Greenpeace Aotearoa ishosting a public meeting in Rangiora this Saturdayto mobilise efforts to protect water quality in the region, just two weeks after the Government’s fast-track project list was revealed to include significant irrigation schemes.
The organisation will also be running two free nitrate contamination drinking water testing events: one in Amberley on October 18th, and one in Oxford on October 20th.
Greenpeace’s Canterbury-based freshwater campaigner, Will Appelbe, says, “Everyone should be able to take a dip in their local river or drink the water coming out of their tap without getting sick. But for many rural communities, particularly in Canterbury, that’s becoming less and less possible.
“Now, the Christopher Luxon Government is actively pushing through legislation that will worsen water quality in Canterbury, such as the fast-track bill. The irrigation schemes included in the fast-track schedule would suck the life out of already-fragile rivers and return polluted water back into the environment through further dairy intensification in the region.”
Greenpeace has been running free drinking water testing events across the country, as well as a free mail-in water testing service, for the last three years, to raise awareness of increasing levels of nitrate in drinking water.
The organisation says that many rural communities in Canterbury are seeing levels of nitrate in drinking water increasing, while a growing body of science has linked prolonged exposure to elevated levels of nitrate, to increased health risks including risks of bowel cancer and preterm birth.
“More irrigation means more intensive dairying, which is polluting lakes, rivers, and drinking water with high levels of nitrate,” says Appelbe.
“We’re hosting this public meeting to discuss the increasing threats to water quality in Canterbury and to provide a way for local communities to engage with efforts to prevent water pollution at the source.
“Greenpeace will continue to stand with communities and fight to end pollution of lakes, rivers, and drinking water. Ultimately, we need to reduce the dairy herd, end the use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, and stop big new irrigation schemes.”
The Greenpeace public meeting will be held at The Skurr Centre, Rangiora Showgrounds, on Saturday 19th October, from 6:30pm. The organisation is also running free drinking water testing inAmberley on the 18th Octoberfrom 1-5pm at the Holy Innocents Anglican Church, and inOxford on the 20th Octoberfrom 9:30am-3pm in the Oxford Town Hall A&P Room.
ASB has today announced adjustments to its mortgage rates, following the bank’s reductions across fixed and floating mortgage rates last week. ASB’s latest changes include a 36-basis point reduction to its 6-month term, down to a market-leading rate of 6.39%.
ASB’s Executive General Manager Personal Banking Adam Boyd says “We know there’s strong appetite for shorter-term mortgages at the moment. Our drops to 6-month, one year and 18-month terms in response to movement in wholesale rates should appeal to our customers refixing, as well as those looking to buy a property.”
ASB has also reduced some of its shorter-term term deposit rates by between 10 and 35 basis points, and increased its 4-and-5 year term deposits by 10 basis points each.
All rate adjustments are effective immediately for new and current customers.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has released its latestWorld Energy Outlookreport today, and Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman says it’s damning for Christopher Luxon and his ludicrous plans to restart oil and gas exploration and increase coal mining. (ref. https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2024 )
“The IEA report affirms that global demand for oil, gas, and coal is on track to peak by the end of this decade and warns that failure to accelerate the end of fossil fuels now will put the world on course for a catastrophic global average temperature rise of 2.4oC by the end of the century.
“As floods, fires and storms ravage the world, and climate scientists run out of adjectives to describe how urgent the situation is, we have Christopher Luxon’s Government forging ahead with reckless plans to search for new oil and gas, dig up more coal and shelve every initiative to reduce emissions that they can.
“We have an incredible opportunity right now in Aotearoa to move away from fossil fuels to a clean energy future powered by wind and solar that would mean more affordable energy and cleaner, safer towns and cities for New Zealanders, but the Luxon Government is threatening to take us back to to the dark ages.”
The IEA report states that avoiding the worst impacts of the climate crisis will require at least doubling the global rate of energy efficiency improvements to provide larger emissions reductions by 2030, doubling current investment levels in renewable power, grids and battery storage, as well as implementing a fast and fair fossil fuel phaseout.
“A recent report by the Ministry of Business and Innovation confirms that there is no need for new fossil fuels to ‘keep the lights on’ in New Zealand. Wind and solar are the cheapest sources of new electricity generation, and New Zealand has an abundance of both.
“It’s time for the Government to step up and make the choice to lead Aotearoa into a clean energy future.”
News that 173 roles are being cut at Police will only put more pressure on the frontline.
“I am concerned about the lack of awareness the National Party has about the job police have to do,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said.
“Cutting 173 roles will mean police officers spend more time behind a desk and less time on the beat.
“There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes for a person to be found, charged and punished for a crime. Arresting someone is only one part of the job.
“Police Minister Mark Mitchell should front up, support the frontline and stop the cuts at Police,” Ginny Andersen said.
Source: Eastern Institute of Technology – Tairāwhiti
1 day ago
Courtney Roff is currently studying for the NZ Certificate in Mechanical Engineering (Level 3) at EIT.
After leaving school early, Courtney Roff spent some time working in the wine industry, where she realised that the career for her was mechanical engineering, so she enrolled in EIT.
Courtney, 21, grew up in Hawke’s Bay and attended Napier Girls’ High, but decided to leave school midway through Year 12.
Not sure what she wanted to do, she worked for a time in hospitality, but soon found herself drawn to the wine industry.
She has spent the last three years working at the Hawke’s Bay Wine Company in Pandora and says that she has learnt a lot from the experience.
“I started not knowing anything and then worked my way up to being second in charge and running a night shift for all my last vintage.”
She considered studying Wine Science and Viticulture at EIT, but says she did not really want to be a winemaker. However, she received a wonderful opportunity when she was awarded a Woman in Winemaking Mentorship from the New Zealand Wine Association for six months.
“That paired me up with a lady who works at Wineworks in Hastings and I was catching up with her once a month for six months. I was in there to figure out what I wanted to do, and Sophie, my mentor, was really awesome.
“It was there that I decided that I wanted to do engineering, so Sophie got me into Wineworks for eight weeks, to see if I liked it. I did so I signed up for the programme at EIT in July.”
That programme is the NZ Certificate in Mechanical Engineering (Level 3) and it will set Courtney up to still work in the wine industry, where engineering is required in tank building, presses or working on machines.
She knows she is now in the right place and is enjoying the mechanical engineering programme.
She says that while she realises that mechanical engineering is still male-dominated, she is enjoying her classmates and says her tutors are “awesome”.
“You never will get stuck as there is always someone to help you.”
Courtney particularly enjoys the fabrication course and says she is looking forward to completing the second year of her apprenticeship next year.
She is currently working part-time as a petrol attendant in Greenmeadows while she studies, but she is looking forward to beginning her new career.
EIT Engineering Tutor Patrick Doohan said: “As Courtney’s tutor, I’m proud of her positive start in the mechanical engineering program at EIT.”
“Her transition from the wine industry to engineering shows her determination. She excels in her courses, especially fabrication, and she always bring a positive attitude to her work. Courtney’s initiative in seeking mentorship and hands-on experience reflects her commitment to her future.”
When Canada legalized recreational cannabis use on Oct. 17, 2018, there were concerns about the potential impacts. Would it trigger greater cannabis use, boost economic growth or otherwise affect the country’s health, safety and finances?
Patients already using cannabis legally for medical purposes were especially concerned. They worried that recreational legalization might prompt physicians to stop authorizing cannabis treatments. Or that cannabis producers would abandon the small medical market to pursue the larger recreational one.
As someone who studies the business aspects of cannabis legalization, I wondered about these issues, too. It wasn’t clear how patients, producers or health-care providers would react to recreational legalization. Legal medical use itself had only become accessible a few years earlier.
Accessing medical cannabis
Canada began allowing medical use of cannabis in 1999. But it remained difficult to get until regulations changed during 2014-15.
The new rules allowed any physician to authorize patients to use cannabis. Those patients could then register to buy products online from licensed cannabis producers. Online orders could not exceed a 30-day supply.
(Instead of buying cannabis products, some patients grew their own plants instead. My research hasn’t examined that.)
Under this new procedure, the number of patients registering to buy cannabis soared. They grew from 7,914 in June 2014 to 330,344 in June 2018, nearly one per cent of Canada’s population.
However, registration levels differed greatly between provinces. In June 2018, registrations represented almost three per cent of Alberta’s population, versus only 0.1 per cent of Québec’s.
Interestingly, less than half of registrants bought medical cannabis in any given month. Perhaps they simply didn’t need the full dose. Or maybe they found it too expensive, inconvenient or ineffective.
June 2018 was also when the federal government passed its new cannabis legislation. The law took effect in October 2018, when recreational sales of dried cannabis and cannabis oils began. After initial product shortages were overcome, recreational cannabis sales grew rapidly as more stores opened, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consumer choice expanded in December 2019 when edibles and vapes became available.
This is where my new study came in. I analyzed government data on patients’ use of Canada’s medical cannabis system between 2017 and 2022. This included how many patients registered, how often they placed orders, and how much cannabis they bought.
Evolving system usage
I found that as soon as parliament passed the new cannabis law, medical registrations began slowing down, despite recreational legalization still being four months away.
But the response differed noticeably between provinces. For example, registrations kept growing steadily in Québec but plummeted rapidly in Alberta. Other provinces were in between.
My data doesn’t say why those changes occurred. Perhaps Alberta, with its copious cannabis clinics, had many patients only mildly interested in using cannabis medically. Conversely, maybe Québec was still catching up with other provinces on medical use.
When recreational sales started in October 2018, patient registrations seemed unaffected. Their average purchase sizes didn’t change either. But they bought medical cannabis slightly less often.
This might have been due to retail convenience. At that time, medical producers and recreational stores were selling similar products: dried cannabis and cannabis oils. So, perhaps some patients started topping up their supplies occasionally at recreational stores but saw no reason to leave the online medical system completely.
When edibles and other processed products began selling in December 2019, registrations dropped further. But the patients who remained bought medical cannabis slightly more often and in increasingly larger quantities.
Product selections might explain this patient split. Perhaps producers with good edible products retained their customers and received larger orders from them. Conversely, maybe medical producers offering few edibles lost their patients to the recreational shops and their vast product assortments.
In summary, Canada’s medical cannabis system experienced big changes after recreational legalization. But it didn’t disappear.
Will other countries see similar outcomes if they allow recreational cannabis?
A changing world
In Europe, for example, The Netherlands is experimenting with recreational sales. Meanwhile, Germany has legalized recreational use but not retail sales. Will those countries experience medical cannabis changes like Canada did?
Other countries, like Australia and New Zealand, are somewhere in between. They’re seeing rapid growth in legal medical use and illegal recreational use, but haven’t legalized recreationally. That’s roughly where Canada was 10 years ago.
Will Canada’s medical and recreational cannabis experiences make these other countries more interested in legalization, or less? Either way, I hope they can learn from our experiences as they chart their own cannabis paths.
