Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The country’s MMP electoral system was designed to give more diverse voices entry to parliament
Coalition governments – regarded with horror in many other democracies – have become the norm in New Zealand since the country shifted to the MMP electoral system in 1996, ditching the British “first past the post” system.
MMP – mixed-member proportional – was designed to allow more diverse voices entry to parliament, and award more power to smaller parties in an attempt to dilute the hold that the Labour and National parties had on government.
Bar-tailed godwit flies more than 12,000km from Alaska to New Zealand in 11 days
A bird said to have the aerodynamic build of a “jet fighter” has been tracked flying more than 12,000km (7,500 miles) from Alaska to New Zealand, setting a new world record for avian non-stop flight.
The bar-tailed godwit set off from south-west Alaska on 16 September and arrived in a bay near Auckland 11 days later, having flown at speeds of up to 55mph.
As far as polling booth drama goes, Aotearoa’s election has so far yielded none – but early voters are quite keen on the fragrant hand sanitiser
They arrive carrying their own pens. They stop for a dollop of pleasantly lemon-scented hand sanitiser as they enter and exit polling places. And they are turning up to vote ahead of election day in record numbers.
As far as polling booth drama goes, New Zealand’s election has so far yielded none: just the calm, orderly process of 1.15 million people casting early votes – nearly double the number who had voted by this time in advance of the 2017 election.
Mark Brown’s multiple ministries prompt opposition to suggest PM lacks confidence in his cabinet
The Cook Islands’ new prime minister has allocated himself 17 portfolios in the country’s government.
Aside from the premiership, Mark Brown is the minister for foreign affairs, immigration, finance, energy and renewables, police, and telecommunications. He is also holds portfolio responsibilities for marine resources, seabed minerals and natural resources, superannuation, and the country’s outer islands. Brown is also the country’s attorney-general.
On the lush green grounds of New Zealand’s oldest university, prime minister Jacinda Ardern is getting mobbed.
Half a dozen police officers clear a path through the heaving crowd in Dunedin, while her security detail tightly flank Ardern, and look increasingly tense as the crowd gets bigger and more demanding.
Supporting legalisation of marijuana, they argue its use should be seen as a health issue ahead of referendum
Some of New Zealand’s most experienced public health experts have thrown their support behind legalising marijuana, a week out from the country’s general election.
In an editorial in the New Zealand Medical Journal, specialists from the fields of addiction treatment, public health, health promotion and epidemiology have urged New Zealanders to tick yes in the referendum, days after a poll showed the vote on a knife-edge.
In the election Judith Collins is up against one of the most popular PMs in recent times
“I’ve been having an awfully fun time, can you tell?” Judith Collins, the leader of New Zealand’s centre-right National party enthused, to a campaign trail meeting packed with her admirers outside the South Island city of Dunedin. “I can’t stop grinning.”
It was true; she could not. Collins, the country’s opposition leader, is running in the 17 October election against one of the country’s most popular prime ministers of recent times, Jacinda Ardern, who is mobbed for selfies wherever she goes – with such large and closely packed crowds that security and Covid-19 precautions often appear to be cast aside.
It has been a challenge to remember what a normal political scene looks like, but how good is boring right now?
As countries around the world experience a resurgence in Covid-19, New Zealand has once again contained the virus, making its election cycle something close to normal, and also a tad ridiculous.
Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins both bring B-game to seemingly interminable show
Are we there yet? Is it election day? Is it possible to bring the date forward a little bit from 17 October? Not by too much – things have to be put in place, pens secured to pieces of string and the like. How’s tomorrow?
Election fatigue hit hard during Tuesday night’s leaders’ debate. It was a long programme. It could have been worse: it could still be going. Mind you, it feels like it still is and always will be; that the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the opposition leader, Judith Collins, will go at it unhappily ever after in front of a live audience in a dark room in Christchurch.
Scientists say hotter and longer summers make such an unusually fierce fire more likely
A bushfire that destroyed most of a village in New Zealand’s South Island has sparked a fierce debate between high-country farmers and conservationists, as those affected struggle to understand the unusually fierce nature of the blaze.
Lake Ōhau village is located at the foothills of the Ben Ohau mountain range, and is home to just 15 permanent residents but its numbers swell significantly during the holiday season. On Sunday morning, a fire tore through the foothills and into the village, forcing 90 people to evacuate.
New Zealand’s largest city to move to level 1 as Jacinda Ardern says there is 95% probability Auckland cluster is eliminated
Coronavirus restrictions in New Zealand’s largest city will be lifted this week, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said, as she expressed confidence a second wave of Covid-19 infections in Auckland has been almost eliminated.
