Category Archives: New Zealand

NZ Māori party rules out right-wing coalition after next election

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Co-leader Rawiri Waititi, whose party is expected to become kingmakers, accuses Act of ‘emboldening racism across the country’ through its rhetoric

New Zealand’s Māori party, Te Pati Māori, which could hold the balance of power at the next election, has ruled out forming a coalition with Act and National, if the rightwing Act party stays its current policy course.

The comments came as a series of polls placed Te Pāti Māori as “kingmakers” in the upcoming New Zealand election. Asked by the Guardian whether the party would consider a National-Act coalition, based on current policies and rhetoric, co-leader Rawiri Waititi said: “It’s a no. Absolutely. It’s a hard no.”

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Top British diplomat’s husband pokes fun at New Zealand’s ‘crappiest fountain’

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Tweet about Wellington water feature drew light-hearted responses from MPs and the public, with one saying: ‘There’s a fine line between iconic and crap’

The husband of New Zealand’s British high commissioner has announced his loathing of the Wellington bucket fountain, a well-known and polarising water feature that graces the centre of the nation’s capital.

Toby Fisher, husband of British commissioner Laura Clarke, tweeted: “After 4 years in Wellington, it’s time to be straight with you all, this is the crappiest fountain ever.”

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New Zealand woman creates her own electric car for $24,000

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Rosemary Penwarden says the vehicle, powered by home rooftop solar, has been running smoothly for three years and has thanked oil companies for the motivation

A New Zealand woman has converted a 29-year-old wreck into a homemade, electric vehicle, “to show it can be done”.

Rosemary Penwarden has been driving her converted vehicle around South Island roads for three years now. The project took her and a friend more than eight months of solid work and tinkering. “You do have to be a little bit mad,” she said. “I want to thank the oil companies for the motivation.”

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New Zealand and allies allowed ‘vacuum’ to develop in Pacific, former foreign minister says

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Comments by Winston Peters come as China hopes 10 Pacific countries will sign wide-ranging security deal

New Zealand and its allies have failed to listen to “alarm bells” about China’s growing influence, and allowed a “vacuum” to develop in the Pacific, New Zealand’s former foreign minister Winston Peters has said.

His comments come amid news that China hopes 10 Pacific countries will sign a wide-ranging draft deal covering security, trade and investment. The agreement would dramatically increase China’s influence in the region.

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Jacinda Ardern wows Harvard with New Zealand’s lesson on gun control and democracy

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In commencement address New Zealand PM warns against the ‘scourge of online disinformation’, and wins standing ovation for crackdown on weapons

Jacinda Ardern has spoken out against the online “scourge of disinformation” in an address at Harvard University, in which she also won standing ovations for her government’s gun control laws, diversity and decriminalisation of abortion.

The New Zealand prime minister was honoured by the American university , making the annual commencement address to more than a thousand students on Thursday from the same stage as figures such as Winston Churchill, Angela Merkel, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey.

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Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand ‘ready to respond’ to Pacific’s security needs as China seeks deal in region

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Prime minister says ‘the Pacific is our home’ as Beijing plans a regional security pact with almost a dozen island nations

Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand is “ready to respond” to security needs in the Pacific, after it emerged China is planning a Pacific-wide security deal with almost a dozen island nations.

The prime minister, who is touring the US, said she believed the Pacific could meet its security needs internally, implying it should do so without intervention from China or elsewhere. “On anything related to security arrangements, we are very strongly of the view that we have within the Pacific the means and ability to respond to any security challenges that exist and New Zealand is willing to do that,” Ardern said.

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New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern responds to Texas school shooting

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Prime minister says after 2019 Christchurch massacre, country made a ‘pragmatic’ decision to get guns off streets: ‘We saw something that wasn’t right and we acted’

New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern says her country’s swift change to gun laws after the 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch was a “pragmatic” response, where “we saw something that wasn’t right and we acted on it”.

The prime minister was speaking as her visit to the United States coincided with the mass killing of 19 children at a school in Uvalde, Texas.

Ardern appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which was filmed shortly after the Uvalde shooting. “When I watch from afar and see events such as this today, it’s not as a politician. I see them just as a mother,” an emotional Ardern said. “I’m so sorry for what has happened here.”

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New Zealand will push Anthony Albanese on ‘501’ deportation policy, Jacinda Ardern says

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Prime minister said it was helpful that new Australian leader had already acknowledged issues causing friction

New Zealand will continue to push the conversation on Australia’s “problematic” deportation policy with the incoming government under Labor leader Anthony Albanese, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said.

“There is obviously a really strong relationship, regardless of leader, regardless of party,” Ardern said at a post-cabinet briefing on Monday. “The very nature of New Zealand and Australia’s relationship is strong and enduring.”

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New Zealand woman held in Villawood detention centre found dead, detainees say

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Activists say woman’s death is an example of people with serious mental health problems being detained without adequate care

Advocates and detainees say a woman’s body was found at Villawood detention centre on Sunday morning.

The New Zealand woman was found dead about 10.45am, shortly after a room search had been conducted by Serco officers. She is believed to have killed herself.

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Cabinet committee blocked plan to double Australia’s support to Pacific, election-eve leak reveals

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‘Extraordinary’ revelation about national security decision shows the government is ‘falling apart’, Labor says

The Morrison government has been hit by an election-eve leak that cabinet’s national security committee blocked a proposal by the foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, to double Australia’s support to the Pacific.

Labor said the “extraordinary” pre-election leak, first reported by the Australian newspaper, showed the government was “falling apart”, while Scott Morrison insisted the committee was “extremely tight”.

