The Week In Detail: Dickason Murders, KiwiSaver, And Home Detention
Podcast: The Detail
Every weekday, The Detail makes sense of the big news stories.
This week, we look at the difficulties inmates face when they leave prison, the uncertain future of the Commonwealth Games, the role of the media in reporting grisly details from the Dickason triple murder trial, the potential consequences of dipping into your KiwiSaver to pay bond, and what a sentence of home detention looks like.
Whakarongo mai to any episodes you might have missed.
Setting prisoners up for failure
“They’ve done their time, paid for their crime, and then they come out and they do another sentence. It’s called a silent sentence.”
Tui Ah Loo, the tumult whakapapa of the prisoner reintegration agency Te Pā, is talking about the difficulties people face when they’re released from prison.
“It is the sentence of judgment, stigma, and bias.”
A new report called Paying the Price says inmates not only face barriers to reintegration when they leave, but they also take big problems into prison, such as financial debts, which grow during the term of their sentence.
Sharon Brettkelly finds out more.
A sporting empire starts to crumble
Victoria’s Commonwealth Games bombshell has thrown not just the 2026 event into doubt, but the entire future of the ‘friendly games’.
The Games were already struggling under the uncomfortable cloak of being an event rooted in an Empire that colonized half the world.
Now it’s become obvious that in times when money is tight, the political willingness to spend it on providing accommodation for visiting athletes and sprucing up stadiums is subsiding.
“Taxpayers, ratepayers end up copping it, all for what is effectively two weeks of fun, frivolity, and enjoyment of sports etcetera – which is great – but is it worth it, in that cost-benefit analysis? People are watching their pennies on every level … it does make you realize that there’s more to life than sport,” says Newstalk ZB Sport‘s Andrew Alderson.
When a graphic warning is not enough
Even if you don’t want to know about it, the Lauren Dickason trial is unmissable when you’re scanning the websites, listening, or watching the daily news.
Almost every report starts with a warning that the content could be distressing, and ends with details of helplines.
But critics say the warnings are not enough and the coverage is gratuitous, obscene, and salacious.
Sharon Brettkelly talks to documentary-maker David Farrier, RNZ news boss and Media Freedom Committee chair Richard Sutherland, and Stuff reporter Jake Kenny who has been live-blogging the trial since it started.
KiwiSaver as a slush fund
National has announced its plan to let under-30-year-olds dip into their retirement fund to pay bonds for rental properties. Should we be letting youngsters derail their savings?
BusinessDesk‘s investments editor Frances Cook says no.
“It is attacking KiwiSaver at a time it will have the biggest impact. [If] you take out even just $800 from a KiwiSaver when you’re young … a conservative estimate of what that could cost you by the time you’re 65 is $16,800.
“If you open up KiwiSaver for every problem, then you have no retirement savings anymore and we have a looming crisis of poverty.”
But financial journalist and commentator Mary Holm says yes.
“You are missing out on the growth of that money, but it’s not a big amount. This proposal is not stupid, because the money’s going back into KiwiSaver … it’s not lost forever.
Tom Kitchin hears from both sides and canvasses a group of university students about their KiwiSavers.
The home detention solution
The spotlight’s been on home detention since the Auckland CBD shootings.
Questions raised from the tragedy include: why was a man with a record of violence not in jail? How did Matu Reid get home detention when his list of crimes was long and included strangling his partner?
Tom Kitchin asks if home detention is the easy option. He speaks to criminal defense lawyer John Munro, NZ Herald journalist Derek Cheng, and Auckland University associate professor of law Carrie Leonetti.
Long Read: The Gloriavale employment case
This is The Detail‘s Long Read – one in-depth story read by us every weekend.
This week, it’s the Gloriavale employment case, written and read aloud here by RNZ‘s Jean Edwards.
The Employment Court has found that former Gloriavale women Serenity Pilgrim, Anna Courage, Rose Standtrue, Crystal Loyal, Pearl Valor, and Virginia Courage were employees who worked extremely hard under punishing conditions for years on end.
You can find the full story, including photos, here.
In a case traversing challenging spiritual terrain and the Southern Alps, 50 witnesses came to tell their gospel truth before the court’s chief judge. Slave labor or labor of love?
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