Labour leader Chris Hipkins has broken with his own senior Māori MPs by declining to call Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris’ Instagram post racist, despite Willie Jackson and Peeni Henare saying it clearly was.
Former Labour Cabinet Minister and now NZ First member Stuart Nash has apologised after making a crude remark on Sean Plunket’s The Platform when asked to define a woman.
Nash replied: “A woman is a person with a p…y and a pair of t..s,” before later phoning the show to ask for the comment to be deleted. Plunket refused.
Duncan Garner’s latest podcast attacked mainstream media for treating Te Pāti Māori with kid gloves while giving harsher scrutiny to other parties. He noted the party banned RNZ, TVNZ, Stuff, and the Sunday Star-Times from its election night event.
“On the night of the election, Te Pāti Māori took their hatred to a new level by blocking One News from their event. So Oriini wasn’t interviewed. Those who watch One News who care about this Māori seat were blocked. Who blocks coverage after they’ve won? It’s pathetic.”
Binding polls have opened across 42 councils to decide whether Māori wards will remain, after Labour’s 2021 law change removed the right to local referendums.
The coalition has since reversed that, requiring councils that introduced the wards without a poll to either hold one now or drop them entirely.
The High Court has granted an urgent 48-hour suppression order blocking publication of certain details in the Tom Phillips case, following an application by lawyer Linda Clark on behalf of Phillips’ estranged wife, Julia.
The injunction applies to media, police, and Oranga Tamariki, and will remain in force until 2.15 pm on September 11, when the matter returns to court.
ACT is calling for changes to the Paris climate accord, describing it as “a bad boyfriend” that New Zealand should leave if it cannot be reformed.
Speaking at a South Auckland dairy farm, David Seymour said the deal risks punishing New Zealand farmers for methane while shifting production offshore to higher-emitting countries.
New Zealand has slipped near the bottom of international rankings for income growth, reflecting both post-COVID economic cycles and long-standing productivity issues.
Real GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power parity, places New Zealand 25th of 43 countries over the past decade, but just 37th over the last two years. Only Germany, Canada, Luxembourg, Austria, Ireland, and Estonia have fared worse in that period.
