Far North news in brief: Dog show; doctors on strike and Blood Service in town
Lifesaving season over
Surf Life Saving New Zealand has wrapped up summer patrols, and rescue numbers are reportedly down across the country, which general manager Andy Kent is putting down to an increase in preventative actions. The Northern region saw the most hours worked across all the regions. A total of 266 people were rescued, 93 searches were conducted, 366 people were assisted and 23,457 preventative actions were taken from Labour weekend 2024 until April 28. The total hours worked for volunteers was 94,806. The patrolled beaches in Northland are Ahipara, Ruakākā, Whangārei Heads, Waipu and Mangawhai.
Motor industry meet
The Motor Industry Training Organisation is inviting Northland businesses to the MITO Northland Te Tai Tokerau Business Breakfast. The event takes place on May 7 at the Cricket Pavilion, Cobham Oval, Whangārei, from 8am to 9.30am. Industries represented include light and heavy automotive, collision repairs, commercial road transport and drilling, mining and quarrying. The Motor Industry Training Organisation team will also be on hand to discuss new training opportunities designed to support business growth and help future-proof the workforce. RSVP at mito.nz/RSVP.
MetalFest 4
Tickets are still available for Saturday's Kaitāia MetalFest 4. Tonnes of heavy metal mayhem will be on display at MetalFest 4, which will be held at Collard Tavern, from 7pm on May 3. Acts include Skumlord, Captured Kings, Grym Rhymney, FNA, Fork and DJ Blank Flag. Tickets available online at eventfinda.
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NZ Herald
7 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Labour's Chris Hipkins questions MMP system, seeks balance in power
'But, I differ a bit from the current Government in the sense that while I respect the important constituencies the smaller parties represent, and I also respect that we compete with them for votes too, I don't think under MMP the smaller parties should call all of the shots. 'I still think the bigger parties have a mandate to reflect the view of a much larger section of the electorate, and so I do think under MMP you need to keep proportionality in mind. 'Yes, there should be some concessions and some trade-offs to the other parties to form a government. But that doesn't mean that you should be doing things that you specifically told the electorate before the election that you weren't going to do. 'The Treaty Principles Bill is a good example. The Regulatory Standards Bill. Some of these things that no one knew they were voting for at the last election, and now they're being inflicted on them. I don't think that's the spirit of MMP or democracy,' he said. Talk of introducing a Capital Gains Tax has been the bugbear of successive governments. In the 2010s, Sir John Key ruled out a CGT while the then-Labour leader Phil Goff made it the centrepiece of his party's tax policy. Fast-forward to Dame Jacinda Ardern ruling out ever implementing one while she was Prime Minister. Enter, Hipkins, who carried the message through the 2023 election. Luxon's then the one to 'rule it out' while he's in rule. When it comes to Election 2026, Hipkins said Labour will have a 'different tax policy' to the one they had at the last election. He stopped short of confirming whether that means the reintroduction of a CGT, but did say he'll announce it by the end of the year. 'Because I think it is important, that is a big policy area. People want to know where they stand. 'In New Zealand, I think we've placed far too much emphasis on buying and selling houses amongst ourselves, pushing up the price so that potentially a whole generation of homeowners is being shut out of the housing market,' he said. Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon during a leaders' debate in 2023 and they will already be planning for another battle in 2026. Photo / TVNZ The Labour Party is yet to release any policy announcements for next year's election, but Hipkins said that's for good reason. He wants to make sure they'll be able to deliver on promises made. 'I think one of the valid criticisms of us last time we were in opposition was that we had some really good ideas, but we hadn't worked through the details of exactly how would we do that. Then, when we got into government, we found that some of the things that we'd said we were going to do, very well intentioned, we didn't have a clear plan for how we would do it. 'I think the same thing has happened to this Government. They've made promises with no plan on how they're actually going to do it, and I don't want to be in that position,' he said. In May, Act Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister, David Seymour, referred to Hipkins as 'poo Midas'. It was after NZ First leader Winston Peters 'permanently' ruled out working with Hipkins in any future government coalition. 'This guy's got the opposite of the Midas touch. I think they call him a 'poo Midas',' Seymour said. Hipkins said he's all for a bit of humour in politics, a 'little bit of a sledge' now and then, where it's funny. But the latest jabs from those at the top don't have him laughing. 'They're not very funny, and they're also not very good at it. So, I think they should just stick to actually doing what people ask them to do, you know, New Zealanders wanted them to fix the cost of living crisis,' he said. Listen to the full episode to hear more from Chris Hipkins about the possibility of free dental and whether we should 'tax the rich'. The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016. You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
RNZ News
9 hours ago
- RNZ News
Will the government's changes bring down building costs?
Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk said the change would have the potential to reduce total building costs by thousands of dollars. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Opposition parties say while the devil will be in the details on the government's latest building products changes, they support in principle what looks like a "sensible" change. But Labour and the Greens are also criticising the coalition's cancellation of hundreds of construction projects, saying that is what has led to a downturn in the industry. They also say delaying changes to the Building Code will mean New Zealand lags behind the rest of the world. The government on Sunday announced it would be releasing a list of overseas certification schemes that would automatically qualify products for use in New Zealand . Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk said the list would "have the potential to reduce total building costs by thousands of dollars when building a home". "There are thousands of well-made, high performing products that have been tested against rigourous international standards but have faced barriers for uptake here, purely because they have not been specifically tested against our own standards. From tomorrow it will be much easier to use plasterboard manufactured in New Zealand, Australia, UK, Europe and the United States," he said. "This is just the beginning of our work to open the door to more building products, lower the cost of homes and turbo charge the construction sector and there will be more to come." He also announced a pause on "any new major changes to the Building Code system" and shifting instead to a "predictable three-year cycle for Building Code system updates". "This new approach will give businesses the clarity they need to prepare in advance, rather than constantly having to react to unexpected rule changes." The government will be releasing releasing a list of overseas certification schemes that would automatically qualify products for use in New Zealand. Photo: 123RF ACT's Building and Construction spokesperson Cameron Luxton was a builder in 2022 during the plasterboard crisis that saw some builders paying six times the standard price for 'GIB' branded plasterboard. "I had designers trying to get changes to the existing consents so that we could use other types of wall lining ... if we could have recognized overseas plaster boards and the components around their systems, we would have been able to get things built in New Zealand a lot easier and a lot quicker during that time," he said. "Those crazy days of the post-Covid building construction boom with us at the moment but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be focusing on getting the price of all building down." ACT's Building and Construction spokesperson Cameron Luxton Photo: VNP / Phil Smith He said the government's approach was almost exactly the same as what ACT campaigned on. "What we campaigned on was a recognised list of products. The bill came into the house as that, it's been through select committee, we've come out the other side with it being schemes, standards and products. "Minister Penk has done an incredibly good job engaging with the industry and making sure that this bill works - it's so close to ACT's you couldn't find much air between our original policy and this one, it's the same principle, called some different things." Both Labour and the Greens supported the bill through the legislative process. Labour's Building and Construction spokesperson Arena Williams said it was likely to make it easier for building products to get into the New Zealand market, and increase competition - but that doing so was one of the recommendations of the Commerce Commission study launched under Labour. "We think this is an important step, but the government has talked a big game on lowering the cost of building because that's an excuse for absolutely collapsing the building and construction sector and seeing 17,000 jobs lost since the day of the election." She pointed to a range of projects that had been cut - Kāinga Ora public housing, school builds, the downgrading of hospital builds - saying that had directly led to those jobs being lost. Labour's Building and Construction spokesperson Arena Williams. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith The minister was now admitting the solution would not be a silver bullet for the sector, she said. "Now they're saying this will only be part of the solution and it won't do everything that's needed to bring costs down ... they have no answer for a building and construction sector that's on its knees, it's slumped lower than it did in the global financial crisis, and we're seeing thousands of young Kiwi builders going offshore." Announcing the change without releasing the detail until the next day was "an unusual way to do things," she said. Williams said she planed to carefully examine the standards when made public, to ensure they were sensible. Green Party Building and Construction spokesperson Julie Anne Genter took her criticism of the approach further. "We see every week pretty much announcements on a Sunday don't have any substantive new actions or information, and in the last few weeks, it's been related to the building sector or infrastructure, because the