Category Archives: New Zealand

New Zealand marine heatwave looms following warmest winter on record

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Temperatures nearly two degrees above average have been recorded, months before the hottest part of the season

Climate scientists are warning New Zealand is on the brink of a marine heatwave after recording temperatures nearly two degrees above average in coastal waters off the North Island.

Forecasters at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) said a marine heatwave is building, with above-average temperatures reported throughout October, following a record warm winter.

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Coronavirus live news: German minister predicts five more months of ‘severe restrictions’; UK reports 24,962 more cases

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UK death toll rises by 168; economy minister says Germany ‘isn’t out of the woods’; Greece limits public gatherings; US records 177,000 new cases

France reports 302 deaths and 27,228 new cases in the last 24-hours, according to the French health ministry website. The country has had in total 44,246 deaths and 1,981,827 confirmed cases since the beginning of the outbreak.

The prime minister of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Ambrose Dlamini, has tested positive for Covid-19.

In a statement published on Twitter he said he was asymptomatic and currently isolating in line with the government’s coronavirus protocols:

We should not tire of looking after one another and encouraging adherence to all health protocols at all times.

Government Press Statement: Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini tests positive for #COVID19. pic.twitter.com/HoqABtoRKh

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‘Big cat’ country? New Zealand’s obsession with giant feline sightings

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Is there a pleasure in not knowing if the decades-old mystery about a cat prowling the country’s South Island is fact or fiction?

The photograph is disappointing. Blurry, as they all are. It shows a dark blob striding up a leafy trail in the distance. The size of the creature is hard to deduce, though the witness, an osteopath named Mark Orr who was out mountain-biking with friends in Hanmer Springs, said the animal was “about knee-height”, looked “very strong and quite stocky”, and “just had an aura about it”.

An aura. Almost all animals have auras, don’t they? Even feral cats, goats, wild pigs. While the mention of the aura seemed strange, it was also compelling. I want to believe.

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Despite her mandate, Ardern’s agenda will be resolutely middle of the road | Tova O’Brien

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Labour’s smart politics will come at the expense of its fundamental values, and be driven by its desire to stay in power

The prime minister of New Zealand has just begun a victory lap of the country, though Jacinda Ardern would prefer we think of it more as a “thank you” tour.

After a successful but gruelling six-week election campaign she is hitting the two-lane blacktop once again, deploying to the regions of New Zealand.

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New Zealand’s rejection of legalising cannabis is a triumph for fear-mongering | Fiona Hutton

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As other countries make leaps and bounds in drug law reform, Aotearoa seems bound to the tired and worn path of prohibition

Sadly New Zealand has voted no to legalising cannabis, but it was close: 48.4% voted in support of the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill and 50.7% voted against.

As someone who campaigned hard for a yes vote, for much needed reform of our drug laws, I am reduced to tears. I have been receiving heartbreaking emails from people thanking me for my work to try and get the evidence out there, to try and stem the tide of fear-mongering and misinformation about cannabis and those who use it.

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Rocky Horror’s Richard O’Brien: ‘I should be dead. I’ve had an excessive lifestyle’

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The creator of the cult show is not going quietly into his 70s. He talks about coming out as trans, going ‘loopy’ on crack – and speaking in tongues after suffering a stroke

Richard O’Brien is 78, but his toothpick body and lightbulb head have always lent him a certain agelessness. A few months ago, however, the rakish Rocky Horror Show creator, Crystal Maze presenter and transgender parent-of-three received a stark reminder of his advancing years.

He was pottering around at home in New Zealand when he suddenly found himself lying on the floor. “I didn’t register that something was desperately wrong,” he says, speaking from the house he shares with his third wife, Sabrina, 10 miles outside of Katikati. “I just thought: ‘I wonder why I can’t get up.’” Struggling to his feet, he attempted to make a drink, only to discover he couldn’t put the top back on the milk. “I was in a dream-like state. Finally, I gave up with the milk, went to go back to the bedroom, slid down the wall and started speaking in tongues. That’s when Sabrina called the ambulance.”

