Category Archives: New Zealand

Labour’s #MeToo moment eats away at Ardern’s most prized possession – trust | Alison Mau

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New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s credentials at home and abroad as a new kind of leader all hang on her next move

It’s just shy of a year ago that Jacinda Ardern stood in the UN general assembly and spoke in support of the #MeToo movement. There was spontaneous applause from the floor for that small part of a much longer speech – it felt like a significant moment.

The New Zealand leader’s trip to New York attracted the usual grumbles here at home – those who could not quite get their head around the very idea of a 38-year-old unmarried woman as prime minister carped about her decision to take her three-month-old daughter along – but the result was the blossoming of an international media love affair. Baby Neve’s appearance at the back of the UN chamber was just the icing on the cake.

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New Zealand firefighters perform haka to pay tribute to 9/11 first responders – video

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Firefighters in New Zealand have paid tribute to the first responders to the September 11 attacks in New York by performing the haka, a ceremonial Māori dance, in honour of the victims. The video was shared on social media by the US ambassador to New Zealand, Scott Brown, who wrote: 'An appropriate and uniquely Kiwi way to remember the bravery and sacrifice of 9/11 first responders'

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Ardern under pressure as staffer accused of sexual assault quits

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New Zealand prime minister facing questions as to when she first found out about claims

Pressure is growing on Jacinda Ardern to explain when she was made aware of serious sexual assault allegations in her party after the staffer at the centre of the furore resigned.

The individual remains unnamed but is known to have worked in a senior role in Parliament House and had regular interaction with senior Labour ministers.

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Māori anger as Air New Zealand seeks to trademark ‘Kia Ora’ logo

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Airline accused of lack of respect for indigenous language by seeking to protect image of the greeting, also the name of its in-flight magazine

New Zealand’s national carrier, Air New Zealand, has offended the country’s Māori people by attempting to trademark an image of the words “kia ora”; the greeting for hello.

The airline applied in May to trademark the image showing the greeting, which is also the name of its in-flight magazine.

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‘Under serious threat’: New Zealand vows to clean up its polluted waterways

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Two-thirds of country’s rivers are unswimmable with cow effluent and fertiliser run-off big contributing factors

The New Zealand government has announced an ambitious plan to clean up the country’s freshwater sources, after years of pollution have made the majority of lakes and rivers unswimmable.

“Our rivers, lakes and wetlands are under serious threat after years of neglect. We can’t continue to go on like we are,” said environment minister David Parker, announcing the government’s action plan two years into its term.

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‘It’s scary’: wildlife selfies harming animals, experts warn

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Concern in New Zealand that trend of taking photographs with penguins and other creatures is having impact on feeding, breeding and birth rates

At the International Penguin Conference in New Zealand, the experts were worried. Among sobering discussions about the perils of the climate crisis and habitat loss, the unlikely issue of wildlife selfies photobombed the agenda, with increasing concern that the celebrity-fuelled search for that perfect shot is affecting animal behaviour.

Professor Philip Seddon, the director of Otago University’s wildlife management programme, said: ‘We’re losing respect for wildlife, we don’t understand the wild at all.”

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Babies in the Beehive: the man behind New Zealand’s child-friendly parliament

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From bottle feeding infants in the chamber to a playground on the front lawn, speaker Trevor Mallard has welcomed infants into the corridors of power

Trevor Mallard thought his days nursing babies might be over when he became speaker of New Zealand’s parliament in late 2017.

But the grandfather who has raised three children of his own has overseen a baby boom in the Beehive – as the most recognisable building in the parliamentary complex is known – and has become determined to make life easier for parents in the country’s halls of power.

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New Zealand bans swimming with bottlenose dolphins after numbers plunge

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Conservation research shows humans are ‘loving the dolphins too much’ in Bay of Islands region

The New Zealand government has banned tourists from swimming with bottlenose dolphins in an attempt to save the struggling species.

According to the department of conservation [DoC] research has shown that humans were “loving the dolphins too much” and human interaction was “having a signifiant impact on the population’s resting and feeding behaviour”.

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Russia Today puts Japan on the map, where New Zealand should be

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New channel apologises to New Zealanders for map mix-up that also labelled Papua New Guinea as South Korea

Russian news channel RT has apologised for apparently accidentally labelling New Zealand as “Japan”, and Papua New Guinea as “South Korea” in an embarrassing southern hemisphere mix-up.

The mistake came in a segment produced by their US bureau about potential new missile bases in “Japan, South Korea and Australia”. But in a large, erroneous graphic only Australia was correctly labelled.