Michael J. Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
17 October 2024 – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand – Te Pūtea Matua (RBNZ) has released its first voluntary Climate-related Disclosure – Ngā Whakapuaki e Pā ana ki te Āhuarangi for FY2023/24, outlining our progress in understanding, monitoring, and managing climate-related risks.
Assistant Governor Simone Robbers says climate change has the potential to present significant risks to both the financial system and the real economy, particularly during downturns.
“This disclosure details the steps we are taking to enhance RBNZ’s resilience to risks while supporting the transition to a climate-resilient, low-emissions economy,” Ms Robbers says.
Disclosing climate-related risks and opportunities is becoming a mainstream practice among private and public sector organisations globally, and we are committed to keep pace with industry best practice.
“We are kaitiaki (guardians) of New Zealand’s financial ecosystem,” says Ms Robbers.
“Anything that challenges the stability of the financial system and our economy, such as climate-related risks, is our core business. We will continue to demonstrate transparency in future disclosures, playing our part in building a climate resilient financial system.”
Our disclosures are guided by the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), which provides a framework tailored to meet the needs of central banks and supervisors. While the Aotearoa New Zealand Climate Standards (NZ CS) are well-suited for private sector entities, the NGFS approach allows us to address the distinct challenges we face.
Ms Robbers has co-chaired the NGFS workstream ‘Net Zero for Central Banks’ alongside Paolo Angelini, Deputy Director General for Financial Supervision and Regulation for Banca D’Italia since 2022, which includes the subgroup on disclosures for central banks that we now co-lead alongside the Bank of England.
Our inaugural disclosure is focused primarily on ‘baseline’ disclosures — the foundational information that the NGFS recommend central banks should provide. Going forward, we aim to incorporate more of the NGFS ‘building block’ disclosures, which relate to advanced components of central bank climate-related risk identification and management.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand – Te Pūtea Matua (RBNZ) has released its first voluntary Climate-related Disclosure – Ngā Whakapuaki e Pā ana ki te Āhuarangi for FY2023/24, outlining our progress in understanding, monitoring, and managing climate-related risks.
The Government’s relentless focus on welfare that works and holding job seekers accountable through sanctions saw a year-on-year increase in the number of people moving from benefits into work in the September quarter, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says.
“Despite the economic gloom the Government inherited, 16,071 people cancelled their Jobseeker Support benefits because they found work between July and September, an increase of 2457 people, or 18 per cent, on a year ago.
“This coincided with a 133.3 per cent increase in the number of benefit sanctions being issued. It’s clear that returning consequences for job seekers who don’t fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find work is having an impact.
“All up, 18,516 people cancelled a main benefit because they found workin the September quarter, an increase of 12.7 per cent, and I congratulate all of them.
“There is more to do as the lingering effects of the cost-of-living crisis continue to increase overall benefit numbers. But I’m pleased the greater focus on frontline case management, community job coaching, and more regular work seminars that our Welfare that Works reforms have delivered is helping job seekers.
“It is encouraging to see the amount of hardship assistance handed out by MSD reduce by 10.4 per cent, saving taxpayers $55.2 million, with fewer grants for food and emergency housing the main reason.
“The Government has worked hard to get inflation under control, return discipline to public spending, and get families out of emergency housing. Coupled with tax relief, falling interest rates and our FamilyBoost childcare payments, large numbers of New Zealanders are better off than they were a year ago.
“More work is needed to fix the damage that years of low growth has had on our employment market, but there are green shoots of change in these latest figures.”
Benefit Fact Sheets for the September 2024 quarter can be found here
Source: Eastern Institute of Technology – Tairāwhiti
4 mins ago
James McKinley-Blake is currently in his second year of the Bachelor of Business Studies (Marketing and Management).
James McKinley-Blake always had a dream of starting his own business, so he decided to act on it by enrolling in a business programme at EIT.
James, who was born in Australia and grew up in Hawke’s Bay, decided to take a gap year to work in retail and ponder his future after completing his final year at Napier Boys’ High.
“I was really interested in the arts and science and thought that’s what I wanted to do, but when I got to the end of my final year at school, I was a bit unsure of where I wanted to go to.”
“I took a gap year to think about what I actually wanted to do before I hopped into making this decision. But during that time, I always had the passion to start up or eventually manage my own business.”
“I thought business studies would be perfect. I saw that it was advertised at EIT and I thought, why not? Let’s do it, see what happens and I’m really enjoying it.”
James, 20, is currently in his second year of the Bachelor of Business Studies (Marketing and Management) at EIT Hawke’s Bay and he is loving it.
However his time at EIT got off to a tough start because the programme started the day before Cyclone Gabrielle struck, and the campus had been closed as a precaution. The classes were moved online and then moved off campus.
“The lecturers were great. They handled it well and just got into it. But when we ended up getting back to campus, you could tell a significant difference with that interaction because, personally, I prefer that face-to-face interaction.”
“Personally, I didn’t know what to expect with the business studies. I did go to an open day and heard about it for a bit, but when I got into it, it was a lot more than what I thought.”
James says that he would have no hesitation in recommending the Bachelor of Business at EIT.
“I may explore the sciences or arts a bit later in life, but at the moment just to build a steady foundation for my business, the business studies course is really enjoyable.”
He says that he is interested in starting his own business within horticulture or agriculture, but is keeping his options open.
He says he is also open to continuing studying and may look to do the Postgraduate Diploma in Business at EIT after he finishes his degree.
“James has already proven himself to be a conscientious student who is focused on his goals and impressed his lecturers with a positive and mature attitude,” says Russell Booth, Programme Co-ordinator for the Bachelor of Business Studies at EIT.
“He has also been discussing with me ways he can expand his experience whilst at EIT through applying for the Prime Minister’s Scholarship and has volunteered his time to help other students as a valued peer mentor. James is already making his intentions clear that he intends on taking advantage of every opportunity he can whilst studying at EIT and for someone like James, we are more than happy to help in whatever way we can!” says Russell.
A Sweeping Research Platform Can Now Mimic Steady, Predictable Water Power (and More)
NREL’s energy simulator can mimic the grids of the future—and now, this massive, virtual and real-world research platform can simulate water power, too. Photo by Werner Slocum, NREL
Say you want to study something big—like a community power grid, a massive pipe system, or roadways crisscrossing the entire United States—but none of it exists, at least not yet. How do you study these invisible labyrinths to make sure they will be safe and efficient?
Good question, and here is the answer: You do that at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on a platform called the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (or ARIES, for short).
NREL’s experts have built a research platform that can create 3D simulations of entire power grids—either existing or theoretical—that contain thousands or even millions of different energy technologies. For example, researchers can populate an existing grid with wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, nuclear facilities, electric vehicles, or even smart devices, like our cell phones, to see how they could impact our future grid.
But until recently, one grid puzzle piece has not been well represented.
“The part that has been missing is: How can we simulate or represent water power devices?” said Rob Hovsapian, a mechanical engineer at NREL and an ARIES research advisor who helped introduce hydropower into the platform.
With ARIES, researchers can play out and plan for almost any future grid scenario. For example: How could huge amounts of renewable energy impact different community grids? And how could hydropower help our power system weather hurricanes, cold snaps, cyberattacks, and other disruptions?
“It allows us to do those ‘what if’ scenarios,” Hovsapian said. “In the real world, you’re limited to what’s there.”
Now that ARIES has integrated water power into its grid simulations, researchers can explore even more “what if” scenarios to prepare for the grid to come. Photo by Bryan Bechtold, NREL
Now, we can ask “what ifs” about water power technologies, like hydropower and the more nascent marine energy (sometimes called ocean energy because it often comes from powerful ocean waves, currents, and tides, but it can refer to energy from river currents as well). Though very different, both water power technologies generate predictable energy, making them a dependable partner for more variable energy sources, like wind energy and solar power. Those renewables, along with energy storage (like batteries), have been part of ARIES for a good while now. It was time to sprinkle a little water into the mix.
“Now that we can use ARIES to simulate hydropower, we can study more scenarios in more locations and even potential future energy systems,” said Jerry Davis, the laboratory program manager for ARIES. “We want to represent as many renewable generation sources as we can.”
But that is harder than it might sound.
A Hydropower Simulator Helps a Remote Alaskan Village
When fishers return to the harbor in the remote village of Cordova, Alaska, they enter a cove full of mast spikes resembling hundreds of mini-church spires. Those fishers—and there are a lot in Cordova—bring in salmon, halibut, rockfish, and trout but also something less desirable: a 400% increase in energy demand, which can strain the small village’s microgrid, a standalone power system that depends on just two hydropower plants and diesel generators (and diesel must be flown or boated in, often at great expense).
And that is a problem.
Cordova’s microgrid—and everything it powers, including hospitals and homes—is vulnerable to spikes in energy demand from the summer fish bonanza and Alaska’s dangerously cold winters as well as extreme weather events, like avalanches and droughts. The village needed solutions—novel ways for their microgrid to bob and weave with all these changes, so they can match energy supply to demand, especially when their economy or lives depend on it.
But you cannot simply tinker with such a critical system, hoping your manipulations do not cause a blackout or irreparable damage. Nor can you study something that does not exist, like batteries or solar panels that have yet to be installed.
That is where NREL and ARIES come in.
The ARIES platform uses data from real-world wind turbines, solar panels, hydropower generators, and more to create a highly accurate virtual simulation of different grid scenarios and how they might react to changes in energy demand, weather, and higher levels of renewable energy. Graphic by Josh Bauer, NREL; photo by Joe DelNero, NREL
The village was one of the first communities to directly benefit from ARIES’ hydropower emulation platform, which, like the rest of ARIES, relies on hardware and software to accurately simulate the town’s spiderweb of energy devices. ARIES’ software programs, which are built on real-world data, can mimic actual grids (like Cordova’s microgrid), so researchers can manipulate the Cordova system in the safety of a computer simulation. Soon, ARIES will also be able to connect actual hardware, like a hydropower generator, to these virtual simulations so the system can receive live feedback from real tech and learn from it.
For hydropower, ARIES’ simulation capability is especially valuable. Although researchers can install experimental solar panels and wind turbines at a laboratory field site, they cannot replicate hydropower plants—they are simply too big and too specific to certain river sites or geography.
Instead, Mayank Panwar, a senior research engineer at NREL, and Hovsapian built what they call a Real-Time Hydropower Emulation Platform, which can mimic real-world hydropower facilities in real time—one second in the hydropower simulator equates to one second in the real world. As of today, their 2.5-megawatt emulator uses data from actual hydropower plants (including those in Cordova) to inform its simulations.
“As we add more and more technologies to ARIES and there’s more and more variability and uncertainty with the grid, such as wind and solar, hydro will play a key role in providing stability to the grid,” Hovsapian said. “But how would we quantify that? ARIES will be an ideal environment for us to do that.”
With ARIES, Hovsapian can ask more “what if” questions, like what if this hydropower plant in Cordova is paired with a 10-megawatt battery or 3 megawatts of solar panels instead of 1? And how do these changes impact the grid’s reliability? Thanks to ARIES, Cordova has their answers—and a more resilient grid, too.
No other system in the world can accomplish this kind of plug-and-play simulation, Hovsapian said.