The city will move to alert level 1 from 11.59pm on Wednesday, joining the rest of the country, after reporting no new cases in the Auckland cluster for 10 consecutive days.
A tongue-in-cheek campaign is urging eligible overseas New Zealanders to vote in this month’s general election. Here’s how easy – and important – it is
Two weeks out from the election, New Zealanders based overseas are being called on to make their voice heard by the “team of 5 million” back home.
Every Kiwi Vote Counts, a new non-partisan initiative, is seeking to increase low turnout among overseas voters with a tongue-in-cheek social media campaign encouraging Kiwis offshore to “meddle” in their election.
New Zealand's prime minister has wished the US president and his wife a rapid recovery after they were diagnosed with Covid-19 on Friday. She said the virus had had a 'devastating impact' globally and noted that several world leaders had been taken ill with it
Jacinda Ardern says her country will not open up until Australia records a month without community transmission of Covid-19
New Zealand will not reciprocate quarantine-free trips across the Tasman as the Australian Capital Territory joins Australia’s travel bubble with the country.
On Friday, Australia’s deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, announced New South Wales and the Northern Territory would allow Kiwis to bypass the compulsory fortnight of quarantine on arrival from 16 October.
The Mana Motuhake policy is a 25-year plan to improve the outcomes of whānau Māori that the mainstream major parties have failed to deliver on
In an election campaign that has so far been largely a bidding contest over who can fund the most “shovel-ready projects”, create the most jobs and support the most apprentices post-Covid, many commentators have bemoaned the absence of any visionary debate about the type of New Zealand we want to become.
It was therefore refreshing to see the Māori party announce its Mana Motuhake policy this week. As far as timing goes, the policy hasn’t gained a lot of media attention. The news has been dominated by the Serious Fraud Office’s charging of two individuals in connection with the New Zealand First Foundation, a new poll and the second leaders’ debate. Many also think the Māori party is inconsequential in 2020, sitting only on 1–1.5% party vote support in public opinion polls, and not looking like they are going to win back any electorate seats.
The government will announce tax and deregulation measures on Friday, as declining Covid-19 cases offer hope for economic revival. Follow all today’s news
Labor’s Julie Collins has responded to the aged care royal commission’s Covid response report:
I am sure the public will have very little confidence that this government, or the minister, is up to implementing these recommendations by 1 December because what we have seen is that when it came to the royal commission’s interim report, very unusual of a royal commission to actually issue an interim report, the very first recommendation – the first one was to fix the home care wait list.
Here we are 12 months later, [and there are] still [more than] 100,000 older Australians waiting for home care.
Linda Burney was on ABC Queensland radio talking about the people the jobseeker changes were going to affect the most.
It’s your mum, your grandmother, or their friends.
The reduction in the jobseeker allowance is going to disproportionately affect older women, particularly women who are over 60.
And it’s very hard for those women to find a job because you face age discrimination. All those – all those issues, of course, that we are familiar with older people trying to get a job.
New Zealand and the United States both had leaders' debates this week, and some political junkies noticed a distinct difference in tone. In New Zealand, where the Labour leader and incumbent prime minister Jacinda Ardern faced off against National leader Judith Collins, the pair exchanged compliments in a debate described by Collins as 'robust and a win for politics'. Meanwhile, in America, president Donald Trump's attacks on his Democratic rival Joe Biden turned highly person
Queen Street! The main shopping drag in New Zealand’s biggest city, a valley that rolls down towards the harbour in downtown Auckland, is hanging in there, just, even in these stay-at-home Covid days, as someplace fun and weird and chaotic – rare virtues in New Zealand life at the best of times – after dark.
True, the only joint to get a feed after 9pm is up the hill at Denny’s. And one of the few signs of commerce is the homeless man with his cardboard sign reading: “Let’s beat Covid. We can do this. Please give me money.”
New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has admitted to using cannabis 'a long time ago', in a heated televised debate with the opposition leader, Judith Collins.
Speaking during the 90-minute debate on Newshub, the Labour leader and incumbent PM chose not to disclose how she would vote in the forthcoming cannabis referendum, drawing ire from her opponent, the National party leader
Vodafone and communications agency DDB respond after calls on companies to use the reo term
One of New Zealand’s biggest telecommunications companies has heeded an exhortation to use the country’s original, Indigenous name of Aotearoa, joining others that have pledged to use more reo, the Māori language, or tikanga – protocols – in their daily business operations.
Earlier this week Vodafone – which has about 2,000 New Zealand employees – confirmed it had changed its banner at the top of users’ phones from “Vodafone NZ” to “VF Aotearoa”. The company gave short shrift to those on social media who complained about the change. Rival companies backed the move.