PM Jacinda Ardern said caucus voted to expel Sharma over ‘repeated and calculated’ breaches of its rules
Jacinda Ardern and her Labour colleagues have expelled MP Gaurav Sharma from caucus, the first time in more than a decade that the party has taken such action.
The expulsion of Sharma, who was elected as the member for Hamilton West in 2020, came after nearly two weeks of the MP making public allegations of bullying and misconduct against his own party.
Continue reading...Touring flood-hit region of Nelson, prime minister says country must do ‘all we can’ to deal with damaging events triggered by a warming climate
New Zealand’s flood- and slip-prone regions do not have the mechanisms in place to cope with rapid environmental changes brought about by the climate crisis, Jacinda Ardern has said after visiting the aftermath of a monster storm.
The prime minister was touring the site of devastating flooding and landslips around Nelson, at the top of the South Island, when she was asked if she was satisfied that New Zealand had the framework and investment to cope with weather events that are becoming more frequent.
Continue reading...A fourth straight day of rain brought by an ‘atmospheric river’ has damaged roads and homes and forced more than 400 households to evacuate
Torrential downpours that have battered New Zealand for four days straight have caused floods that could take years to clean up and displaced at least 1,200 people from their homes in the top of the South Island.
Friday’s rain comes on top of weeks of wet weather and is worsening conditions in New Zealand’s already sodden landscape. Experts have attributed the unseasonably wet weather to a narrow stream of water vapour, or “atmospheric river”, sitting above the country.
Continue reading...Local council decides proposed bunker-like home would negatively impact surrounding landscape
The billionaire Peter Thiel’s plans for an elaborate bunker-like lodge in a remote part of New Zealand’s South Island have been thwarted, after the local council decided the home would have too great a negative impact on the surrounding landscape.
Second Star, a New Zealand company owned by the PayPal co-founder, had applied to build the sprawling lakeside complex in Wanaka, an alpine South Island region known for its natural beauty and isolation. The plans were fiercely opposed by conservationists, who claimed in submissions that the lodge would “destroy our beautiful lake environment”.
Continue reading...Professional firefighters will walk off the job for an hour in culmination of 13-month dispute over pay and conditions
Nearly 2,000 professional firefighters will walk off the job for the first time in New Zealand’s history, citing a “crisis” within the sector and ongoing problems with poor pay, understaffing and unreliable fire equipment.
Members of the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union have voted to strike for an hour on Friday morning in a complete work stoppage, after talks with employer Fire and Emergency (Fenz) broke down last week.
Continue reading...Suspension of Gaurav Sharma for party rule breaches comes after he made allegations of bullying within the party
New Zealand’s Labour party has suspended MP Gaurav Sharma over what the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said were “repeated breaches” of caucus rules in the past week.
Ardern had called an emergency caucus meeting on Tuesday afternoon, where it was unanimously agreed to suspend Sharma, who has recently made widespread allegations that he and others had experienced bullying within the party.
Continue reading...Alexander Blong smashed the previous world record for the most carriages in a Lego train
A New Zealand teenager has broken a Guinness World Record for the most carriages in a Lego toy train, beating the previous record by 32 carriages, after he was inspired to break a record during boring Covid lockdowns.
It took 14-year-old Aucklander Alexander Blong roughly 50 hours to build the 101-carriage locomotive. When finished, it measured 25 metres long.
Continue reading...Centre-right National and libertarian Act could form government, according to latest survey, with Labour-Greens bloc trailing on combined 42% support
Jacinda Ardern’s chances of re-election are looking shakier, with new polling indicating that New Zealand’s right-leaning coalition has enough support to form government.
The latest 1 News/Kantar poll, taken as the cost of living soars in New Zealand, marked Ardern’s worst result in the preferred prime minister stakes since her tenure as leader began. Despite falling three points as preferred PM, however, she is still ahead of National’s Chris Luxon, 30% to 22%.
Continue reading...Analysis shows almost 15% of deaths in mid-July were due to Covid, with that figure likely to be an undercount
Covid-19 became the equal leading cause of death in New Zealand for the first time in July, overtaking stroke and drawing even with ischaemic heart disease as the country’s No 1 killer.
Michael Baker, an epidemiologist and public health professor, said that for a period in July-August Covid appeared to be causing at least as many deaths as heart disease.
Continue reading...As global demand for monkeypox vaccine surges, health officials say they are stuck in the queue and don’t know when jabs will be available
New Zealand health officials have revealed they are stuck in the queue to order monkeypox vaccine and are unsure when it will arrive.
