Checkpoint FOR THURSDAY 2 MAY 2013
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1700 to 1707 NEWS
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The police say they shot and tasered a man in Wellington this morning to save a woman's life - and it shows the new rules giving officers easier access to weapons are justified. Two officers were called to a Penguin Grove house in Porirua at about 5:30. They were met by a distressed and injured woman - she pointed them to her sister's home where they forced their way in to find a 47-year-old man assaulting his 38-year-old partner. A cousin of the women, Bonnie Ngātai, also lives on Penguin Grove - she says alcohol's probably behind what happened.
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Another cousin Ange Wallace lives right next door.
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The police have now begun their own inquiry and the Independent Police Conduct Authority will also investigate. But the Kapi-Mana area commander, Inspector Paul Basham, is backing his officers' actions and says they saved a life this morning
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New Zealand Post has warned the Government it might have to subsidise letter deliveries if the six-day-a-week service is to continue - but says the request isn't an ultimatum. The state-owned company wants to keep the current service as long as possible, but says it will become uneconomic as volumes of mail continue to drop. The warning comes in papers requested by Radio New Zealand under the Official Information Act. NZ Post's chief executive is Brian Roche.
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Our political editor, Brent Edwards, requested the papers under the OIA - he's with us now.
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An investor in one of the failed Hubbard finance companies, Aorangi Securities, is relieved he'll be getting all his money back but is blaming the statutory managers for the time it's taken. Investors had 96 million dollars in the company which was put into statutory management in 2010. Owner Alan Hubbard died from injuries in a car crash the following year. His widow Jean has been battling over who controls the money and today the statutory managers Grant Thornton announced both sides had reached an amicable agreement. Investors are being told they will get most if not all of their money. One of them is Noel McPherson.
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1720 TRAILS AND BUSINESS WITH Kate Gudsell
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The Christchurch lawyer who apologised for the behaviour of National List MP, Aaron Gilmore, at a restaurant at the weekend, says Mr Gilmore threatened to get the Prime Minister's Office to sack a waiter who refused to bring him more wine. And Andrew Riches says the MP's half-hearted apology today has tried to shift responsibility on to the group he was with, and he doesn't want them unfairly tarnished. Mr Gilmore has not replied to our repeated calls, while Mr Riches has only put out a written statement Our reporter, Lauren Baker is following the story.
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Three friends of one of the Boston bombing suspects have been charged with trying to cover up his tracks by throwing out fireworks, a laptop and then lying to the police. None of the trio are implicated in plotting the attacks but all briefly appeared in court today in handcuffs to hear the charges read against them. They're facing fines of a quarter of a million US dollars and maximum prison terms of five or eight years. Ben Knight reports from Boston:
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17. 30 HEADLINES
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Labour and the Greens say a call by business groups to drop their new electricity policy is ill-informed and alarmist. The two parties say if they become Government they will set up a single purchaser of electricity which would then pass on savings to consumers.
An open letter from ten organisations - including Business New Zealand and the Chambers of Commerce - says electricity policies based on subsidies and greater state control are not the answer to rising prices. Here's our political reporter, Chris Bramwell.
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The closing day for worried investors to pull out of the Mighty River Power share offer was yesterday. Radio New Zealand has received no response from either lead manager Goldman Sachs or from Treasury as to how many buyers have requested their money back.
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New Zealand's two-and-a-half billion-dollar foreign student industry is hurting under the combined weight of a high dollar and the global recession. Student numbers fell last year and this year language schools and universities are reporting static or falling enrolments. Now the number of international students is nearing its lowest point in a decade. Here's our education correspondent, John Gerritsen.
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An Otago woman has gone public over her lengthy and frustrating battle with Inland Revenue over her stolen IRD number. Danelle Byrne got letters demanding she pay overdue GST and threatening legal action even though the Department knew that she was the victim of a fraud. IRD apologised this week after Danelle went to the media - but she says that's not enough. The problem started last June when she applied for family tax credits.
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17. 45 MANU KORIHI
Tēnā koe, good evening,
The marae hosting the tangi of Parekura Horomia is making extra room for manuhiri who are pouring in from all over the country.
The former Māori Affairs Minister died on Monday, and Hauiti Marae in Tolaga Bay, north of Gisborne, has been inundated with mourners since the tangi began yesterday.
The marae's accommodation co-ordinator, Huia Allan, says there are five hundred beds available at several marae in the rohe.
She says manuhiri are already using some of those beds, and there is space for another two hundred people at a local school hall and kōhanga.
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IN: PUKEROA IS BOOKED OUT. . .
OUT: . . . WHOEVER ELSE COMES.
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Huia Allan of Hauiti Marae.
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And a Ngāti Porou man based in Thailand has paid tribute to Parekura Horomia, saying he could relate to people from all walks of life.
Te Atawhai Tibble, who is unable to attend Mr Horomia's tangi, says Mr Horomia was not a lawyer or a doctor, or even an academic - he started out as a labourer.
He says Parekura Horomia could connect with young people, working class people, rural people and those struggling to make ends meet.
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IN: HE WAS AS. . .
OUT: . . . IN THAT WAY.
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Te Atawhai Tibble of Ngāti Porou, speaking from Thailand.
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Members of Ngāti Awa and Māori regional councillors in Whakatāne today told MPs they supported a law change to clean up a local river.
They made submissions before members of the Local Government and Environment Select Committee, in support of the Resource Management Amendment Bill.
The bill, sponsored by Green MP Catherine Delahunty, seeks to limit the timeframe companies are allowed to expel discharge into rivers without re-applying for permission.
It would reduce the time from 35 years to five.
A paper mill in Whakatāne has discharged its waste into the Tarawera river since before 1995.
A Bay of Plenty regional councillor, Tipene Marr, says the river he could not learn the skills to fish there from his parents, and his children will also miss out.
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The Electoral Commission has recommended that Parliament look at allowing Māori to choose between electoral rolls more often.
Currently, Māori can only choose to be on the general roll or the Māori roll every five years, following the national census.
Christopher Gilbert reports:
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IN: THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. . .
OUT: . . . IS CHRISTOPHER GILBERT.
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That's Te Manu Korihi news, I'll have a further bulletin in an hour.
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Authorities in Bangladesh say more than four hundred people are now known to have died in last week's factory building collapse in Dhaka and one-hundred-and-fifty others are still officially listed as missing. Mass burials of victims have been taking place and angry protesters have taken to the streets in annual May Day parades. Pope Francis has condemned as slave labour the working conditions of the hundreds killed and the European Union is considering trade sanctions against the country. The BBC's Andrew North has this report from Dhaka:
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Camping in terrifying jungle and losing large amounts of weight through sickness are just two of the obstacles facing a New Zealand team of kayakers taking on unpaddled canyons in Papua New Guinea. They're returning to Chimbu province - where they successfully tackled white water descents in 2011 - to push further down than last time, when one of the team's boats was sucked into a waterfall.
Team leader Jordan Searle describes how they will be tested to their limits.
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Millions of voters in England go to the polls later tonight for local elections, which are being seen as an important popularity test for the main national political parties. There's particular interest this time on the election outcome for UKIP (you-kip) or the UK Independence Party, which is campaigning for Britain's withdrawal from the European Union and has been doing well in the opinion polls. Elections are being held in 27 English county councils and seven unitary authorities with more than 2 thousand 300 seats up for grabs Here' s the BBC's political correspondent Rob Watson:
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