government is desperate to turn around the narrative. "This is very much a government that is focused on PR spend more than substance." She said the changes themselves "could be great or it could be terrible, depending on which building products and which licensing schemes they're looking at". "The devil will be in the detail. The detail hasn't yet been released. But I really can say that the government has put the construction sector in a terrible position by cancelling hundreds of projects related to public homes, which we need now more than ever. I saw last month, one third of company liquidations for construction firms, and that was up on last year." She criticised the pause on Building Code changes. "That is a huge lost opportunity. The previous government had a work programme on building for climate change and it was going to address a lot of the issues that we have in terms of energy efficiency, resilience," she said. "The certainty is we're not moving forward with our Building Code, they're providing the certainty that we're going to lag behind most other countries and have a much longer period before we have sustainable, healthy buildings." "Ultimately, this is not enough to help New Zealand with the problems we're facing when they've cancelled so many public home builds." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
1News
15 hours ago
- 1News
Job cuts as part of Govt's polytech reform necessary
Vocational Education Minister Penny Simmonds says a reduction of 600 roles across different polytechnics is necessary to address unsustainable financial deficits as the Government dismantles Te Pūkenga. Ten polytechnics will be re-established from next year 2026, Simmonds announced last week, with differing fates for six other institutions. Simmonds told Q+A the net job losses were necessary to address unsustainable deficits. "It depends where they're coming from. When you've got institutions that are running $11.3 million deficits, you simply cannot carry on with that," she said. "You look at what's causing those deficits. In the WelTec/Whitireia situation, the arts centre here in the middle of Wellington, they were running at a ratio of one staff member to 5.6 students. No school gets that advantage. ADVERTISEMENT "You've got to have a look at where the staff are going to come from, and in some cases, it's just they shouldn't be operating at that ratio." She confirmed "there would be a reduction this year" of roles at some institutions. "There will be further redundancies." Minister confident changes will prove worth Treasury has previously suggested the reforms could risk repeating past failures, saying plans remained focused on supporting institutions' financial viability, "with no clear evidence of how the needs of learners and employers have been considered". Simmonds responded when read the advice: "Treasury gave a range of advice, which Cabinet looked at along with lots of other advice. "We've got evidence over the last five decades of polytechnics being able to be successful to reflect the needs of industries and their community, and so I relied on the history that we'd seen of polytechnics being able to do that successfully." ADVERTISEMENT Before entering politics, the Vocational Education Minister and National MP served as the chief executive of the Southern Institute of Technology. Treasury officials also posited the reforms could create a financial situation "similar, if not worse, than the situation faced by [educational institutions] pre-Te Pūkenga". Asked about assurances that further bailouts wouldn't be needed, she said the institutions "will be set up in the best possible way that they can be". "They will have their debt addressed. They will have their financial pathway to viability. It's then up to communities to make sure that the right people are in the governance roles and the right people are in the management roles, and that they integrate with the community." Simmonds was also pressed about whether some institutions gaining independence were in worse financial positions than those entering federation. "No, not a worse financial position, no. So, some of them will get to sustainability. They'll get to a surplus. In the time they'll take to get to a surplus, they have reserves that can cover them during that time." Labour says new model will drain regions ADVERTISEMENT In response to the Q+A interview, Labour's education spokesperson Shanan Halbert said, the whole point of Te Pūkenga was to make the polytechnic sector more financially viable and ensure more training opportunities and employment in our regions. "The changes announced today will only return the polytechnic sector to a model that was never financially viable – and the result will be major job losses in local areas." Halbert said the Government "could have simply addressed some of the issues" the existing model to avoid the "uncertainty this has had on staff and students". The changes to amalgamate polytechnics and institutes of technology were introduced by the previous Labour government. In her interview, Simmonds was also asked about delays to a ban on single-use plastics, how she had managed her environment portfolio, and on Gore's recent tap water issues. For the full interview, watch the video above Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air
