing and said you can transfer aspects of the sports field to the workplace. "If you look at a rugby team and you go, right, there's only 15 positions - how do we make them the very best in their position and empower them to go out there and play their best in their 80 minutes? "Same thing - how do we make people feel like they're valued, they're critical, they matter, and they can have a real impact for the team?" Burmester said just like in sport, it was important for staff to understand their roles and how that played a part of the "game plan" of a business or organisation. "It seems very obvious and it's laughable, but that's exactly what we see and so we sit there and we think, well, no wonder organisations aren't getting the best out of people, unlocking the potential in people. "They're just putting them into these boxes, they're not engaging them." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

RNZ News
5 hours ago
- RNZ News
Mayor takes responsibility for 'typo' that could have cost council $20m
New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom says the bungle could have been very costly. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin The mayor of New Plymouth has taken personal responsibility for a "typo" that could've cost his council $20 million in lost revenue. At a meeting last month council passed a resolution saying rates figures in its annual plan were inclusive of GST, when they were actually exclusive of it. It has had to quickly correct the error and apologise to ratepayers. The council met at a hastily-organised extraordinary meeting to iron out its mistake this week. Mayor Neil Holdom said the process to set rates was robust and compliant - but then the wheels fell off. "In preparing the final report for adoption a member of the team pasted the GST exclusive numbers into the final report where all fees and charges were confirmed. They should have included the GST inclusive numbers." The bungle could have been costly. "If somebody took the council to court to seeking a judicial review of rates or charges the court would've identified the schedule was incorrect and the GST component which is about $20 million would not have been legally chargeable." Acting council chief executive Sarah Downs admitted it was not a good look, but said there was ultimately no effect on rates, which were struck at 9.9 percent. "It was a typographical error, so we asked for council under Section 46 of the Legislation Act to correct that error and as a result it's not impacting any rates whatsoever." She was unsure how the mistake happened. "We're not quite clear, but the team are investigating how the error was made. There is a level of people saying the correct checks were not put in place, so we're busy in the process of making sure what extra checks do we need to do." Council staff were not the only people to miss the error - all 15 elected members overlooked it too. Councillor and mayoral aspirant Sam Bennett - who spoke at the extraordinary meeting - had been doing some soul searching. "As an elected member personally I was really disappointed in myself that that went under my filter, my radar and I'm thinking why did I miss that, why did not only I miss it but why did the 15 councillors who sit around the table miss something that's so significant." Councillor Max Brough - who was not shy about taking the council to task over its spending - also had eyes for the mayoral chains. He was less apologetic. "I don't know how you'd pick it up. I've been thinking about that since this came to light and unless you've sat down and forensically analysed it all I don't think you'd pick it up. "So, Audit New Zealand has done their job, audits kicked in and done its job. I'm pleased about that, but I'm sad they had to do that." Holdom was happy to eat some humble pie. "I wish to publicly apologise to the community for the administrative error. It is my responsibility as leader of council to ensure all information provided is accurate and measures are in place to test and verify that information and that standard has not been met in this case. "I wish to ensure the community that I take the matter very seriously and steps are being put in place to rectify the issue and ensure it does not happen again." This was not the first time a "typo" had landed the council in trouble. In 2015 , it printed about 2 million rubbish bags with the phone number of a local Thai restaurant on them - rather than its own. The bungle resulted in restaurant staff fielding a flood of calls about the bags rather than taking bookings and takeout orders. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.