NZ Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced the pause after Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown signed a partnership with China.RNZ/Pacific Islands Forum/123RF
New Zealand has extended its pause on direct payments to the Cook Islands government, after it signed partnership agreements with China earlier this year.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said the total amount of paused funding was NZ$29.8 million and covered two financial years.
“We took this step reluctantly and after careful consideration.
“Direct funding to another government relies on a high degree of trust. The Cook Islands government breached New Zealand’s trust through a series of actions that are well known.”
The spokesperson said New Zealand’s concerns about the Cook Islands actions “need to be addressed and trust restored, before we can release this funding”.
“Significant development assistance to the Cook Islands continues, including in areas such as health, education, governance, security and humanitarian support. This is being delivered through New Zealand agencies and regional programmes.
“New Zealand remains deeply committed to the Cook Islands and its people. We share a unique constitutional relationship and the people of the Cook Islands are New Zealand citizens.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters informed the Cook Islands government of the initial decision to pause funding in early June.
The Cook Islands operates in free association with New Zealand. It governs its own affairs, but New Zealand provides assistance with foreign affairs (upon request), disaster relief, and defence.
The 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration signed between the two nations requires them to consult each other on defence and security, which Peters said had not been lived up to.
In February, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with China.
New Zealand reviewed its development programme in the Cook Islands as a result, and in early June informed Brown the funding would be paused.
Two crashes – including one involving a police car on its way to the earlier smash – have closed SH2 River Road in Upper Hutt.
Police said motorists should expect delays in the area.
Emergency services were called to River Road, Clouston Park, between Fergusson Drive and Totara Park Road, about 5.50pm Sunday, after reports of a two-vehicle crash.
Police said moderate injuries were reported.
A police car driving to the crash “under urgent duty” was also involved in a three-vehicle crash on River Road, near Gibbons Street.
While no serious injuries were reported, the road was closed for a scene examination.
Diversions were in place.
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State Highway One between Longbush and Kennington near Invercargill was closed.RNZ / Nathan Mckinnon
State Highway One between Longbush and Kennington, near Invercargill, was closed and the power was out for 62 properties, after a truck hit a powerpole.
Emergency services were called to the crash at 2.30pm Sunday.
There were no reports of injuries and detours were in place.
NZTA said road users should expect delays in the area.
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One new measles case has been found in Nelson with no links to others that have had the disease.Supplied/ US CDC
Health New Zealand says one new measles case has been found in Nelson with no links to others that have had the disease.
There have now been 18 confirmed cases in the outbreak of measles — 17 of them are no longer infectious.
The latest case was not linked to any previous cases, which may indicate undetected measles circulating in the community.
Health NZ said anyone who lived in Nelson or had been there between 1 -7 November should check the Health New Zealand locations-of-interest page over the next few days.
The agency anticipated more cases, as the outbreak continued.
“New Zealand continues to remain at high risk from measles.”
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There had been an increase of 266 percent in meth seized in New Zealand and offshore over the past 5 years.Supplied / NZ Customs
The government has unveiled a plan to combat methamphetamine harm in New Zealand, strengthening border security, and increasing addiction services and maritime operations to disrupt organised crime networks.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said the drug was an increasing issue in New Zealand.
“Meth is a scourge on our society,” he said. “Consumption doubled last year and, ultimately, increased meth use fuels organised crime and destroys lives.
“This government’s primary justice target is to reduce the number of victims of crime,”
Wastewater testing indicated a doubling of meth consumption from 732kg in 2023 to 1434kg in 2024.
There has also been an increase of 266 percent in meth seized in New Zealand and offshore over the past five years.
In 2024, the estimated social harm cost to New Zealand was $1.5 billion.
“Significant action is already underway, including investment in Customs, reviewing maritime security powers, police recruitment, establishing the Ministerial Advisory Group on Organised Crime and Border Security Bill amendments,” Goldsmith said.
“However, there is more we can do to disrupt international supply, sharpen enforcement and reduce demand.”
The actions announced include a four-year media campaign to raise public awareness about meth-related harm, funded out of the proceeds of crime fund.
About $30 million over four years would be allocated to increase the services available to communities hardest hit by meth, within the ‘Vote Health’ mental health and addiction budget.
A series of maritime operations would be conducted to disrupt organised crime networks operating across the Pacific Ocean and police enforcement abilities would also be increased, including being able to intercept communications and search evidence stored electronically.
Police could also reclaim ill-gotten gains from organised crime groups, and officials would also consult the maritime sector on a suite of proposals to strengthen border security and shut down opportunities for organised criminals to operate through the country’s ports.
The government has also agreed to an additional $23.1 million of funding to establish offshore liaison positions, as well as an additional money-laundering team, and fund the Resilience to Organised Crime in Communities work programme until December 2026.
Drug Foundation welcomes announcement
New Zealand Drug Foundation executive director Sarah Helm said the organisation welcomed the announcement.
“It is good to see an emphasis on health approaches in the government’s announcement,” she said. “It’s clear to everyone that we can’t arrest our way out of this issue.”
Funding for increased support and services was sorely needed, Helm said.
“Methamphetamine use has surged to unprecedented levels over the last 18 months and with it, we’ve seen increased harm in the community. This has landed on a sector that has been significantly underfunded for many years.
“By helping people, communities and families to address substance use disorder, we can both reduce demand and make a dent in supply, because people with long-term addiction often have to turn to selling the drug to help them pay for their own.”
Treatment and harm-reduction were better uses of taxpayer money than criminalising people, as long-term, they helped prevent costs to the health and justice systems, and other social costs, she said.
“It is good to see more investment in community-level support, because people shouldn’t have to wait until they are experiencing the worst harms, before they can access support.”
The campaign would need to focus on destigmatising and encouraging people to seek help, Helm said.
“The communities experiencing the worst methamphetamine harms already know the negative impact it is having. A campaign that is grounded in what they’re experiencing, and helps people get information and support quickly will be the most useful.”
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ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on November 9, 2025.
‘Profound distrust’ in France, says Pacific people’s mission report calling for new Kanaky negotiations Asia Pacific Report A Pacific people’s mission to Kanaky New Caledonia was repeatedly confronted with a “profound sense of distrust” in the French state’s role in the decolonisation process, a new report released this week has revealed. “This scepticism, articulated by Kanak representatives, is rooted in the belief that France is not a neutral arbiter
USP student journalists win Vision Pasifika media award for plastic pollution reports Pacific Media Watch A feature story authored by a student journalist highlighting the harm plastic pollution poses to human health in Fiji — with risks expected to rise significantly if robust action is not taken soon — has won the Online category of the 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Awards — Cleaner Pacific. Riya Bhagwan, a
NZ Palestine protesters condemn govt over failure to impose sanctions against Israel Asia Pacific Report New Zealand Pro-Palestine protesters gathered at West Auckland’s Te Pai Park today, celebrating successes of the BDS movement against apartheid Israel while condemning the failure of the country’s coalition government to impose sanctions against the pariah state. “They’ve done nothing,” said Neil Scott, secretary of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). He
Kingmaker, Labor warrior and no stranger to scandal: Graham Richardson dies at 76 Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, President, Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and Professor of History, Australian National University There is no modern Australian politician whose name is as synonymous with a certain way of doing politics as that of Graham Richardson, who has died at 76 after
There are also risks of heavy showers and thunderstorms in Bay of Plenty.Unsplash / Daoudi Aissa
A severe thunderstorm watch remains in place for Auckland and Northland, with intense rainfall possible.
MetService said rising temperatures were likely to cause heavy showers and thunderstorms, with the watch in place until 9pm Sunday.
Localised downpours of 25-40 mm/h were possible.
The forecaster said surface and flash flooding were also possible in areas around streams, rivers and narrow valleys.
Showers building!
Daytime heating is causing showers in areas of the North Island. There is a Severe Thunderstorm Watch out for Northland and northern parts of Auckland.
We’ve also got risks of heavy showers and thunderstorms down to Bay of Plenty as well.… pic.twitter.com/b3v9P4S8Re
There are risks of heavy showers and thunderstorms in Bay of Plenty, while the ranges of the Westland District in the South Island are under a heavy rain watch until Monday night.
MetService said the watch had a moderate chance of being upgraded to a warning.
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A Pacific people’s mission to Kanaky New Caledonia was repeatedly confronted with a “profound sense of distrust” in the French state’s role in the decolonisation process, a new report released this week has revealed.
“This scepticism, articulated by Kanak representatives, is rooted in the belief that France is not a neutral arbiter but a key actor in perpetuating the conflict,” said the mission, which concluded that the French management of the territory continued to undermine the Kanak right to self-determination and breached international commitments on decolonisation.
As one speaker cited in the report explained:”France is acting like a referee, but instead they are the main perpetrator.”
The mission — led by the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) and the Protestant Church of Kanaky New Caledonia (Église protestante de Kanaky Nouvelle-Calédonie, EPKNC) — was conducted on April 10-19 this year following invitations from customary and church leaders.
Its findings, released last Wednesday by PANG, reveal persistent inequality, systemic discrimination, and political interference under the French administration. The report said that France’s role in Kanaky’s long-delayed decolonisation process had deepened mistrust and weakened the foundations of self-rule.
“The Pacific Mission in Kanaky New Caledonia is a reminder of our Pasifika connection with our families across the sea,” said Pastor Billy Wetewea of the EPKNC.
“It shows that we never exist alone but because of others, and that we are all linked to a common destiny. The journey of the Kanak people toward self-determination is a journey shared by every people in our region still striving to define their own future.”
The delegation included Anna Naupa (Vanuatu — the mission head), Lopeti Senituli (Tonga), Dr David Small (Aotearoa New Zealand), Emele Duituturaga-Jale (Fiji), with secretariat support by PANG and Kanak partners.
The team met community leaders, churches, women’s groups and youth networks across several provinces to document how the effects of French rule continue to shape Kanaky’s political, economic and social life.
Key findings The Pacific Peoples’ Mission Report identifies four main areas of concern:
France is not a neutral actor in the transition to independence. The state continues to breach commitments made under the Accords through election delays, political interference and the transfer of Kanak leaders to prisons in mainland France.
Widening socio-economic inequality. Land ownership, employment, and access to public resources remain heavily imbalanced. The 2024 unrest destroyed more than 800 businesses and left 20,000 people unemployed.
A health system in decline. About 20 percent of medical professionals left after the 2024 crisis, leaving rural hospitals and clinics under-resourced and understaffed.
Systemic bias in the justice system. Kanak youth now make up more than 80 percent of the prison population, a reflection of structural discrimination and the criminalisation of dissent.
Kanak writer and activist Roselyne Makalu said the report documented the lived experiences of her people.
“This support is fundamental because, as the Pacific family, we form one single entity united by a common destiny,” she said.
“The publication of this report, which constitutes factual evidence of human-rights violations and the denial of the Kanak people’s right to decide their future, comes at the very moment the French National Assembly has voted, against popular opinion, to postpone the provincial elections.
“This Parisian decision is nothing short of a blatant new attack on the voice of the Caledonian people, intensifying the political deadlock.”
Tongan law practitioner and former president of the Tonga Law Society, Lopeti Senituli, who was a member of the mission, said the findings confirmed a deliberate system of control, adding that “the deep inequalities faced by Kanak people — from land loss and economic marginalisation to mass incarceration — are not accidents of history”.
“They are the direct outcomes of a system designed to keep Kanaky dependent,” he added.
‘Politics of revenge’ Head of mission Anna Naupa said France could not act as both referee and participant in the decolonisation process.
