Checkpoint is a drive-time news and current affairs programme on Radio New Zealand National. It broadcasts nationwide every weekday evening for two hours and covers the day’s major national and international stories, as well as business, sport and Māori news. This recording covers the first hour.
The following rundown is supplied from the broadcaster’s news system:
Checkpoint FOR TUESDAY 2 JULY 2013
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1700 to 1707 NEWS
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The Prime Minister is rubbishing claims that the Māori Party's support has been hurt by it's relationship with the National Party. The Māori Party has been in a governing relationship with National since the 2008 election, but it has continued to lose ground at every election and by-election since, and came third in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, at the weekend, behind Labour and Mana. The party's co-leader Pita Sharples has been under pressure to step aside since his fellow co-leader Tariana Turia said last year she would not stand at the next election. This morning Dr Sharples announced he will step down as co-leader to help turn the party's fortunes around. John Key, doesn't accept National has cost Mr Sharples his job.
CUT
It is expected Te Ururoa Flavell will take over the co-leadership and John Key says he would be happy to work with Mr Flavell as a minister.
CUT
Tariana Turia says she intends to stay on until the election, but that could change if the party membership decides someone outside the parliamentary wing should step up and take a leadership position.
CUT
Pita Sharples will relinquish his leadership at the Māori Party's AGM the weekend after next. Pita Sharples says Māori Party supporters have been telling him for the last eight months that the leadership dispute was a problem that could send the party "down the tubes" He says that message has been clear since Christmas and become stronger over the last few weeks.
IV
The former justice minister Sir Douglas Graham and three other former directors of Lombard Finance have had their sentences increased to home detention. But they don't have to start serving them straight away because they intend to appeal. The High Court last year sentenced Graham and another former government Minister Bill Jefferies, along with Michael Reeves and Lawrence Bryant, to community work for making false statements in a company prospectus. 3600 investors lost more than 111 million dollars in Lombards 2008 collapse The Prime Minister's office says John Key won't decide on whether to strip Sir Douglas Graham of his knighthood until after all legal avenues have been explored. Our reporter, Craig McCulloch, has been looking at today's Court of Appeal judgment.
IV
The Earthquake Recovery Minister, Gerry Brownlee, has defended the government's handling of the Christchurch City Council's consenting crisis in Parliament this afternoon. Mr Brownlee and the Local Government Minister, Chris Tremain, will meet with the mayor Bob Parker tomorrow, to work out the best way to proceed, after the council is stripped of its consenting accreditation on Monday. Here's our parliamentary chief reporter, Jane Patterson.
PKG
The clock is ticking in Egypt's with the military leaders telling politicians they have forty-eight hours to resolve the current political crisis or the army will intervene. The warning comes as massive protests against President Mohammed Mursi continue. Opposition parties have given the Islamist president until tonight to resign. Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood says the president was freely elected and he and his government aren't going anywhere. So far 16 people have died in clashes between rival factions. Jeremy Bowen has our report from Cairo.
PKG
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1720 TRAILS AND BUSINESS WITH JENNY RUTH
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Two more members of the Owen Glenn Inquiry have resigned in a blow to his campaign to tackle child abuse and domestic violence. Sir Owen this morning withdrew his bid to become an ambassador for the anti-violence movement, White Ribbon, following accusations that he physically abused a woman in Hawaii over a decade ago. Then a short time ago a Waikato University Professor Neville Robertson and the executive director of the Māori welfare organisation Ririki, Anton Blank, quit as advisors to the inquiry. Neville Robertson, is with us now.
IV
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17. 30 HEADLINES
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MPs have heard opposing views this afternoon on whether a proposed law change will extend the powers of the electronic spy agency, the GCSB. The Intelligence and Security Committee has begun hearing submissions on a Bill to make it legal for the Government Communications Security Bureau to monitor New Zealanders. Appearing on behalf of the Law Society, the Queens Counsel Rodney Harrison told the committee the bill extends the powers of the GCSB, and a review's needed before the law is changed.
