More than 6000 complaints about employers have been lodged with the government since the start of March. That’s more than 10 times as many as during the same seven-month period last year. The data, released by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to RNZ, records people wanting government help to resolve a workplace […]

Flood protection for Whakatāne’s town centre is about to get a much-needed upgrade to protect people and property against a one-in-100-year flood. Project Future Proof has been drawn up to upgrade stopbanks and floodwalls surrounding the central business district and address seepage issues. It was presented to Whakātane District councillors yesterday by staff from the […]

The Reserve Bank says any further easy money policy measures will have the simple aim of lowering the cost of borrowing and ensuring banks have enough cheap liquidity to back investment by businesses and spending by households. In a briefing on its two favoured mechanisms – funding for lending (FLP), and negative interest rates – […]

Businesses are optimistic about the future for the first time since Covid-19 emerged. ANZ’s preliminary monthly survey for October, titled “Party like it’s 2019”, shows businesses have reported improving confidence in their markets. The responses come as Auckland and the rest of the country get closer to a return to regular life, with decreasing alert […]

Political parties are putting the issue of mental health strongly in focus. But there’s a wave of youth anxiety, mental distress and worries about Covid-19 heading this way – and the services already in place are being overwhelmed. Fears of failing at school, failing at life, and the big issue of climate change add to […]

New Zealand is used by a World Health Organisation spokesperson as an example of a country whose Covid-19 response has been effectively communicated to communities. WHO’s special envoy on Covid-19, Dr David Nabarro, recently told a British magazine the organisation now believes lockdowns should only be used to buy authorities time to set up the […]

All community cases in New Zealand’s second Covid-19 outbreak have recovered, with the health minister saying the virus has been “squashed”. The news comes as the Ministry of Health announced there were three new cases of the virus detected in managed isolation on Wednesday. The ministry said all patients from the recent Auckland outbreak have […]

More than 1.15 million votes have been cast by early voters, with 453,426 voting over the weekend. The Electoral Commission has released its latest statistics on voter numbers in the final weekend before the election. With more than 700,000 votes cast before Saturday, the Commission said it was expecting numbers to top a million by […]

The government has agreed to buy 1.5 million doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine from one of the leading contenders to produce one. The deal – which is the first of its kind for the government – is subject to the vaccine successfully completing all clinical trials and passing regulatory approvals. The amount would be […]

The government has agreed to let 250 international postgraduate students back into New Zealand under a special exemption scheme. The students will have to complete the mandatory two weeks’ isolation in a government managed facility and could start arriving as soon as next month. Universities New Zealand has welcomed the move but says it is […]