“Its repeated breaches, political interference and disregard for Kanak rights expose a system built to protect colonial interests, not people,” she said.
“The mission called for immediate action — the release of political prisoners, fair provincial elections, and a Pacific-led mediation process to restore trust and place Kanaky firmly on the path to self-determination and justice.”
The mission also confirmed that the May 2024 crisis was an uprising by those most affected by France’s flawed governance and economic model.
It described France’s post-crisis policies — including scholarship withdrawals, fare increases, and relocation of public services — as “politics of revenge” that had further harmed Kanak and Oceanian communities.
Recommendations The mission calls for: • Free and fair provincial elections under neutral international observation; • A new round of negotiations to be held to find a new political agreement post Nouméa Accord; and • Pacific-led mediation through the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
The report further urges Pacific governments to ensure Kanaky remains on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories and to revitalise regional solidarity mechanisms supporting self-determination and justice.
“The world is already in the fourth international decade of decolonisation,” the report concludes.
“Self-determination is an inalienable right of colonised peoples. Decolonisation is a universal issue — not a French internal matter.”
The full report, Pacific Peoples’ Mission to Kanaky New Caledonia, is available here through the Pacific Network on Globalisation.
Supporters of Kanak self-determination hold aloft the flags of Fiji and Kanak independence in Suva. Image: PANG
Auckland CBD’s rough sleepers worry they will be kicked out of the city. (File photo)RNZ / Luke McPake
A tougher stance on rough sleepers in Auckland’s central city has some homeless people fearing they will be pushed out to unfamiliar suburbs where they could struggle to survive.
Earlier this week, the government confirmed it was considering new measures that could see people living on Auckland’s city streets forcibly removed.
Opposition parties and housing advocates raised alarm over the prospect of an effective ban on homeless people in CBD’s, warning such an approach only displaced the problem and caused more harm.
Along Queen St and the surrounding blocks, people were still bedding down in shopfronts, bus shelters, and on building steps.
Earlier in the year, an Auckland Council committee declared homelessness a crisis, with support teams working with more than 800 people sleeping rough. Police Minister Mark Mitchell said he supported giving officers more powers to move people on from public spaces.
Outside the Auckland Central City Library on Thursday, 27-year-old Jae sat with his puppy Snoop and said the solution was straightforward: put more money into housing.
“Instead of putting new stuff in the middle of the street, decorations and all, they should put their money into putting us somewhere, instead of kicking us out of the city. That’s the only place we know.”
Jae said forcing people into unfamiliar suburbs risked driving some into criminal activity.
“They’ve already tried to trespass us from the library and that’s, this is where most of the free dinners come. If you get trespassed and you can’t really eat. If they kick us out of the city, then how are we going to eat?
“It’s going to result to other things, like crime.”
Further along the street, 21-year-old Angela said crime might be her only way to survive. She had been in and out of jail for petty offending since she was a teenager.
“If I get moved on from the streets, I will go back to jail. [The government] has been trying, but I would just go back to prison again because of the things I do to survive.”
Nearby, 60-year-old Tane – who had spent decades sleeping rough – agreed moving people on would only make things worse.
Auckland Council has declared homelessness a crisis. (File photo)RNZ / Luke McPake
“This is our home, the streets. If it gets taken away from us, homeless people will probably break into things, they’ll start turning into criminals. They’ll move away from begging and go into criminal world.”
Another man, who had lived on the streets for more than 30 years and asked not to be identified, said shifting people away from the city centre would not solve the problem.
“There’s always places to go, you know, there’s… the country’s quite big. And there’s other streets, there’s other parks, there’s other hills, tracks.”
A few blocks away, John, 71, said the government seemed more focused on appearances than addressing the root causes of homelessness.
“We is what [the government] don’t want the tourists to see. And yet, in their countries, they have the same problem with homeless people. And I’m sure they don’t go around putting them into mental institutions.”
The government said details of its plan to crack down on rough sleeping would be released soon.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said any move-on orders would need to be paired with proper housing and support.
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The Ministry of Health is being accused of sitting on a state abuse survivor’s compensation claim.RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The Ministry of Health is being accused of sitting on a state abuse survivor’s compensation claim for weeks, knowing she had cancer and was about to die.
Wellington lawyer Sonja Cooper wrote to the ministry on 7 October, flagging her client had terminal cancer and “weeks left to live”.
“We would appreciate if the Ministry of Health could prioritise assessing [her] claim give the time-limiting circumstances,” the email said.
More than two weeks later, on 23 October, the ministry’s chief legal advisor Phil Knipe wrote back, “confirming that we will look to prioritise the claim”.
Knipe attached a criminal declaration form to his response, asking Cooper Legal to get the dying woman to complete it to “get that out of the way”.
The options for selection are ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘unsure’, though it carries a warning that “random criminal conviction history checks will be carried out”.
The coalition has introduced these criminal checks to ensure the granting of financial redress “does not bring the state redress system into disrepute”.
Though a bill to legislate this criminal carve has only passed its first reading, survivors are already being asked to fill them out.
Cooper Legal wrote back to the ministry the day Knipe replied, pushing for an exception to completing this form.
“This is a considerable administrative task, especially considering the delays and hoops to jump through to get a valid form of ID if someone does not already have it.
“Considering [our client] has weeks left to live (and other survivors will be in a similar situation), these delays could be the difference between getting redress or not.”
Knipe replied the next day: “I’m not aware of any plans for an exemption for any survivors…there may be flexibility on the form of ID in those cases where there is a reason why they do not have one of the forms of ID requested.”
Cooper Legal got a signed declaration form to the ministry on Sunday morning. The client died that night.
Wellington lawyer Sonja Cooper.RNZ / Aaron Smale
The Minister leading the Crown’s response to abuse in state care, Erica Stanford, has since confirmed the criminal declaration form applies to all survivors, including those terminally ill.
Though she added: “If there’s anyone that’s been caught up and it’s delaying things, then that’s something I’ll go and talk to my officials about because it shouldn’t.”
Stanford’s office has since come back to RNZ about this case.
“The Crown Response Office has been in touch with the Ministry of Health and reminded them where a person is terminally ill, this exemption process exists and should be used.
“We understand the way is clear for the claim to be progressed and the Ministry of Health will be in contact with Cooper Legal to progress it.”
A Ministry of Health spokesperson said: “Our thoughts are with the claimant’s whānau and friends at this time.
“The ministry has passed on its regret to the law firm representing the claimant that the claim was unable to be completed within time. The ministry has been treating this claim with urgency since it was received on 7 October.
“We sought clarification from the Crown Response Office regarding the ministerial exemption process and will ensure this is also followed for any future cases involving claimants with terminal conditions.
“We are working to finalise the claim as quickly as possible.”
The Minister leading the Crown’s response to abuse in state care, Erica Stanford.RNZ / Mark Papalii
Cooper said the system was “abhorrent”.
“Why should somebody who is terminally ill, hospitalised, unable to move, in their last few weeks or months of life, why should they be put through this additional hurdle to get redress when it is hard enough, in any event, to go through the redress processes.
“I just think it’s abhorrent and it just shows a complete lack of humanity on the part of the state, once again, towards survivors it abused, mostly as children, but also as vulnerable adults, in its care.”
The government has received one expedition request on the basis of a survivor being terminally ill to date. It was approved the day it was made.
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Dr Michael Johnston is a senior fellow at the policy think tank New Zealand Initiative.New Zealand Initiative
Many agree NZ’s education is below par, but how to fix it is the subject of major conflict – as the government’s proposed curriculum has made clear
When Michael Johnston stepped onto the stage to speak at an education conference last week, the crowd was tetchy and tense. He wasn’t expecting a warm reception but for the first time in his long career in education, he was heckled and booed, according to one bystander.
Johnston is the lead educator for the think tank The New Zealand Initiative, and has played a key role in drawing up the government’s controversial draft curriculum, while the audience at last week’s UpliftEd event has largely been opposed to the overhaul.
He says he was invited to the conference several months ago by the organisers Aotearoa Educators Collective to speak about the state of boys’ education, “a much-neglected equity gap”.
“The reason I agreed to do it is I don’t think there’s enough talking across the aisles in education and I was very keen to try to bridge the gap.
“I’m not sure that worked but that was my intention,” Johnston tells The Detail.
Newsroom’s political editor Laura Walters was at the conference and says he was booed and heckled. Johnston says that’s an exaggeration, and the audience was mixed in its response. He challenges suggestions that he represents a right wing think tank.
“I would say what we are is a classical liberal think tank. We give policy advice to any political party who wants to talk to us. You know, [Labour leader] Chris Hipkins spoke at our members’ retreat earlier this year so it’s not true that we only talk to the right wing parties.”
Education minister Erica Stanford.RNZ / Mark Papalii
The incident reflects deep divisions in the sector over the contentious curriculum, labelled by critics as racist, deeply concerning, absolutely ridiculous and more.
In the latest development, the government’s decided to cut the requirement of school boards to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi, a move that has shocked and angered some in the sector who say it will put Māori content in danger and undermine efforts to lift Māori students’ achievement.
Other areas of contention cross from arts to technology to Physical Education.
The full draft for Years 0 to 10 has been released in the last week and is open for consultation for the next six months, before a phased rollout over the next three years.
“To call it an education reform or overhaul wouldn’t be overstating it,” says Newsroom’s Walters. “What the government is asking teachers and principals and educators to do is pretty massive and educators don’t feel like they’re being listened to.”
She points to a loss of goodwill over the past two years between the government and the ministry on one side, and teachers and educators on the other.
“I can understand and I wasn’t surprised by that immediate and broad pushback from the sector that feel like they’re being asked to rush through these massive reforms at pace, that they’re not getting the support that they need; that they’re not being listened to.
“Meanwhile, they’re dealing with the day-to-day, these classrooms with children who have high learning needs, high behavioural needs. You kind of have to put the pushback or the reaction into that context.”
Johnston says the criticism is loud but it is not widespread or a balanced reflection of the sector.
“I suspect it isn’t a majority of teachers and principals but certainly there’s a lot of noise generated by some.
“I’ve talked to a lot of principals myself, I’ve been around the country in the last weeks and months and had a lot of conversations. A lot of principals are very supportive and certainly think things like this are urgently needed,” he says.
He believes there are legitimate concerns about the pace of change and the extent to which teachers will have to shift their practise.
“They’re going to need support to do that, so I understand that side of the worry. It needs to be backed with the right resources.”
For the past 18 months Johnston has been part of the curriculum coherence group, a panel convened by the Ministry of Education to review the rewrite.
“We look at the documents that the writers produce and comment on them from the point of view of knowledge-rich curriculum design, mostly.”
He explains the often-used phrase “knowledge-rich” means the content is carefully selected to be representative of a subject and that it is correctly sequenced.
“It’s knowledge that is related to other knowledge, so that when children learn it … it is built on what they already know.”
Walters says a lot has been dumped on the sector and teachers and principals need time to digest the details.
“I think that there will be more nuance and more context and a better understanding that will flow through over the next couple of weeks. It’s really unclear as to whether they will actually change their stance.”
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Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall.RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Labour is promising to make cervical screening free for everyone, if elected, through its previously-announced Medicard scheme.
Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said the move would help prevent cancers and avoid costly hospital treatments.
“Each year 175 New Zealanders are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 55 die from it. Almost every case is preventable with better uptake of cervical screening and vaccination,” she said.
“Free cervical screening means earlier diagnosis, lives saved, and less pressure on our hospitals.”
Under the policy, from October 2027, anyone eligible for screening would be able to access it at no cost by presenting their Medicard at their local doctor or community screening event.
