Record-breaking rainfall hit Auckland in January, only to be followed by Cyclone Gabrielle ravaging the North Island in February
The New Zealand government is allocating NZ$1.1bn to help communities recover from Cyclone Gabrielle and flooding.
The funds from the 2023 budget are to cover “basics” of rebuilding roads, rail and schools, as well as flood protection, the government announced on Sunday.
Continue reading...Former New Zealand prime minister will push initiative she created in wake of 2019 terrorist attack
Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern will take on a new role working alongside international governments and social media companies to target extremism and terrorist content online.
Prime minister Chris Hipkins announced on Tuesday evening that he had appointed Ardern as special envoy for the Christchurch Call, a newly created position.
Continue reading...Nanaia Mahuta says she will raise concerns over Ukraine and human rights issues as well as ways the two countries can cooperate
New Zealand’s foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, will leave for China on Tuesday in the first visit to Beijing by a New Zealand minister since 2019.
Mahuta, who will meet her counterpart Qin Gang, said she would raise New Zealand’s concerns about key security challenges at the meeting, such as the “illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine”, and advocate for outcomes reflecting New Zealand’s values on human rights issues.
Continue reading...Leader Chris Hipkins also surged in preferred prime minister rankings after reorientation towards ‘bread and butter issues’
New Zealand’s governing Labour coalition has pulled ahead in a new poll, putting it closer to staying in government after the upcoming election than it has been in a year.
It is the second poll this month to show strong results for Labour or the Greens, with support for the coalition parties rallying after the government coordinated national disaster responses, grappled with extreme weather events, and announced that it would be abandoning parts of its policy agenda to focus on economic issues.
Continue reading...Clean car upgrade scheme among measures to be cut but PM Chris Hipkins denies government is abandoning climate ambitions
New Zealand’s government is dumping a range of high-profile reforms and emissions reduction measures as part of its promise to refocus on “bread and butter issues”, using the savings to introduce a billion-dollar boost to welfare payments to relieve cost of living pressures.
Chris Hipkins, the prime minister, announced on Monday that the government would roll out increases for retirees, students, unemployed people, and parents, ranging from $19 to $46.20 a week. The government estimates that 1.4 million New Zealanders will benefit.
Continue reading...The former actor, drag performer, sex worker and radio host pulled off a surprise victory as a Labour MP and later played a pivotal role in decriminalising prostitution
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has led tributes to Georgina Beyer, the world’s first openly transgender MP, who has died.
Friends announced “with the heaviest of hearts” on Facebook on Monday that the 65-year-old had died at a Wellington hospice.
Continue reading...Most praised New Zealand’s outgoing prime minister for her handling of crises, while others criticised her domestic policy record
Jacinda Ardern’s legacy has divided reader opinion. While many described the outgoing New Zealand prime minister as “inspirational” and praised her ability to manage a crisis, some responses also revealed anger at her handling of the Covid response and criticism for failure to deliver on promises.
Below is a selection of reader comments conveying the range of reactions when we asked the question: how will you remember Jacinda Ardern’s time as New Zealand PM.
Continue reading...Chris Hipkins promises a ‘solid’ government that will focus on bread-and-butter issues, in the wake of the international stardom of Jacinda Ardern
Jacinda Ardern has a natural presence most politicians would sacrifice a kidney for.
She spoke like a normal person most of the time, but could switch into moving rhetoric at the exact points it was needed – like when a terrorist carried out a mass murder, a global pandemic shut the world down, or at a normal old election rally.
Continue reading...Incoming prime minister echoes Jacinda Ardern’s promise to cut back Labour’s agenda to focus on cost of living issues
New Zealand’s next prime minister, Chris Hipkins, has promised to cut back government reforms to focus on the “global pandemic of inflation”.
Speaking to media on Monday morning, the prime minister-to-be promised to “run the ruler” over the government’s work programme and cut inessential reforms to focus on the economy. In the final months of 2022, Jacinda Ardern made similar commitments, in a tacit admission that the government’s packed legislative agenda may have become a distraction from the rising cost of living – a core issue worrying voters.
Continue reading...Sole nominee secures Labour endorsement for prime minister, with Carmel Sepuloni as deputy, and incumbent’s last engagements on Tuesday
Chris Hipkins will be New Zealand’s next prime minister following a formal vote that endorsed him as Jacinda Ardern’s successor after her shock resignation on Thursday.
New Zealand will also swear in its first ever Pasifika deputy prime minister, with social development minister Carmel Sepuloni, who is of Tongan and Samoan descent, to take the role.
Continue reading...‘The difference you have made is immeasurable,’ says Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau
The US president, together with the prime ministers of Canada and Australia, have paid tribute to their New Zealand counterpart, who shocked the world by announcing she would be resigning as her country’s leader.
