Tairawhiti District health board officials are going into schools in the Gisborne region in an effort to reduce cases of rheumatic fever; A designers' group says the Canterbury earthquake has created an opportunity for the local iwi to put its architectural stamp on the new Christchurch; Kaitaia people will be among the first in the country to see a long-awaited film about the much-loved comedian - Billy T James.
Peter Townsend is the Chief Executive of the Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce. He is part of the official reconstruction group. Geert van de Vorsten Bosch is the emergency Centre Supervisor at Linwood High School which has been turned into an evacuation centre. Dr Ramon Pink is the Canterbury medical officer of health. Metservice duty forecaster Heath Gullery speaks about the possible weather issues Canterbury may soon experience.
Many Christchurch residents have used shipping containers and other temporary structures to store belongings in while repairs were carried out after the earthquakes. But the Christchurch City Council says it's had an increase in complaints from residents about containers and other temporary structures obscuring neighbours' views or obstructing council berms. Chairman of the council's regulation and consents committee David East says if earthquake repairs are completed, the container may have to go.
Major Australian law firm Maurice Blackburn has agreed to underwrite a class action law suit against Southern Response seeking redress for Canterbury earthquake claimants. Christchurch lawyer Grant Cameron says "hidden costs" led to significant underpayments to about 3000 people. Maurice Blackburn is a law firm which specialises in class actions, its principal lawyer Martin Hyde joins Kathryn, along with Grant Cameron, to talk about why they think they have a strong case.
What does leadership look like in a disaster? David compares Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown's leadership this week with how Bob Parker and Lianne Dalziel coped with the Christchurch earthquakes and terror attacks. He looks at how current Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger's council is faring and whether reality meets the rhetoric and what's happened to the city's Metro Sports facility, one of the anchor projects in the rebuild.
The capital has a tight rental accommodation market, and the peak demand season is just a few weeks from beginning. One prospective Wellington flat hunter, who'd experienced the Christchurch earthquake - including knowledge of the collapse, or partial collapse, of 3 buildings he'd previously lived in - has contacted us, frustrated at the lack of information available from landlords or letting agencies. What rights to information do tenants have?
Music we know is a great healer, and members of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra have just been to quake-hit Kaikoura to play for children and for people who're struggling. Kaikoura Earthquake Recovery Team invited five CSO musicians to perform for local schools, for residents in the Kaikoura Health Facility, and the wider community during the week. CSO first violin Cathy Irons talks to Lynn Freeman about the experience.
The Earthquake Commission has settled with a Christchurch homeowner, just days before their test case was due to be heard at the High Court. Jamie Gibling used his KiwiSaver to buy his first family home in New Brighton after the quakes, believing it had been properly repaired. He later learned the repairs were botched and would cost $300,000 to fix. His "onsold" test case was supposed to be heard on Monday to clarify who was liable. But today EQC announced it had reached a settlement with the family and that agreement would provide a framework for the 54 other claimants also with Shine Lawyers. Finance and EQC Minister Grant Robertson last week announced an "onsold" settlement kitty of $300 million for the next 12 months but legal experts working with claimants have told Checkpoint it could cost taxpayers much much more. EQC's Deputy Chief Executive is Renee Walker. On Thursday she came into the studio and Lisa Owen asked her if the Giblings got what they asked for and if the 54 others who signed up to the class action would get the same.
TVs, shopping trolleys, beds, mattresses, even a gun. That is just some of the rubbish found by residents surrounding Christchurch's residential red zone. The area used to be filled with houses, but damage after the Canterbury earthquakes forced thousands of homes to be demolished. While many of the old suburban roads remain, the area now resembles a park. But it is now attracting those wanting to dump their rubbish for free - and Land Information NZ, which controls the land, has removed 25 tonnes of trash since January. Residents have had enough as well - with some taking matters into their own hands. Checkpoint reporter Logan Church has the story.
Some Canterbury homeowners are worried that missed earthquake damage to concrete slabs could result in another big bill for the taxpayer. This comes only weeks after EQC told Checkpoint that the cost of mis-scoped damage or defective repairs following the Canterbury earthquakes could cost up to $1 billion. This includes $450 million for botched repairs, including badly repaired rubble ring foundations, and $300 million for an ex gratia payment to about 1000 over-cap onsold homeowners. But some Canterbury homeowners who bought after the earthquakes - and did their due diligence - are only discovering damage to their concrete slab foundations now. Logan Church reports.