Cervical screening is available for people aged 25 to 69 every five years. The test is currently free for Māori and Pacific people, Community Services Card holders, and those aged 30 and over who have never been screened or are overdue.
The policy would make it free for the remaining half.
Labour estimated the expansion would cost $21.6 million in its first year, to be funded from within the existing health budget.
The policy is one which Labour also campaigned on at the 2023 election.
“Today, we’re committing to finishing the job and making sure that there’s free screening for everyone who needs cervical screening,” Verrall said.
She said when last in government, Labour had introduced self-test options, and extended free screening criteria.
She said the self-testing had been a “game changer” for screening, and removing the costs for Pacific women had led to a 20 percent increase in screening rates.
“Now that women, we’re screening ourselves, it’s very hard to argue that we should have to pay, and it’s never been right that cervical screening is the only screening programme where the users have to pay.”
New Zealand has committed to eliminate cervical cancer by 2030.
“Free cervical screening and HPV vaccination will help us reach that goal,” Verrall said.
“Labour’s Medicard is about making sure every New Zealander can get the care they need, when they need it.”
Labour announced its proposed Medicard in September, promising to use revenue from a new targeted capital gains tax to provide every New Zealander three free GP visits a year.
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Hague said his home would remain on the West Coast, but he would also be setting up a “second base” in the capital.
“Got any furniture you want to sell? I will pick up the reins in a couple of weeks.”
Hague entered Parliament as a list MP in 2008. Despite being considered a frontrunner for the party’s co-leadership in 2015, he was beaten by James Shaw.
Hague left a year later to become the chief executive of environmental organisation Forest and Bird.
The party has not had a permanent chief of staff since September when Prestidge-Oldfield resigned.
At the time, co-leader Marama Davidson said Prestidge-Oldfield had left “to focus on her health, well-being and her whānau”.
“This has not been an easy decision for her to make, given the huge contribution that Eliza has made to the Green Party over many years,” Davidson said.
“However, the party fully supports her decision to prioritise her health and whānau.”
The opposition party has had a fairly high turnover of staff this term. Its director of communications Louis Day also resigned several weeks after Prestidge-Oldfield.
“I felt that now was the right time for me to move on from Parliament and take a bit of a break before finding a new challenge for my career,” Day said in an email to journalists.
“I leave with a lot of love for the co-leaders, MPs and party, as well as a lot of hope for the Green movement I have had the privilege of being part of for almost four years now.”
RNZ understands another member of the party’s media team has also recently departed. The Greens also saw an exodus of senior staff in early 2024 connected to the resignation of then-co-leader James Shaw.
The Green Party has had a particularly difficult time since the 2023 election.
The term has been marked by scandals and resignations: Golriz Ghahraman quit after being accused, and later convicted, of shop-lifting. Darleen Tana was ejected from Parliament amid allegations of migrant exploitation at her husband’s bicycle business.
Most recently, Benjamin Doyle quit Parliament after facing threats of violence and abuse in response to historical social media posts. In a valedictory speech last week, Doyle described Parliament as a “hostile and toxic” environment.
The party has also been struck by tragedy: Fa’anānā Efeso Collins suddenly died in February 2024, and Davidson took time off for treatment after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
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Various education industry groups have spoken out about changes to the Teaching Council announced last week by the Minister of Education.Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
Groups including Catholic school principals and kindergartens have united to oppose government changes to the teacher registration and disciplinary body the Teaching Council.
In an open letter to Minister of Education Erica Stanford published today, 10 organisations said she had gutted the council’s independence.
They were speaking out following Stanford’s announcement last week she would reorganise the council’s governing board so it had a majority of ministerial appointees and move its responsibilities for professional standards and initial teacher education to the Ministry of Education.
The minister considered a similar change late last year, but chose not to proceed after receiving advice from the ministry.
“With multiple investigations underway into the Teaching Council, we’re responding urgently by reconstituting the board so we can ensure good governance and better ensure the Council acts in the sector’s best interests,” Stanford said.
The government said the changes would bring the council’s governance in line with similar bodies such as the Nursing Council.
But the open letter said the changes “represent a fundamental shift in professional autonomy and independence”
It said the signatories had already warned “that direct political control of professional programmes and standards by Ministers through the Ministry would be an over-reach and was tantamount to political interference”.
“Under your changes, the Ministry will assume responsibility for all professional standard-setting functions, including standards for teacher education programmes, Teaching Standards, criteria for registration and certification, and setting the code of conduct. The Teaching Council will retain only registration, quality assurance, and discipline functions,” the letter said.
It said the council had developed Treaty of Waitangi-centred professional standards for teachers and that was now under threat.
The letter’s signatories were the NZEI Te Riu Roa, PPTA Te Wehengarua, NZ Principals’ Federation, Te Akatea, Catholic Principals Association, Pasifika Principals Association, Aotearoa Educators Collective, Montessori Aotearoa NZ, Kindergartens Aotearoa and the Tertiary Educators Association of NZ.
Image from the BSA’s recent report ‘Public trust in news media’ highlighting the factors that damage it – and enhance it.Broadcasting Standards Authority
“The blatant, blatant bias of the New Zealand media makes you want to weep,” an exasperated Mike Hosking told his Newstalk ZB listeners last Thursday.
A new unauthorised biography of Jacinda Ardern by journalist David Cohen triggered that complaint.
David Cohen interviewed dozens of people about her for the book – including Mike Hosking, who complained about the media “falling in love” with Ardern when she was PM.
“When you’re a journalist, you’ve got to put that to one side and cover it in a fair and balanced way. But fairness and balance just went out the window,” he said.
But over the years some of his critics have said similar things about the friendly tone of Hosking’s own interviews with other PMs he clearly liked more – including the current one.
Back in 2013 he even endorsed John Key while MC’ing the PM’s state of the nation speech. Petitions were launched to take the job of moderating TVNZ election debates away from Mike Hosking.
Bias is in the eye of the beholder, but he’s far from the only one questioning the media’s trustworthiness out loud these days.
The latest annual report of the official broadcasting watchdog – the Broadcasting Standards Authority – said formal complaints for the public for the year were down. The BSA found only eight breaches of standards all year.
Several surveys in recent years have shown our trust in news sliding significantly, but the BSA’s online survey and focus groups didn’t just add more numbers to the others. They asked people who’d lost trust in it why – and what, if anything, might restore it for them.
Large majorities told the BSA they wanted news backed by credible evidence, more neutrality, prompt corrections and more in-depth reporting. They also wanted more transparency, accountability and facts distinguished from opinion and advertising.
They also wanted less clickbait, sensationalism and aggressive attack style journalism.
So far, so much like many other surveys.
But while bias was also cited as a major reason for slumping trust, respondents also acknowledged that their perceptions of bias were coloured by their personal views – and whether their own views were reflected in the media.
Why has trust slumped?
“Why do news outlets continue to exhibit the sort of behaviour that contributes to declining trust when the solutions are so obvious?” former New Zealand Herald editor turned scholar and commentator Gavin Ellis asked this week.
“A day does not go by when I do not witness the opinion of a reporter indelibly over-written on reportage. I – and the rest of the audience – am left to my own devices in separating one from the other,” he said in an article about the BSA research, claiming solutions to declining trust are staring news media in the face.
“The practice not only transgresses journalistic boundaries but also provides ammunition for those seeking every opportunity to diminish and discredit media outlets with claims of bias.”
Ellis also said we saw clickbait headlining and story selection all the time, particularly on news sites that use artificial intelligence algorithms and analytics. And while consumers applied higher trust scores to outlets offering hard news rather than light lifestyle or entertainment content, that stuff keeps coming in spades from the mainstream media too.
While he was at it, Ellis said reporters should be “off-limits for commercially-linked stories”
As if to illustrate that problem, TVNZ 1News viewers in the ad breaks currently see the hosts of TVNZ Seven Sharp, nominally still a current affairs show, promoting their upcoming ‘Swede As’ national roadtrip to hype the launch of Ikea.
Seven Sharp’s hosts promoting the ‘Swede As’ campaign for the launch of Ikea.TVNZ Seven Sharp
Daily prizes are on offer and being in to win requires signing up to the Ikea Family loyalty programme via Seven Sharp’s website. It’s the kind of thing that confirms for some the news media are for sale when the price is right.
Yet some of the same ad breaks also feature urgent and persuasive messages for immunisation which could save lives in the current measles outbreak, showing the medium as a force for good.
Almost three in 10 respondents in the BSA research said there was nothing a news provider could do to reverse their lost trust – but more than twice as many said they could.
“The forms of redress in the BSA report are quite simple and represent no more than the re-emphasis of traditional journalistic values,” Ellis insisted.
“Transparency and accountability, clear editorial boundaries and commitment to impartial and fact-based reporting were – and should still be – the cornerstones of journalism.”
Fixes – easy and hard
RNZ / Jeff McEwan
RNZ’s executive editor of podcasts and series Tim Watkin once worked under Ellis at the Herald in the time before online technology and social media changed the nature of public trust.
In his new book – How to Rebuild Trust in Journalism – he sees the relationship between the audience and the media of today as like a relationship on the rocks. And he believes it’s the media that need to change and come to terms with the fact that the public are “just not that into them anymore”.
“The trends (in the research) are really clear. It’s very easy to say we are well-served by media in New Zealand and our journalism is of a high standard. But people don’t see that, and are making some pretty serious claims about what we do,” Tim Watkin told Mediawatch.
“The Reuters Institute research across 47 countries points to the fact most of the public does not trust most of the news most of the time. Edelman does research across 28 countries and 64 percent say journalists purposely mislead people.
“Here in New Zealand, RNZ is at the top of the trust tree. But we’re still only getting about half of the people reliably trusting us. I think that speaks to a burning platform.
“People have turned against us for some time now and it’s been a pretty clear trend for a generation or two. The people have spoken.
“If we fail to take it seriously, the news business might start running out of public to serve – and might not have much of a business left to do.”
The BSA research on trust found fewer than one in five who experienced a drop in trust as a result of a particular event or period report an improvement since that time. The loss of trust appears locked in for them.
But the same survey also found that of people who have experienced an event which strengthened their trust, almost 75 percent are more likely to maintain or increase their levels of trust.
Those people are there to be won back?
“It is not irretrievable. If you go back to the end of the First World War, there was a global pandemic, real social upheaval and political discord,” Watkin said.
“And at that time, there were a lot of commentators saying the trust in our news is falling apart. There was a reaction to that, especially in the US, but around the world, in the form of objectivity.
“Journalism decided as an industry to say ‘we are different from public relations, we’re different from government information, we stand apart, we try and write detached, factual information that describes the world as it is’. And that worked pretty well for us for the best part of a century.
“Now the media landscape is way more complicated, but the principles and the lessons are still pretty sound. We can work our way back.”
But is it really ‘them’ and not ‘us’ that’s changed?
Does asking people about their trust in media actually invite – or even incite – increased scepticism? Asking people if they use and value news media in spite of their reservations might yield different results and less definitive conclusions about loss of trust?
“It’s true if you highlight something, it creates a situation where people start to see a problem. But I think we’re well past it just being journalists or news media being able to really take any comfort from that,” Watkin told Mediawatch.
“Trust is around human connection and relationships. If the other partner in a relationship perceives you as a problem, then it doesn’t really matter what the facts are,” Watkin said, who did research in the philosophy department at the University of Glasgow.
In the relationship with the public, the media also have money problems and insecurity. And Watkin said the news media needed to do the work of the “cheating spouse”.
