Pacific Waves for 9 May 2025
Tongan PM optimistic ahead of elections; Pacific leaders reassured on handling of drug crisis; Improving work conditions for Fijian garment workers.
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RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
The House: Parliamentary week achieves two out of three goals
Still, two out of three isn't bad. Photo: 123RF While Parliament's week was dominated by its final event - Thursday's debate on the report from the Privileges Committee into a haka performed in the chamber - the rest of the week focussed on other business that, while more mundane, was still worthy of note. The Government appeared to have three objectives for this week in the house. Crucial to the administration's continuance, the first goal was to successfully complete the initial debate on the budget. The long initial budget debate could no longer dribble on over weeks, so the house spent six hours of the week completing the second reading debate, which is the first debate a budget gets. The reading was accomplished and so the Government continues. This may sound silly, but a Government cannot survive, if the house votes against its budget. Agreeing to vote for budget and taxation bills are the 'supply' portion of the 'confidence and supply' agreement that is the foundation of any coalition agreement. The budget focus now turns to select committees and what is called 'Scrutiny Week', when ministers appear before various subject committees to defend their budget plans. Scrutiny Week begins on 16 June. A second objective was possibly not in earlier plans for this week - to finally polish off the bills originally slated for completion two weeks ago during budget week urgency. Then, the Leader of the House had asked the house to accord urgency for 12 bills the Government hoped to progress through 30 stages of parliamentary debate. The plan was ambitious and it did not succeed. Despite day-long sittings until midnight Saturday (when urgency must end), only two bills were completed, others were untouched, and 13 stages were unfinished or unstarted. This week's plan for the house had MPs returning to the well for more of the same. Just like last time, progress was at a snail's pace. After quite a few hours, the Government had slugged its way through just a few more stages. The plan was slowed to a crawl by bills' committee stages (formally known as the Committee of the Whole House). Committee stages are a crucial way for MPs to publicly interrogate the minister in charge of a bill. With patience, they can tease out a lot about both a government's development of legislation and its intended real-world impacts. Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi moved the vote on his own punishment. Photo: RNZ/Mark Papalii Because the committee stage has no set duration, it is also a way for the opposition to make the Government really work for progress. The Government did achieve progress on the bills left incomplete from budget week, but again, it was probably not what was hoped for. They will need to come back yet again in three weeks to have a third crack. The Opposition is showing itself to be quite effective at the filibuster. The Government's third objective was to have the debate on the recent Privileges Committee Report on three Te Pāti Māori MPs done by the week's end. As Leader of the House Chris Bishop said in re-initiating the debate: "My encouragement would be for everybody to finish this debate today. "Have a robust debate, but let's end this issue once and for all, and deal with the issue and get back to the major issues facing this country." That wish was fulfilled with apparent agreement from across the house. As 6pm neared, the MP who eventually moved that a vote be taken was Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi. The frankly fascinating debate on the report will be reported separately. - RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk. Enjoy our articles or podcast at RNZ. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
Making it easier to build a granny flat makes sense - but it's no solution to a housing crisis
First published on Building a basic 70-square-metre granny flat will cost between NZ$200,000 and $300,000. Photo: 123rf As part of its resource management reforms , the government will soon allow "super-sized granny flats" to be built without consent - potentially adding 13,000 dwellings over the next decade to provide "families with more housing options". This represents genuine progress in reducing regulatory barriers. But the scale of the housing crisis means we have to ask whether incremental reforms can deliver meaningful change. The numbers provide important context. Against current consenting rates of 40,000 to 50,000 new dwellings per year, those projected 70-square-metre granny flats represent a 2.6 percent increase in housing supply. In Auckland, where housing pressure is most acute, 300 additional units might be built annually. For some, that's likely to be useful. But for a country already facing a housing crunch, it's insignificant. The numbers also reveal who can participate in this