And it is not just hydropower that benefits.
Getting Marine Energy to Communities Quickly
Marine energy is still in the early stages of development, but these technologies can be valuable sources of clean energy for communities that have ample flowing water and little else. Like Cordova, the Alaskan village of Igiugig also relies on expensive shipments of diesel fuel. Many island communities off the coast of Maine struggle to maintain stable power when weather whips through. Communities in Hawaii, where energy costs are typically higher than in the rest of the country, also often depend on costly imported fuels.
And yet, all three of these areas have one powerful thing in common: hefty amounts of water. With energy from river currents, waves, and tides, each community could improve its energy resilience and potentially achieve its clean energy goals, too.
There is just one problem: Before communities opt to install one of these nascent devices, they need greater confidence that the technologies can deliver on their promise—and that is exactly what ARIES can provide.
Prabakar (right) uses the ARIES research platform to simulate how marine energy technologies, like river current devices, could slot into existing grids and improve a community’s energy resilience. Photo by Joe DelNero, NREL
“A big part of our mission is de-risking energy technologies, so communities are comfortable deploying them,” Davis said.
At NREL, researchers are studying marine energy technologies “to make sure that things don’t fail in the field,” said Kumaraguru Prabakar, a research engineer at the laboratory. “Even if a small river generator is powering a small house, it is powering the grid, so you have to make sure it’s safe.”
And for that—and more complicated analyses—he needs ARIES.
Right now, Prabakar is examining how marine energy technologies slot into preexisting grids. Currents tend to be consistent, but rivers are still subject to freezes and droughts. Waves and tides are predictable but do not always churn out the same amount of power throughout the day or year. With ARIES, Prabakar can assess how these variations might impact different power systems and whether other solutions, like energy stored as green hydrogen, could balance out these fluctuations.
ARIES’ biggest gift might be time. In the last decade, researchers used to take years to validate new energy technologies, Prabakar said. But now, with ARIES, experts can significantly speed up that process (ARIES can even pair up with similar simulators at other national laboratories to pull in even more data, capabilities, and answers). Speed is especially critical to accelerate the development of marine energy technologies so they can help fight climate change sooner rather than later.
“If somebody comes up with an idea to add water power, they should be able to deploy it in less than 12 months,” Prabakar said.
“It’s exciting,” Hovsapian added. “There are a lot of changes coming, and ARIES can help us prepare.”
Learn more about the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES), the nation’s most advanced platform for energy system integration research and validation at scale. And subscribe to the NREL water power newsletter,The Current, to make sure you do not miss a water power update.
New Qualtrics study reveals top employee experience trends in New Zealand for 2025
Qualtrics today released the sixth annual Employee Experience Trends report, revealing critical insights into the state of employee experience and the modern workplace to help businesses and people leaders improve employee experience, boost productivity, and drive wellbeing in 2025.
Drawing on 35,000 responses across 23 countries – including 1,065 from New Zealand – the study reveals employees are being held back by chaotic workplaces, dispels common workplace stereotypes of younger workers, a concerning level of employee trust in leaders, the importance of first and last impressions to employee success and brand image, and how AI inertia is creating organisational and operational risk.
The 2025 Employee Experience Trends from Qualtrics:
2025’s best employers will make work less chaotic
Young employees ARE optimistic
Employee experiences are being ruined by entry and exit
As many companies have continued to change working models, systems, and processes for the modern workplace in the years since the pandemic, a disparity has emerged between business focuses and employee needs. Workers in New Zealand are more engaged when their employer’s culture and processes empower them to adapt to customer needs, and when there is a focus on having a positive impact in the world. However, more often than not organisations are failing to meet their employees’ expectations in these areas with workers rating these attributes as some of the lowest scoring areas. Growing pressure to increase productivity could also be having the opposite effect. Employees who feel under the pump are less engaged, have lower levels of well-being, and more likely to leave.
“Over the past few years workers in New Zealand and across the globe have been dealing with relentless change. It’s no surprise many have reached their breaking point,” said Dr. Cecelia Herbert, Workplace Behavioural Scientist, Qualtrics XM Institute.
“Work has somehow become even more chaotic since the pandemic as employers pursue short-term wins and try to adapt ways of working for modern realities. Yet for a number of years now the best employee experiences are about how and why work gets done – and these two aspects are the most impactful pathway to sustainable productivity and positive people outcomes.”
Top 5 drivers of employee engagement
% of employees favourable to driver
I am proud of this organisation’s efforts to have a positive impact on the world
66%
This organisation’s processes enable me to effectively meet my customers’ needs
72%
I am encouraged to develop new and better ways of serving customers
69%
Senior leadership responds to feedback from employees
60%
Overall, I feel that my career goals can be met at this organisation
65%
Young employees ARE often the most optimistic and driven
Contrary to popular belief, young employees are often a businesses’ most engaged, motivated, and optimistic. In fact, the only employee experience indicator where younger generations lag, unsurprisingly, is their intent to stay.
“It’s time to end the scapegoating of young employees for workplace woes. These mindsets are crushing the optimism and fresh thinking younger workers bring to the workplace, creating a scenario that benefits no-one,” adds Dr. Herbert. “Younger workers live in and will inherit a very different world than generations of the past. Rather than bemoan their low intent to stay, leaders should focus on ways to nurture their growth and creativity, stretch their skills, and ultimately capture the enthusiasm to set the workforce up for success for generations to come.”
Age
Engagement
Can challenge the traditional way of doing things
Believe the organisation has an outstanding future
Would recommend this organisation’s products / services
Feel they can meet their career goals
Feel paid fairly
Intent to stay 3+ years
18-24
70%
67%
81%
77%
68%
68%
49%
25-34
67%
64%
71%
73%
69%
62%
46%
35-44
70%
65%
73%
77%
65%
64%
52%
45-54
62%
55%
66%
74%
55%
58%
59%
55+
61%
48%
70%
75%
61%
63%
53%
Substandard first and last impressions hinder success
The candidate and entry experience is one of the lowest rated employee journeys, which sets us up for engagement, wellbeing, and intent-to-stay issues further down the line. For instance, just 28% of employees with less than one-year tenure with their current employer plan to stay for 3+ years, compared to 46% of workers with 1-5 years and 67% of those with 5+ years. Employees often report a similar poor employee experience at the exit stage, meaning they are leaving with a negative perception.
“Every organisation’s brand and reputation is heavily influenced by the stories people tell about applying for a job and what it was like working there. Getting these first and final impressions right are key strategic levers, but right now they are being overlooked, meaning employees are negatively impacted before they have even worked their first day,” said Dr. Herbert.
Slightly more than half of local workers (56%) believe their bosses will prioritise employee wellbeing over short-term business gains. This finding suggests a lack of trust in leaders by their employees, which needs critical attention if organisations are to positively influence employee experience indicators in 2025.
“The relationship between employees and their leaders is getting more and more tense, fuelled by decisions to roll-back investments in DEI or sustainability, poorly managed workplace change, and more. While trust is hard to earn and maintain during times of disruption and uncertainty, our study shows its impact is huge on both business and people-focused outcomes, which is why leaders need to know how to cultivate it in 2025,” said Dr. Herbert.
Agree 2025
Global
Senior leaders in my organisation prioritise people’s wellbeing above immediate profit or gains (benevolence)
56%
56%
Senior leaders in my organisation have the skills and knowledge needed to do their job well (competence)
67%
68%
The behaviour of senior leadership is consistent with this organisation’s values (integrity)
65%
67%
AI inertia creates risk as employees outpace companies on AI adoption
Despite touting AI as the solution to lifting productivity, only 44% of employees in New Zealand say their organisation is providing AI enablement and training. A similar number (49%) say their company has AI guidelines, ethics or principles. Compounding the issue, 63% of workers believe decision makers understand new technologies well enough to manage them effectively. This lack of AI enablement and trust to deliver the change creates significant operational and organisational risk, with more than half of employees opting to use AI tools they’ve found themselves, and 41% using them daily or weekly.
“It is not employee resistance holding back workplace progress with AI. The real inertia stems from the lack of the tools, training, and guidance employees need in the modern workplace. AI training and enablement must be a key strategic priority as its impact is exponential – from addressing security and operational risks, driving improved business outcomes, and ultimately creating an environment where employees and employers co-create the future of work,” said Dr. Herbert.
Agree
Global average
My organisation provides training and enablement on the use of AI tools
44%
52%
My organisation has clear principles, ethics or guidelines on the use of AI tools
49%
52%
I am involved in deciding how my job will be done in the future
Qualtrics, the leader of the experience management category, is a cloud-native software platform that empowers organizations to deliver exceptional experiences and build deep relationships with their customers and employees. With insights from Qualtrics, organizations can identify and resolve the greatest friction points in their business, retain and engage top talent, and bring the right products and services to market. Nearly 20,000 organizations around the world use Qualtrics’ advanced AI to listen, understand, and take action. Qualtrics uses its vast universe of experience data to form the largest database of human sentiment in the world. Qualtrics is co-headquartered in Provo, Utah and Seattle. To learn more, please visit qualtrics.com.
Source:Association of Salaried Medical Specialists
Doctors, nurses, practice owners and colleges have joined to express their strong reservations to the Government over plans to sanction and regulate the employment of physician associates in the New Zealand health system.
Health unions ASMS, NZRDA, NZNO and APEX, along with the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners and College of Nurses of Aotearoa New Zealand, and the General Practice Owners Association Aotearoa GENPRO have written to the Minister of Health Dr Shane Reti before he brings any formal proposal on physician associates to Cabinet.
“There is no task that a physician associate would potentially perform, that is not already being undertaken by a currently regulated health worker who is already trained and employed here in Aotearoa,” says ASMS Executive Director Sarah Dalton.
“Right now it appears the Government is not providing the funding to employ enough doctors and nurses. The last thing we should do is spend time and money setting up a new system of vocational registration for a whole new profession when the Government isn’t currently spending enough to fund the existing workforces.”
“All the signatories to this letter support growing the health workforce and want to ensure primary and secondary health care is staffed to safe levels, more people can train as healthcare professionals, and more patients get timely and equitable access to healthcare. It just makes sense to do that through existing occupations rather than inventing new ones.”
By the end of 2024, nearly 200 nations will have met at three conferences to address three problems: biodiversity loss, climate change and plastic pollution.
Colombia will host talks next week to assess global progress in protecting 30% of all land and water by 2030. Hot on its heels is COP29 in Azerbaijan. Here, countries will revisit the pledge they made last year in Dubai to “transition away” from the fossil fuels driving climate breakdown. And in December, South Korea could see the first global agreement to tackle plastic waste.
Don’t let these separate events fool you, though.
“Climate change, biodiversity loss and resource depletion are not isolated problems” say biologist Liette Vasseur (Brock University), political scientist Anders Hayden (Dalhousie University) and ecologist Mike Jones (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences).
“How hot is it going to get? This is one of the most important and difficult remaining questions about our changing climate,” say two scientists who study climate change, Seth Wynes and H. Damon Matthews at the University of Waterloo and Concordia University respectively.
