Brawl on the street
A fight which police are calling "large scale disorder" erupted on Thomas St, in the Whangarei suburb of Tikipunga on Tuesday night. Whangarei police acting Sergeant Conan Brown said neighbours had gone to a house where a 21st birthday was being held and a minor scuffle on the street had ended fairly quickly.
The neighbours, understood to have gang associations, returned in numbers and police had been called when a major brawl took place on the street. No arrests were made and no complaints were laid with police.
Light starts bakery fire
A Kerikeri bakery was lucky to avoid serious damage when a fluorescent light fitting set alight.
Kerikeri Chief Fire Officer Les Wasson said firefighters were called to the Kerikeri Bakehouse, on Kerikeri Rd, about 7.20pm on Tuesday after the light started sparking. Mr Wasson said it was fortunate somebody was in the bakery at the time and called firefighters before the flames could spread and cause any serious damage.
Tracking roadshow
The National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme (NAIT) information roadshow will start in Northland at the Kaitaia Rugby Football Club at 9.45am on April 30, then move on later in the day to the Kaikohe RSA at 2.30pm and the Maungatapere Hall at 7.30pm. The roadshow will then move south to visit 41 other rural centres. The roadshow will give farmers the opportunity to find out how to meet their NAIT obligations and provide answers to questions before the scheme is mandatory for cattle from July 1, and for deer from March 1, 2013. The NAIT scheme will link people, property and livestock, through electronic ear tags for cattle and deer and a central database.
Clarification
Refining New Zealand's annual meeting, where shareholders will vote on the proposed $365 million CCR (Continuous Catalyst Regeneration platformer) project, will be streamed live on the RNZ website tomorrow. The board approved the project in February, but the proposal requires shareholder approval because of the size of the investment. The company expects CCR would enable the refinery to meet 65 per cent of New Zealand's petrol needs "reliably and cost-competitively against imports" and to generate 300 on-site jobs.