- Newsroom

The author of a novel set in racy, racist Hawke’s Bay writes about the experiences and stories that make up his book. Ten years old and I’m walking with my grandfather to the Farmers Tearooms in Hastings. At the entrance we meet a man whose house has recently burnt down. My grandfather […]

A major report by the Auditor-General on how councils manage drinking, storm and waste waters found an incoherent, disorganised and stagnant system unprepared for climate change Auditor-General John Ryan found so much lacking in our water management systems he chose to start his final report on it […]

Child victims of a notorious North Island psychiatric hospital are still doubtful charges will be laid. David Williams reports Police are reviewing their file on Lake Alice psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks in the wake of a landmark decision by a United Nations committee. In December, the Committee […]

When New Zealand hosts the Rugby World Cup - for the first time in this hemisphere – in 2021, it will mean so much to the Black Ferns, both present and past. To outsiders, it may have been surprising to watch Kendra Cocksedge taking a moment to hold back her tears, before a full room at a […]

Climate change and carbon footprints, political unrest, global epidemics – what does it all mean for the future of tourism? While the crystal ball is murky, futurologist Associate Professor Ian Yeoman from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Management […]

A media vs media defamation case will go ahead, after the District Court decides the issues involved should be argued in court. A judge has declined to strike out a defamation case against Newsroom brought by the website NBR. Judge Nicola Mathers, of the Auckland District Court, said the case […]

There's nearly 10,000 tonnes of potentially toxic waste causing anger and anxiety in a tiny Southland town. We look at the secret deal that put it there, and the battle against a faceless entity to get rid of it.  Mataura used to be a paper mill town. Nowadays the old white warehouse building […]

Ratings agency S&P has confidence in our councils and their ability to repay debt.

“Oranga Tamariki have remained silent on their role in this horrific situation,” a Māori leader tells Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner. A respected Hawke’s Bay kaumatua, who has been supporting the whānau whānui of a four-year-old boy being treated in hospital […]

*Watch Melanie Reid's full interview in the video player above* Oranga Tamariki stands accused of returning a four-year-old who had been previously badly injured within a Flaxmere household to the same home, where he has since been severely injured again. It allegedly did so without […]

Big Tech companies like Microsoft have raised the spectre of geo-blocking NZ if the Government proceeds with a bill for classifying streamed content.

The Electricity Authority says the ban on power companies offering better deals to customers who want to switch should bring down power prices. From 21 March the authority will ban the so-called win-backs offered to customers within 180 days of leaving their original supplier. Figures show […]

Fletcher Building is hopeful the Ihumātao land dispute can be resolved soon but says it cannot hold off indefinitely. Presenting the construction company's half-year results to the end of December 2019 chief executive Ross Taylor said it has been a complex situation. But the company said in […]

The telecommunications company Spark has made a larger profit off a big boost in mobile sales, with the company's bottom line rising 9.2 percent to $167 million in the six months ended December. Revenue rose 4 percent to $1.82 billion with increased margins in the mobile, broadband and cloud […]

Former National MP Jami-Lee Ross is one of the four men charged by the Serious Fraud Office in the National Party donations case - alongside a Chinese community leader who reportedly gave $100,000 to the party, and two others. Name suppression for Ross and his co-accused Zhang Yikun, Zheng Shijia, […]

Fletcher Building says it hopeful the Ihumatao land dispute can be resolved soon.

In the interests of her party, let alone her Government, it is surely time for the PM to cut the Gordian knot, and cast aside New Zealand First.

Dairy prices have fallen again in the latest global dairy auction, as the coronavirus outbreak takes its toll on trade. The average price at the overnight auction fell by almost 3 percent to $US3176 a tonne. Following a 4.7 percent fall at the previous auction two weeks ago, it was the lowest […]

Motorists are now able to offset their carbon emissions when they fuel up at Z Energy stations. A new feature in the Z app called Carbon Count will show drivers the carbon impact of each fill, then give them the option to offset that. There will be a per-fill option or a bulk option. Z said it […]

Growth in bank sector profits stalled last year after years of seemingly unstoppable development. Business advisory firm KPMG's annual sector report showed the industry's collective profits fell just under 1 percent to $5.7 billion, with a growth in lending, while margins were squeezed slightly, […]

The Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says parts of drought hit Northland are in a crisis situation.

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters will keep his Ministerial portfolios as the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigates the New Zealand First Foundation.

Here's how the Government could force you to sell your house for state housing; and impact of drought, coronavirus could lead to recession - economist.