The answer depends on how sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gases like CO₂ and how much humanity ultimately emits, the pair say. When Wynes and Matthews asked 211 authors of past reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, their average best guess was 2.7°C by 2100.
“We’ve already seen devastating consequences like more flooding, hotter heatwaves and larger wildfires, and we’re only at 1.3°C above pre-industrial levels — less than halfway to 2.7°C,” they say.
There is a third variable that is harder to predict but no less important: the capacity of forests, wetlands and the ocean to continue to offset warming by absorbing the carbon and heat our furnaces and factories have released.
This blue and green carbon pump stalled in 2023, the hottest year on record, amid heatwaves, droughts and fires. The possibility of nature’s carbon storage suddenly collapsing is not priced into the computer models that simulate and project the future climate.
However, the ecosystems that buffer human-made warming are clearly struggling. A new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) showed that the average size of monitored populations of vertebrate wildlife (animals with spinal columns – mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians) has shrunk by 73% since 1970.
Wildlife could become so scarce that ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest degenerate, according to the report.
“More than 90% of tropical trees and shrubs depend on animals to disperse their seeds, for example,” says biodiversity scientist Alexander Lees (Manchester Metropolitan University).
The result could be less biodiverse and, importantly for the climate, less carbon-rich habitats.
Plastic in a polar bear’s gut
Threats to wildlife are numerous. One that is growing fast and still poorly understood is plastic.
Bottles, bags, toothbrushes: a rising tide of plastic detritus is choking and snaring wild animals. These larger items eventually degrade into microplastics, tiny fragments which now suffuse the air, soil and water.
“In short, microplastics are widespread, accumulating in the remotest parts of our planet. There is evidence of their toxic effects at every level of biological organisation, from tiny insects at the bottom of the food chain to apex predators,” says Karen Raubenheimer, a senior lecturer in plastic pollution at the University of Wollongong.
Plastic is generally made from fossil fuels, the main agent of climate change. Activists and experts have seized on a similar demand to address both problems: turn off the taps.
In fact, the diagnosis of Costas Velis, an expert in ocean litter at the University of Leeds, sounds similar to what climate scientists say about unrestricted fossil fuel burning:
“Every year without production caps makes the necessary cut to plastic production in future steeper – and our need to use other measures to address the problem greater.”
A production cap hasn’t made it into the negotiating text for a plastic treaty (yet). And while governments pledged to transition away from coal, oil and gas last year, a new report on the world’s energy use shows fossil fuel use declining more slowly than in earlier forecasts – and much more slowly than would be necessary to halt warming at internationally agreed limits. The effort to protect a third of earth’s surface has barely begun.
Each summit is concerned with ameliorating the effects of modern societies on nature. Some experts argue for a more radical interpretation.
“Even if 30% of Earth was protected, how effectively would it halt biodiversity loss?” ask political ecologists Bram Büscher (Wageningen University) and Rosaleen Duffy (University of Sheffield).
“The proliferation of protected areas has happened at the same time as the extinction crisis has intensified. Perhaps, without these efforts, things could have been even worse for nature,” they say.
“But an equally valid argument would be that area-based conservation has blinded many to the causes of Earth’s diminishing biodiversity: an expanding economic system that squeezes ecosystems by turning ever more habitat into urban sprawl or farmland, polluting the air and water with ever more toxins and heating the atmosphere with ever more greenhouse gas.”
First Nations students from remote communities in Central Australia will have greater access to quality education, with $18 million from the Albanese Labor Government’s Central Australia Boarding Response Fund being made available to three Alice Springs schools.
Yirara College will be offered up to $10 million and St Philip’s College up to $1.7 million to upgrade existing facilities, while Yipirinya School will be offered up to $6.3 million for a new boarding facility, providing greater capacity to accommodate students in the region.
Announced in March 2024, the Central Australia Boarding Response Fund was established following a review of boarding schools in Central Australia by the Commonwealth and Northern Territory Governments last year.
Community stakeholders including the Central Australian Aboriginal Leadership Group and the Central Australian Regional Controller were consulted and expressed the need for greater boarding capacity.
Boarding providers then participated in an open and competitive grants process to apply for funding.
This investment complements the $40.4 million allocated to all schools in the Central Australia region for On-Country Learning under the landmark $250 million plan for A Better, Safer Future for Central Australia.
This is also in addition to the deal struck between the Commonwealth and Northern Territory Governments to fully fund all Northern Territory public schools.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Indigenous Australians, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy:
“For many First Nations students in Central Australia, boarding school is their only option to engage in education, so it’s important to ensure the right facilities are available to give them the best chance of success.
“This funding will provide more opportunities for First Nations young people in remote communities to access quality education, increasing participation, attendance and retention in Central Australian schools.”
“This funding demonstrates the Albanese Government’s commitment to improving life outcomes for First Nations young people in Central Australia.”
Quotes attributable to Minister for Education, Jason Clare:
“This investment in boarding facilities in Central Australia is about supporting school students in remote Northern Territory communities.
“This funding will go towards improving existing facilities and building new facilities.
“This builds on the $40 million investment the Albanese Government has made for every school in Central Australian and the historic deal struck with the Northern Territory Government to double Commonwealth investment and fully fund all public schools in the NT.”
Quotes attributable to Member for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour:
“I congratulate the Albanese Government for its $18 million investment in quality school boarding facilities in Central Australia that will make it easier for Aboriginal youth to be educated closer to home.
“School boarding facilities are the gateway to a quality education for many Aboriginal students living in remote communities across my electorate of Lingiari.
“I welcome the Albanese Labor Government’s ongoing commitment to our children’s future by increasing their access to a quality school education.
“Every child has a right to a quality education, regardless of where they live. Well-resourced school boarding facilities provide the benefits of a comprehensive, well-rounded educational experience, where students are supported to achieve academically, grow emotionally, foster lasting friendships, and enhance their teamwork, communication and interpersonal skills”.
Australia’s three million unpaid carers are the unsung heroes of our nation, and the Albanese Labor Government is making sure they are recognised, valued and empowered in their vital work.
During National Carers Week, Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth is today opening public consultation on the draft National Carer Strategy, which delivers on an election commitment to set the direction and course for our effort to drive positive change for carers.
While the former Gillard Labor Government began this important work in 2011, there has been no Commonwealth carers’ strategy since 2015, with the Coalition Government abandoning their duty to support carers.
Through the Strategy, carers have told us what they need to continue their caring roles while participating fully in society themselves.
“With ingenuity and resilience, carers keep Australia going. For us to keep going, we must be recognised and supported as individuals with our own needs, who attend to the needs of others,” Australian carers say in the Strategy’s Statement from Australia’s Carers.
They highlight the shortfalls in the caring system that especially let down young carers who feel like they have to conceal their care work out of embarrassment, lifelong carers who worry about who will look after their loved ones as they themselves age, and carers sandwiched between generations, often forgoing relationships, income, and wellbeing.
The new Strategy will support better decision-making on policies that affect carers and explains where we will prioritise our efforts – making sure carers feel like they are recognised, that they have a voice, and that they can continue to pursue their own ambitions and passions while they care for their loved ones.
The draft Strategy has been guided by the National Carer Strategy Advisory Committee and informed by public consultations in all states and territories in metropolitan, regional, and remote locations, as well as online, and through a public submission process.
Ensuring the draft National Carer Strategy can be reviewed by unpaid carers, former carers, the wider support sector and anyone with an interest in the sector is critically important.
“Carers play an integral role in the nation’s health and social care systems; often making significant personal sacrifices – foregoing careers, social lives, and educational opportunities to care for loved ones,” Minister Rishworth said.
“The National Carer Strategy is designed for anyone in an unpaid caring role and it’s our aim to drive meaningful change for this important group of selfless Australians.
“We want to hear from people right across Australia about their thoughts on best supporting unpaid carers. Carers play a vital role in enhancing the quality of life and independence of those they care for, and make critical but often unrecognised contributions to the nation’s economy, health and social care systems.”
The Government has committed $3.8 million to develop the National Carer Strategy.
This is in addition to boosted support for carers since the Albanese Labor Government was elected including:
Providing over $911 million over four years to 2026-27 for carer support services, including the Carer Gateway service;
Launching the Carer Inclusive Workplace Initiative with funding of $2 million to ensure carers are better supported to participate in the workforce;
Providing over $18 million to change the participation limit for Carer Payment, removing travel, education or volunteering time from the calculation of the participation limit, along with changes to Temporary Cessation of Care days, so carers who want to work, study or volunteer can more easily and flexibly do so; and
Providing $10 million to double support for young carers to continue their education through the Young Carer Bursary program.
Public consultation on the draft Strategy is now open on DSS Engage until 3 November 2024.
More information is available on the DSS Engage website.
National Carers Week is held this year from 13 – 19 October and is funded by the Department of Social Services. For more information on how to get involved, visit National Carers Week.
Headline: Sydney Opera House illuminated to welcome Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla to Australia
Published: 16 October 2024
Released by: The Premier
The Sydney Opera House shells will be illuminated on Friday night as NSW welcomes King Charles III and Queen Camilla to Australia, with Sydneysiders and visitors invited to head into the city to see the spectacular projection.
Curated by the NSW Government, the projection consists of a four-minute photo montage from Their Majesties’ previous visits to the state and the nation. The images reflect the diverse ways in which Their Majesties have engaged with and celebrated NSW and Australia over the years.
The illumination will commence at 8pm on Friday, 18 October to coincide with Their Majesties’ arrival into Sydney.
This will be the King’s first visit as Sovereign – the first visit by a reigning monarch since Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II visited in 2011.
The NSW Government is honoured to welcome The King and Queen to Sydney and is inviting NSW residents to join the celebration.
Members of the public will also have the opportunity to see Their Majesties at the Sydney Opera House Forecourt on Tuesday afternoon, 22 October at 4.20pm. This opportunity will be followed by an impressive Fleet Review and fly past by the Australian Defence Force on Sydney Harbour concluding at 5.20pm.
When your organisation receives a privacy complaint from someone you need to act quickly and decisively. Individuals need to try and work with
organisations first to resolve their complaint before they can complain to the Privacy Commissioner, so its important that you have a process to deal with complaints.
Read more detailed guidance on handling privacy complaints in our Poupou Matatapo guidance. Step one: acknowledge the complaint
Your organisation should do this as quickly as possible. Outline your understanding of the issue and say who at your organisation will be looking into the complaint (who is your privacy officer). Provide clear, reasonable timeframes and provide regular updates on progress if you cant meet the timeframes. Its always better to under promise and over deliver. Step two: listen to complainant
Understand the complainants main concerns so that you can address the right issue.
What is section 77? Section 77 of the Privacy Act says that at any time after receiving a complaint, and before investigating, the Commissioner may decide to use best endeavours to try to resolve a complaint and seek a reassurance from the agency concerned that the issue that led to the complaint has now been rectified. Usually, we do this by way of a conciliation meeting between the parties, facilitated by an OPC staff member. Whats a conciliation?
