Tag: new zealand

Satellite station takes shape on city rooftop for secret US broadband provider

The first of dozens of dome-shaped antennas for a controversial satellite earth station in Auckland have been installed on an inner-city rooftop. 

2degrees has been contracted by an undisclosed US satellite broadband company to build the ground station on the roof of a building at 43 College Hill, Freemans Bay, the telecommunications provider told the Herald. 

The facility will eventually house 30 of the mushroom-like structures, each about 2m tall, and be used to relay swathes of data to and from satellites. 

A 2degrees spokesperson said the telco’s unnamed US client would “operate and maintain the ground station” once construction was complete. 

2degrees announced a partnership with AST SpaceMobile, a US company building the first space-based cellular broadband network, in March 2025, with plans to launch a satellite-to-mobile service that they hoped to begin testing from the middle of this year. 

The Kiwi firm was granted non‑notified consent from Auckland Council to build the rooftop station on June 24 last year, but the project courted criticism from nearby residents and community groups after construction began in January. 

Opponents told the Herald in February they were concerned about the scale and appearance of the installation, potential side effects from the radiofrequency technology and, more broadly, the council’s decision to approve the project without public notification. 

The council’s head of resource consents James Hassall said its staff had since met with two of the concerned residents but were unable to address their concerns, given the project was approved in line with regulatory standards. 

“Once a consent is granted, the only avenue for challenge is through an application for judicial review in the High Court,” Hassall said. 

“The council will monitor the site to ensure that the consent holder meets the conditions of the consent.” 

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Government facing up to $5 billion bill over carbon credits, Treasury reveals

The Prime Minister has doubled down on his insistence that the government will not spend billions of dollars offshore to meet New Zealand’s climate commitments.

Treasury estimates it could cost up to $5 billion to pay for the overseas carbon credits New Zealand needs to honour its Paris Agreement commitments.

An additional $1.6 billion may also be needed to pay for credits to meet a subsequent commitment, due by 2035.

The government was “gonna do everything we can” to honour the country’s Paris Agreement pledge to halve emissions by 2030, Christopher Luxon said.

“But just reassuring everybody, we ain’t shutting down farms and we certainly aren’t sending billions of dollars offshore.”

The Green Party said it was impossible for the government to meet the target with domestic climate policies alone.

It was time for Luxon be honest about whether the government was still committed to the Paris Agreement, and – if so – to explain how it would do that, co-leader leader Chlöe Swarbrick said.

“Are we genuinely, honestly going to meet the [target], do they genuinely, honestly commit us to doing that? Because if so, the reality is we will need to pay for offshore mitigation.”

New Zealand has the option of meeting its pledge to halve net greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 entirely with domestic policies.

However, the most recent analysis from the Ministry for the Environment showed that there was a shortfall of 84 million tonnes of emissions, that would need to be made up by paying other countries to offset their emissions instead.

Treasury has identified the potential cost of offshore credits to make up the gap as a specific fiscal risk to the government’s finances for several years now.

However, it has never put an official figure on the government books, because there was “no legal obligation” to meet the target and successive governments had not committed to any purchases.

A previous one-off analysis it prepared in 2023 put the cost at anywhere from $3 billion to $24 billion.

Last year, Treasury secretary Iain Rennie gave Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick an undertaking to update that analysis.

The new estimate narrows the range to $4.4b-$5 billion to meet the 2030 pledge, and $0.2-$1.6 billion to meet New Zealand’s next pledge to lower emissions by 51-55 percent by 2035.

That was based on the Ministry for the Environment’s 2025 emissions projections, with and without extra policies to reduce emissions.

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Facial recognition watchlist made permanent in Christchurch supermarkets after trial

A Christchurch supermarket trial of facial recognition technology has been made permanent and extended to another store after showing measurable safety improvements.

After a three-month trial, Foodstuffs South Island has decided to keep the technology at New World St Martins and Pak’nSave Papanui and Moorhouse, while expanding it to New World Stanmore.

The initiative, which ran from October 2025 to January 2026, was designed to identify and manage individuals with a history of serious and harmful behaviour in stores.

Foodstuffs South Island retail head Kent Mahon said the results gave the co-operative confidence that the system could be deployed carefully and responsibly.

“The focus has always been on reducing harm. The trial showed we can do that while keeping accuracy high and respecting customer privacy,” Mahon said.

The facial recognition system scans images of everyone entering participating stores and compares them with a watchlist of known offenders.

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New Zealand Ex-Top Cop Avoids Jail for Child and Bestiality Porn Offences

A New Zealand court sentenced the country’s former deputy police commissioner to nine months of home detention on Wednesday, after he admitted to possessing child sexual exploitation and bestiality material.

Jevon McSkimming, who until late last year was New Zealand’s second-highest ranking police officer, was arrested and charged in June with eight counts of possessing objectionable material.

The 52-year-old admitted to three charges in November, including possession of child sexual exploitation and bestiality images which were stored on his work devices.