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Jacinda Ardern must use her mandate to tackle child poverty | Max Rashbrooke

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Covid has set back the PM’s modest progress on childhood hardship, meaning greater policy ambition is needed

As the New Zealand First party’s vote share evaporated on election day, so too did Jacinda Ardern’s last excuse for not making more progress on child poverty, her signature issue.

No longer able to blame inaction on her one-time conservative coalition partner, and possessing an absolute majority, the Labour leader now has a free hand on an issue dear to her heart. She may have labelled climate change her “nuclear-free moment”, referencing the 1980s Labour government’s famous opposition to nuclear weapons, but it is child poverty reduction, not climate change, that she has always taken as her “extra” portfolio.

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New Zealanders coming home for Christmas warned quarantine hotels may be full

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Military says Kiwis will be disappointed if they haven’t prebooked a place as hotels approach capacity

New Zealand’s quarantine hotels are approaching capacity as the military warns there may not be room to house Kiwis planning to return home for Christmas.

Some 65,000 people have passed through New Zealand’s quarantine hotels since the borders closed in mid-March. Despite the facilities generally being four- and five-star establishments, there have been multiple escape attempts from them, and they have been denounced by a conservative US television host as “Covid camps”.

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Voting opens in New Zealand’s beloved Bird of the Year competition

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What started 15 years ago as a modest promotion to draw attention to native birds, many of which are endangered, has become a phenomenon

Normally on a post test-match Monday in New Zealand, the talk is all about the national rugby team’s latest performance. But this week, while the All Blacks’ destruction of the Wallabies was on everyones’ lips, there was another topic of conversation: birds.

Voting began on Monday in the hotly contested and brutal election of New Zealand’s Bird Of The Year.

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New Zealand Greens accept Ardern’s offer of ‘cooperation agreement’

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Deal with Labour stops short of a coalition but will see Green’s co-leaders, James Shaw and Marama Davidson, hold ministries outside of cabinet


New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has agreed on a governing “cooperation agreement” with the Green party, offering two ministries and agreeing to a handful of shared policy priorities for her second term – an offer they accepted late on Saturday.

Labour won the general election in October with an outright majority, meaning they could govern alone. But Ardern invited the Greens into a “cooperation” agreement, saying it would allow the government to benefit from the expertise of Green party members in areas such as the environment, climate change and child wellbeing.

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‘No predators, plenty to eat’: New Zealand struggles with plague of peacocks

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Farmers complain feral birds eat pasture their livestock depend on, and their numbers are increasing thanks to hunting of stoats and possums

A bird renowned around the world for its beauty has showed its ugly side by causing havoc on farms in New Zealand; eating crops, evading control efforts and driving landowners to distraction.

The jade and green peafowl, commonly known as the peacock, has become naturalised in New Zealand after what New Zealand Birds Online calls “benign neglect of birds kept for display”.

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New Zealand votes to legalise euthanasia in referendum

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Results must be enacted by the new Labour government by November 2021, but second referendum on legalising cannabis fails to find support

New Zealanders have voted to legalise euthanasia for those with a terminal illness, in a victory for campaigners who say people suffering extreme pain should be given a choice over how and when to bring their life to a close.

The decision on whether to legalise euthanasia appeared as a referendum question on the 17 October general election ballot paper, alongside a second referendum question on whether to legalise cannabis – which did not succeed, according to preliminary results.

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New Zealand counts down to verdicts on cannabis and euthanasia votes

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Campaigners for legal changes could be stymied by voter desire for the status quo after a tumultuous year

The results of New Zealand’s referendums on whether to legalise cannabis and euthanasia will be released this week, with campaigners nervous that the upheavals of 2020 could have tilted the vote to the status quo.

Political experts say that in years of unrest and instability voters tend to veer towards keeping things as they are, which could affect the likelihood of both referendum questions passing.