Andre Lovatt grew up in Christchurch and completed a masters degree in Civil Engineering at Canterbury before taking up a position in Singapore working on, among other things, the $6.7 billion Marina Bay Sands waterfront resort. After almost 10 years in Southeast Asia he has returned to his earthquake ravaged home to take on a project with a much smaller price tag. Andre is the new CEO of the Christchurch Arts Centre and his job is to oversee the $290 million dollar project that will, if it's successful, return the centre to its former glory by the end of 2019.
Topics - Katy Perry opened the ceremony in Los Angeles with a Japanese-themed performance of Unconditionally, dressed as a Geisha. Within minutes, fans and viewers were accusing her of racism. A citizens initiated referendum on the sale of state assets is in full swing. The referendum isn't binding on the Government, in fact the Government has already promised to ignore it. Newly published research shows that the Canterbury earthquakes were even more unusual than first thought, with such a sequence unlikely to occur anywhere else in the world. The research, published this week in Nature Geoscience, challenges the common assumption that the strength of the Earth's crust is constant.
Topics - Twelve charges laid against the former Pike River Coal chief executive Peter Whittall in relation to the 2010 disaster at the mine have been dropped. In a shock development in the Christchurch District Court today, the Crown said that after an extensive review it was "not appropriate to continue with the prosecution against Mr Whittall''. More than half of the 2.15 million KiwiSaver members are either not contributing to the retirement scheme or not saving enough to collect the $521 annual tax credit from the Government, according to the Inland Revenue Department. The number of people with dire needs on Housing New Zealand's waiting list has tripled since the Christchurch earthquakes.
Topics - The Gettysburg address, the short speech given by Abraham Lincoln 150 years ago today, the finest short speech in the English language, and one of the great political utterances of all time. A strong earthquake that hit Christchurch last night has been upgraded by GNS Science to a magnitude 4.6. It was also shallower than first believed, with GNS reporting it was 8km deep rather than 11km. Wallabies rugby coach Ewen McKenzie has made no apologies for suspending six of his players in what's been described as "a hard-line move designed to set the standards required to win the 2015 World Cup".
One Christchurch business has found just the right ingredients to rise again."The Naked Baker"gave away all of their cakes and buns and baked goods to the people of North Brighton after the earthquake on February 22nd. Co-owners Darren Carlaw and Andrew Snee started the bakery, coffee roastery and mobile food business 8 years ago. The cafe had to shut for more than 2 weeks to clean up all the damage . They didn't know what to expect when the business re-opened. What they discovered is that business is up by 30% thanks in part to their ability to bring their coffee and cakes to the many offices that have moved out of the center of town.
Many areas of Christchurch are underwater, dealing with what's been described as the worst flooding since the earthquakes. The high tide has just passed, with the rivers already running across roads and flooding into some homes. Schools have been closed, businesses inundated and dozens of roads around the city, closed. Already more than 70mm of rain has fallen in the past 24 hours, making it the city's wettest July on record. Now as the bad weather moves south the army has been put on standby in Dunedin for the expected deluge there. RNZ reporters Niva Chittock, Adam Burns and cameraman Nathan McKinnon are in Christchurch with the details.
EQC was ill-prepared to deal with the wide spread damage of the Christchurch Earthquakes and as a consequence its reputation been left in tatters with many seeing the commission as uncaring, miserly and inefficient. That is according to the findings of the inquiry into EQC and its handling of quake claims in Canterbury and Kaikōura. Inquiry Chair Dame Silvia Cartwright lays out a raft of inadequacies including EQC not being equiped to handle a mass scale managed repair programme - leading to multiple mistakes, poor staffing decisions and inadequate quality control. Damage assessments were the root of claimants disputes time and time again. Dame Silvia Cartwright described to Checkpoint the way claimants have been treated by EQC.