Judge Tim Black handed down a nine-month home detention sentence in the Wellington District Court on Wednesday, ruling McSkimming would not have to register as a child sexual offender.

The judge adopted a starting point of three years’ prison, but gave deductions for McSkimming’s guilty plea, remorse and attempts at rehabilitation.

He said McSkimming was of low risk to the community.

McSkimming’s lawyer, Letizea Ord, said her client was deeply ashamed of his actions.

One of the original charges said the offences happened between July 2020 and December 2024.

McSkimming was suspended from his job on full pay in December 2024, when an internal investigation into his conduct was launched.

He was on leave for six months before his resignation in May.

New Zealand police commissioner Richard Chambers in November described the case as “disgraceful” after McSkimming’s guilty pleas.

“The outcome shows all police, no matter their rank, are accountable to the laws that apply to us all,” he said.

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New Zealand will remove police from gun licensing but near-total semiautomatics ban to remain

New Zealand’s government will end the involvement of police officers in regulating gun ownership, an official said Tuesday as she announced sweeping firearms law reforms.

The move is intended to ease tensions between the gun regulator and firearms owners, which have been fraught since the agency’s creation following a shooting massacre at two New Zealand mosques.

The Firearms Safety Authority has overseen gun ownership since 2022 after an inquiry underlined the way the white supremacist attacker legally acquired numerous weapons without attracting law enforcement scrutiny.

Near-total ban on semiautomatics to stay

The changes unveiled in Wellington by Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee stopped short of what the police union and those bereaved in the Christchurch massacre feared: a reversal of the near-complete ban on semiautomatic firearms passed after the attacker killed 51 Muslims at prayer on March 15, 2019.

McKee, a lobbyist for gun owners before she entered parliament in 2020, told reporters her bid to relax the semiautomatic weapons ban for some sports shooters wasn’t approved by the Cabinet. Her government had refused to rule out reversing the ban before.

Instead, her changes focused on removing uniformed officers from the regulatory body and altering its oversight. Once McKee’s law passes, the authority will report directly to the government, rather than the head of the New Zealand Police.

Law will remove police from gun licensing

“There will be no blue shirts in the Firearms Safety Authority,” McKee said, referring to police uniforms. The 15 officers who worked at the authority would return to police duties, which will still include enforcing gun crime laws.

“We need to rebuild the trust and confidence between the regulator and the licensed firearms community that has diminished severely over the past six years,” said McKee. She said “a lot of the blame” for the Christchurch attack was directed at gun owners, who say police should be focusing on law enforcement, not on regulation compliance or licensing.

The regulator is currently a unit within the police department. The law change would create a more independent legal structure that would only share corporate services with the law enforcement agency.

The body couldn’t be entirely separated from the police department due to a reliance on law enforcement databases, McKee said.

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FBI’s Patel gave New Zealand officials 3D-printed guns illegal to possess under local laws

On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.

The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least three senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.

Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn’t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn’t have legally kept the gifts if they didn’t.

It wasn’t clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.

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Māori women’s rights advocate faces jail over social media posts

Rex Landy, an outspoken Māori women’s rights advocate and member of Mana Wāhine Kōrero, is facing court action under the Harmful Digital Communications Act after being reported to police by a trans activist over her social media posts.

Landy was arrested in December 2024 after complaints from Daniel Johnston, a fantasy author who identifies as female and is known online as “Caitlin Spice.” 

Police first contacted Landy in 2022 and later issued a written warning. “They told me I had to stop saying what I was saying… 

The very next day I received a written warning in the post threatening that they had enough to charge me under the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015.” 

In September 2024, Landy was ordered by the court to delete all posts referencing Johnston. She says she deleted everything but claims she missed two posts. 

On 18 December, she said police raided her home, seized devices, and charged her with failing to obey a court order.

She was given another charge after Johnston claimed she had indirectly referenced him in a livestream. Prosecutors have ruled out diversion, telling the court she was “in the grip of an ideology,” meaning they view her stance as rigid and unchangeable rather than a one-off lapse, and therefore undeserving of leniency. Landy reportedly faces up to three months in jail or a $50,000 fine.

“Win, lose, or draw – he’ll never be a woman. I’ve already won. I’m a woman, he isn’t,” Landy said. 

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Convicted NZ mosque murderer Brenton Tarrant was an intelligence operative

FBI Director Kash Patel travelled to New Zealand July 31, 2025 to open a dedicated law enforcement attaché office in Wellington. While the FBI has stationed personnel in New Zealand for several years, establishing a full legat position in the country will strengthen and enhance the longstanding cooperation with a key Five Eyes partner in the southwestern Pacific region. 

“The FBI has had a strong relationship and collaborated closely with our counterparts in New Zealand for years,” said Director Patel.

“Expanding the Wellington office demonstrates the strength and evolution of our partnership as we continue to work together to address our shared security objectives in the region.”

