American discount wholesale retailer Costco opened its first store in New Zealand last month. The store, located north of Auckland in the Westgate suburb, sells hundreds of brands in the departments of food, healthcare products, electronics and furniture. It also includes a pharmacy, optometrist, hearing aid centre and food court. Managing director Patrick Noone said […]

An international student studying viticulture in Hawke’s Bay says he hopes to use his winemaking skills in China in the future. “In China, wine is not really a big part of the culture, but it is a good potential market because there are so many people there,” Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) student Kevin Wang, […]

Pathways to residence for skilled migrants and their parents have been restarted, the immigration minister has announced. The points-based Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) visa has not accepted applications since the start of the pandemic and the Parent Category visa has not accepted applications since 2016. The minister said that the Skilled Migrant Category visa would […]

A nationwide film festival is currently showcasing the top short films from New Zealand and overseas. The Show Me Shorts Film Festival, which is playing at multiple venues and streaming online until 30 October, includes films from 27 countries, divided across 13 themed sections. Several film makers with works in the festival are Asian migrants […]

The use of te reo Māori in New Zealand media continues to accelerate, according to data science specialists Dot Loves Data. The company analysed 2.3 million media articles published between 2008 and 2022 by New Zealand’s six main media outlets to determine the frequency of Māori word usage. The analysis showed the number of Māori […]

Health Minister Andrew Little says the government is working with the immigration department and the nurses’ union to get more nurses into the country. Of nearly 350 who have their visa approved, so far only 22 nurses have arrived since August. The Nursing Council estimates about 4000 are needed. Nurses already here on short-term visas which […]

The occurrence of two mass whale strandings in less than a week is being described as unbelievable by the mayor. About 250 pilot whales were stranded on Chatham Island on 7 October and an estimated 250 more were stranded about 4 km south on Pitt Island on 10 October. The last stranding incident of this […]

New Zealand’s Ambassador to South Korea, Philip Turner, is leading the way on LGBTQ rights in the country. He is the first diplomat with an officially recognised same-sex spouse in Korea, the first diplomat to meet the President with a partner of the same sex, and probably the only diplomat ever to appear in a […]

Air New Zealand is expecting to make profits in the coming financial year, after a year of losses. As demand for air travel returns, the airline is forecasting pre-tax earnings of between $200m and $275m. This is in contrast to last year’s loss of $367m. However, the airline cautioned that the forecast was dependent on […]

Property prices in New Zealand have dropped for a fifth consecutive month, newly-published figures from auction site Trade Me suggest. The figures show that the national average asking price fell by 1 percent in August to $899,200. The average asking price had not been below $900,000 since October 2021. The Wellington, Nelson/Tasman, Taranaki and West […]