Latest from Otago Daily Times
Otago Daily Times
16 minutes ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Fire engulfs home sending smoke over harbour
Photo: Paul Le Comte Fire crews from across Dunedin are battling a house ''well ablaze'' in St Leonards which has sent smoke billowing over Otago Harbour. A Fire and Emergency New Zealand spokesman said five fire appliances crews from Ravensbourne, Port Chalmers, Dunedin and St Kilda were called to a Hawk lane address just before 3pm. Photo: Alwyn Frost When they arrived a house was ''well ablaze,'' he said. They were working to get the fire under control and extinguish it presently.
Otago Daily Times
16 minutes ago
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Pay talk protection: National backs Labour's transparency bill
Labour MP Dr Deborah Russell. By Giles Dexter of RNZ Members' bills from opposition MPs are more often than not doomed to fail, but there have been exceptions to the rule this term. Tracey McLellan's Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill received unanimous support at its second reading, with all six parties in Parliament voting in favour. Deborah Russell's Companies (Address Information) Amendment Bill is being supported by National and ACT, but not by New Zealand First. Others, like Camilla Belich's Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill, have passed thanks to the support of one of the smaller coalition parties (in this case, New Zealand First). But only one opposition bill has had the support of National, and only National this term, and it is another from Belich. On Wednesday night, her Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill passed its second reading, thanks to National voting alongside the three opposition parties. The bill would ensure that pay secrecy clauses, which prevent employees from discussing their salaries with colleagues, would no longer be enforceable, meaning employers could not take legal action if an employee talked about pay. There will be cases where pay differences were justifiable (such as different skill sets or qualifications), but the bill's intention is to shed light on situations where they were unjustifiable. Australia, the UK, the EU, and some US states have either banned pay secrecy clauses or made them unenforceable. Belich said people already talk about their pay with colleagues, but stopping businesses from taking action against them for it would keep New Zealand up with the times. "It takes away the right for them to take action and discipline their employees when they talk about their pay. We know this happens already at the moment. So there's definitely a common sense, pragmatic element to this bill," she said. "It's making sure that usual human behaviour and workplace discussions are not something that people are disciplined for." Six National MPs took calls on the bill at its second reading. Every one of them referenced the gender pay gap and were hopeful the bill would be a mechanism to reduce it. Banks Peninsula MP Vanessa Weenink, who gave National's first contribution to the bill, said the party supported the bill because it had a "proud history" of driving down the gender pay gap. "We know that pay transparency is a key factor for driving down the gender pay gap. International studies have shown that when that legislation has been brought in, that it's measurable in the amount of reduction in the pay gap. So we really want to see that continue to fall down." Belich said it was great to see continued support for the bill. "I was heartened by the comments made in the house, where the National Party members said they would support this right through. I hope that's what they do," she said. "I think given the current context, where we've had significant changes to our pay equity regime, where women have had the ability to take pay equity claims severely curtailed, these types of bills, which make small changes to make a more transparent workforce, are increasingly important." Weenink said the "optics" around pay equity had nothing to do with National's support for the bill, as the party had also supported the bill at its first reading, well before the pay equity changes were announced. "It's just our ongoing commitment to doing what we can to make the workplace fair and improve productivity. How I see it is that if you can see you're being paid less than someone else who's working right beside you, doing the same job, then that's going to massively reduce your motivation, isn't it?" She did not see it as National handing Labour a win, but rather an opportunity to put party politics aside and improve things for New Zealanders. The bill passed its first reading in November. Sometimes, a bill is given cautious support at its first reading, in order to send it to Select Committee to see if the kinks are ironed out. The Education and Workforce Committee received 225 submissions on the bill, the majority in support. Belich said a number of changes were made to the bill through the Select Committee process, including making it clear there would be no requirement to make a disclosure. "It's still something that can be a private matter. It's only if you wish to that you shouldn't be disciplined for the desire to actually discuss that. So that was probably the major change through Select Committee." She said there were some definitional tidy-ups, including making it clear what the definitions of remuneration and detriment were, as well as ensuring the bill would not be retrospective. Some privileged or commercially sensitive information, for example, owner benefits for a business owner who also receives an employee salary, would also be excluded. Despite the changes, ACT and New Zealand First continued to oppose the bill. ACT said it would allow people to breach agreements they had signed up to, for which there should be consequences. "Once you've signed something, you are supposed to oblige to the conditions that you have signed for. If you do not agree to something in the agreement that you have signed, then there is an opportunity for you to go back and renegotiate the terms and conditions that you don't agree to," Parmjeet Parmar told the House. "But you don't just breach the agreement and say that there should be no consequences for that." New Zealand First's Mark Patterson said it "runs smack into the brick wall" of the party's belief in the "sanctity" of contract law. "While this bill doesn't prevent pay secrecy and that's still able to be incorporated within a contract, it does limit an employer's ability to enforce it, and that goes against what a contract should be," he said. Belich said she found the arguments against the bill "interesting," as it was specifically designed so businesses would not need to spend money to change their contracts. "If we'd said you cannot have a pay secrecy clause in your contract, or pay secrecy clauses are now illegal to have even in an employment document, there'd be thousands of employment agreements throughout the country that would need to be changed, that would cost money, that would take legal advice. It would be a burden on business." The bill still needs to go through the Committee of the Whole House stage for any further tidy-ups, and then a third reading, though Weenink did not foresee any major changes. "It took a long time to bash some of these things out, and I think we've got it to a really good place." Acknowledging National is a "broad church" and there had been strong discussions about the bill amongst the caucus, she did not expect any changes to the party's position at the third reading.
