Checkpoint is a drive-time news and current affairs programme on Radio New Zealand National. It broadcasts nationwide every weekday evening for two hours and covers the day’s major national and international stories, as well as business, sport and Māori news. This recording covers the first hour. The following rundown is supplied from the broadcaster’s news system:
Checkpoint FOR FRIDAY 05 SEPT 2014
****************************
1700 to 1707 NEWS
****************************
The High Court has been told it is blindingly obvious that blogger Cameron Slater's emails were stolen in what amounts to a gross breach of privacy. The Whale Oil blogger launched court injunction proceedings this afternoon to try to stop three leading media companies from publishing more of his hacked emails and Facebook conversations. A lawyer for the media groups said the information is in the public interest with the general election looming, and already a Minister has resigned and two Government inquiries been started over it. But Mr Slater's lawyer John Billington QC, said if the Court allows publication it is encouraging criminals to steal emails and pass them to the media. CUT Mr Billington said a court order to stop that would be powerful. CUT We'll cross to the high court shortly
A former High Court judge will investigate whether the former Minister Judith Collins was gunning for the head of the Serious Fraud Office in 2011. Ms Collins resigned last weekend after the Prime Minister released an email suggesting she may have had a hand in undermining the SFO's Adam Feeley - although she denies any wrongdoing. In the email written by Cameron Slater to PR man Carrick Graham, Mr Slater says "he's spoken at length to the Minister responsible for the SFO and she is gunning for Feeley. Any information that we can provide her on his background is appreciated". Lester Chisholm is heading the inquiry. The Labour leader, David Cunliffe, has slammed the terms of reference. He says the dirty politics allegations go a lot further than just Ms Collins and he says John Key is donkey deep in the mire. CUT New Zealand First leader, Winston Peters calls it a complicated exercise in deception. CUT Our political reporter Craig McCulloch was on the campaign trail with the Prime MInister this afternoon in New Plymouth. i/v
b/a Earlier today, the hacker Rawshark who gave Cameron Slater's emails to Nicky Hager said he was quitting. He tweeted on his Whaledump two (whaledump2) account that he is destroying and disposing of 'every device used in this operation' including all the decryption keys. The hacker said his remaining dumps are with journalists and it's time to go, adding vigilantism is a dangerous final resort and not to try it unless it's 'important enough to risk 7 years in jail'.
A-hundred cows have died or had to be put down after getting lead poisoning from grazing on a gun club paddock in Southland. In July (23) a veterinary clinic in Otautau, north of Invercargill, (Otautau Vets Limited) notified the Ministry for Primary Industries that dairy cattle on a farm nearby were being poisoned. The farmer leases the paddock from the Nightcaps Clay Target Club. Fonterra says the herd was not being milked at the time and there is no food safety risk. It says its reviewing all its farmers who have cattle close to gun clubs and says it will be working with MPI, local authorities and other dairy companies. Fonterra and the Ministry both refused to come on Checkpoint. MPI has told the farmer he cannot sell or move the rest of his stock until further notice. Steve Diack (die-ack) is the local gun club president. He says they've been leasing the 8-hectare paddock to the farmer for ten years. i/v
The Minister of Social Development, Paula Bennett, has today been confronted by a handful of protesters in Rotorua, accusing her of waging war on the poor. This follows the shooting at a Work and Income office in Ashburton in which two women were killed and another seriously injured on Monday, triggering a rash of threats against front-line staff around the country. While condemning the violence, some beneficiary advocates and others in the public sector say the Ashburton tragedy has serious implications. Ruth Hill reports. PKG
Low-down humour, high class life. The acid tongued comedian and tv host, Joan Rivers, is being remembered by a long list of celebrities and legends of fans as a one of a kind, comic genious who blazed a trail at a time when stand-up was all but off-limits to women. She spared no one her razor-sharp wit, least of all .....herself CUT Rivers, who was 81, had been at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital since she stopped breathing during a medical procedure on her vocal cords at a private clinic on August 28. Tough and tenacious, Joan Rivers used to say that no subject was off-limits : not even her husband's suicide in 1987. Jeanne (jean-y) Wolf, a Hollywood journalist and life-long friend, says Rivers lived to make people laugh i/v
***********************
17.30 HEADLINES
***********************
**************************
17.35 MARKET UPDATE
**************************
Two bodies, believed to be a missing mother and baby, have been removed from the site of a Sydney explosion, this afternoon. Bianka O'Brien and her 12-month-old son Jude were reported missing after the early morning blast in Rozelle tore through a shop and units early yesterday. The development has come just hours after police said they were looking for the driver of a silver sedan seen leaving the scene of the explosion. The ABC's Lucy Carter is at the scene. i/v
As the NATO summit in Wales goes into a second day, the United States and the European Union have threatened to impose further sanctions on Russia - unless a ceasefire is agreed for eastern Ukraine in talks today. The Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, has expressed careful optimism about a deal, saying a ceasefire could be brokered within hours The BBC's Bridget Kendall reports PKG
The National Party, if re-elected to government, is planning to spend 18-million dollars to help 4-thousand children with special education needs like dyslexia and Asperger's syndrome. The money will target children whose disability is not severe enough to qualify for existing help. The money will provide on average five hours a week of teacher aide time per child, but it will be up to schools to decide how much time each child gets. Here's our education correspondent, John Gerritsen. PKG
A High Court Judge has barred a hacker from releasing further hacked emails and facebook communications of Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater. Justice Fogarty gave his interim decision, ahead of further legal arguments expected to take place next week. The ruling does not relate to information already leaked to the media or included in Nicky Hager's Book Dirty Politics. The lawyer for the media, Julian Miles QC said the information is in the public interest with the general election looming. He said there's already been a resignation of a Minister and two Government inquiries. Mr Miles told the High Court in Auckland that voters had a right to know. John Billington QC, the lawyer for Whale Oil blogger, Cameron Slater, said if the Court allowed the emails to be published, that would encourage criminals to steal emails and pass them on to the media. Our reporter Edward Gay has been in the High Court . i/v
**************************
17.45 MANU KORIHI with Eru Rerekura
Kia ora mai, good evening,
The life of Tainui descendant, Peggy Turuhira Noble, killed in the Work and Income shootings this week, has been remembered by the Maori community of Ashburton.