Monkeypox cases continue to rise globally – more than 23,000 people in at least 75 countries have caught the virus. New Zealand confirmed a third case this week.
Continue reading...Property prices in New Zealand skyrocketed during the pandemic, but have fallen 2.5% in the last quarter
House prices in New Zealand are experiencing the fastest drop in value since the global financial crisis, but many first homebuyers remain locked out of home ownership due to an inflated market, the cost of living crisis and rising interest rates.
New Zealand has been plagued by a runaway housing market for years. Wellington and Auckland are among the least affordable property markets in the world, and homeownership rates have been falling since the early 1990s across all age brackets, but especially for people in their 20s and 30s. The average house price nationally is now more than NZ$1m.
Continue reading...Some in space industry bewildered by Australia’s lack of fanfare about the launch of the satellites, which will be used to collect intelligence for allied nations
A second spy satellite built by Australia and the United States is scheduled for liftoff on Tuesday from a launch site in New Zealand.
The first of the two satellites, which will be used to collect intelligence for the allied nations, launched two weeks ago.
Continue reading...Cruise ships, international students and visitors from China and India among those who will be able to once again travel to New Zealand
New Zealand’s borders are fully open for the first time since they abruptly snapped shut to keep Covid-19 out in March 2020.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said the nation was “open for business” after the final stage of the phased reopening, which began in April, was completed on Sunday night.
Continue reading...Despite their differences the nations have shared interests, Jacinda Ardern says as she plans trip to China
New Zealand will continue to cooperate on “shared interests” with China, even as tensions increase in the region and China grows “more assertive in the pursuit of its interests”, Jacinda Ardern has said.
Speaking to the China Business Summit in Auckland on Monday, the prime minister said she was planning a trip to China “to seize new opportunities for dialogue,” support the trade relationship, and further cooperate on the climate crisis.
Continue reading...The boy, 14 at the time of the offence, must spend at least 10 years in jail after stabbing 22-year-old Bram Willems to death
A New Zealand court has sentenced a 15-year-old boy to life in prison for a murder committed when he was 14.
The sentencing coincides with a separate legal challenge to the country’s practice of giving children life sentences, which advocates argue is “harmful and ineffective”. New Zealand’s sentencing laws currently presume a life sentence for those found guilty of murder, unless it is “manifestly unjust” to do so.
Continue reading...The 2m-wide hole opened up suddenly on a footpath at Whakarewarewa tourist village in Rotorua, in central North Island
An Australian woman has been seriously injured after she fell into a geothermal sinkhole that opened up in a popular tourist village in New Zealand.
The woman fell into the two-metre-wide fumarole when it opened suddenly on a footpath near the entrance of Whakarewarewa thermal village in Rotorua, in central North Island.
Continue reading...The two men were at the end of a three-day trip in The Remarkables above Queenstown when they triggered an avalanche
Two climbers who were buried by an avalanche and then caught in a blizzard atop one of New Zealand’s most famous mountain ranges survived their ordeal by digging themselves out of the snow, building a cave and living off muesli bars.
The two men in their 20s were on a three-day ice climbing adventure in The Remarkables – a 2,300-metre high range above Queenstown – when they triggered an avalanche and were carried about 20 metres downhill.
Continue reading...Residents of the New Zealand city have the world’s most extreme vocal changes when speaking to babies, a study has found
From small tribes in the remote Pacific islands to the teeming cities of China, humans share the common language of baby talk – but new research has discovered that Wellington, New Zealand, is the global capital of cooing.
An international study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, collected 1615 recordings of 410 people from 21 societies speaking and singing to an adult and then a baby in more than a dozen languages.
Continue reading...Toxic metal present in both blood and eggshell samples, but the New Zealand birds appear to have formed a tolerance for it
Lead has been detected in nesting native kākā chicks in Wellington, but unusually, the birds look to have developed a tolerance to the toxin, a study has found.
Kākā are a noisy, smart parrot, with bright green plumage and blood red patches under their wings and chest. They are particularly animated at dawn and dusk, and some Wellingtonians are known to curse their raucous squawking, while others delight in their cheekiness.
Continue reading...Dr Ashley Bloomfield dramatically scales back planned event, including cancelling the karaoke, in face of Omicron surge
New Zealand’s Covid chief has had his farewell party scuppered by a rising wave of Omicron cases.
“We’ve canceled karaoke,” the director general of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, said when questioned about his plans for farewelling the high-stress role. “We’ll do that later in the year, I hope, if the staff still want to come.”
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