But in decades gone by, the public did not express huge distrust. They’re now the ones who often aren’t paying for news, have stopped valuing journalism and using free and alternative sources of news and content online.
“We could absolutely say: ‘Come on public, stop cheating on us with social media, stop running off with Instagram and Facebook – and come back to your good solid relationship with mainstream news media that actually knows how to treat you well,” Watkin told Mediawatch.
“But the reality is that people are dallying with TikTok and all the others and we can blame them or we can do something about it. In a world where… nobody is complaining about having not enough information, we can control the quality of that information that we provide.
“We say in a lot of cases that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck – it’s a duck. The problem with journalism is there are a lot of things that walk and quack and look like journalism, but they’re not journalism.
“We need to protect our specialty as journalists, I think, and we haven’t been very good at doing that.”
Powering up superpowers
Watkin’s book identifies four “superpowers” to differentiate journalism’s “duck”.
The first is objectivity, the subject of many inconclusive and often frustrating debates among journalists.
Some say it’s not realistic or achievable – or even really desirable if it fosters ‘both sides’ equivalence that can actually mislead the audience. Others say it’s the only way to overcome – or at least moderate – inevitable biases.
“I thought long and hard about this and concepts around impartiality. But sometimes journalists do need to be partial towards their communities, towards democracy, for example, towards a free press.
“So I kept coming back to objectivity. We all come with our baggage and bias. But what people don’t get – and it’s incredibly frustrating that we have to keep having this argument – is that it’s because people are biased that we have an objective method.
“As a journalist, you sign up to a method of telling a story. An Iowa professor defined objectivity as describing the world as it is, not as you want it to be.
“That shows that we are putting the interests of the people we serve ahead of our own opinions. Frankly, the public does not give one hoot about our opinions.
“Verification links in with transparency, which is the third superpower. Verification is the one that we kind of take for granted. You should be able to go to mainstream journalism and know that we have, as part of our professional creed, checked things.
“Balance is important, but how much better that we go beyond balance to actually verification? What we then need to do is be transparent and show our workings.”
The BSA’s Public Trust in Media report identifying examples of stuff people considered to be real news – and not.Broadcasting Standards Authority
Do the public want the workings? Does it risk clogging up stories and content like long labels on American food products that no one really reads? Or software licensing T’s and C’s of which almost everyone simply scrolls to the end?
“As journalists we are better at communicating than those ingredients labels. But those labels are actually useful and they do build trust in products. I’m not talking about sodium at 0.5 percent, but we can certainly be a lot more open in our journalism about how many people we spoke to, who refused to comment – and explaining some of the context or some of the history behind the story.
“Research consistently shows the public does not understand how journalism is different from the rest of the content that’s so much part of their lives these days. We actually have to do a much better job of saying why you can trust us more than Bill on TikTok.”
The fourth of Watkin’s superpowers for media is “caring”.
His book says journalism needs to be “more humble and care more about how it presents the verified and objective facts gathered in the public interest.”
Sounds nice, but does that alienate people who already think media care about the wrong things – and that their own values and motivations don’t align with the media?
“It’s not ‘caring’ in a way that takes sides. That would undermine the objectivity part of the superpowers and often the verification part too. It’s the kind of caring (like) friends in your life who… are prepared to tell you what you need to hear and are actually honest with people.
“They care enough to investigate the stories. They care enough to hire people who look like me – the different ethnicities, classes, rural, urban, university-educated and not university-educated.
“They should care enough to spell correctly, to have a podcast on their favourite app or a website that doesn’t glitch. All of these things show that we care about the information we’re providing.”
Fact vs opinion
Another persistent gripe that the research picks up is the blurring or even the blending of fact and opinion.
Watkin runs a separate site devoted to opinion – pundit.co.nz. In election years, he runs the podcast Caucus in which senior RNZ presenters give opinions on how the campaign is going.
Does that blur the line?
“Gavin Ellis is right that just slapping ‘analysis’ on the top doesn’t cut it. I think we need to be overly demonstrative in showing the difference between an article of factually-checked news – and an opinion piece which is based on facts but doesn’t have to be balanced because it’s their opinion.
“I’ve suggested that opinion pages on sites could be kept separate. In newspapers they could even be changed to a different colour so that it’s much clearer.
“On Caucus, we can probably do better on the transparency front but we’re really careful not to take sides, not to be partisan. We offer analysis and decades of experience covering politics to try and give people some quality information and some insight from our experience.”
Media are also often criticised for ignoring or marginalising some views and groups and featuring too narrow a range of sources.
“Again, when you go through the research and you see a lot of workshops and focus groups and so forth, they often get frustrated that they listen to the news and it doesn’t sound like them or look like them. 23 percent of journalists in the US live in three cities: New York, Washington DC and LA.
“New Zealand probably suffers from a similar thing in that Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch probably dominate. But local media are usually the most-trusted media – because people see that they care and are part of their community.
“We probably need to be better at finding people from all walks of life who can tell stories and help us understand because they bring an understanding of the world with them. If we are too narrow in the kind of people who we hire or the people we interview, then we miss a lot.”
“I really hope, regardless of my book, that people at least start thinking seriously about the importance of who they trust and who they don’t trust – and make good choices. And for journalists to actually work really hard at earning that trust.”
View from abroad
Dr Melanie BunceRNZ / Colin Peacock
In 2019, Melanie Bunce pondered the current and future state of journalism here in a BWB text titled The Broken Estate.
She’s now the director of the new Centre for Media and Democracy at London’s City St George’s University, also researching trust in news around the world.
“If you get three different people telling you they don’t trust the media, they might have three different reasons so it’s a really hard one to counteract. But in a crisis, when people want to actually know what’s happened and where to for help they overwhelmingly still go to the mainstream media, even when they say they don’t trust those organisations,” Prof Bunce told Mediawatch.
“Here in the UK, the BBC for example is wrapping itself in knots around the coverage of Gaza and Israel, as it did during its reporting of Brexit, because people are trying to perform their balance and impartiality.
“But then you perhaps end up giving a lot of space to a side of the argument or interpretation of the argument that your audience at home doesn’t think should have any oxygen given to it whatsoever. So it’s incredibly hard.
“I think you need to explain to the audience as much as possible that you are trying to give due impartiality… based on where the evidence lies. But it’s not easy.
“A lot of the growth and distrust in the media over the last decade or so has resulted directly from political elites attacking and discrediting the media. Not giving the media a free ride or anything, but we should always wonder what’s in it for a political elite when they are saying you can’t trust that news and that ‘fake news’ media.
“In New Zealand because we’re lucky that there’s still high readership of local news. That genuinely is not the case in the UK. I live in London, one of the world’s global cities, but there’s very little news coverage of my borough, even though it’s larger than my hometown Dunedin.
“I can’t read the equivalent of the Otago Daily Times about the place that I live because of how the media ecosystem here works.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
This is one of a series of essays and short stories commissioned to commemorate RNZ’s 100 years on air in Aotearoa.
Barbara turns the radio on. It’s square and brown and has four perfectly round knobs along the bottom.
The voice from the wooden box says it’s 9am, so Barbara’s just in time for the news, and, once that’s done, the holiday programme. Not that she can hear anything over Joan’s laughter. It’s not fair. Barbara had always wanted a little sister to play with, but not one like Joan – she’s always getting into mischief, uses Barbara’s favourite pencils without asking, and only speaks at one volume: loud. And, when Mum said they must all finish the chores before listening to story time, all Joan had to do was dust the mantle. She didn’t have to press the linen, or beat the rugs, or mind the younger ones. Which is why Joan is playing blocks with Colin, rather than making herself useful.
‘Bang!’ Joan yells, knocking over a stack of blocks. ‘Crash!’
Colin claps his chubby hands in delight. ‘Boom!’
RNZ
Barbara folds the last freshly-pressed table cloth, and rushes back to the radio in the corner. The voice on the radio is still talking about the men who climbed Mount Everest, so story time hasn’t started yet. Phew. During school holidays, story time on the National Broadcasting Service was the highlight of Barbara’s days. Yesterday’s tale was terribly exciting, and Barbara had wondered ever since: what would happen to the children who had been shipwrecked and were about to run out of food? Would they be rescued in time?
‘Look, Colin! It’s a bomb!’ Joan shouts as she throws a block against the wall. ‘Bang!’
‘Bomb!’ says Colin, laughing. ‘Bang!’
Storytime starts, but Barbara can’thear a word. ‘Please, Joan. Shhh.’
‘It’s not me, it’s Colin.’
‘It’s both of you.’
‘Bomb!’ Colin yells. ‘Bang!’
Joan picks up another block, grins at Colin, and throws it against the wall. ‘Bang!’
‘Please, Joan.’ Barbara knows she’s whining, but can’t help it. ‘Please be quiet. I want to listen to the story about the children.’
‘It’s not me.’ Joan shrugs. ‘It’s the bomb.’
Suddenly the air is cold and heavy. Uh-oh. Father stands in the doorway, arms crossed across his chest. ‘What’s this racket?’
Barbara feels ill. Mum said they mustn’t wake Father, not under any circumstances, for he was having a bad week. Joan and Colin stare – now they’re silent.
‘Barbara! What’s the meaning of this?’
Barbara slumps her shoulders. ‘Sorry, Father.’
‘You need to better control the children, especially when your mother is out running errands. This is not good enough.’
‘I … I’m sorry.’
Father glares at her. ‘Bombs are no laughing matter, believe you me.’
‘I said sorry.’
Father takes a deep breath, and says, ‘get outside, all of you. And keep your sister in line. She’s your responsibility.’
Barbara steals a glance at the radio. ‘But –’
‘Are you talking back to me, girl?’
‘N … no.’
‘Then get outside. Now!’ Father glares at Barbara once more, swivels around, and limps away. As soon as he disappears from sight, Joan scowls, and says to Barbara, ‘I wasn’t being loud.’
‘Yes you were! Why must you always be so …’
But Joan isn’t listening: she’s already out the door, Colin toddling behind her.
The voice on the radio is still talking, his voice animated: the children on the island have seen a ship! Could this mean they might be rescued? Or is it … pirates? But Barbara doesn’t dare listen further – Father might come back, and then what? She reaches out, twists one of the knobs to turn the sound off, and follows her brother and sister outside.
Barbara sits at the Formica table and sips her tea. The voice on the black transistor radio says its 9am, but Barbara can hardly hear, for her phone has begun to ring. Barbara sighs: such bad timing. She’s been waiting for the 9am news for over 15 minutes. Barbara wants to hear what’s happening with the tour – but mostly wants to know the weather forecast. How else will she decide whether to hang her brown corduroy skirt on the line in the garden, or inside the garage? Everyone knows clothes dry better outside, and she needs to look her best for the movies tonight: Goodbye Pork Pie, with the nice clerk from the bank. But it’s cloudy outside, and she doesn’t know if rain is coming.
Nik T for Unsplash
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
Maybe she ought to ignore it. If she waits until the 10am bulletin, her skirt might not dry in time for the movie, or get musty. But, no. She can’t. It might be someone important, or – dare she hope – the nice clerk, calling to chat. Barabara puts down her tea, and rushes into the hallway. She picks up the phone from its cradle, and holds the heavy green plastic to her ear. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi. It’s me.’
Me. Only Joan would be so self-centered to assume Barbara would recognise her voice after three words. Which, of course, Barbara does, but that’s beside the point.
‘I’m busy, Joan. I’m in the middle of … something important.’
‘I need your help.’ Joan’s voice is unsteady. ‘I really, really need your help, and now Mum and Dad are gone, I don’t know who else to call – ’
‘What happened?’