Conciliation is a form of alternative dispute resolution. It’s similar to mediation, except the third party neutral has expertise in the issue in dispute. We use conciliation to explore settlement of complaints where it appears an investigation may not be necessary, but there is a privacy issue to be resolved.
That is why Kāinga Ora is teaming up with New Zealand’s oldest and largest animal welfare charity, SPCA, and some Northland vet clinics to offer hundreds of customers in Whangarei and Kaitaia the opportunity to get their cats and dogs desexed at no charge.
The SPCA will cover the costs involved and the teams at Top Vets in Kaitaia and the Mog and Dog Desexing Clinic in Whangārei will carry out the procedures.
“Pets can be great companions and support people’s wellbeing, which is why Kāinga Ora is a pet-friendly landlord and happy to consider applications from customers who want to have pets in their home,” says Jordan Seymour, Manager Housing and Wellbeing Support for Northland.
“We have a partnership with SPCA because we want to encourage our customers to be responsible pet owners. Getting pets desexed is a responsible thing to do, but the costs can be a barrier for some of our customers because they are living on very low incomes.
“When SPCA approached us about taking part in a campaign aimed at getting more cats and dogs in Northland desexed, we were keen to jump onboard because we know some of our properties do have large numbers of un-desexed cats and dogs.
“With SPCA covering the cost of desexing for our customers pets, we’re hoping to avoid the problems caused by unwanted litters,’’ says Jordan.
Over the coming weeks, Top Vets in Kaitaia will desex up to 200 cats and 200 dogs belonging to local Kāinga Ora customers, and a similar number of cats and dogs from Kāinga Ora homes in Whangārei will be desexed by the Mog and Dog Desexing Clinic. Pets receiving the surgeries will also be microchipped at no cost.
“We’re pleased to be able to team up with Kāinga Ora to offer these important services to pet owners who may be struggling,” says Rebecca Dobson, National Desexing Programme Manager at SPCA. “Desexing is vital in bringing down the number of unwanted animals in these communities, and we know cost is often a barrier for pet owners especially during a cost-of-living crisis.
“We’re also covering the costs of microchipping, as we believe it’s an important part of responsible pet ownership. Microchipping gives pets the best possible chance at being reunited with their families if they’re ever lost,” says Ms Dobson.
New Zealand Tongan actor JP Foliaki has won TVNZ’s Celebrity Treasure Island and done it for his home in South Auckland, and for children and young people in the Pacific.
“As a charity, (ChildFund) provide fresh water to the Pacific. It’s one thing to be for your community here in New Zealand, but it’s another thing to look out for your people back home.”
“All of us at ChildFund, from our teams in Auckland, to the teams in Tarawa and the islands of Kiribati and Honiara and Temotu Province in Solomon Islands thank JP with all our hearts for his win tonight,” says CEO of ChildFund, Josie Pagani.
The $100k win will now go to ChildFund’s work in the Pacific, bringing clean water to children and their families who otherwise would not have easy access to drinking water.
“It is unacceptable in 2024 that 1 in 10 deaths for children under 5 years in parts of the Pacific is linked to diarrhea, vomiting and dirty water. This is a problem that is fixable. So let’s fix it,” says CEO of ChildFund Josie Pagani.
The Pacific has some of the highest rates of preventable deaths for children in the world, due largely to dirty water.
ChildFund is bringing clean water to children in Kiribati and Solomon Islands, and will expand its programmes across the region over the next year.
“The Pacific is our home and for many New Zealanders these children are our extended family. We can’t fix all the problems in the world but we can make a difference in the place we call home too.”
“This is how we can help to power the Pacific’s future by making sure children and young people have a decent chance at learning skills and getting an education – rather than getting sick or worse, says Josie Pagani.
Dirty water is linked to diarrhea and vomiting, and causes some of the highest numbers of preventable child deaths in the Pacific:
– 1 in 10 deaths for children under 5 years in Kiribati
– 1 in 14 deaths for children under 5 years in Solomon Islands
– Only 16% of school children In Solomon Islands, have clean, safe water
– Only 27% of households in Kiribati have access to clean, safe water
JP’s win will help to complete the following projects:
– Rebuild a water pipe and pump system that will provide water to 3,000 people in 18 communities as well as the local school the Temotu Province of Solomon Islands
– Provide families in some of the 33 islands and atolls of Kiribati with 10 litre Solvatten units that use solar energy to purify water in just a few hours. Each unit can provide 6,000 litres of safe drinking water every year.
– Install 75 litre solar powered distillation tanks at pre-schools, schools and community centres – giving children access to clean safe drinking water every day.
–Build rainwater harvesting infrastructure (roofs and gutters) to capture precious, albeit infrequent rain.
“We would also like to thank the teams and crew at Celebrity Treasure Island for making this possible, and all the New Zealanders who continue to support our work.”
For every dollar donated, the New Zealand government provides an additional $4
AUCKLAND, Thursday 17 October 2024: The countdown to Tuia 2024 has begun, and in less than a week Māori leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators will gather in Hamilton for an event focused on providing insights and mobilising action that will shape Māori business and industry for future generations.
There has been a transformative shift in the country’s population, with one million people identifying as Māori and nearly 30 per cent of New Zealanders under 25 as Māori. The Service sector contributes over $120 billion yearly to the GDP, which accounts for about 30 per cent of our country’s economic activity. Within the Service sector are an estimated 130,000 Māori, including around 7,000 Māori-owned businesses contributing over $14 billion in GDP. This represents a significant pillar of New Zealand businesses and the future workforce, with the Māori economy valued at $70 billion in GDP.
Tuia 2024 is hosted by Ringa Hora, one of six industry-led workforce development councils established to ensure that vocational education meets industry needs and gives a stronger voice to Māori business and iwi development through qualification development and skills leadership.
With sessions structured around the Māori economy, mobilising Māori business and mokopuna futures, the event will explore the journey of Māori industry, recognise excellence, and drive innovation to ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for our mokopuna.
Ringa Hora Poumatua, Ben Ngaia, says, “Tuia 2024 is an opportunity for attendees to celebrate the achievements of Māori, learn from our shared experiences, and mobilise for a prosperous future. We know vocational education plays an important part in building the skills of our future workforce to help our mokopuna achieve success.”
Ringa Hora will welcome the attendees and a premium lineup of speakers on the day: Tahu Kukutai, Professor of Demography at the National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis, University of Waikato, Tahana Tippet-Tapsell, General Manager of Culture and Legacy at Tūaropaki Trust, James Whetu, Consultant and Owner Operator of Durham Street Precinct in Ngāruawāhia, Brittany Teei, board member of Whāriki Māori business network and Poutama Trust, Anton Matthews, business owner of Hustle Group and advocate for Te Reo Māori, and Dan Te Whenua Walker, experienced business development leader for Microsoft and Deputy Chair of Māori Tourism.
Keynote speaker Tahu Kukutai says, “Our current data tells a powerful story of Māori resilience—today, with a population nearing one million, Māori are a thriving, youthful force in Aotearoa. With Māori comprising a growing share of those entering the workforce, the smart move is to plan for this future”.
Ringa Hora will also present a preview of their research, Tirohia ki Tua, which delves into the profound impact Māori have had on the Service sector and the success of Māori entrepreneurship through applying Te Ao Māori values, while capturing the aspirations of attendees for their mokopuna.
“As Māori, our potential within the Service sector is limitless, and Tirohia ki Tua offers an opportunity to reflect on our entrepreneurial legacy and envision the future we’re building for our mokopuna,” says Camilla Karehana, Strategic Advisor Māori.
LONDON, Oct. 16, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Crown LNG Holdings Limited (“Crown” or “Crown LNG” or the “Company”), a leading provider of LNG liquefaction and regasification terminal technologies for harsh weather locations, today announced that on October 16, 2024, Crown filed the unaudited financial statements of Crown LNG Holding AS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Crown, for the six-month period ended June 30, 2024 on Form 6-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The filing is available online through the SEC’s website.
Crown LNG continues to execute against its strategic priorities – moving its India and Scotland projects toward Final Investment Decision, pursuing revenue generating M&A, and exploring possibilities for liquefied natural gas export facility development. These priorities were laid out and discussed in the Crown’s Corporate Update, which is available on the Crown LNG Investor page here.
About Crown LNG Holdings Limited Crown LNG is a leading provider of offshore LNG liquefaction and regasification terminal infrastructure solutions for harsh weather locations, which represent a significant addressable market for bottom-fixed, gravity based (“GBS”) liquefaction and floating storage regasification units, as well as associated green and blue hydrogen, ammonia and power projects. Through this approach, Crown aims to provide lower carbon sources of energy securely to under-served markets across the globe. Visit http://www.crownlng.com/investors for more information.
Projectworks secures US$5m in Series A funding round
The round values the company at NZ$100m
New US-based CEO to turbocharge North American expansion
Funds will be used to build a Silicon Valley development team Wellington office to expand
17 October 2024 New Zealand-founded startup Projectworks is turbocharging its North American expansion after a successful USD$5 million (NZD$8.2 million) Series A capital raise and the appointment of a US-based chief executive Mark Orttung.
The latest round, which includes both existing and some new shareholders, values the company at NZ$100m – a stunning achievement in just five years. The management software company has experienced explosive growth since being founded in 2019 by Wellington entrepreneurs Julian Clarke, Matthew Hayter and Doug Taylor.
Projectworks’ capital raise was led by U.S.-based Bridgewest Group, with contributions from Orttung and existing shareholders including local venture capital firm Punakaiki Fund and the founders.
Dr. Masood Tayebi, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bridgewest Group said, “The growth that Projectworks has achieved is extraordinary and we look to continued success. They are well positioned in a market that is rapidly evolving, where opportunities are vast. They have a top-notch management team with their sights firmly set on growth and customer success. We are thrilled to have led and completed this Series A round to fuel its strategic expansion into the US.”
New CEO for U.S. growth
New CEO Mark Orttung joined Projectworks in March and says he came on board after being impressed with the founders and the company’s ambition.
“Joining Projectworks was a natural fit. Its founders are innovators who think about problems differently, creating entirely fit-for-purpose solutions.
“There is a huge opportunity for Projectworks in the US market and this injection of funding will fuel our expansion into the U.S., and meet significant demand in the mid-market services industries we serve.
“The funding will be used for a number of initiatives, including to drive global customer acquisition, increase our investment in R&D, and build out a Silicon Valley-based product and engineering team.
“This will all help create a powerful platform for Projectworks to expand throughout the U.S. and other markets.
Hayter, former CEO and now President and Chief Product Officer, says, “Orttung’s appointment was made after I came to realise we have the product, the team, the market, and the timing to build a truly significant, global software business.”
Orttung is well qualified, having held senior executive positions in many successful companies. His track record includes President and Chief Operating Officer of bill.com (now listed on the NYSE), founder and CEO of Nexient, one of America’s largest cloud-based services businesses (acquired by NTT Data in 2021) and leadership roles in GetThere and Genesys, both of which went to IPO.