Our managed isolation hotels are too posh and returnees should not be treated like hotel guests with luxuries like free menu choices and drycleaning. That's the verdict from New Zealand woman Toni Foster who has returned to the country to take up a job and has spent the past 11 days in isolation at Ellerslie's Novotel Hotel. Toni says she had expected to return to isolation in accommodation similar to the container village after the Christchurch earthquakes - not a free four or five star hotel which she said some returnees were treating as a holiday. She says returnees should not be treated like hotel guests because they're not paying a cent to be there.
Southern Response is back in court today - this time having a final go at arguing that a class action against it should not be an 'opt-out'. Christchurch residents Brendan and Colleen Ross say the state insurer deliberately withheld the true cost of repairing their home which was damaged in the Canterbury earthquakes. They are now among 3000 people represented in a class action led by Christchurch lawyer Grant Cameron. In September last year the Court of Appeal decided the class action could proceed on an 'opt-out' basis - which means it would cover more people and potentially cost the state-owned insurer more money if it loses. Southern Response is challenging that decision in the Supreme Court, a two day hearing wrapped up on Tuesday. Checkpoint reporter Logan Church was there.
A Christchurch couple locked in an ongoing legal battle with state-owned quake insurer Southern Response says it is sobering for a Court of Appeal decision to go their way, one decade on from the harrowing earthquakes. An earlier High Court decision found Southern Response guilty of misleading and deceptive behaviour when it short-changed Karl and Alison Dodds tens of thousands of dollars after their quake damaged house was written off. The Dodds say they were tricked into accepting a lower offer from Southern Response only to later discover the insurer had kept secret from them a second higher estimate to rebuild their damaged house, a so-called second secret detailed repair and rebuild analysis (DRA). The High Court ordered Southern Response to pay the Dodds almost $180,000 in damages, plus costs. But the government appealed the decision, saying it needed clarity, because of the thousands of similar cases it could be liable for. The Court of Appeal reduced the damages Southern Response has to pay $10,656.44 due to an earlier error in calculations. The Minister responsible Grant Robertson has declined to be interviewed. Southern Response also declined to be interviewed. Neither have ruled out appealing the decision in the Supreme Court.
Topics - The Parole Board has decided that Teina Pora should be released from prison. Pora has served 21 years of a life sentence for murdering and raping Susan Burdett in Auckland in 1992. He continues to protest his innocence, and he'll appear before the Privy Council in London at the end of the year in an effort to clear his name. A coroner's report criticises almost every aspect of the Fire Service's response to the CTV building collapse that killed 115 people in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Gordon Matenga says more people, more resources, better communication and a better structure might have improved the chances of saving more lives that day.
Christchurch's historic Theatre Royal will reopen for business in November, with bookings about to open for the first show, the Royal New Zealand Ballet season of "A Christmas Carol" The 106-year old theatre has been closed for almost four years because of earthquake damage in the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. The $40million rebuild and restoration project will be completed over the next five months and on 17 November 2014, the 'Grand Old Lady' of New Zealand theatre will reopen her doors for performances. With so few venues for performance left in the city, including the Town Hall out of commission indefinitely, the rebuild of the Theatre Royal is very good news for Christchurch audiences Chief executive Neil Cox explains the process of getting oldest Edwardian theatre in the country back in use and mounting the large scale theatrical productions it has been famous for.
Topics - Official statistics released today show New Zealand's population has increased by 214,000 people in the seven years since the last census. The census, usually held every five years, was delayed in 2011 due to the Christchurch earthquakes. In what has been described as a "stealthy assault" in Somalia - and also in a raid in Libya's capital - US special forces have struck out against Islamic extremists who carried out terrorist attacks in East Africa. The commandos snatched a Libyan al-Qaida leader allegedly involved in the bombings of US embassies 15 years ago - but aborted a mission to capture a terrorist suspect linked to last month's Nairobi shopping mall attack after a fierce firefight.
Back in 2011, a slightly rusty three speed bike abandoned after the September earthquake on a demolition site in Christchurch caught the attention of John Smithies. He's 72, only slightly older than the bike, and he decided it would be just the bicycle to take on a epic, 2000 kilometre journey from Cape Reinga to Bluff. He started in September and expects to reach Bluff on Friday. He's making the epic journey in memory of his wife, Alison who died two years ago of a form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The ride down State Highway One is raising money for leukemia and blood cancer.