Russell John Tully is charged with her and Susan Cleveland's murders and for the attempted murder of Lindy Curtis.
A candle-lit ceremony was held last night for the two women who died.
One woman who attended told Radio New Zealand that Mrs Noble was a lovely person.
cnnobit-warehouse-tp
IN: I KNEW PEG...
OUT: ...LOVELY TO ME.
DUR: 11"
A young woman, who only wanted to be known as "Violet", remembers Peggy Noble as someone not to mess with.
obit-nan-tp
IN: I USED TO...
OUT: ...ARGUE WITH HER.
DUR: 13"
Peggy Noble's tangi is expected to take place on Monday morning, while Leigh Cleveland's funeral will happen tomorrow in Alexandra.
--------
The Crown has signed an agreement to ensure the heritage of the historic, Te Motu Kairangi or Watts Peninsula near Wellington is protected and preserved.
The Crown, the Port Nicholson Block Settlement and the City Council all signed a Memorandum of Understanding today.
Since the Defence Force, which owned it since 1885 decided to stop using it in 2008, the question of what will happen to Te Motu Kairangi or Watts Peninsula has been one of much interest.
It covers about 76 hectares.
The Memorandum of Understanding sets out the relationship between the three parties, which includes the guiding principles for the future of the whenua or land.
--------
The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has decided it will not make a final call on whether the wreck of the Rena will be removed or not.
The container ship Rena ran aground on Astrolabe Reef, off Tauranga, in 2011.
Instead its chief executive says the council will refer the Application for resource consent by the Astrolabe Community Trust to abandon the remains of the ship to the Environment Court.
The trust was formed by the owners of the ship who want to leave behind what's left of it.
Mary-Anne Macleod says there are a number of reasons for its decision.
RENA-COURT-TP
IN THE MAIN REASON
OUT ...THROUGH A TWO-STEP PROCESS.
DUR 28"
Mary-Anne Macleod of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.
--------
Two traditional rugby foes will be battling it out tomorrow for one of the country's leading trophies for Maori rugby.
Te Upoko o Te Ika Wellington Maori rugby team will be up against the Canterbury Maori rugby team to try to win the Tirikatene Shield.
The traditional fixture emerged in the early 2000s but it fell over in 2008 due to a lack of funds.
It was reinvigorated last year when Te Upoko o Te Ika won the Tirikatene Shield.
The Wellington rugby coach, Andrew Wharakuru says, while his team has been on a roll this season it will play hard against Waitaha tomorrow to keep the shield.
That's Te Manu Korihi news, I'll have a final bulletin in an hour.
**************************
It was seven times the size of a T Rex, weighed 59 thousand kilos, was a herbivore and lived in South America 77 million years ago. It's called Dreadnaughtus and the man who discovered it is paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara from Drexel University in Philadelphia. He first uncovered a massive thigh bone in 2005 in southern Patagonia, but it took four years to excavate the rest of the 145 bones, five years in the lab to carefully clean them and thousands of hours to analyse the skeleton and do 3D laser scans. Professor Lacovara says the massive creature was 26 metres long, with an 11 metre long neck and 8 metre long tail. i/v
Celebrity tributes are CELEBRATING Joan Rivers, as a pioneering stand-up comic who said alot of things without fear, often at her own expense. CUT The American actress and comedian, Kathy Griffen says she was one of the few people who could legitimately be called a one of a kind CUT The Queen of Comedy
*******************
Presenter: Mary Wilson, Jim Mora
Editor: Maree Corbett
Deputy editor: Phil Pennington
Producers: Jo Leavesley, Mei Yeoh, Sharon Brettkelly