‘I was at the protest at Parliament, and the police turned up with batons.’ Joan’s words tumble over each other as she speaks. ‘And then I was pushed over! It wasn’t my fault my hand flew into a man’s face, and then he started to bleed …’
Barbara concentrates on her breathing: in and out, in and out. When she finally speaks, her voice is pinched. ‘Why can’t you ask Colin to help?’
‘You know he’s pro-tour, and thinks politics should stay out of sport. He won’t help me.’
Of course, Barbara thinks. Joan’s right – Colin won’t help at all. Barbara remembers her father’s words: your sister is your responsibility. ‘Joan, calm down. Tell me what you need.’
From the other room floats the last of the news, and some of the weather report. Not that it matters. She won’t be wearing her brown corduroy skirt anywhere tonight, let alone the movies. Eventually, Barbara puts down the phone, trudges into the other room, and turns off the transistor radio. She picks up her car keys, and steps outside.
It’s almost 9am. Barbara puts down the woman’s magazine, and turns to her new stereo system: a black stack of different ways to play music, her 55th birthday present to herself. It seems such an extravagance for a household of one, but look at how smart it is, sitting on the crisp white tablecloth in the middle of the sideboard. Barbara admires it once more: the LP player at the top, the double cassette player at the bottom. And, in between, the radio. Speaking of which. She pushes a button, just in time to hear the RNZ announcer welcome her to the 9am news.
Annie Spratt for Unsplash
Beside the stereo is a large bouquet of flowers, carefully arranged inside her second-best vase. Happy birthday, Barbara, reads the card, in Colin’s wife’s handwriting. Love Colin and family. At least they remembered. At least someone remembered. Barbara leans toward the stereo and listens: the broadcaster is talking about Princess Diana’s death the day before – what a shock that was. When Barbara first heard about it on the radio the previous afternoon, she’d been so alarmed, she’d dropped her best vase. And here she was: sitting beside a pile of broken porcelain that she still hadn’t cleaned up, because it hurt her knees, and her birthday wasn’t the time to remind herself of all her body could no longer do. Happy birthday to me, she thinks. At least I have my new stereo. And she’ll listen to the news, followed by a deep-dive story about Diana’s life – that will be interesting. After that, she’ll go out to get her hair done, and, at some point, clean up the remnants of the vase.
Bang bang bang!
There’s a loud knock, but whoever it is doesn’t wait for Barbara to respond – the door opens, and heavy footsteps clomp down the hallway. Barbara scowls. Only one person who would take such liberties. Joan.
Her sister bursts into the room: a mess of layered clothing and red lipstick and perfume. ‘Happy Birthday to youuuuuu!’ Joan dances on the spot, although her platform shoes are so high, Barbara wonders how she can walk, let alone dance. ‘Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear – ’
Joan steps on a shard of broken vase and tumbles, right into the rest of the shattered porcelain. From the floor, Joan looks at the blood covering her hand, and wails. ‘My hand! I think I’ve severed an artery!’ Joan waves her hand in the air, and reaches toward the sideboard. ‘This might be fatal! I need to clean this up! I’m too young to die – there’s so much more to do, like see more of the country – ’
‘No! Don’t– ’
But it’s too late. Joan grips the crisp white tablecloth in her hand, and pulls. The second-best vase falls first, crashing on the floor in a pile of glass and leaves and stalks. And next comes the stereo, landing with a sickening thud. The 9am broadcast falls silent. All Barbara can hear is ringing in her own ears, and, above that, her sister’s sobs. Then comes her father’s voice: your sister is your responsibility. Followed by another voice, that taunts her: happy birthday, Barbara. Happy birthday to you.
It’s almost 9am, and Barbara is ready for her day. She’s had her breakfast, and brushed her teeth. And now she’ll listen to the news, before a morning of pottering about to Nine to Noon. She pushes the button of the hot-pink device that Colin’s son gave her for Christmas, then presses the red RNZ symbol on her phone. Barbara still doesn’t understand how this works – something to do with teeth? Not that it matters, as long as it works, and here’s the birdsong now, followed by the beeps. The 9am news on RNZ: always different, yet still comforting in its sameness, especially after all these years.
Getty Images / Unsplash
Joan had better not interrupt her solitude. Her sister had been calling all week, even contacting her through the chat function on FarmTown, which was particularly irritating. ‘Come on a trip with me,’ Joan said, over and over. Joan and Colin’s widow had recently gone halves on a motorhome, but the other woman was busy this week. ‘I don’t want to travel alone, Barbara. Let’s go on an adventure and see the country.’
‘No, I can’t.’ Barbara had said. ‘I’m busy.’
‘You can bring your tablet with you, you know. You can play FarmTown, andwon’t lose your Wordle streak.’
‘I can’t come – I have other plans.’ And she did: Wednesday was her day for volunteering at the charity shop, Thursday was supermarket day, and she didn’t want to miss aqua jogging – her knees weren’t getting any better, and being in the water helped. Plans that seemed perfectly fine earlier, but now felt dull because they didn’t involve sleeping in cow paddocks or by the sea or God only knew where else. ‘I won’t join you. But have fun.’
‘Oh, I will,’ Joan said loudly – must she always be so loud? And, with that, she was gone.
The news report has started. A woman speaks from the hot pink device about Trump, about taxes, and about something a government minister has said. And then, ‘we report that two campervans have had a fatal collision on State Highway One ….’
Barbara gasps. Joan? But, no, she need not worry. Of course her sister wouldn’t be involved in a crash. Of course not.
The report continues: more political stories,then sport.
Joan will surely call soon, and interrupt Barbara, just like she always does. Her sister will have a long complicated story about some calamity that was of her own making, and speak so loudly that Barbara’s ears will hurt.
It’s now the weather, and the traffic report. From the echoes of time, Barbara hears her father’s voice: your sister is your responsibility.
Still nothing.
Joan? She thinks. Please call me. You can even message me through FarmTown, I promise I won’t mind.
Still nothing. And now the 9am report is over – she has listened to it, all the way through, without interruptions.
Barbara takes a deep breath, and reaches for her phone.
She turns the radio off.
Lauren Keenan (Te Āti Awa ki Taranaki) is an award-winning writer of historical fiction for both children and adults, as well as historical non-fiction.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
A major increase in rescues on a popular Mount Aspiring National Park track has prompted a new safety campaign.
The Mountain Safety Council hopes a new video that highlights the rugged terrain and rapidly changing alpine conditions on the Brewster Track will help trampers better prepare, after two deaths in five years and 26 rescues in the past two years.
Chief executive Mike Daisley said people often fell into trouble trying to cross the Haast River or beyond Brewster Hut on the exposed, rugged and unmarked route to Brewster Glacier.
He said an inter-agency taskforce was set up in April 2024, with representatives from the council, Department of Conservation (DOC), Land Search & Rescue New Zealand, MetService and police.
“We wanted to find a workable solution that didn’t stop people from enjoying this environment,” he said. “It’s not about saying ‘don’t go’ – it’s about being prepared.”
A new video highlights the rugged terrain and rapidly changing alpine conditions on the path to Brewster Glacier.Photo: Claire Concannon / RNZ
The video was published on YouTube and DOC installed new signs at the start of the track and hut last summer, warning trampers of hazards like rapidly changing alpine weather, the river crossing and difficult terrain.
“There’s quite a gap between the type of walk people are expecting and what they actually ultimately find on the track,” Daisley said.
The choice to focus on education, rather than building a more clearly marked route, came down to the terrain.
“Mother nature has its own way of doing things,” he said. “That extreme alpine environment tends to destroy things that are man-made pretty quickly, so there’s a bit of an element of futility.
“Also, it’s of big conservation value, the environment that’s there. Building tracks through these things is not the first option.”.
DOC Central Otago operations manager Charlie Sklenar said people should plan using reliable sources, like the council’s Plan My Walk tool, rather than unofficial social media posts.
“DOC doesn’t manage any of the hazards between the end of the track at the hut and Brewster Glacier,” she said. “The terrain there is more challenging than it looks and requires experience in hiking off-track in remote New Zealand alpine areas.
“You’ll still get incredible views and some great naturing experiences right from the hut – without putting yourself at risk.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Video posted to social media shows the fire on Dorie Beach, near Rakaia, Canterbury.Photo: Supplied / Local Democracy Reporting
A Rakaia fisherman has complained to authorities, after filming a man dumping trash on the beach and setting it alight.
Ashburton District Council confirmed a person had been fined $400 after the incident.
Adam ‘Abbo’ Williams was fishing on Dorie Beach, near the South Rakaia Huts, on Thursday, when a man pulled up with a trailer of rubbish.
Williams captured the encounter on video, which showed the man lit some of the rubbish on fire and was preparing to add more.
In an expletive-laden telling off, Williams asked the man to pack up the unburnt items and leave.
The short video showed old furniture ablaze on the beach, while other items were being loaded back onto the trailer at Williams’ request.
Williams later posted the video to social media, where it was shared almost 1000 times, before he removed it.
The local fisherman said he had reported the incident to police and Environment Canterbury, and did not want to comment further, as the matter was now under investigation.
The Ashburton District Council was also provided with the video of the incident.
Council compliance and development group manager Ian Hyde said an individual was identified and issued a $400 fine under the Litter Act.
“We know that our community has no tolerance for this sort of behaviour.
“Far too often, illegal dumping ruins the enjoyment and natural beauty of our open spaces, and we won’t hesitate to investigate and take enforcement action against those who display such disregard for our environment and other people.
“We thank the members of the public who brought this to our attention and enabled us to take action.”
The matter has also been referred to Environment Canterbury for investigation, he said.
ECan central compliance team leader Gillian Jenkins said the regional council was also aware of the video circulating on social media of an outdoor burning incident near the Rakaia Huts.
“We have initiated an investigation into this event.
“As the regional authority, our role is to investigate potential breaches of the Canterbury Air Regional Plan, including outdoor burning activities that may cause harmful smoke discharges or public safety concerns.
“We work closely with Fire and Emergency New Zealand, which is the lead agency for fire safety.
“If a breach is confirmed, appropriate compliance action will be taken in line with the Resource Management Act and ECan’s enforcement policy.
“As this matter is now under investigation, we won’t be providing ongoing public comment.”
A police spokesperson said the incident is not currently a police matter.
Fire and Emergency NZ confirmed there was a temporary fire ban in place in Canterbury from 22-27 October, due to the severe weather event, but the region was now in an open-fire season.
Outdoor fires are allowed without a permit, but it acknowledged there “may be council fire bylaws in play at the beach”.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Severe thunderstorm warnings and watches for Northland and Auckland have been lifted, although a yellow watch is still in place for Fiordland and some parts of the West Coast.
For Northland and Auckland, the now-finished cautions were lifted on Saturday night after 8pm, but had warned of storms that could send marble-sized hail and flooding-levels of torrential rainfall through the areas through the evening.
In the south, the remaining yellow heavy rain watch is expected to last until 5pm Monday and the area could also experience thunderstorms.
As storms approach, the National Emergency Management Agency recommends people prepare by sheltering indoors away from windows, avoiding trees, secure loose items on your property, check drains and gutters are clear, and – if on the road – be ready to slow or stop.
During and after storms, people should be careful of fallen trees and power-lines, and stay away from streams and drains, as flash flooding may still occur.
The new car park will be built on the right-hand side of Egmont Road, just before the park’s gatehouse.Photo: Supplied / New Plymouth District Council
Construction of a new car park at the popular Egmont Road entrance to Te Papakura o Taranaki will begin next week.