Joe Biden applauded Ardern’s “stewardship in advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific” and credited her leadership for making the US-New Zealand partnership “stronger than ever”.
Continue reading...Labour leader to stand down no later than 7 February, saying she ‘no longer had enough in the tank’ to do the job
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has said she is resigning, in an unexpected announcement that came as she confirmed a national election for October.
At the party’s first caucus meeting of the year on Thursday, Ardern said she “no longer had enough in the tank” to do the job. “It’s time,” she added.
Continue reading...New Zealand PM was caught on hot mic earlier this week with a candid comment about Act party leader David Seymour
An official signed copy of the transcript of New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern calling a political opponent an “arrogant prick” will be auctioned off to raise money for a prostate cancer charity.
Bidding on the copy of the parliamentary record, signed by both Ardern and David Seymour, leader of the libertarian right Act party, had reached $50,000 by Friday. The auction, titled “Ardern, Seymour join forces for pricks everywhere”, ends on 22 December.
Continue reading...Motels used to temporarily house homeless people were found to often be unclean and unsafe
New Zealand’s emergency housing system that temporarily places homeless people in motel units is breaching human rights, with residents reporting filthy and unsafe environments, an inquiry has found.
The report released on Wednesday by the Human Rights Commission included what it called, “distressing” testimonies from those living in emergency housing. It said that while the intent to house people was good, the system was in some cases exacerbating problems and trauma.
Continue reading...New Zealand PM apologised for comment made live on parliament television during question time
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has become the latest leader to fall victim to a hot microphone, after her comment that the leader of a minor opposition party was an “arrogant prick” was picked up and broadcast on parliament television.
During question time in the house on Tuesday, the leader of the libertarian Act party, David Seymour, asked Ardern if she could “give an example of her making a mistake, apologising for it properly, and fixing it”.
Continue reading...New Zealand PM tells party conference ‘we are not done yet’ as poll shows Labour’s support at 5-year low ahead of elections in 2023
In the darkened amphitheatre of a south Auckland conference centre, a youth choir swayed, as crowds waited for the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, to take the stage. “Give me one more chance,” they sang, in a medley featuring the Jackson 5’s I Want You Back. “Won’t you please let me back in your heart.”
It was an apt-enough score for the annual Labour conference, with the party facing a steep uphill road to persuade New Zealanders to return them to office for another three years. “We are not done yet,” Ardern told the party faithful, as delegates sought to map a pathway to election victory in an increasingly sour economic and political landscape. Three days of speeches and discussions built a picture of a party girding itself for a bitterly fought campaign: speeches were laced with jabs at centre-right opposition leader Christopher Luxon, warnings of the prospect of gains rolled back under a National government, and encouragement to stay the course under fire.
Continue reading...Influential National party figure said he had never voted ‘anything other than right’, but that some on the right were ‘getting pretty crazy’
Former New Zealand prime minister Sir John Key has suggested he would have voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 US election, and far-right president Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s 2022 elections, had he been eligible to do so.
Key, who served three terms as prime minister from 2008 to 2016, revealed his preferences in a quick-fire round of 20 questions that featured at the end of a new online series called Both Sides Now, hosted by members of the Labour and National youth wings.
Continue reading...Experts say the progressive vote is disillusioned with incremental changes brought in by Ardern Labour government
Late in the campaign period of Auckland’s mayoral election came a spate of strange, oddly specific, billboard vandalism. As the race in New Zealand’s most populous city wound to its conclusion, boardings for Efeso Collins, an independent progressive candidate and mayoral frontrunner, were plasteredwith red “Labour” party logos.
Compared with the moustaches and monobrows that typically bedeck election billboards, it seemed an innocuous choice for vandals. But Collins’ campaign said it was an act of politicised sabotage. “None of our allies or volunteers have been doing it,” a spokesperson told The Spinoff. “We believe it’s an attack tactic.”
Continue reading...Sam Uffindell had been stood down after allegations he had bullied a female housemate while at university
A New Zealand MP who has apologised for attacking a fellow student at high school has been reinstated to the opposition National party after an inquiry cleared him of bullying a female flatmate while at university.
Sam Uffindell had been suspended so the party could carry out an investigation into allegations of violence and intimidating behaviour at university, but on Monday he was reinstated to his former position, after the investigation found no evidence of bullying after high school.
Continue reading...Gerry Brownlee says report on human rights violations in Xinjiang recognises China is ‘dealing with a terrorist problem’
New Zealand’s shadow foreign affairs spokesperson said a UN report on the human rights abuses of Uyghurs includes recognition that China is “dealing with a terrorist problem essentially”, in remarks criticised by China analysts.
“It’s good that it acknowledges that there has been a terrorism problem in the particular part of China that the report is on,” Gerry Brownlee, a lawmaker for the centre-right National party, told Radio New Zealand (RNZ) on Thursday in an interview about the UN findings.
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