The Prime Minister Chris Hipkins today announced an additional three hundred and one million dollar boost for the rebuild of earthquake damaged Christchurch schools, and said the programme in Christchurch may be a template for repairing flood damaged schools in the North Island. Some schools are still waiting to be repaired more than a decade after the devastating quakes. On his first visit to Christchurch since becoming Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins visited one of the schools still in the midst of its rebuild process, and to celebrate the progress being made. Our reporter Rachel Graham and videographer Nate McKinnon went along.
The Anglican church is considering whether to sell Christchurch's cardboard cathedral to plug a shortfall in the budget for restoring the original descimated in the earthquakes. The church leadership will discuss the future of the cardboard building during meetings at the weekend. It opened opposite Latimer square in 2013 as a temporary place of worship, but soom became popular with tourists too. Meanwhile a 2017 estimate put the cost of restoring the actual Cathedral at just over $100 million, but that's since ballooned to north of $155 million. Harcourts real estate agent, Mark O'Loughlin, speaks to Lisa Owen from Christchurch. [embed] https://players.brightcove.net/6093072280001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6336786667112
A review of the week's news including: Continuing industrial trouble at Ports Of Auckland, the National Road Policing manager Paula Rose on holiday road toll figures, Southland faces drought conditions, researchers come up with a solution that could lower the cost of rebuilding the earthquake devastated Christchurch CBD, a 24 year old woman with autism wins a 2011 attitude award for raising awareness of the condition, New Zealand Tasman Sea rowers hope to finally make some progress and how they celebrate New year at the bottom of the World.
DAVID SHEARER to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement "I am deeply concerned about every child in New Zealand who is in poverty"; if so, why has the number of children living in material hardship grown under his watch? TODD McCLAY to the Minister of Finance: What measures has the Government taken to support vulnerable New Zealanders through the aftermath of the domestic recession and global financial crisis? METIRIA TUREI to the Prime Minister: When he said "we don't want to see any New Zealand child suffer … children don't get to make choices, they're often the victim of circumstance" does that mean he will take tangible steps to ensure children don't suffer because of circumstances beyond their control? Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in the Minister of Immigration? Hon DAVID PARKER to the Minister of Finance: Compared to 2012, does the Reserve Bank forecast the New Zealand dollar (as measured by the Trade Weighted Index) to strengthen or weaken in the next two years, and does he believe this will make New Zealand exporters more competitive or less competitive? DAVID BENNETT to the Minister for Economic Development: How is the Government encouraging the sustainable use of natural resources to support jobs and grow the economy? Hon MARYAN STREET to the Minister of Health: Is he satisfied with the state of children's health in New Zealand; if not, why not? COLIN KING to the Minister of Energy and Resources: What recent announcement has he made about Block Offer 2012? EUGENIE SAGE to the Minister for the Environment: Does she agree with the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society in relation to freshwater that "failure to act with decisiveness and urgency risks further environmental degradation and erosion of our international environmental reputation"; if not, why not? Hon LIANNE DALZIEL to the Minister for Building and Construction: How quickly will he respond to the building performance, assessment and construction recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Building Failure caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes? NICKY WAGNER to the Minister for Building and Construction: What is the Government doing in response to the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission's full report? CLARE CURRAN to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?
Interviews with various people including radio reporters, the Christchurch mayor, police, and civil defence, on Saturday 4 Sept. 2010 after the Canterbury earthquake. Use Internet Explorer to listen to the archived MP3s. The streaming video (Ogg Vorbis) has not been archived.
A review of the week's main news: sex offender slips through net to teach in a number of New Zealand schools, government says it's not to blame for spreading industrial unrest, Turangi teen sentenced to 10 years jail for raping five year old, Rena captain and navigational officer plead guilty to altering ship's documents, government targets sole parents, unemployed teens, widows and women alone in welfare reforms, Otago Rugby Union fights to stave off liquidation, government promising clampdown on mistreatment and underpayment of foreign crews working on fishing boats chartered to New Zealand companies, structural engineer breaks down at Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission and Bret McKenzie earns an Oscar for a Muppet of a song.