Although Kash Patel’s recent visit has not heralded any major incident in New Zealand there was an occasion when visiting US officials did precede an alleged mass shooting.

John Podesta, Hilary Clinton’s campaign manager and Obama counsel, arrived in New Zealand five days before the mosque massacre March 15, 2019 along with two members of the National Security Council. The number 14 emblazoned on the receiver of the rifle used by Tarrant coincides with ’14’ on Podesta’s right hand. The Christian fish symbol, known as an Ichthys, is an ancient symbol representing Jesus Christ

Now disgraced FBI Director James Comey flew into Queenstown on April 23, 2017 preceding a visit by suspected satanist John “mangled fingers” Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager and Obama counsel, who coincidentally visited New Zealand March 10, 2019, five days before the infamous mosque shootings in Christchurch.

Podesta was attending a Global Progressives conference, heaping praise on Ardern while warning of a potential major online hack against her coming election?

The New Zealand Herald reported two members of the United States National Security Council visited New Zealand days before a media conference on March 10, 2019 where PM Ardern confirmed the Americans had visited, just five days before the massacre.

Ardern said the visitors were Asia defence experts—Matt Pottinger and Alexander Gray, but did not elaborate why they were in New Zealand.

At the media briefing a reporter asked Ardern, “Yesterday Podesta told us that New Zealand being a member of the Five Eyes network, New Zealand is a juicy target for cyber-attacks that could undermine our democracy. Do you agree with that?”

Ardern replied: “Oh, look, we’re not complacent, and certainly you will have heard me say that many, many times. We do need to make sure that we have the protection in place in NewZealand, either for direct attacks but also where New Zealand may be caught up indirectly.

“And so, regardless of what anyone else thinks or what any other member of Five Eyes thinks, we actually need to make sure that we’re prepared and vigilant.”

New Zealand’s mosque shooting happened on March 15, 2019, five days after the Podesta and two National Security members’ visit, and was allegedly carried out by an Australian shooter who has proven to be an Israei-trained assassin on a watch list since 2012. The assassin presented a real threat to then Iraqi President Bashar Assad according to Veterans Today.

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Revealed: Child exploitation and bestiality material allegedly found on former Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming’s work devices

Child exploitation and bestiality material were allegedly found on former Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming’s work devices, it can now be revealed.

The revelation comes after a High Court judge dismissed an application to prevent media reporting the nature of the alleged objectionable material.

McSkimming resigned as the country’s second most powerful cop in May amid separate investigations by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and police.

His resignation came a week after RNZ approached him, via his lawyer, with allegations about material found on his work devices.

RNZ earlier revealed pornography found on McSkimming’s work devices was being investigated as alleged objectionable material.

His lawyer Linda Clark was then granted a rare “superinjunction” by Justice Karen Grau that prohibited reporting that disclosed the nature of the allegedly objectionable material, as well as the existence of the injunction itself.

Following a teleconference held by Justice Gwyn, the order prohibiting publication of the nature of the allegedly objectionable material was continued – but the order prohibiting the existence of the injunction was not continued, meaning RNZ could report the fact of McSkimming’s application and the interim result.

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Case closed after ‘Russian disinfo’ claims led to persecution of NZ journalist

Until two years ago, Mick Hall was a fairly obscure journalist publishing wire copy for Radio New Zealand (RNZ), far-removed from media capitals like Washington and London where international opinions are shaped. But in June 2023, Hall suddenly became the target of Five Eyes intelligence agencies when he was accused by Western sources – including his own employer – of inserting “Russian disinformation” into wire stories. 

What started with a dispute of Hall’s copy edits turned into an investigation by New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS), which briefed top government officials about its probe. For months afterward, major Western media outlets fretted that Kremlin agents had infiltrated New Zealand’s national broadcaster.

But Hall insisted he had been unfairly accused and defamed by a pro-war element driven into the throes of paranoia by the Ukraine proxy war. In November 2024, he lodged a formal complaint against the NZSIS, demanding to know whether Wellington’s primary intelligence service “acted lawfully and properly” and followed “correct procedure” in its investigation, and if any information gathered about him “was shared appropriately, including with overseas partners.”

On April 9, New Zealand’s intelligence watchdog, the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS), published the results of the investigation triggered by Hall’s complaint. The Inspector General report noted its investigation lasted between June 10 and August 11 2023, and was closed due to “no concerns of foreign interference” being identified.

The Inspector General acknowledged the intelligence services’ probe was initiated purely due to public “allegations [emphasis added] of foreign interference,” rather than substantive evidence of any kind, and expressed sympathy that Hall found it “disconcerting to discover” he had “come to the attention of an intelligence agency…particularly as a journalist reporting on conflicts where different views can validly be expressed.” However, it concluded NZSIS’ actions were “necessary and proportionate”, and the agency acted “lawful [sic] and properly.”

Hall’s name had been cleared, but he had been denied any recompense for being smeared as a Kremlin agent, and having his career in national media effectively destroyed.

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