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Jacinda Ardern holds all the cards but should still keep the Greens sweet

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While Labour’s landslide makes a coalition in New Zealand extremely unlikely, the PM might set up a ‘consultation’ deal with the smaller party

New Zealand’s Labour and Green parties have met for the third time to discuss what role the latter might play in the new government expected to be formed by Jacinda Ardern within days.

With Labour holding all the cards after its landslide victory earlier this month, a formal coalition government is seen as extremely unlikely after the latest talks on Tuesday.

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The Green party won in Auckland by reaching beyond its own bubble | Chlöe Swarbrick

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A minor party hasn’t won a general electorate seat in well over 20 years. The result shows what is possible when convention is scrapped

I was making toast in my tiny apartment kitchen four weeks ahead of election day. Not that I really had track of the days. They had melded into one ever-extending runway as Auckland went through its second Covid-19 lockdown and New Zealand’s election date was pushed back a month.

We were a few months into an insurgent campaign for an electorate seat at the centre of the country’s largest city. We’d built a team of hundreds of people – particularly young people, some so young they couldn’t even vote yet – who, despite their claims to the contrary, were all doing a lot more than the least they could do. They were about to make history.

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Queensland investigates Covid-19 strain on cargo ship after New Zealand alert

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MV Sofrana Surville barred from docking after officials in New Zealand said crew members on departing cargo ship might have new strain

Queensland health officials are working to determine the strain of Covid-19 infecting the crew of a cargo ship anchored off the Australian state’s Sunshine Coast.

The MV Sofrana Surville was blocked from docking in Brisbane after New Zealand warned it could be carrying a new strain of the virus.

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Tova O’Brien: my ‘feral’ interview with Covid-19 denier Jami-Lee Ross

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Good journalists know balanced reporting is not as simple as providing both sides of the story. You have to squash falsehoods

Like the families of 1.14 million people worldwide, our family has lost people we love to Covid-19. They are people who would not have died were it not for this deadly, hyper-contagious virus. We are in a global pandemic that is at least 15 times more fatal than seasonal influenza.

When people argue otherwise it puts more lives at risk; more families will mourn. Covid-19 conspiracies are dangerous. In New Zealand those conspiracies were driven by arguments against lockdowns and misinformation about the seriousness of the virus.

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Ardern urged to review New Zealand Covid measures after election landslide

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Veteran epidemiologist calls for review, and openness to adopting measures suggested by political rivals, now that voters have given PM a mandate

Jacinda Ardern won New Zealand’s election with a commanding majority, in part attributed to her handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in her country. But a veteran epidemiologist is exhorting the prime minister to use the political capital gained in her decisive victory to scrutinise the coronavirus response by her government and officials, and adopt strategies proposed by her opponents before Saturday’s vote.

“New Zealand has shown it can be quite smart and flexible, but we can see we’ve got these blind spots and we need to have no blind spots,” said Nick Wilson, a University of Otago epidemiologist. “This is such an unforgiving disease and very few countries are doing it right so we need to smarten up our act quite substantially.”

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New Zealand records 25 Covid cases amid arrival of foreign fishing crews

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Twenty-three cases caught at the border, with two more local transmissions linked to Sunday’s port worker case

New Zealand has recorded 25 new cases of coronavirus, the biggest daily toll the country has reported since the height of its initial outbreak in March and April.

Two were local cases and the rest were discovered at the border, including 18 infections among Russian and Ukraine fishing crews who had arrived on a charter flight from Moscow days earlier.

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The Māori Party defied the odds because Labour has left Indigenous voters wanting | Leigh-Marama McLachlan

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Māori are calling for much-needed systemic change – but the question is whether Labour is willing to deliver it

It was one of the most gripping showdowns of Saturday night’s election – the Māori Party’s Rawiri Waititi and Labour’s Tamati Coffey were neck-and-neck until the end.

Counting on the night put Waititi ahead by a narrow 415 votes, but the final result will come down to the remaining half a million “special votes” yet to be counted.

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