Checkpoint FOR MONDAY 7 MAY 2012
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1700 to 1707 NEWS
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Three women whose backs were broken on tourist boat rides in the Bay of Islands will be paid out tens of thousands of dollars by the company that injured them. A judge today ordered Intercity Group to pay 270 thousand dollars in fines, including 150 thousand to the three women victims tossed about on high speed trips from Paihia to the Hole in the Rock last year. And a second company, Seafort Holdings is also being sentenced this afternoon over a fourth woman whose back was broken on a similar high speed trip. Intercity Group has pulled its Excitor 3 fast boat off the water for good - its Chief Executive Malcolm Johns says there's no way to make such trips safe. But Seafort in Paihia still operates its Mack Attack, which according to its website reaches up to 100 kilometres an hour. Mr Johns accepts the judge's penalty and says he's sorry for what happened to the passengers. PREREC
Petula Patey is one of two passengers who suffered a broken back on Intercity's high speed boat in January last year. The court today awarded her 60 thousand dollars, but she says the company offered her a lot less. PREREC
The Government will invest an extra 80-million-dollars in childcare to help beneficiaries back into work. A short time ago the Social Development Minister, Paula Bennett released detailed costings of the major welfare changes that include requiring people on the Domestic Purposes Benefit to ready for work sooner and a new youth benefit for 16 and 17 year olds. This is how the 80-million-dollars will be spent. CUT Paula Bennett says one million dollars will also be set aside under proposed welfare changes to fund long-acting reversible contraception for young people. CUT Paula Bennett has refused to be interviewed in Checkpoint - our political reporter Demelza Leslie is with us now LIVE
France's new president, Francois Hollande is promising change in Europe after dealing a humiliating defeat to Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr Hollande is country's first socialist president in seventeen years. And European financial leaders are already looking for signals on how hard the new president plans to push back against the German-led austerity drive. The ABC's Lisa Millar is in Paris: PKG
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1720 TRAILS AND BUSINESS WITH Patrick O'Meara
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Locked out and striking AFFCO meat workers tried in vain to speak with the company's owners today, going to their homes in Motueka to try to meet them in person. Up to 900 workers have been locked out of the North Island plants since the end of February, over a dispute with their collective agreement. The workers also held a march in Nelson. One of the workers, Richard Wairepo, has been locked out of the Horotiu plant near Hamilton, and buzzed the gate of Michael Talley's house, to try to speak with him today. PREREC
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17.30 HEADLINES
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A High Court judge has questioned how a wealthy Chinese businessman, accused of immigration fraud, managed to gain citizenship. Yan Yong Ming, who is also known as Liu Yang and William Yan, is on trial at the High Court in Auckland. Bridget Mills has been covering the case. LIVE
Voters in Greece have made clear their anger about a series of heavy austerity measures aimed at keeping the country in the Eurozone. The country's two mainstream political parties that supported the tough measures, the Conservatives and the Socialists suffered big defeats in a general-election. While anti-austerity parties have won about sixty-eight percent of the vote. That means a coalition government will be very difficult to form. The ABC's Michael Vincent reports: PKG
The Dunedin city council has launched an economic plan to create 10-thousand jobs and lift incomes by 10-thousand dollars in the next ten years. But with no new money going into the project there are questions about how the strategy can succeed. Here's our Otago reporter, Ian Telfer. PKG
To Samoa, where three police officers have been shot and injured during a drug raid in a village Faleatiu near Apia. One villager is reported to have been killed. The police say they were shot at first, as they approached the settlement. Our correspondent in Samoa, Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia Or-tunga-veye-a Tippy Or-tunga-veye-a, is on the line. LIVE
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17.45 MANU KORIHI
Tēnā koutou katoa, good evening,
A central North Island iwi says the Government is unfairly putting the Waitangi Tribunal under pressure.
Ngāti Rangi says ministers are making Treaty settlements a priority, but aren't putting any more money into the machine that deals with Māori grievances.
The Tribunal recently announced that it would be concentrating on clearing a log-jam of urgent claims, at the expense of routine work.
The Pou Ārahi or manager of the Ngāti Rangi Trust in Ōhākune, Che Wilson, says that decision is holding up his tribe's talks with the Crown.
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Che Wilson says Ngāti Rangi has written to the Waitangi Tribunal to express its frustrations.
He says another tribe, Tūwharetoa, has also told the inquiry of its disappointment.
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The Waikato-Hauraki MP, Nanaia Mahuta, wants to make it easier for iwi and hapu to correct Māori place names.
In March, Ms Mahuta commended a Bay of Plenty iwi, Ngāti Whare, for pushing the Crown to acknowledge the mana of the tribe's place names in its Treaty settlement bill.
She says tribes shouldn't have to go through Treaty Settlements to rectify Māori place names, and then have the National Geographic Board determine what's correct.
Ms Mahuta says she's going to spend time finding out exactly how the name change process currently works - before attempting to make it a simple task for tangata whenua.
She would like to make some improvements to the process within a year's time.
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The former chair of the Waikato-Tainui executive, Tukoroirangi Morgan, is no longer a tribal leader on the Iwi Chairs Forum, but is staying on to help the group.
The body represents more than 400-thousand Māori.
It investigates a range of topics - including constitutional reform, freshwater and climate change, and talks to government officials about those kaupapa.
Mr Morgan has been replaced on the forum by the new chairperson of the Waikato-Tainui executive, Tom Roa.
Despite that, Mr Morgan, continues to work along members of the forum.
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Tukoroirangi Morgan.
The Dryland Forests Initiative says many Māori communities would benefit from the development of a durable timber industry in New Zealand.
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The initiative is a cross sector research and development project, which aims to have several species of eucalypts planted on drought prone and erodible pastoral land.
The Chairman, Shaf van Ballekom, (shaf "a" as in cat.. bell ee kom) says stands of eucalypt would provide another income stream for Māori owned farms, many of which are located in drier parts of the country.
He says there's a lot of land which iwi own, especially north of Gisborne, which would be suitable to plant eucalypts on instead of radiata pine.
Mr van Ballekom says the timber can be used to make hardwood posts which don't need to be chemically treated.
He says the Dryland Forests Initiative hopes to work with the Ministry of Primary Industries new Māori sector partnership, to promote planting of eucalypts.
That's Te Manu Korihi news; I'll have a further bulletin in an hour.
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An investigation has found nearly half of the recent fraud cases at District Health Boards, local authorities and universities and polytechs don't get reported to the police. The Auditor-General report shows that in many cases staff are allowed to resign, are disciplined or even sacked but that's as far as it goes. Ann Webster is assistant Auditor General - I asked her why an agency would sack someone for fraud but not go to the police. PREREC
The Government's being warned a planned crack down on loan sharks could drive the industry further underground. The Consumer Affairs Minister, Simon Bridges has fronted up to interest groups in South Auckland today, to talk about the draft Credit Contacts and Consumer Finance Amendment bill. Mani Dunlop's spoken to those who get called in to help when loans become too hard to repay. PKG
The Syrian opposition and social media are commemorating the death last year of a boy who become a symbol of the country's uprising. He was arrested during a protest in Daraa and his mutilated body was returned almost a month later. The BBC's Leana hoh-ZAY-uh Hosea reports: PKG