Kiwi built
Projectworks’ exceptional performance won it 557th place in this year’s coveted Inc 5000 list, due to the company’s ~800% revenue growth within three years. Projectworks expects its growth to continue, with North America as its key future market.
The Wellington-founded company attracted strong investor support early, including Bridgewest Group and local VC, Punakaiki Fund.
Nadine Hill, partner at Punakaiki Fund, says: “Punakaiki Fund is a strong supporter of Projectworks. The team has done an incredible job of building momentum across the globe.
“They embody our distinct preference for teams relentlessly focused on building world-class solutions.”
Hayter, who remains in New Zealand, expects the Wellington team to expand to support the growth.
“We’re incredibly proud of the impact Projectworks has on the lives and businesses of our customers. Mark is at the helm, I’m running product development and management, and we have the resources and team to keep spreading that impact across the global consulting industry.”
Projectworks, which offers intuitive, innovative professional services automation software, is known for delivering fit-for-purpose solutions for service companies. It now provides over 500 mid-market consultancies around the world with a complete, easy-to-use platform that allows them to run more profitable projects and businesses.
Notes
About Projectworks
Projectworks is professional services automation software that was founded in 2019, after being created from within a software services firm. It now provides over 500 mid-market consultancies around the world. Projectworks recently completed a strategic move to relocate its NZ headquarters to the U.S. to meet increased demand in the North American markets.
What customers say
Cam Brookes, Founder and Managing Director of Kiandra says, “What we got with Projectworks was really aligned with the way we wanted our business to work. It’s truly a system built for services businesses. It is what we would have built if we were to have done it ourselves.”
About Mark Orttung
Mark Orttung joined Projectworks as CEO in March this year. Orttung, who is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, was previously COO at Bill.com, which builds fintech solutions for small and medium businesses, and CEO at Nexient, America’s largest 100% US-based software services partner, focused on Agile development and business acceleration. Orttung has been on the Projectworks board since January 2023.
16 October 2024, Geneva, Switzerland – The 2024 Cremer-Passy Prize, the MP of the year award, has been awarded to Dr. Haroun Kabadi, former President of the National Assembly of Chad (2011 to 2021) in recognition of his exceptional work in promoting peace and security.
Currently, Dr. Kabadi heads Chad’s National Transitional Council, which is playing the role of legislative body as the country returns to constitutional order following the death of the President in 2021.
Born in 1949, Dr. Kabadi holds a doctorate in agronomy and a master’s degree in rice genetics.
His extensive political career includes serving as a Minister, Special Advisor to the President, Secretary-General of the Presidency and Prime Minister.
During his tenure as President of the National Assembly, Dr. Kabadi worked tirelessly to strengthen peace, security and socio-political stability in Chad, the Sahel region, Central Africa and internationally.
He contributed to the adoption of several legal instruments promoting peace and security within regional and sub-regional parliamentary organizations.
As President of the G5 Sahel Interparliamentary Committee, he mobilized efforts against terrorism and advocated for dialogue and socio-economic development.
In July 2022, Dr. Kabadi organized an international meeting on the role of parliaments in security and peace. He also met with members of the European Parliament to discuss the situation in the Sahel and seek their support for peace and security in the region.
Background
The Prize is named after the IPU’s two founders, parliamentarians Frédéric Passy and Sir William Randal Cremer, who created the IPU in 1889.
The Cremer-Passy Prize is open to any sitting parliamentarians who make an outstanding contribution to the defence and promotion of the IPU’s objectives, as well as those “who contribute to a more united, peaceful, sustainable and equitable world”.
Previous winners include Ms. Cynthia López Castro of Mexico and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (2022), and Mr. Samuelu Penitala Teo of Tuvalu (2023).
The IPU is the global organization of national parliaments. It was founded more than 130 years ago as the first multilateral political organization in the world, encouraging cooperation and dialogue between all nations. Today, the IPU comprises 181 national Member Parliaments and 15 regional parliamentary bodies. It promotes democracy and helps parliaments develop into stronger, younger, greener, more gender-balanced and more innovative institutions. It also defends the human rights of parliamentarians through a dedicated committee made up of MPs from around the world.
With the recent establishment of a new Social Investment Agency – described as a “driving project” for the government by Finance Minister Nicola Willis – it seems New Zealand has come full circle on this approach to social welfare.
First championed by then finance minister Bill English in 2015, social investment was rebranded “social wellbeing” by Labour-led governments between 2017 and 2023. But Willis signalled before last year’s election that its time had come again.
In a speech in 2022, she argued taxpayer money wasn’t being spent responsibly by the Labour administration, and that a targeted social investment approach was needed. During the 2023 election campaign, the National Party promised social investment would return.
Essentially, the policy involves using data to calculate which groups of people cost the government the most over a lifetime. Interventions aimed at reducing that cost are then targeted at those people. The idea is that early investment saves later social costs.
Right now, however, we don’t know the finer details of how Willis intends to implement the policy. But we do know how it worked in the past – and what lessons might be drawn from its earlier, short-lived implementation.
An actuarial approach to welfare
In New Zealand, the idea of social investment can be traced back to the fifth National government which held office for three terms between 2008 and 2017.
In September 2015, English outlined his approach in a Treasury lecture, explaining how the government had commissioned Australian actuary firm Taylor Fry to calculate the lifetime welfare cost to the state of people on benefits.
Typically, actuaries use statistics to calculate risk for insurance companies, information that is then used to set premiums. English said the Taylor Fry calculations would identify which beneficiary “is going to cost us the most money”.
The answer was single parents receiving a benefit. Consequently, they were deemed most in need of direct government intervention, including giving an approved mentor control of their money.
According to English’s version of social investment, data enabled the government to calculate the “forward liability” of its citizens, and target interventions accordingly.
This is not the only way to define social investment, however, and other countries often adopt a more universal approach. For example, European models tend to focus on social equality and inclusivity rather than targeting specific groups.
English’s model focused on applying benefit sanctions and conditions. The aim was to “reduce the lifetime public cost of the welfare-recipient population, thereby offering fiscal returns-on-investment, absorbed into public coffers”.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis: social investment is a ‘driving project’ for the National-led government. Getty Images
No accounting for structural disadvantage
Official thinking about social investment predates the establishment of the unit and agency. In 2015, the second of two reports produced by an expert panel review of the Child, Youth and Family agency (now Oranga Tamariki) recommended a new child-centred social investment agency be created.
The report’s analysis and advice focused on intervening early to reduce the risk of vulnerable children growing up to be beneficiaries, teen parents, substance users or prisoners (among other negative outcomes).
It was suggested these potential future behaviours almost always stemmed from the actions (or inactions) of parents. Māori were identified as being especially costly due to their over-representation in child protection statistics. They were described as a “forward liability associated with poor outcomes”.
The proposed response was early intervention and social investment. That would include the removal of very young children from whānau/families where they were perceived to be at high risk. The reasoning was that the predicted damage might then never eventuate, thereby saving taxpayer dollars.
As my doctoral research found, no consideration in the report was given to the effects of systemic conditions such as poverty and the legacies of colonisation.
Costs to the state
The social investment model, with its emphasis on financial liability to the state, became a major influence on Oranga Tamariki’s practice.
It led to an increase in the early removal of tamariki Māori, especially babies, from their birth families – as demonstrated in the 2019 Hawkes Bay “uplift” case, where social workers attempted to remove a Māori baby soon after birth.
In 2017, the new Labour government promised a review of the Social Investment Agency, renaming it the Social Wellbeing Agency in 2020. The social development minister at the time, Carmel Sepuloni, said the agency would have a more holistic approach. Data would be only one of a number of considerations when delivering social services.
But with the agency now reverting to its original name, the idea of using data to guide early intervention seems to be central again. It’s unclear, however, whether the actuarial approach of Bill English’s earlier model will return.
Nicola Willis does seem to be aware of the criticism of the English-era model’s apparent focus on fiscal risk and returns. She has stressed that measuring other outcomes is also important.
As yet, though, there is no indication the policy’s highly targeted approach to welfare will account for structural factors such as colonisation and poverty.
Given the government’s drive to remove any special policy considerations based on te Tiriti of Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi, the risk remains that some Māori will again come to be viewed as a “cost” to the state.
Eileen Joy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Good morning and it’s so great to be with you all this morning.
I would like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we meet, and pay my respects to elders past and present.
And importantly, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge every carer in the room today – and the important role each of you play in caring for your family members and loved ones.
I would like to thank both Women’s Agenda and Carers Australia for inviting me to speak with you this morning, as we gather to recognise National Carers Week.
National Carers Week is a time where we celebrate and recognise all carers in Australia – many of you here today – who put their heart and soul into caring for someone close to them.
But it is more than this – it is also an important opportunity to raise awareness among the wider community around the important role of unpaid carers in our society, what caring looks like and who carers are – so that anyone who is providing care knows there is support out there.
I’m proud our Albanese Government has continued to fund and support this week in helping to foster a deeper understanding of our nation’s carers.
But as every carer in this room will know, the value and importance of the work unpaid carers do is something to be celebrated beyond just a single week.
Three million Australians provide unpaid care and support to a family member or friend across the country according to the latest data.
Time and time again, we see the incredible dedication and resilience of unpaid carers, including many women who provide unwavering support to their families and loved ones.
The importance of your role in supporting a family member or friend to achieve their daily tasks, as well assisting them through daily challenges cannot be overstated.
Carers provide a sense of connection and stability for the loved ones in our lives.
Carers remind us every day that the spirit of support and compassion knows no bounds.
Some people might not even recognise that they are carers – they are simply getting on with helping someone they love or care for who needs support.
Our Government deeply respects and appreciates the immense work of Australia’s unpaid carers who provide support. We recognise that these efforts often come at a personal expense.
Better supporting carers is something – as the Minister responsible for this area – I’ve been focused on since coming to Government.
We know there is a diverse range of carers. From young carers, caring for a parent, grandparent or sibling, to carers who look after a partner, an elderly parent or a child. There are carers who work, study or volunteer along with their caring roles and there are carers who focus solely on caring.
There are carers who have just become carers and carers who have been caring for decades.
We recognise that every carers’ experience is different, some may be caring for someone day in and day out, and others may be providing occasional care. And we know that the type of support carers need will differ depending on the stage of their caring journey and who they are caring for.
Whatever your caring situation, or the situation of someone you know or love, we want every carer to feel recognised, valued and supported to fully participate in society and in their caring roles.
One area in particular we are doing that is through our Carer Inclusive Workplace Initiative, which was something developed as a result of the Jobs and Skills Summit we convened shortly after coming to Government.
At the Summit a clear theme emerged that carers often struggle to balance their caring role with employment.
The Initiative recognises that employers have a crucial role to play in creating carer-inclusive workplaces, through the adoption of flexible work arrangements and creative inclusive workplace cultures.
Carers often work fewer hours than they may want to, with under-employment, unfortunately, much more common among unpaid carers than the general population.
I have heard from carers time and time again about the frustration of unpredictable rostering, and how that prevents carers from taking on employment.