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Hundreds of protesters march on Jacinda Ardern’s office over Māori land dispute

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Petition with more than 25,000 signatures delivered, calling on New Zealand PM to visit sacred Ihumātao site

Several hundred protesters have marched on Jacinda Ardern’s Auckland office, demanding she visit Ihumātao, the site of a major indigenous land dispute that has broadened into wider anger at government inaction in tackling Māori disadvantage.

The protesters delivered a petition, signed by more than 26,000 people, to the prime minister’s office urging her to travel to the site that has been occupied for the past month as part of a housing dispute.

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Alan Jones says advertisers who leave his program will be replaced by others

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Total of 19 big advertisers have dropped his breakfast program after comments he made about Jacinda Ardern

Broadcaster Alan Jones says advertisers who chose to abandon his program because of his slurs against women will be replaced by others.

“I’ve got no comment about the advertisers, they can make their own judgement if they go,” a defiant Jones told Nine News. “There will be others that take their place.”

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‘Terrifying’ hand sculpture flies in to give Wellington nightmares

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‘Monstrous’ and ‘malevolent’ sculpture Quasi alarms office workers and divides opinion

A “terrifying” five-metre tall sculpture of a hand with a face has been flown in from the South Island to perch on top of a contemporary art gallery in the New Zealand capital of Wellington.

It fixes passers by with a disapproving expression. Meant to liven up the Civic Square that was damaged in a 2016 earthquake, the work has instead alarmed and terrified locals, who have described the work as “a Lovecraftian nightmare [that] has come to life”.

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Man charged over murder of Australian tourist in New Zealand

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Killer fled with body while tourist’s Canadian partner ran several kilometres to get help

A man has been charged over the murder of Australian surfer Sean McKinnon, who was shot in a random attack while camping in New Zealand.

The 23-year-old man will face Hamilton district court on Saturday charged with murder, aggravated robbery and threatening to kill, New Zealand Police said.

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Australia ‘has to answer to the Pacific’ over climate change, Jacinda Ardern says – video

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Jacinda Ardern has declared that ‘Australia has to answer to the Pacific’ on climate change, saying that New Zealand is doing what it can to limit global emissions and expects other nations to do the same. Pacific leaders have this week been urging Australia to commit to urgent action to reduce emissions

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‘It brings everything back’: Christchurch despairs over white supremacist attacks

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Fresh atrocities in El Paso and Norway bring back the pain of New Zealand’s worst mass-shooting

It’s just gone lunch time at al Noor mosque in central Christchurch and a handful of men gather to pray. They bend down on a thick blue carpet, newly installed, and sit up to face walls gleaming with fresh plaster and paint. In the corner, one young man appears to be quietly crying.

“We’ve replaced everything, everything,” says worshipper Murray Stirling, 52, gesturing around the main prayer room, now serene and bathed in winter sunshine. “There’s no physical trace left of what he did to us.”

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New Zealand gun buyback: 10,000 firearms returned after Christchurch attack

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Police praise response after thousands of now-banned guns taken out of circulation in less than a month

More than 10,000 firearms have been bought by New Zealand’s government in less than a month as part of its gun buyback scheme following the Christchurch mosque shootings in March.

Following the killing of 51 people in two inner-city Christchurch mosques by an Australian white supremacist, prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s government rushed through legislation to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons and set aside NZ$150m to buy firearms that were now illegal.

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Pacific Islands Forum: Tuvalu children welcome leaders with a climate plea

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Climate crisis is more than a meeting agenda item in a host country that could be left uninhabitable by rising sea levels

As the leaders of Pacific countries step off their planes at Funafuti airport this week for the Pacific Islands Forum, they are being met by the children of Tuvalu, who sit submerged in water, in a moat built around the model of an island, singing: “Save Tuvalu, save the world.”

The welcome sets the tone for a Pacific Islands Forum meeting that will not only have climate change at the top of the agenda – as it has been for many years – but is being hosted by a country that the UN says is one of the most vulnerable to rising sea levels, which could render it uninhabitable in the coming century.

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Fossils of largest parrot ever recorded found in New Zealand

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Giant bird estimated to have weighed about 7kg has been named Heracles inexpectatus

Fossils of the largest parrot ever recorded have been found in New Zealand. Estimated to have weighed about 7kg (1.1st), it would have been more than twice as heavy as the kākāpo, previously the largest known parrot.

Palaeontologists have named the new species Heracles inexpectatus to reflect its unusual size and strength and the unexpected nature of the discovery.

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