Otago Daily Times
39 minutes ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Air India crash probe focuses on captain's actions: report
A cockpit recording of dialogue between the two pilots of the Air India flight that crashed indicates the captain turned off the switches controlling fuel to the plane's engines, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. The newspaper on Wednesday cited people familiar with United States officials' early assessment of evidence uncovered in the investigation into the crash, which killed 260 people on June 12 this year in Ahmedabad. One person survived. The first officer, who was flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, asked the more experienced captain why he moved the fuel switches to the "cutoff" position seconds after lifting off the runway the report said. The two pilots involved were Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder, who had total flying experience of 15,638 hours and 3403 hours, respectively. India's AAIB, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Boeing and Air India did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment on the Wall Street Journal report. A preliminary report into the crash released by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) on Saturday said the fuel switches had switched from run to cutoff a second apart just after takeoff, but it did not say how they were flipped. Almost immediately after the plane lifted off the ground, closed-circuit TV footage showed a backup energy source called a ram air turbine had deployed, indicating a loss of power from the engines. One pilot was then heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. "The other pilot responded that he did not do so," the report said. Without fuel flowing to the engines, the London-bound plane began to lose thrust and sink. The fuel switches for both engines were turned back to run, and the airplane automatically tried restarting the engines, the report said. But the plane was too low and too slow to be able to recover, aviation safety expert John Nance told Reuters. The plane clipped some trees and a chimney before crashing in a fireball into a building on a nearby medical college campus, the report said, killing 19 people on the ground and 241 of the 242 on board the 787. NO SAFETY RECOMMENDATIONS In an internal memo on Monday, Air India chief executive Campbell Wilson said the preliminary report found no mechanical or maintenance faults and that all required maintenance had been carried out. The AAIB's preliminary report had no safety recommendations for Boeing or engine manufacturer GE. After the report was released, the United States Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing privately issued notifications that the fuel switch locks on Boeing planes are safe, a document seen by Reuters showed and four sources with knowledge of the matter said. The circumstantial evidence increasingly indicates that a crew member flipped the engine fuel switches, Nance said, given there was "no other rationale explanation" that was consistent with the information released to date. Nonetheless, investigators "still have to dig into all the factors" and rule out other possible contributing factors which would take time, he said. Most air crashes are caused by multiple factors, and under international rules, a final report is expected within a year of an accident. The Air India crash has rekindled debate over adding flight deck cameras, known as cockpit image recorders, on airliners. Nance said investigators likely would have benefited greatly from having video footage of the cockpit during the Air India flight. Air India has faced additional scrutiny on other fronts after the crash. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency said this month it plans to investigate its budget airline, Air India Express, after Reuters reported the carrier did not follow a directive to change engine parts of an Airbus A320 in a timely manner and falsified records to show compliance.
Otago Daily Times
an hour ago
- Otago Daily Times
Cousins' crash deaths prompt efforts to help save lives
After his two young cousins were killed in a car crash, Rob Fleming was motivated to help save lives. Fleming is a Hato Hone St John volunteer first responder and volunteer firefighter in Leeston. He also teaches young people who have driving offences through The Right Track programme. Fleming's volunteer work earned him the inspirational role model award at St John's Time to Shine Awards. 'It came as a big surprise, big shock.' Fleming's cousins Tayla Alexander, 17, and her sister Sunmara, 15, both died after a crash on Christchurch's Summit Rd on November 27, 2019. Tayla was thrown out of the car and died, while Sunmara suffered extensive burns after the fuel tank ruptured and died in hospital on December 13 – her 16th birthday. Fleming was dropping a patient off at Christchurch Hospital as Sunmara was about to be transported to the burns unit at Auckland Hospital. 'That's an image I will never forget,' Fleming said. The driver Levi Phillip Fiddymont was sentenced in 2022 to two years and four months in prison on two charges of dangerous driving causing the deaths. The crash was a major factor in Fleming volunteering his time to The Right Track programme about two years ago. "There had to be something out there that I could lend my experience to and hopefully cause some change,' Fleming said. The programme takes young people who are appearing before the courts and teaches them about the impact of their decisions before they appear for sentencing. 'They see the ambulance, but they don't see what's behind the ambulance. 'They get to know about what happens at the little, small town level with us volunteers. "You actually physically see someone go: 'Oh, wow',' Fleming said. He joined the Rakaia Volunteer Fire Brigade in 2005 and, in 2011, became involved in St John's cadet programme after his son William joined. "He and one of his friends decided they wanted to try the cadets. So I went down and about the third night there, the leader tapped me on the shoulder and said: 'Instead of just sitting there, how about joining?'' Fleming was involved with the cadets for a few years and stopped after his son finished. William is now also a first responder at St John. Fleming moved to Leeston in 2018, shifting to the Leeston Volunteer Fire Brigade and volunteering at Leeston St John as a first responder. Fleming was inspired by his uncles, Noel Thian and Ray Wasley, who were former chiefs of the Leeston brigade. 'They really instilled the whole ethos of volunteering, and it stuck with me.' When not volunteering, Fleming works as a pest controller. 'Luckily, I've got a very understanding wife (Kathryn) and a good support network.'
Otago Daily Times
an hour ago
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
ODT Rugby Chat: Premier Finals Time
Well it's finals time again on ODT Rugby chat brought to you by Garador and we lay it on the line with the coaches, who wins?? We ask Pete McIntyre from Harbour how they made it? Has he reassumed his 'super coach' tag after taking yet another team to a final? We ask Andy Hunter how he has made it from 6th to the final? How did his lightweight pack get on top of Southern in the semi and crush them in a scum late in the game to get the penalty that won it? We ask them both what the last words will be to the teams before they head out of the tunnel?