Something as simple as a predictable roster is an easy change for employers to make which could have significant benefits for carers.
These supports of course do not only benefit the staff. The research is clear. Carers bring important skills and experience to the workplace that any employer should find valuable: organisation, resilience, leadership to name a few.
Carer-inclusive practices are leading to employers having an increase in productivity and reduction in turnover rates.
That’s exactly why our Government partnered with Carers Australia to develop the Carer Inclusive Workplace Initiative – which we launched last year. And also to promote the Initiative through this partnership with them and Women’s Agenda.
The Initiative helps employers develop and adopt practices that support employees with caring responsibilities, making their workplaces more inclusive for carers.
Employers who participate can be recognised as committed to carer inclusivity and receive a Government-endorsed carer inclusive workplace logo to display at their place of business and in their marketing materials.
And today, a year on from when we launched the Initiative, I am pleased to share an update.
In just 12-months there are:
Over 580 subscribers to the Carers Inclusive Workplace Initiative newsletter; and
A total of 256 businesses registered, with 164 completing self-assessments and 117 businesses receiving a high inclusivity score.
This is a fantastic achievement. Please let others know about this initiative as we look to increase registrations.
The recent webinar by Women’s Agenda on understanding and supporting carers in Australia did a fantastic job at amplifying how we can build better supports policies and practices that can be modelled and implemented daily in the workplace.
It is efforts such as these that are supporting us to shift towards a culture of understanding and meaningful support for carers.
Carer Payments are another way our Government provides a safety net to carers and we provide around $11 billion per year to Carer Payment and Carer Allowance.
Another step we have taken to help support carers to more easily work is changing the participation rules for Carers Payment.
The legislation that I introduced and has now passed the Parliament means that Carer Payment recipients will be able to work 100 hours over a four week period rather than the current 20 hour per week limit from 20 March next year.
The changes I put forward in our last Budget mean Carer Payment recipients will be able to work 100 hours over a four-week period rather than the current 25 hour per week limit.
We know that around 31,000 Carer Payment recipients currently work and may benefit from the ability to work more flexibly as their caring duties fluctuate.
The changes to remove travel, education and volunteering from the participation limit will make a huge difference for many carers who either have to travel long distances to get to work or may travel to different jobs they may be employed in.
All who want to upskill to look at other opportunities through education, or to connect to their community through volunteering.
I met one carer who, while providing unpaid care to someone close to them, also utilised her skills to work as a paid carer.
She told me that excluding the time she travels between jobs would make a huge difference for how much she could actually work before her carer payment was affected.
She also said that a result of these changes, she was planning to take up further study in the new year.
There are also changes to the flexibility surrounding Temporary Cessation of Care days starting 20 March.
As many carers can attest to, these Temporary Cessation of Care days provide great respite and a chance for carers to prioritise their own wellbeing or engage in other activities including paid work. With our changes, carers will be able to use single days rather than the current requirement to take these in week long blocks. This means that carer can take on last minute shift work for a day, without having to use up 7 of their 63 respite days.
Combined, these changes allow greater flexibility for carers to balance their caring duties and employment responsibilities.
As well as providing greater flexibility, the changes will also include a six-month suspension period for recipients who work over the new flexible limit, meaning if their circumstances change they won’t need to reapply to access Carer Payment during that six month period.
Aside from the Carer Inclusive Workplace Initiative and investment and flexibility with the Carer Payment, our Government has listened to what carers have been asking for and delivered a range of other supports.
We provided more than $343 million to extend Carer Gateway for two years, to ensure carers have access to supports, knowing they don’t always seek help when caring for a loved one.
That means more carers will be able to access tailored support packages to support them in their caring role day-to-day.
This includes in-person or phone counselling, to ensure their mental wellbeing is supported. Or potentially emergency respite, to ensure that when they become ill, the person they care for can continue to receive care.
We have also doubled the support for young carers to continue their education with a funding boost of almost $10 million for the Young Carer Bursary Program.
In 2024 more than 2000 young carers received a bursary, reducing the need for them to undertake part-time work while studying and managing caring responsibilities.
These initiatives aim to make life for carers easier where we can, while recognising that the experiences of carers are all different.
But we’re also working with the carer community to chart a vision for a society where all carers are recognised, valued, and empowered.
The Albanese Government is committed to delivering a National Carer Strategy.
The previous Strategy – introduced by the Gillard Government in 2011 – lapsed in 2015 and has not been replaced since.
We’ve been working to develop a new National Carers Strategy since coming to Government and today I am pleased to announce that, during National Carers Week, we have released the draft National Carer Strategy for public consultation.
The new National Carer Strategy is being developed in consultation with carers across Australia to ensure it reflects their diversity and the diversity of challenges they face.
Over the last six-months to put together the draft, we have held over 70 consultation activities across Australia held in-person, online and over the phone.
Public consultations and engagements have been held across all states and territories in metropolitan, regional, and remote locations, as well as online, and through a public submission process.
During consultation to inform the draft strategy we heard clearly that:
There are low levels of community awareness about carers, and what caring is which contributes to a lack of self-identification of people in caring roles, and a lack of identification in the community.
A Lack of self-recognition as a carer leads to people either not accessing support or accessing support late, and at a time of crisis.
Carer supports and services can be difficult to access and navigate and may not be effective or fit for purpose.
The caring role impacts carers’ health, safety, financial security and wellbeing.
The draft Strategy outlines a vision of “an Australian community in which all carers are recognised, valued and empowered with the support they need to participate fully in society and fulfil their caring role”.
There are five principles in the draft Strategy which will guide how carer-related policies will be delivered, and a roadmap for supporting carers long into the future.
It will be a framework for coordination of carer policy across Commonwealth portfolios including health and aged care, disability, veterans’ affairs and mental health.
So much has changed since 2015 when the last Strategy lapsed.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme is being rolled out. Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-31 was released. Reforms to aged care have been rolled out following the Aged Care Royal Commission and the Disability Royal Commission has concluded.
The people carers care for often interact with these systems and unpaid carers play a role in navigating them. Carers have told us that they often feel invisible when trying to navigate these systems and the Carer Strategy seeks to elevate their role.
A new National Carer Strategy is important to reflect the new world carers operate in.
But it’s also important to ensure the voices of carers are elevated. That we have their experiences and input into policy development that impacts them.
Thank you to those of you here today who have provided invaluable contributions to the Strategy.
The public consultations carried out over this year have informed the draft strategy, developed with the National Carer Strategy Advisory Committee.
Now we want everyone to play a role in refining the Strategy. We want to hear from carers, the people they care for, and organisations in the sector about the draft strategy.
Consultation will be open from today through to 3 November. So if you haven’t provided feedback already or if you have and you want to provide some more – please do so.
I look forward to sharing the Strategy with you all when it is finalised, and seeing the positive changes it will inspire.
As we celebrate National Carers Week, the Albanese Labor Government’s commitment to supporting unpaid carers is stronger than ever.
Together, with the involvement of employers, advocates, and all levels of government, we can create a society where every carer feels valued, supported, and empowered to continue their important work.
Thank you for your dedication, your passion, and your commitment to making a difference.
Let us continue to work together to ensure that no carer is left behind.
Headline: Governor Cooper Visits Yancey and Mitchell Counties to Survey Storm Damage as Federal, State, Local and Non-profit Partners Continue Unprecedented Response to Helene
Governor Cooper Visits Yancey and Mitchell Counties to Survey Storm Damage as Federal, State, Local and Non-profit Partners Continue Unprecedented Response to Helene mseets
Today, Governor Roy Cooper traveled to Pensacola and Bakersville where he was joined by FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, NCDPS Secretary Eddie Buffaloe and Commander of the State Highway Patrol Colonel Freddie Johnson to assess storm damage, witness relief operations and speak with those affected by Helene. In Pensacola, the Governor visited a supply distribution center operating at the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department. In Bakersville, the Governor joined Mayor Charles Vines for a walking tour to see areas that sustained damage during the storm.
“Today I was on the ground in Pensacola, Yancey County and Bakersville, Mitchell County, talking with folks affected by Helene and seeing how hard people are working to rebuild from this storm,” said Governor Cooper. “The people of Western North Carolina are strong, and we will keep working with them to surge resources and to recover and rebuild their communities.”
The Major Disaster Declaration requested by Governor Cooper and granted by President Biden now includes the following North Carolina counties and designations which were added Tuesday night:
Cabarrus, Cherokee, Forsyth, Graham, Iredell, Lee, Nash, Rowan, Stanly, Surry, Union, and Yadkin counties for Individual Assistance,
Cabarrus, Cherokee, Forsyth, Graham, Iredell, Lee, Nash, Rowan, Stanly, Surry, Union and Yadkin counties for debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, under the Public Assistance program.
Swain County for permanent work (already designated for Individual Assistance and assistance for debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, under the Public Assistance program.
The Major Disaster Declaration already includes 27 North Carolina counties (Alexander, Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba, Clay, Cleveland, Gaston, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Lincoln, Macon, Madison, McDowell, Mecklenburg, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Swain, Transylvania, Watauga, Wilkes and Yancey) and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
Also today, Governor Cooper issued an emergency Executive Order authorizing the North Carolina Department of Commerce, Division of Employment Security, to increase the amount of weekly unemployment payments available to North Carolinians in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. As a result of this Order, weekly unemployment benefits will increase from a maximum of $350 a week to a maximum of $600 a week. Prior to the executive order, many low-income and part-time workers would have received less than the $350 weekly maximum. To ensure that these workers receive necessary benefits in the wake of Helene, the order will also increase benefits by $250 a week (up to the $600 cap) for all eligible workers. This order is tied to the State of Emergency for Hurricane Helene, and will remain in effect until the end of the Emergency or until it is rescinded.
Law enforcement is working to ensure the safety of responders amid reports of threats and misinformation. FEMA officials remain in communities and are conducting operations to help people impacted by these storms recover as quickly as possible following reports of threats on the ground. Governor Cooper has directed the Department of Public Safety to work with local law enforcement to identify specific threats and rumors and coordinate with FEMA and other partners to ensure the safety and security of all involved as this recovery effort continues.
North Carolina National Guard and Military Response
Nearly 3,400 Soldiers and Airmen are working in Western North Carolina. Joint Task Force- North Carolina, the task force led by the North Carolina National Guard is made up of Soldiers and Airmen from 12 different states, two different XVIII Airborne Corps units from Ft. Liberty, a unit from Ft. Campbell’s 101st Airborne Division, and numerous civilian entities are working side-by-side to get the much-needed help to people in Western North Carolina.
National Guard and military personnel are operating 12 aviation assets and approximately 1,200 specialized vehicles in Western North Carolina to facilitate these missions. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is helping to assess water and wastewater plants and dams. Residents can track the status of the public water supply in their area through this website.
FEMA Assistance
More than $102 million in FEMA Individual Assistance funds have been paid so far to Western North Carolina disaster survivors and approximately 181,000 people have registered for Individual Assistance. More than 2,000 households are now housed in hotels through FEMA’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance.