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Poorest New Zealanders lose out to ‘squeezed middle’ in budget, inequality experts say

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Government says child poverty is easing in all areas but those on the ground say the dial has barely shifted in the past five years

The budget neglects poor New Zealanders in favour of the “squeezed middle”, inequality experts have said, despite promises by Jacinda Ardern’s government to combat child poverty.

Budget 2022 offered up a swathe of short-term sweeteners to soften the rising costs of living, including a $350 payment for people earning less than $70,000 but not on other benefits.

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Jacinda Ardern loses sense of taste after Covid, can’t enjoy cheese roll

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New Zealand PM remains in isolation but tried to uphold budget breakfast tradition with finance minister via Instagram

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern says she has lost her sense of taste after testing positive for Covid-19 on Saturday.

Thursday was budget day in New Zealand, when traditionally the prime minister has an early morning breakfast with finance minister Grant Robertson. Typically, the two share cheese rolls – a South Island New Zealand delicacy involving cheddar cheese and powdered soup rolled inside a piece of toasted white bread. This year, the breakfast took place via Instagram live stream – and the prime minister said the cheese rolls were missing their usual flavour notes.

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New Zealand budget 2022: Ardern offers $1bn in sweeteners to tackle cost of living ‘storm’

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PM says budget, which includes major spending on climate and health care reform, aims to ensure long term ‘economic and social security’

Weekly $27 cash payments, fuel discounts and half-price public transport are among the short-term sweeteners offered up by New Zealand’s government in its latest budget, as it tries to juggle the cost-of-living crisis with big-ticket spending commitments, including $11.1bn of healthcare system reform and $2.9bn responding to the climate crisis.

“While we know the current storm will pass, it is important we take the hard edges off,” prime minister Jacinda Ardern said in remarks accompanying the budget’s release.

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More people leaving New Zealand than entering as young flee high cost of living

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Thousands head overseas, partly because of economic conditions, with departures accelerating and labour shortage feared

Young New Zealanders are leaving in droves as borders reopen and economic conditions tighten at home.

The latest data from Stats NZ found that in the year to March, annual net migration was negative, with 7,300 more people leaving than entering. That loss marks a dramatic shift from early in the pandemic when border closures and the relative safety of Covid-free New Zealand prevented many from leaving. In the year to March 2020 there was a record net gain of 91,700.

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Buffalo shooting: unease in New Zealand as live stream of ‘Christchurch-inspired’ attack finds foothold

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Researchers find New Zealand has become a fertile ground for extreme material amid efforts to ban alleged shooter’s ‘manifesto’

Widespread horror at the killing of shoppers at a Buffalo grocery store, allegedly by a white supremacist gunman, has been felt keenly in New Zealand as it continues to reckon with the ripple effects of the 2019 Christchurch massacre of 51 Muslims at prayer.

New Zealand has already moved to ban the live stream video and “manifesto” apparently published by the alleged shooter, which is said to specifically cite the mosque shootings as a source of inspiration. Mosque attack survivors are being re-traumatised by the Buffalo footage, reportedly sent to them anonymously online, and researchers are concerned material from the shooting is spreading quickly inside New Zealand.

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New Zealand banks predict 20% drop in house prices over next year

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Economists say tighter credit conditions, higher mortgage rates and increased housing supply behind sinking prices

New Zealand’s house prices are on track to drop by up to 20% in the next year – the biggest drop since the 1970s – two of the biggest banks have predicted, which would take prices back to where they were just over a year ago.

For years, the country has been plagued by a runaway housing market. The cities of Wellington and Auckland have some of 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.

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Bleached sea sponges found in New Zealand waters for first time

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Extreme ocean temperatures blamed for turning sea sponges white in more than a dozen sites on southern coastline

Sea sponges off New Zealand’s southern coastline have been found bleached bone-white for the first time, following extreme ocean temperatures.

A group of scientists from Victoria University of Wellington were alarmed to discover the sponges, which are typically a rich chocolate brown, were bleached in more than a dozen sites near Breaksea Sound and Doubtful Sound in Fiordland.

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Help to buy EVs in ‘landmark’ New Zealand net zero climate plan

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Lower and middle income families will benefit from ‘scrap and replace’ scheme, while 20% cut in car, van and ute trips sought

New Zealand will help some people to buy electric vehicles, end its reliance on fossil fuels, lower agricultural emissions, and reduce waste going to landfill, the government has promised in the most significant announcement on climate change action in the country’s history.

The emissions reduction plan sets the direction for climate action for the next 15 years, with a cap on the amount of greenhouse gas New Zealand can emit, in order to meet targets to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

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New Zealand’s presbyterian church will offer future land sales to Māori iwi first

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The major landowner says it has been on the ‘other side of history’ and wants to honour treaty

New Zealand’s presbyterian church will offer any future land sales to Māori iwi first, as the institution reckons with its role in colonisation and land confiscations in Aotearoa.

The institution is a significant landowner across the country, with more than $1.5bn in land assets and 400 properties. Their decision comes at a time of increasing scrutiny on the church and its role in the colonisation of New Zealand, including as a beneficiary of confiscated or stolen land.

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Whiti Hereaka wins New Zealand’s Ockham fiction prize for novel subverting Māori myth

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Kurangaituku, 'an epic poem of a novel’, won the Jann Medlicott Acorn prize at a ceremony that delivered ‘loads of surprises’

A novel subverting a Māori myth has taken home New Zealand’s most prestigious writing prize at this year’s Ockham New Zealand book awards.

Kurangaituku by Whiti Hereaka, which draws on the Māori legend of Hatupatu and the Bird-Woman but tells it from the perspective of the tale’s traditional monster Kurangaituku, has won the $60,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn prize for fiction.

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