In recent years, the existing car park at the visitor centre at the top of Egmont Road has overflowed causing bottlenecks and forcing the road to be periodically closed.
Project manager lead Gordon Davenport said the new 145-space car park was part of the New Plymouth District Council’s investment in the tourism sector by providing the right infrastructure where it’s needed.
“It’s well-known that there’s a parking crunch along Egmont Road up to the visitor centre during peak season – there just aren’t enough parking spaces to meet the demand, but also no-one wants to eat into the park’s natural environment by extending any of those existing parking areas.”
Davenport said the Waiwhakaiho Track would open directly onto the new car park, and there would be the opportunity for private shuttle bus operators to run services between the car park and the visitor centre at the top of Egmont Road during busy periods of the year.
“Taranaki has a reputation for having great outdoor experiences and this car park will build on that by making it easier for people to enjoy our stunning maunga.”
NPDC bought the block of farmland for the new car park in 2019.
Construction would begin on 10 November and the car park was scheduled to open for public use in April next year.
The car park would include toilets, a hand sanitising station and a shelter.
The Mangorei Road car park at the entrance to Te Papakura o Taranaki’s Mangorei Track, which opened on Christmas Day 2018, had proved popular during peak periods with overflow parking sometimes required on an adjacent grassed areas.
Fast facts:
Te Papakura o Taranaki is jointly managed by iwi and the Crown, with the Department of Conservation in charge of day-to-day operations.
NPDC manages 1600ha of park and reserve land around the district.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
When you think of New Zealand fashion, you may picture the glamour of Auckland or the creativity of Wellington, but Christchurch has been enjoying a cultural renaissance with many musicians, artists and creatives now calling Ōtautahi home.
This weekend, New Zealand Fashion Week presents the first-ever Christchurch Spring Fashion Festival, showcasing local and emerging designers as part of a jam-packed three-day event.
Designers told RNZ they’ve seen a change in Cantabrians’ approach to fashion, which has been synonymous with the earthquake rebuild.
Can Christchurch kick its conservative past?
Menswear designer Murray Crane is no stranger to bucking the trend.
Despite growing up in a small rural town in Canterbury, Crane wore suits bought from op shops to mufti days at Geraldine High School.
He says Christchurch’s men’s style tends to be more conservative and classic, which suits his clothing brand, Crane Brothers.
“It definitely differs from Auckland. I think it’s not so flamboyant. It’s a bit more classic, a little bit more refrained.”
Murray Crane launched his menswear label Crane Brothers in 2000.
Supplied
Fashion icon Doris de Pont, founder of the New Zealand Fashion Museum, says the traditional style of the South Island dates back to the European settlement of New Zealand, when the population grew significantly.
She says the post-World War II settlement, which was largely in the North Island, brought more diversity there.
“The South is much more UK-focused… whereas the North is much more diverse,” de Pont says.
While Crane believes Christchurch is still pretty conservative, he says it’s always had an interesting, creative heart to it.
“It’s a bit of an irony, really, you have the traditional conservatism of Christchurch, but then you have this creative community that has always been there.”
A model walks in The New Guard runway show at Christchurch Spring Fashion Festival on Friday night.
Radlab
In recent years, however, young people have been moving to Christchurch in droves, which has transformed the city’s fashion landscape.
Kiwi fashion designer Caitlin Crisp grew up in Christchurch but moved to Auckland after the 2011 earthquakes.
Coming back to visit, she has seen the transformation in the city.
“Over the years, the colour, the spirit and the energy have just gotten better and better. It’s such an awesome place now, and I think that feeling for everyone translates into clothing [and] how we act.”
From left to right: Melanie Wade, Caitlin Crisp, Mary Outram and Skye Marryatt all wearing Caitlin Crisp.
RNZ/Molly Swift
Second-hand fashionistas will likely know the iconic pink building in the heart of Christchurch, which is home to the vintage consignment store Nifty.
Starting as a monthly flea market in 2018, four years later, Nifty opened its doors as a permanent store – a testament to the growing second-hand market in the Garden City.
Nifty founder and owner Rosie Carroll.
RNZ/Molly Swift
Inside, it’s a blast from the past. A plethora of pre-loved pieces await, from racks of vintage denim jeans and pops of ’60s colour to ’80s-styled bomber jackets.
Owner and founder Rosie Carroll says the Christchurch rebuild created a blank slate and allowed small businesses to get a foot in the door.
“We’ve never really been known for fashion or pre-loved fashion; it’s more been other amazing cities like Wellington and Auckland. So it’s been really amazing to be a part of the journey and see it grow,” she says.
“I think it is definitely a testament to all the incredible young people who don’t feel tied to, or pressured, to wear a certain piece of clothing.”
Designer Adrion Williams and partner Mark both wearing Williams’ brand Adrion Atelier.
RNZ/Molly Swift
Carroll says she has seen the city’s style evolve.
“We had a reputation for more of a conservative sense of fashion that is tied to our roots,” she says.
“However, I have definitely noticed in the last 10 years people are taking way more risks, and I am seeing a lot more individuality.”
Is blue the new black?
Christchurch’s colder climate plays a role in how people dress, with coats and woollen jumpers a wardrobe staple.
Canterbury’s history of fibre production plays a role in the clothes Cantabrians choose to wrap ourselves up in during the colder months.
“The fibre that was grown in the South Island was a big part of the fashion story. The wools of New Zealand come primarily from the south.”
While it’s definitely colder down south, that doesn’t mean people need to dress in darker colours, Crisp says.
Beautiful colours and light-toned neutrals are a staple in her label’s collections.
“We do so many beautiful, tailored blazers, coats and knitwear, because you can wrap yourself up warm and be wearing a fuzzy, beautiful pink jumper or tweed blazer and feel even more fabulous,” she says.
Crisp says while chocolate brown is still a hot colour, heading into the summer, blue is the colour of choice.
Also leading into Christmas, we tend to gravitate to red, she says – a subtle nod to the time of year.
“I feel amazing when I put a coat or piece of clothing on that isn’t black. It lifts my spirit and makes me feel so put together and ready for the day.”
‘Some of the best designers in New Zealand’
The Spring Fashion Festival kicked off on Friday night at the James Hay Theatre inside the Christchurch Town Hall.
Australian fashion retailer The Iconic presented ‘The New Guard’, which unveiled its newest collections from exclusive designers LOVER & minima esenciales, followed by a curated edit of New Zealand’s next generation of fashion designers.
The runway came alive with a curated blend of neutrals, polka dots, silk, tartan, and bold colours of blue, pink and red. Sheer lace tops and flowy skirts glided down the stage, accessorised with kitten heels and small woven bags.
New Zealand Fashion Week board director Liam Taylor says the Christchurch Spring Fashion Festival showcases a whole series of looks from multiple designers, as opposed to the shows in Auckland, which tend to be a standalone format.
“Every designer has sent between five and six looks down, so you’re going to see a collage of some of the best designers in New Zealand,” Taylor said.
Doris de Pont is the director of the New Zealand Fashion Museum.
Max Lemesh
Doris De Pont is excited that fashion week has been brought to Christchurch.
“It’s a celebration … in honouring the pioneer women of Christchurch,” she says.
“I think it’s lovely to see fashion being recognised as an economic driver, an important part of our cultural story, that it’s been given a place again.”
Crisp, who will present a solo runway event at Christchurch Spring Fashion Festival on Saturday night, says it’s a great opportunity to support local designers.
Many South Island designers feel they have to go to Auckland to get somewhere in the fashion industry, she says, but that’s changing.
“That energy is really back in the city,” she says.
“When you feel good, you dress your best.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
A feature story authored by a student journalist highlighting the harm plastic pollution poses to human health in Fiji — with risks expected to rise significantly if robust action is not taken soon — has won the Online category of the 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Awards — Cleaner Pacific.
USP student journalists won two out of four categories in the awards.
Launched during the 7th Pacific Media Summit by Niue’s Prime Minister, Dalton Tagelagi, the awards celebrate excellence in environmental news reporting across the Pacific Island region.
The theme, Cleaner Pacific, spotlights the urgent need to tackle plastic pollution, one of the triple planetary crises threatening the planet, alongside climate change and biodiversity loss.
A story titled Managing Solid Waste in Gizo, a tough task, by award-winning Solomon Islands journalist, Moffat Mamu, of the Solomon Star, and also a USP graduate, won the Print category.
Coverage of the Vatuwaqa Rugby Club’s efforts to keep their community clean, by Fijian journalist Joeli Tikomaimaleya of Fiji TV, picked up the Television category.
Wansolwara’s Niko Ratumaimuri . . . winner of the Student category of the Vision Pasifika Media Awards.
The 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Awards is a partnership facilitated by SPREP with the Australian government through support for Pacific engagement in the INC on plastic pollution and the Pacific Ocean Litter Project (POLP), Office of the Pacific Ocean Commissioner (OPOC) and the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA).
SPREP Director-General Sefanaia Nawadra said: “We are drowning under a sea of waste! The Pacific media is critical in ensuring we in the Pacific understand the challenges of waste and pollution and share ways we can work towards its effective management.
“Many of our waste issues originate from outside our region and our Pacific media must help our countries advocate for global action on waste especially plastic.”
New Zealand Pro-Palestine protesters gathered at West Auckland’s Te Pai Park today, celebrating successes of the BDS movement against apartheid Israel while condemning the failure of the country’s coalition government to impose sanctions against the pariah state.
“They’ve done nothing,” said Neil Scott, secretary of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).
He outlined successes of the global BDS Movement and explained now New Zealanders could keep up the pressure on the NZ government and on the Zionist state that had been “systematically” breaching the US-brokered “ceasefire” in Gaza.
The criticisms followed the condemnation of New Zealand’s stance last week by the secretary-general of the global human rights group Amnesty International, Agnès Callamard, who said the government had a “Trumpian accent” and had remained silent on Gaza.
“Internationally, we don’t hear New Zealand. We haven’t heard New Zealand on some of the fundamental challenges that we are confronting, including Israel’s genocide, Palestine or climate,” she said in a RNZ radio interview.
Te Atatu MP Phil Twyford also spoke at the Te Pai Park rally, saying that the government was “going backwards” from the country’s traditional independent foreign policy and that it was “riddled with Zionists”.
After the rally, protesters marched on the local McDonalds franchise. McDonalds Israel is accused of supporting the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) genocidal crimes in Gaza by supplying free meals to the military, prompting a global BDS boycott.
Türkiye arrest warrants for Israelis Meanwhile, Türkiye has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and 36 other suspects over Gaza genocide charges
Israel, under Netanyahu, has killed close to 69,000 people, mostly women and children, and wounded more than 170,600 others in the genocide in Gaza since October 2023.
PSNA secretary Neil Scott speaking at today’s Te Pai Park rally in West Auckland. Image: Asia Pacific Report
TRT World News reports that the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said yesterday it had issued arrest warrants for 37 suspects, including Netanyahu, on charges of “genocide” in Gaza.
In a statement, the Prosecutor’s Office said the warrants were issued after an extensive investigation into Israel’s “systematic” attacks on civilians in Gaza, which it described as acts of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The probe was launched following complaints filed by victims and representatives of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a civilian humanitarian mission, that was recently intercepted by Israeli naval forces while attempting to deliver aid to Gaza.
A “Free Gaza now” placard at today’s Te Pai Park rally in West Auckland. Image: Asia Pacific Report
The statement said evidence gathered from victims, eyewitnesses, and international law provisions indicated that Israeli military and political leaders were directly responsible for ordering and carrying out attacks on hospitals, aid convoys, and civilian infrastructure.