Approximately 1,400 FEMA staff are in the state to help with the Western North Carolina relief effort. In addition to search and rescue and providing commodities, they are meeting with disaster survivors in shelters and neighborhoods to provide rapid access to relief resources. They can be identified by their FEMA logo apparel and federal government identification.
North Carolinians can apply for Individual Assistance by calling 1-800-621-3362 from 7am to 11pm daily or by visiting www.disasterassistance.gov, or by downloading the FEMA app. FEMA may be able to help with serious needs, displacement, temporary lodging, basic home repair costs, personal property loss or other disaster-caused needs.
Help from Other States
More than 1,500 responders from 38 state and local agencies have performed 142 missions supporting the response and recovery efforts through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). This includes public health nurses, emergency management teams supporting local governments, veterinarians, teams with search dogs and more.
Beware of Misinformation
North Carolina Emergency Management and local officials are cautioning the public about false Helene reports and misinformation being shared on social media. NCEM has launched a fact versus rumor response webpage to provide factual information in the wake of this storm. FEMA also has a rumor response webpage.
Efforts continue to provide food, water and basic necessities to residents in affected communities, using both ground resources and air drops from the NC National Guard. Food, water and commodity points of distribution are open throughout Western North Carolina. For information on these sites in your community, visit your local emergency management and local government social media and websites or visit ncdps.gov/Helene.
Storm Damage Cleanup
If your home has damages and you need assistance with clean up, please call Crisis Cleanup for access to volunteer organizations that can assist you at 844-965-1386.
Power Outages
Across Western North Carolina, approximately 11,000 customers remain without power, down from a peak of more than 1 million. Overall power outage numbers will fluctuate up and down as power crews temporarily take circuits or substations offline to make repairs and restore additional customers.
Road Closures
Some roads are closed because they are too damaged and dangerous to travel. Other roads still need to be reserved for essential traffic like utility vehicles, construction equipment and supply trucks. However, some parts of the area are open and ready to welcome visitors which is critical for the revival of Western North Carolina’s economy. If you are considering a visit to the area, consult DriveNC.gov for open roads and reach out to the community and businesses you want to visit to see if they are welcoming visitors back yet.
NCDOT currently has approximately 2,000 employees and 900 pieces of equipment working on approximately 7,000 damaged road sites.
Fatalities
Ninety-five storm-related deaths have been confirmed in North Carolina by the Office of Chief Medical Examiner. This number is expected to rise over the coming days. The North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will continue to confirm numbers twice daily. If you have an emergency or believe that someone is in danger, please call 911.
Volunteers and Donations
If you would like to donate to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund, visit nc.gov/donate. Donations will help to support local nonprofits working on the ground.
For information on volunteer opportunities, please visit nc.gov/volunteernc
Additional Assistance
There is no right or wrong way to feel in response to the trauma of a hurricane. If you have been impacted by the storm and need someone to talk to, call or text the Disaster Distress Helpline at 1-800-985-5990. Help is also available to anyone, anytime in English or Spanish through a call, text or chat to 988. Learn more at 988Lifeline.org.
If you are seeking a representative from the North Carolina Joint Information Center, please email ncempio@ncdps.gov or call 919-825-2599.
For general information, access to resources, or answers to frequently asked questions, please visit ncdps.gov/helene.
If you are seeking information on resources for recovery help for a resident impacted from the storm, please email IArecovery@ncdps.gov.
FOR THE SITTING OF PARLIAMENT ON OR AFTER 16 OCTOBER 2024
Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong
MP for Hougang
Question No. 6578
To ask the Minister for Health in view of studies linking uncorrected hearing loss with dementia, whether the Ministry will consider allowing seniors to use MediSave for the purchase of their hearing aids.
1 Seniors who require hearing aids can tap on the Seniors’ Mobility and Enabling Fund, which provides eligible Singaporeans with means-tested subsidies of up to 90%. Those with severe hearing loss requiring hearing implants such as bone conduction hearing or cochlear implants, can tap on subsidies, MediSave and MediShield Life. The Agency for Integrated Care can also provide additional support. While it is understandable that many Singaporeans wish to use more of their MediSave, we also need to ensure that Singaporeans have adequate MediSave balances to support their medical expenses for major health episodes, which tend to happen when they are in an advanced age.
SPEECH BY MDM RAHAYU MAHZAM, MINISTER OF STATE, MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND MINISTRY OF DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT AND INFORMATION, ON RESPONSE TO ADJOURNMENT MOTION ON “ENHANCING THE WELL-BEING OF WOMEN: A GENDERED INFORMED RESPONSE TO MENOPAUSE” ON 16 OCTOBER 2024
1. Sir, Assoc Prof Razwana spoke about enhancing the well-being of women going through perimenopause or menopause, and gave suggestions that the Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Ministry of Education (MOE) could consider to better support women through this critical phase in their lives. I thank her for her speech and suggestions. I agree with many of the points raised by Assoc Prof Razwana. She shared about the health impact of menopause on women and how we can address this impact with training of healthcare providers, research into contributing factors and management, public education and social support. I will now address her points in my speech.
Health Impact of Menopause on Women
2. Every woman’s experience during menopause is different. Some may experience significant impact to their health and well-being, beyond the more common symptoms such as hot flushes, night sweats, and insomnia. For example, cardiovascular health may be affected. This is because as the protective effects of oestrogen on the heart diminish, this can potentially lead to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Changes in metabolism during menopause can also result in weight gain, particularly around the abdomen, which may increase the risk of diabetes and other metabolic disorders. Assoc Prof Razwana also highlighted that women undergoing menopause can experience changes in mood, which can impact their mental well-being.
3. It is important to note that while these health impacts are of concern, they can be managed. Regular check-ups, a healthy lifestyle, including exercise, eating well, and finding ways to relax can help. Simple things like using moisturisers for dryness and choosing appropriate clothing to manage hot flushes can also make a difference. For significant symptoms impacting quality of life, women should see their doctor to explore suitable interventions to manage the impact on both physical and mental health.
The role of training and research for the healthcare system
4. We agree that educating our medical students and medical practitioners on menopause is important, and we have been doing so. In our three local medical schools, knowledge of symptoms, diagnosis and management of menstrual disorders, including menopause, is one of the core learning outcomes for the medical students. Postgraduate family medicine programmes such as the Family Medicine residency programme and the Graduate Diploma in Family Medicine include training on common women’s health conditions, including menopause, in the curriculum. Professional bodies such as the College of Family Physicians Singapore also run skills courses on a variety of topics relevant to primary care practice.
5. These efforts enable our primary care doctors to be a source of support to women in managing the health issues that may arise during this life transition. Under Healthier SG, the relationship between the primary care doctor and enrolee is central. Women who are experiencing menopausal symptoms can inform their primary care doctor, who would be well-placed to assess the symptoms, the patient’s needs and make recommendations on further management. The member also mentioned KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) and the KK Menopause Centre. This multi-specialty practice comprising gynaecology, family medicine, dermatology and mental health specialists, has been trained to support a range of needs of women with menopausal-related health issues. Mental health services are also available in various care settings to identify women who may be experiencing psychological symptoms and provide interventions when required.
6. Research into menopause would provide more insight into how it affects women’s overall health and well-being, and enable better ways to manage menopause symptoms and its impact. The National University Hospital currently conducts the Integrated Women’s Health Programme (IWHP) which is a cohort study looking at health issues experienced by Singaporean women. Issues studied include the associations between menopause and age-related health issues such as osteoporosis and sleep disturbances. The research team plans to conduct follow-up studies, and we look forward to further insights that the IWHP and other researchers can provide on women’s health in general, as well as menopause specifically.
Empowering women through better support and awareness
7. Women should not feel ashamed, misunderstood or embarrassed to speak openly about menopause. As a society, we should work to remove the stigma surrounding menopause, and we are already taking steps to educate the public. Reliable information on menopause can be found on HealthHub and the websites of our public healthcare institutions (PHIs). KKH has also launched the Women In all Stages Empowered (WISE) Health Guide, which highlights important health advice for women, including advice on menopause. Education about menopause is important to help women understand what to expect and how to manage the changes to their body. We will continue to empower women to approach menopause with confidence and make informed decisions about their health and well-being.
8. To truly enhance women’s well-being during menopause, we must address not only the physical symptoms but also the psychological and social impacts. This includes combating stigma, promoting open dialogue, and ensuring that women have access to accurate information and supportive resources. Civil society and community organisations are well-placed to participate in this effort. They can play a critical role in providing support for women, and creating platforms for the public in general, to discuss and better understand issues surrounding menopause. MOH is supportive of such efforts.
9. In addition, many women who are going through menopause are concurrently taking on caregiving responsibilities. We support caregivers to balance caregiving while pursuing their aspirations and caring for their own health. We are enhancing options to make childcare and eldercare more accessible, affordable and available, for example, by scaling up childcare and eldercare capacity, and providing multiple layers of financial support. These, in tandem with other moves to support women at work, will support women to better balance their responsibilities and their own health and well-being.
Educating the young and supporting women in the workforce
10. Assoc Prof Razwana also spoke about suggestions for MOE and MOM, touching on educating people about menopause in schools, and workplace policies that better support women with menopause.
11. In MOE’s Sexuality Education and Science curriculum, students learn about menstrual health in women. Primary 5 students learn about the physiological changes that occur during puberty, such as menstruation. Students are also educated on human reproduction and issues related to menstrual health in Lower Secondary Science and Upper Secondary Biology. In Upper Secondary Biology, students will also learn about changes to the menstrual cycle as a female ages, leading to menopause.
12. On workplace policies, women who experience severe menopausal symptoms can already seek subsidised medical treatment at PHIs, and take sick leave to rest and recover, just like any other medical need. There have been calls for menopause leave or reproductive leave in other countries. Most recently in the UK, the Government rejected a call by the Women and Equalities Committee to conduct a trial of menopause leave last year. Like the UK, our preferred approach is to support women to remain in the workforce and be well-supported at work. Introducing specific menopause leave may inadvertently negatively impact the employability of women in this age group rather than helping them, which we should be careful to avoid.
13. In addition, flexible work arrangements (FWAs) can help employees with other medical conditions to balance the care needs for their condition with work responsibilities, including women experiencing perimenopause or menopause. The upcoming Tripartite Guidelines on FWA Requests, which will take effect on 1 December this year, aim to cultivate a norm where employees feel it is acceptable to request for and use FWAs. We encourage employers to use these Guidelines to engage their employees in conversations and find mutually beneficial arrangements.
14. The government will continue to work with Tripartite Partners to foster supportive workplaces so that all employees can participate fully at work while managing their own personal needs such as family responsibilities and medical conditions.
Conclusion
15. In conclusion, supporting women through menopause is not just a medical issue, it is also about awareness and empowerment. The Government is committed to building a society where all Singaporeans have full and equal opportunities to flourish and achieve their aspirations. Civil society and community organisations have an important part to play as well. Together, by providing education and support, we hope to take a whole of society approach to enable women to navigate this transition with confidence, maintaining their well-being and full participation in all aspects of life.