proposed solution. Building a basic 70-square-metre granny flat will cost between NZ$200,000 and $300,000. Add site works, utility connections and mandatory licensed building practitioner supervision, and total project costs will be closer to the upper end of that range. At current interest rates, financing $250,000 requires approximately $480 weekly in loan payments. While rents of $500-$600 per week are achievable in urban markets, these thin margins assume optimal conditions. For property owners with existing equity, this presents a viable investment. For those seeking affordable housing - young families, essential workers, recent immigrants - the benefits remain largely theoretical. This dynamic illustrates a persistent challenge in market-based housing solutions: policies intended to improve affordability often primarily benefit those with capital to deploy . Each granny flat requires full residential infrastructure - water, wastewater and stormwater connections. The development contributions - fees councils charge on new builds to fund infrastructure - will help fund network upgrades. But New Zealand already faces a $120-185 billion water infrastructure deficit over the next 30 years, just to fix existing systems. The challenge is particularly acute in established suburbs where these units are most likely to appear. Parts of Christchurch serviced by vacuum sewers already operate at capacity. Auckland's combined sewer areas face overflow risks during heavy rainfall. Wellington's ageing pipes struggle with current demand. Adding thousands of dispersed infill units to stressed networks poses genuine engineering challenges that funding alone cannot solve. Transport infrastructure faces similar pressures. With minimum parking requirements axed across the nation, these new granny flats will likely increase on-street parking demand and local traffic. While some granny flat residents may rely on public transport or active modes, New Zealand's car ownership rates - 837 vehicles per 1,000 people - suggest most will own vehicles. International experience offers instructive parallels. California's 2017 Accessory Dwelling Unit legislation provides the closest comparison. After removing similar regulatory barriers, California saw permits increase from 1,000 in 2016 to 13,000 in 2019. However, construction costs and infrastructure constraints limited actual completions to roughly 60 percent of approved units. Australian cities report similar patterns. Despite permissive regulations in many areas, only 13-23 percent of suitable properties actually added secondary dwellings. High construction costs and infrastructure limitations proved more binding than regulatory constraints. Closer to home, Auckland's experience with minor dwellings under the Unitary Plan suggests cautious optimism. Since 2016, the city has averaged 300-400 secondary dwelling consents annually where permitted. The number of units actually constructed is unknown. Allowing one-storey detached 70-square-metre units without building consent may increase this modestly. But they are unlikely to dramatically accelerate production given persistent cost and capacity constraints. The policy's benefits flow primarily to existing property owners. They will gain new development rights without competitive tender or public process. While perhaps justified by broader housing benefits, it's worth acknowledging this is a form of wealth transfer. Granny flats typically add roughly their construction cost to property values, providing capital gains alongside rental income potential. For renters, benefits depend on how many units actually materialise and at what price point. Secondary units often rent at 20-30 percent below comparable standalone houses due to their size and backyard location. This could meaningfully expand options for singles and couples. But families requiring larger accommodation will see limited benefits. The policy's design constraints also tell us what kind of urban density is acceptable. Single-storey height limits, two-metre boundary setbacks and standalone requirements essentially mandate the least efficient form of intensification. Units could share walls and services, and two-storey designs that use less land could be permitted. Instead, the granny flat exemption favours the one configuration that maintains suburban aesthetics while delivering minimal extra housing. The granny flat exemption exemplifies New Zealand's approach to housing challenges: acknowledging a crisis while implementing modest responses. Despite severe shortfalls in housing supply, the medium-density development common in comparable countries remains largely unrealised. An estimated 180,000 households could be accommodated through comprehensive densification. There are genuine benefits worth acknowledging, of course. The exemption reduces bureaucratic barriers, enables some additional housing and gives property owners new options. The question isn't so much whether the new policy should be embraced. But rather whether the government is willing to complement it with larger changes the housing crisis demands. This story originally appeared in the Conversation .
RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
Marshall Islands nuclear legacy: report highlights lack of health research
Half of the Marshall Islands' 50,000-strong population live in the capital city of Majuro. Photo: Public domain A new report on the United States nuclear weapons testing legacy in the Marshall Islands highlights the lack of studies into important health concerns voiced by Marshallese for decades that make it impossible to have a clear understanding of the impacts of the 67 nuclear weapons tests. 'The Legacy of US Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands,' a report by Dr. Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, was released late last month. The report was funded by Greenpeace Germany and is an outgrowth of the organization's flagship vessel, Rainbow Warrior III, visiting the Marshall Islands from March to April to recognize the 40th anniversary of the resettlement of the nuclear test-affected population of Rongelap Atoll. Dr Mahkijani said among the "many troubling aspects" of the legacy is that the United States had concluded, in 1948, after three tests, that the Marshall Islands was not 'a suitable site for atomic experiments' because it did not meet the required meteorological criteria. "Yet testing went on," he said. "Also notable has been the lack of systematic scientific attention to the accounts by many Marshallese of severe malformations and other adverse pregnancy outcomes like stillbirths. This was despite the documented fallout throughout the country and the fact that the potential for fallout to cause major birth defects has been known since the 1950s." Makhijani highlights the point that, despite early documentation in the immediate aftermath of the 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test and numerous anecdotal reports from Marshallese women about miscarriages and still births, US government medical officials in charge of managing the nuclear test-related medical program in the Marshall Islands never systematically studied birth anomalies. The US deputy secretary of state in the Biden-Harris administration, Kurt Cambell, said that Washington, over decades, had committed billions of dollars to the damages and the rebuilding of the Marshall Islands. "I think we understand that that history carries a heavy burden, and we are doing what we can to support the people in the [Compact of Free Association] states, including the Marshall Islands," he told reporters at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting in Nuku'alofa last year. "This is not a legacy that we seek to avoid. We have attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment." Among points outlined in the new report: Gamma radiation levels at Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, officially considered a "very low exposure" atoll, were tens of times, and up to 300 times, more than background in the immediate aftermaths of the thermonuclear tests in the Castle series at Bikini Atoll in 1954. Thyroid doses in the so-called "low exposure atolls" averaged 270 milligray (mGy), 60 percent more than the 50,000 people of Pripyat near Chernobyl who were evacuated (170 mGy) after the 1986 accident there, and roughly double the average thyroid exposures in the most exposed counties in the United States due to testing at the Nevada Test Site. Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior and its crew with songs and dances as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Rainbow Warrior. Photo: RNZ Pacific / Giff Johnson Despite this, "only a small fraction of the population has been officially recognized as exposed enough for screening and medical attention; even that came with its own downsides, including people being treated as experimental subjects," the report said. "In interviews and one 1980s country-wide survey, women have reported many adverse pregnancy outcomes," said the report. "They include stillbirths, a baby with part of the skull missing and 'the brain and the spinal cord fully exposed,' and a two-headed baby. Many of the babies with major birth defects died shortly after birth. "Some who lived suffered very difficult lives, as did their families. Despite extensive personal testimony, no systematic country-wide scientific study of a possible relationship of adverse pregnancy outcomes to nuclear testing has been done. It is to be noted that awareness among US scientists of the potential for major birth defects due to radioactive fallout goes back to the 1950s. Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivor data has also provided evidence for this problem. "The occurrence of stillbirths and major birth defects due to nuclear testing fallout in the Marshall Islands is scientifically plausible but no definitive statement is possible at the present time," the report concluded. "The nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands created a vast amount of fission products, including radioactive isotopes that cross the placenta, such as iodine-131 and tritium. Radiation exposure in the first trimester can cause early failed pregnancies, severe neurological damage, and other major birth defects. This makes it plausible that radiation exposure may have caused the kinds of adverse pregnancy outcomes that were experienced and reported. However, no definitive statement is possible in the absence of a detailed scientific assessment." Scientists who traveled with the Rainbow Warrior III on its two-month visit to the Marshall Islands earlier this year collected samples from Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap and other atolls for scientific study and evaluation.