Citing specific incidents, the Prosecutor’s Office referred to the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab by Israeli soldiers, the bombing of al-Ahli Arab Hospital that killed more than 500 people, and the strike on the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, among other atrocities.
Turkiye has issued arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials, accusing them of ‘genocide and crimes against humanity’ over Israel’s war on Gaza https://t.co/ijOfz1wZSFpic.twitter.com/34UJIQosKR
Additional war crimes The office said that the investigation determined Israel’s blockade of Gaza had “deliberately prevented humanitarian assistance from reaching civilians,” constituting an additional war crime under international law.
The suspects, including Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi, and Navy Commander David Saar Salama, were accused of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.”
As the individuals are not currently in Türkiye, the Prosecutor’s Office requested the court to issue international arrest warrants (red notices) for their detention and extradition.
The investigation is being carried out with the cooperation of the Istanbul Police Department and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), and it remains ongoing.
The statement concluded that Türkiye’s legal actions are based on its obligations under international humanitarian law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, affirming the country’s commitment to accountability for war crimes and justice for the victims in Gaza.
Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave and Türkiye has joined South Africa and other countries in bringing the allegations.
A fragile ceasefire has been in force in the devastated Palestinian territory since October 10 as part of US President Donald Trump’s regional peace plan.
The Islamist militant group Hamas welcomed Türkiye’s announcement, calling it a “commendable measure [confirming] the sincere positions of the Turkish people and their leaders, who are committed to the values of justice, humanity and fraternity that bind them to our oppressed Palestinian people”.
The Te Pai Park pro-Palestinian rally in West Auckland today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, President, Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and Professor of History, Australian National University
There is no modern Australian politician whose name is as synonymous with a certain way of doing politics as that of Graham Richardson, who has died at 76 after a long battle with cancer.
Whatever it Takes was the apt title of Richardson’s 1994 memoir, a book that achieved a notoriety because of its author’s defence of lying.
That notoriety typified some of the hypocrisy that has marked commentary on Richardson’s career as the ultimate Labor powerbroker. Everyone knows that politicians lie. And, as an account of his controversial career, there were more holes in Richardson’s book than a slice of Swiss cheese. Nonetheless, it had a certain rough-and-tumble frankness that gained him attention and readers.
One paradox of Richardson’s public life is that he was very good at getting attention even while much of his most consequential political activity happened far from the prying eyes of the public. In the proverbial, and often literal, smoke-filled back rooms, plots were hatched, deals done, and plans made to elevate someone or other, or do them over – all of it laid down with a careful precision belied by the apparently easy-going gregariousness of the man.
Born on September 27 1949, Richardson was the son of Fred, who would become state secretary of the Amalgamated Postal Workers’ Union. His mother, Peggy, worked as his father’s office manager for a time and reputedly had fine political judgement.
Graham was educated at Sydney Catholic schools and joined the Labor Party at 17. A brief stint studying law at the University of Sydney came to naught: as one of a group of ambitious young men on the Labor Party Right that included Paul Keating and Kerry Sibraa, he was made for an early plunge into politics.
The rise was swift. He was working in the New South Wales Labor Party office by 1971 and in 1976, became state secretary. Neville Wran’s landslide win in the 1978 NSW state election – the first of two “Wranslides”, as they were called, both while Richardson was in charge of the party machine – did much to focus attention on his skills. His name became synonymous with deals done around the lazy Susan in Chinese restaurants.
Unfortunately for Richardson, his name also became synonymous with a state party whose affairs descended into criminality and violence as Left and Right stacked branches relentlessly in their struggle for political control of the inner-city.
Historian Craig Wilcox has rather euphemistically described Richardson as having “loosely umpired” this bitter contest. In reality, he was up to his eyeballs in it and acquired some deeply unpleasant allies along the way.
It is unlikely Richardson had the capacity to control the worst of them, and that would culminate in one of the most notorious instances of violence in Australian political history: the bashing of Left activist Peter Baldwin in July 1980, in connection with a struggle for control of the Enmore branch. Images of Baldwin’s horrifically battered face on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers were not going to lived down any time soon by a party official who had been flaunting his ability to make things happen.
By then, Richardson was already a kingmaker and breaker. As NSW factional warlord, he played a key role in the demise of Bill Hayden’s federal leadership in 1982 and his replacement by Bob Hawke in early 1983.
In 1991, with Richardson now a senior cabinet minister and still the man wielding the Right’s numbers in his home state, it was Hawke’s turn to be dethroned. Later, during a low point for the government following the 1993 election, Richardson was apparently manoeuvring against Keating. But by then, his clout had seriously declined.
He had entered the Senate in 1983 and was a key figure in shaping the national faction system within the Labor Party that has prevailed ever since. Alongside Robert Ray who led the Victorian Right, Richardson was able to play a formidably influential role in both matters of policy and the division of ministerial and other spoils.
Richardson’s dodgy associations continued to dog him as he rose to positions of greater power in the Hawke government. There was the “Love Boat” scandal, in which Australians were invited to picture a naked Richardson, along with other Sydney identities, frolicking with a prostitute on Sydney Harbour. The woman concerned later recanted the story, but the incident had again exposed Richardson’s tendency to become embroiled in scandal. The Enmore affair, as the Baldwin bashing was called, continued to dog him.
But another side to Richardson emerged in 1986: the man who had seen the light and converted to environmentalism. He credited an unlikely trip to Tasmania with Bob Brown to look at the forests for this surprising outcome.
But it wasn’t really such a surprise: the electoral potency of conservation was becoming too obvious for this famously astute operator to ignore. Following Labor’s victory at the 1987 election, Richardson became minister for the environment and the arts, entering the full Cabinet six months later with sport, tourism and territories added to his responsibilities.
Decisions to save forests in Queensland and Tasmania, and the protection from mining of Kakadu National Park, owed much to his growing influence.
Richardson must be considered instrumental in the longevity of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, through the electoral deals with the Greens that these decisions facilitated, and his ability to extract large sums of money from the rich.
The latter, however, raised questions about the integrity of the government as well as its relationship to dodgy entrepreneurs. But the money was critical to the 1987 win and the Greens preferences to the slim 1990 victory, won on the back of a primary vote of less than 40%. Richardson played a central part in each case, but was furious after the 1990 election when Hawke tried to shunt him off to London as high commissioner. Instead, he took on the thankless social security portfolio.
The last years of Richardson’s career were mired in scandal. There was the Marshall Islands affair, when he was alleged to have sought to exercise influence on behalf of a businessman and friend who was also a cousin by marriage.
That led to his 1992 resignation as communications minister, the job Keating had given him on his elevation to the prime ministership. After time on the backbench, he was back as health minister following Keating’s surprise 1993 election win, but he retired from politics the following year.
Richardson subsequently had a lucrative career as a lobbyist and in the media. He was also a member of the Organising Committee for the Sydney Olympic Games.
He suffered declining health following a cancer diagnosis in 1999 but continued his work as a media commentator with fortitude. He had a son and daughter by his first marriage, to Cheryl, in 1973, and a son by a subsequent marriage to Amanda.
His chequered, contested career will loom large in any assessment of what the Australian Labor Party, and even Australian society, became in the final decades of the 20th century.
Frank Bongiorno does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on November 8, 2025.
Gaza ‘ceasefire’ simply means that Israel can do whatever it wants. We can’t. A Gaza resident tells his story of the struggle to survive in Israel’s Gaza genocide today, “ceasefire” or not. SPECIAL REPORT: By Qasem Waleed El-Farra On October 19, Israel launched a barrage of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, killing dozens of people in a blatant violation of US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan, which had
NZ government has ‘Trumpian accent’, says global human rights advocate RNZ News The current New Zealand government has a “Trumpian accent” that should be a red flag for the people, one of the world’s leading human rights voices says. Amnesty International secretary-general Agnès Callamard spoke this week on 30 with Guyon Espiner during her first official visit to New Zealand. Once a country that was
Daylight robbery? How London’s skyscrapers deprive marginalised people of light Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Casper Laing Ebbensgaard, Lecturer in Human Geography, University of East Anglia When you look at the promotional materials advertising luxury high-rise developments in London, it is obvious that the fantasy of living in the sky is fused by a desire for sunlight and “unobstructed” views of the
View from The Hill: Could the return of Josh Frydenberg help the Liberals’ fortunes? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra No matter how many times you see a leader being torn apart, the brutality of it always shocking. In the latest assault on Sussan Ley, Victorian senator Sarah Henderson, a rightwinger and strong opponent of net zero, declared on Friday,
Here’s why morning exercise feels so hard Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels Your alarm goes off. Somehow you manage to get dressed, drag yourself to the gym, and start squatting. But why does it feel so hard? Your legs are heavy and the weight you lifted only
Trump’s ratings slump as shutdown grinds on; Democrats have big wins in state elections Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Donald Trump’s net approval has slumped to its lowest this term as the United States government shutdown breaks the record for the longest shutdown. Democrats had big
A Gaza resident tells his story of the struggle to survive in Israel’s Gaza genocide today, “ceasefire” or not.
SPECIAL REPORT:By Qasem Waleed El-Farra
On October 19, Israel launched a barrage of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, killing dozens of people in a blatant violation of US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan, which had come into effect just over a week earlier.
And a day after world leaders had gathered in Egypt to discuss implementation, I went back to my neighborhood in eastern Khan Younis on October 14 to gather anything that could protect me and my family against the approaching winter — clothes, sheets, wood, books even, for those cold nights where there will be little else to do but read.
I had not long been searching through the rubble of my home — which has been completely destroyed — when I heard shooting and saw people running.
I had been in enough of such situations to know not to ask questions. I left everything I had pulled from under the rubble and fled back toward downtown Khan Younis.
While we were — yet again — fleeing our area, I learned that an Israeli quadcopter had attacked a group of civilians in the area. One of them, I was told, was shot right in the heart.
I’ve faced death many times throughout the genocide. But this time was different. This was just one day after Trump, backed by a number of world leaders, announced a plan to bring peace to Gaza and the Middle East.
That day, Israel had also announced that Zikim beach, which is located in the Gaza Strip envelope, to enable the Israeli settlers there to “breathe again.”
When I arrived in my tent in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, I pondered just one question: Is this the ceasefire they want to bring us? Or do they just want to announce a cessation of violence, but have no interest in enforcing it?
Targeting global solidarity As a person in Gaza who has been living through a genocide for two years and five major Israeli attacks on Gaza before that, the term “ceasefire” is selective and always shadowed with deadly threats.
As far as I have experienced, the word simply means that Israel is able to do whatever it wants. We aren’t.
More broadly, for Israel, ”peace” in Palestine equals a Palestine with no Palestinians, as Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior government ministers have made very clear.
Over the years, Palestinians have learned the hard way that when the colonial plans and their various institutional manifestations — from the Peel Commission in 1936 to Trump’s “Board of Peace” — are formed, allegedly to bring peace, the oppressed people’s rights are lost.
The reason is that behind the proposal, there is always a gun pointed at us.
Or, like how Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, put it: “Ceasefire according to Israel = ‘you cease, I fire.’”
💥Again: Ceasefire according to Israel=“you cease, I fire.” Calling it “peace” is both an insult and a distraction. All eyes on Palestine: Israel must face justice, sanctions, divestment, boycott UNTIL occupation, apartheid and genocide are over and every crime is accounted for. https://t.co/K73I2177Ms
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) October 14, 2025
When I read through the Trump-Netanyahu 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza, all I could think of is that we have gone back a century in time: It is another colonial promise of peace that includes everyone but Palestinians, the land’s native population.