ReadingRoom literary editor Steve Braunias interviews Dr Gwendoline Smith about how terrible it is to think too much. Certainly I overthink things, in the sense that I worry and fret and angst, but not in the sense that I actually think very deeply or intelligently. It’s more a formless […]

Labour and New Zealand First are delaying a painful call on either lifting or cutting New Zealand's annual residency visa limit. Neither will reveal their stance ahead of a crucial pre-election Cabinet decision, while the Greens want the limits removed completely. Meanwhile, migrants living in […]

The Electricity Authority has introduced a long-signalled ban on "win-backs", which commentators say will free up the retail electricity market and lower prices, Marc Daalder reports Electricity retailers will no longer be able to entice former customers with steep and exclusive discounts, the […]

Seaweed harvested or farmed off the coast of Stewart Island by a Kiwi company could prove the key to decreasing methane emissions from livestock globally, Marc Daalder reports When Robert Kinley first saw the results from his experiment with feeding cows various strains of seaweed, he assumed his […]

The 10-year-old girl from Tawa who cherished a cricket bat signed by her 2000 World Cup heroes, now wants to spur a new crop of cricketers through her own swashbuckling deeds. In a recent column looking ahead to the T20 World Cup starting in Australia this week, Sophie […]

Some old tricks have an awful lot of staying power. They just keep working. Radio New Zealand’s use of one to add a youth station to its portfolio without cutting Concert FM was brazen, but it was rewarded for it, writes Eric Crampton. In a prior academic life, I taught public choice – […]

Transforming diseases into foes and therapies into battles isn’t the best way to face contagion. Annemarie Jutel asks: When did panic and catastrophe help anyone organise anything? Public anxiety and nations’ responses to coronavirus (COVID-19) have been shaped by the hyperbolic […]

Overworked and stressed teachers, overcrowded classrooms and substandard nutrition have ECE at crisis point. ECE teacher Susan Bates explains why everyone should care.  If you want to know what NZ society might look like in the future, look into the eyes of the young children in your […]

Manchester City and the Houston Astros are latest inductees into the sports hall of shame. Dirty, rotten cheats. Calculated, cynical, premeditated, habitual, recidivist, despicable cheats. Committed cheats. Add Manchester City and the Houston Astros to a gallery of shame occupied for all […]

The pressures on the state budget of a rapidly ageing population must be acknowledged, and treated holistically and with nuance, write Susan St John and Dr Claire Dale  The latest three-yearly 2019 Retirement Incomes Review takes a refreshingly holistic view of retirement policy and is […]

Sharon Brettkelly gets a rare look at the internal workings of Immigration New Zealand - and we look at what's holding up visa applications.  Immigration New Zealand's Henderson office is like any other, with rows of workers at their computers. But in this workplace the lives of tens of […]

Drought combined with the Covid-19 coronavirus might knock economic growth enough to cause a modest recession, a leading economist says. BNZ head of research Stephen Toplis said the threat from drought seemed to have been overlooked in the headlines generated by the virus. "What at first seemed […]

Financial services company Heartland Bank has reported a solid lift in its first-half profit driven by increased lending despite a squeeze on margins and rising costs. The company, which specialises in reverse mortgages, finance for businesses, cars and livestock, and has a stake in the Harmoney […]

The National Party leader Simon Bridges says it came as a surprise to him that the Serious Fraud Office prosecution relates to two $100,000 donations to the party.

The Serious Fraud Office has confirmed it will investigate donations made to the New Zealand First Foundation and whether they were compliant with electoral law. The official confirmation comes just over a week after the Electoral Commission referred the foundation to the police, who in turn […]

It's a familiar tale of small town New Zealand versus a government rulebook, and both of them refusing to blink. And all for a bit of raw milk. There's a stand-off between the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and family-owned Hawke's Bay raw milk supplier Lindsay Farm. It follows raids in […]

Housing markets across New Zealand have had their busiest January in four years, pushing REINZ's house price index to a record high. The Real Estate Institute's house price index - which measures the changing value of property in the market - rose 7 percent in the year to January to a record high […]

Court documents show the Serious Fraud Office prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves two donations of $100,000.

The Government is putting together an $11 million package to offset the fallout from coronavirus and attract tourists from countries other than China.

Immigration deadlock: 'Endless waiting has destroyed all my dreams'; and 'Beyond the pale': Councils respond to Kāinga Ora powers. 

Simon Bridges says a National government would cut taxes for average earners and invest much more than Labour in infrastructure, and with less waste. But he's holding back the detail, and got a key figure wrong, Bernard Hickey reports. Politicians love to tell voters they'll change the tax rules […]

An intimate extract from New Zealand's biggest-selling book of non-fiction, 'The Casketeers', by funeral directors Francis and Kaiora Tipene. For many people, the shell left after death is the person they loved. That’s all that remains of them, so they want to preserve it by embalming. […]

Efforts by the Chinese government to contain the coronavirus have an unlikely casualty: our tourist visa processing systems, Dileepa Fonseka reports The shutdown of Immigration New Zealand's Beijing branch has also caused delays for thousands of non-Chinese tourists trying to enter New […]

New Zealand's effective policy of tempting guest workers here with the chance of permanent residency and then quietly withdrawing that chance has become a damaging and politically convenient economic addiction that is mean, abusive and fraudulent, Bernard Hickey argues Is this who we are now? Do […]

*Watch the video in the player above* If climate scientists have got their predictions right, Auckland will be progressively hit by more extreme weather, including more frequent and possibly more severe droughts, floods and damaging winds. Coastal storm surges will damage coastal property, […]

One of Damon Salesa's students once gave a speech when she won a university award that revealed she had done all her study through school and onto her degree years while propped up on her bed at home.  She had nowhere else at her home to study. The kitchen table was taken […]

A Conservation Department manager decided it wouldn’t submit on a water consent next to a scientific reserve. David Williams reports. A Canterbury farmer taken to court for destroying a rare, native shrub has a new water consent, after a hearing notable for the absence of the Department of […]