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However, an academic specialising in security studies, James Veitch, told the committee he supports the law change, and does not believe it expands the agency's powers.
CUT
Our political editor Brent Edwards is at the hearing.
IV
The bodies of nineteen firefighters who were killed in the United States have been recovered and an investigation is underway. It's the single biggest loss of firefighters since those killed in the nine-eleven attacks on New York in 2001. It's believed the elite team members died as they tried to use personal protection shelters to shield them from the flames of a large wildfire. The ABC's North America correspondent Jane Cowan reports.
PKG
New Zealanders spent almost one-point-five-billion-dollars on takeaways last year, up 25-percent in four years. As part of trying to crack down, there are now attempts in Christchurch to restrict the number of takeaway shops allowed in rebuilt areas, especially near schools. Mei Yeoh reports.
PKG
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17. 45 MANU KORIHI WITH ERU REREKURA
Kia ora mai ngā mihi o te pō,
The former Māori Party MP, Rahui Katene, still has her sights set on jointly leading the party.
Pita Sharples - a current co-leader - today announced his resignation from the role - a job wanted by the MP for Waiariki, Te Ururoa Flavell.
Rahui Katene says a male-female leadership team should continue - and says she could work alongside Mr Flavell.
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Rahui Katene.
The issue of who heads the party will be sorted out at a hui in a couple of weekends' time.
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A Tauranga-based iwi, Ngāi Te Rangi and the government, have moved a step forward in treaty negotiations, and signed an Agreement in Principle.
Talks have been on-going for about three years, with the tribe declining an earlier treaty offer.
This time around, the government and Ngāi Te Rangi have reached an AIP.
The redress is to include nearly 30 million dollars [29. 5] as well as the government returning sites to the iwi, including Maungarangi Pa near Waitoa River and Karewa Island opposite Matakana Island.
There will also be a tribal historical account, acknowledgement of breaches, and an apology - which will all be outlined in a draft Deed of Settlement.
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More than fifty Māori undergraduates at Auckland University have set off to Te Tairāwhiti to encourage school students to take on tertiary studies.
Its Māori students association, Ngā Tauira Māori, will visit 15 schools and Kura Kaupapa this week to perform skits and talk to students about university.
The student -run initiative has been going for more than ten years.
The co-president of the group, Hikurangi Jackson, says it hopes to inspire young Māori in Te Whānau a Apanui and Ngāti Porou to pursue higher studies.
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Hikurangi Jackson says Māori make up 2 per cent of the population at Auckland University, and that needs to change.
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Far North iwi say they expect to start reaping the benefits of a new relationship with the Crown within the next few months.
Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri and Ngāi Takoto have signed a Social Accord with Government agencies.
The agreement aims to put both parties in the driving seat when it comes to deciding how taxpayer money is spent on housing, health, education, and conservation in the region.
Rangitāne Marsden of Ngāi Takoto says they want to get people off welfare and into meaningful jobs.
He says they're looking opportunities to get young iwi members into environmental management - both practically and academically.
Mr Marsden says they'll also be looking at how to create trade apprenticeships to build houses.
That's Te Manu Korihi news, I'll have a further bulletin in an hour.
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US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has accused President Barack Obama of denying him his right to asylum. Mr Snowden, has broken his silence for the first time since fleeing to Russia eight days ago to say he remains free to make new disclosures about US spying activity. He's been in the transit zone of a Moscow airport for more than a week. He faces charges of espionage in the United States for disclosing secrets about a huge internet surveillance programme. Our Washington Correspondent Simon Marks says Mr Snowden is accusing the US Government of using his citizenship as a weapon against him.
IV
The Auckland Council has decided there is merit in splitting some of the higher-density housing zones in its hotly-debated thirty year blueprint. Councillors have had their first discussion in public, of progress on the Unitary Plan, and how to accommodate some of the almost 23 thousand views expressed on it. Debate was at times testy as our Auckland correspondent Todd Niall reports.
PKG
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Presenter: Mary Wilson
Editor: Maree Corbett
Deputy editor: Phil Pennington
Producers: Amelia Langford, Craig McCulloch