Of course, in Gaza, we all want this ceasefire to hold, to save what remains of our home. Still, it does not take a genius to see that the ceasefire plan is nothing but a grotesque charade directed by Trump and Netanyahu — a desperate move to save Israel from being internationally isolated, especially after the unprecedented pro-Palestine demonstrations across the globe.
Thus, the plan deprives Gaza of the increasing momentum of world support, while also resulting in the continued loss of people and land in Gaza. It is either Netanyahu’s rock or Trump’s hard place.
On-off genocide The ceasefire plan depends fundamentally on a phased Israeli withdrawal “based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarisation that will be agreed upon between the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], ISF [International Stabilisation Force], the guarantors, and the United States.”
In more precise terms, there is no specified timeline.
This means that with Israeli troops withdrawal to the yellow line on the plan’s map, it is still in control of 58 percent of Gaza, and while some people might be able to return to their areas of residence, I cannot.
The plan has allowed Israel to do what it does best — stall, manipulate and deceive. By October 28, according to Gaza’s authorities, Israel had breached the ceasefire 125 times.
The killings continue, aid is still being hindered and the Rafah crossing remains closed, denying people travel to receive urgent medical treatment.
A significant reason for the continued killing in Gaza is that the Israeli withdrawal lines are tricky and ambiguous, even unknown to locals, especially those who live in the eastern part of Gaza.
On October 17, for instance, Israel killed 11 members of the Abu Shaaban family: seven children, three women and the father, as they returned to check on their house in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood of eastern Gaza City.
In my neighborhood, Sheikh Nasser, in eastern Khan Younis, neighbors marked a destroyed house with a big red sheet to warn others not to cross further.
We have witnessed two prior ceasefire agreements in the past two years of genocide. Both times I hoped they would bring an end to our misery. Many of us in Gaza remain very sceptical about this ceasefire, and we can’t afford to let hope in our hearts again.
Israel loves to fish in muddy water, or, like we in Gaza like to put it, ala nakshah, meaning that Israel is merely awaiting any slight excuse to resume the killing.
Netanyahu has repeatedly made it obvious that it’s either his political future or our future. For as long as he is in power, Israel will keep coming for us in an on-off genocide in order to make our misery constant.
This is the “peace” we are offered after two years of suffering the crime of crimes.
Qasem Waleed El-Farra is a physicist based in Gaza. His article was first published by The Electronic Intifada on 6 November 2025.
The current New Zealand government has a “Trumpian accent” that should be a red flag for the people, one of the world’s leading human rights voices says.
Amnesty International secretary-general Agnès Callamard spoke this week on 30 with Guyon Espiner during her first official visit to New Zealand.
Once a country that was seen internationally as “punching above its weight” in terms of human rights, Callamard said it was not currently seen as having a strong voice.
“New Zealand has always been a country that, what is the expression, punched above its weight. In human rights terms, in solidarity terms, you know, by holding the line on a number of very fundamental questions.
“Right now, this is not what is happening.”
This led to the government having a “certain Trumpian accent”, she said.
Amnesty’s top official says New Zealand is losing its reputation as a human rights leader Video: RNZ News
“These are red flags, I think, for the New Zealand people, because, you know, the shift can happen very quickly.
“At Amnesty International, we are worried about this evolution. Internationally, we don’t hear New Zealand. We haven’t heard New Zealand on some of the fundamental challenges that we are confronting, including Israel’s genocide, Palestine or climate.”
Critical of Trump Callamard was critical of United States President Donald Trump — saying she would not give him any credit for his actions regarding the Gaza ceasefire.
“For the last 10 months of power, he has shielded Israel,” Callamard said.
“Everyone agrees that this ceasefire, this deal, could have been made in March. This deal could have been made in June.
“Okay, it’s being made now. But why did we have to wait so long? Israel would never have been able to do what they’ve done without the support of the US.”
She said she was “super happy” the bombing had stopped but she would not thank the US for waiting “24 months” to act.
New Zealand’s silence on issues, including the war in Gaza, was being noticed internationally, she said, with “dwindling voices coming from the Western world”.
‘Speak loud. We need you’ It was something she had raised with the government itself, although not resonating in a positive way.
“They don’t see it that way. I see it that way. We just have to leave it at that.
“We have different views on how New Zealand stands right now, and it is a critical juncture for the world and any voice that we don’t hear any more for the protection of the rules-based order is dramatic.
“I want to invite the New Zealand people and New Zealand leaders to really please speak up. Speak loud. We need you.”
The Prime Minister’s Office has been contacted for comment.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
When you look at the promotional materials advertising luxury high-rise developments in London, it is obvious that the fantasy of living in the sky is fused by a desire for sunlight and “unobstructed” views of the city. Phrases such as “the brightest addition to London’s skyline” or apartments being “flooded with natural light” and offering “expansive sky views” are common.
It is a dream with a dark side, however, which plays out below in the shadows of London’s mushrooming cityscape. In a recent paper, I show how daylight and shadow are unevenly distributed across the urban population. Vulnerable and marginalised residents are disproportionately affected by overshadowing, a lack of privacy and the overbearing nature of new high-rise developments.
Dubbing such socially skewed access to daylight “light violence”, as I do, may sound dramatic. But it captures something insidious.
When you build tall buildings, it is no surprise that they cast shadows in the surrounding environment. In northern climates, where sunlight is scarce, especially during long, overcast winter days, the compounding effect of living in shadows can be potentially harmful. Scientific studies show that depriving people of daylight can lead to increased stress, sleep disruption and early onset of myopia or short-sightedness. Sudden changes in daylight are also linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases.
To protect the health and wellbeing of residents, the UK’s Building Research Establishment (BRE) issue national planning guidance that sets out minimum daylight levels. Yet, in practice, the guidance is advisory. And in cases where a proposed development breaches the BRE guidelines, they are easily dismissed and breaches often deemed legally acceptable.
Take the example of Buckle Street Studio, a 13-storey apartment hotel that caused daylight to drop to levels in breach of BRE guidance for 201 windows across 166 rooms in 58 individual flats in neighbouring buildings. As I show in my paper, for each of these 58 homes, the drop in daylight levels amount to material harm. It is a deterioration of the living environment that will compromise the health and wellbeing of its residents.
Standing a mere nine meters from the newly built tower, Goldpence Apartments, a seven-storey housing block comprised of social and affordable homes, was the worst affected block. Of the 58 households in Goldpence apartments, 35 would be directly affected by the development. In fact, 33 residents submitted written objections that expressed both a concern for their individual homes and the lack of light for communal spaces in the neighbourhood.
The proposal was called in for a public inquiry, with a planning inspector assessing the reasons for the council’s refusal. In the final report, he sided with the developer and said that the existing levels of amenity and low levels of daylight in neighbouring buildings constituted a local norm, which the residents in Goldpence Apartments should expect
The research draws attention to the legal process through which the harm resulting from a drop in daylight is both neutralised in the planning inquiry and normalised through the planning process. Levels breaching the BRE regulations would be expected, because neighbouring flats already had poor living conditions.
I argue that this kind of race to the bottom amounts to a form of soft or light violence. It is a legally accepted and politically encouraged erosion of living conditions that disproportionately affects vulnerable and marginalised residents.
A dark future?
When Buckle Street Studios completed, the residents in Goldpence Apartments were not only exhausted from the lengthy planning process but had lost faith in the planning system’s ability to protect them. As I show in a related paper,
they had to come to terms with no longer being able to see the sky from inside their homes.
Many left their curtains drawn all day or rearranged furniture in their children’s bedrooms to prevent neighbours overlooking them. Instead of letting their defeat define them, the residents developed coping strategies that have allowed them to process and deal with the imposing presence of Buckle Street Studios.
This demonstrates how people deal with light violence in everyday life by developing innovative solutions to the challenges they face. And, if they can, so too can city builders.
The architects who design the towers of tomorrow should be able to uphold standards and produce healthy living environments rather than detract from them. More sensitive daylight design would include considering the orientation of buildings, the size and placement of windows and in some cases using reflective materials or diffusers.
Yet, to ensure healthy living environments for all the residents in the city – both those living on upper floors flooded in natural light, and those living below – city-builders must acknowledge the deeper challenge of addressing the socioeconomic divisions that are created as part of new developments. And, they should take the role of design more seriously in challenging residential segregation rather than smoothing over it.
Casper Laing Ebbensgaard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
No matter how many times you see a leader being torn apart, the brutality of it always shocking.
In the latest assault on Sussan Ley, Victorian senator Sarah Henderson, a rightwinger and strong opponent of net zero, declared on Friday, “I do have to say, really honestly, I do think Sussan is losing support. But I do believe in miracles, we can turn things around.
“But things are not good. I don’t support things they way they are at the moment.”
It can be said pretty confidently that Henderson doesn’t believe in miracles. She wants Ley replaced. But she didn’t take the next obvious step, which would be to call for a spill of the leadership when there’s a meeting of the Liberal Parliamentary Party.
Most observers believe Ley will be forced out by her party – the issue is how long it will take. Removing her, the party’s first female leader, this year would be seen as indecent, and (as of now) that is not expected. Anyway, the ducks are not yet in a row.
Henderson’s attack drew the predictable response, with colleagues supporting Ley and Angus Taylor, her main rival, saying he wasn’t challenging.
It was noted that Jane Hume, who has sniped at Ley after being passed over for her front bench, was supportive.
“I think Sussan has been really consistent in her messaging since she was elected. She has wanted to lower emissions, but not at any cost,” Hume said. Hume voted for Taylor. But she is a moderate – and a strong supporter of net zero, the issue of the moment.
The coming week will be hell for Ley and the opposition. If she can’t navigate it successfully, those ducks will be lining up sooner rather than later. If she does, her precarious position will be strengthened, although not permanently.
With a precision that eludes them when it comes to policy substance, the Liberals have set out a timeline for deciding their position on net zero.
On Wednesday there will be a meeting of the Liberal party room, for a general discussion.
On Thursday Liberal shadow ministers will meet. Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan will put a submission for the party’s policy on energy and emissions reductions.
Liberals have been told they must attend these meetings in person – they can only dial in if they are sick or overseas on parliamentary business. Some are muttering about the inconvenience.
After the Liberal shadow ministry meeting three senior Liberals and three senior Nationals will discuss “the respective party positions”. This committee will be asked to come up with a “joint Coalition position”.
That will go on Sunday to a meeting of the joint parties, held virtually, for endorsement “subject to the agreement of both parties”.
That’s the plan. If the two parties can’t get a combined policy, what happens is anyone’s guess. They could agree to disagree. The Coalition could blow up.
Last Sunday, the Nationals announced they had ditched net zero.
As of Friday, it was unclear where the Liberals will land. Certainly their present commitment to net zero by 2050 is dead. The choice is between no mention of net zero at all, or referring to it in some aspirational, long distance form. Things are fluid. The manoeuvring will continue over the next few days.
Standing back from the present imbroglio around net zero and Ley, it’s clear the Liberals have a longer term crisis over leadership.
They can replace Ley with Taylor, or even Andrew Hastie (long shot) but you wouldn’t find many observers who’d think any of them – Ley, Taylor, Hastie – could take the Liberals back to power. Nor is there anyone else in the parliamentary party who stands out.
Given the Liberals are looking at two terms in opposition at a minimum, one interesting question is whether a return to parliament by former treasurer Josh Frydenberg could help.
Frydenberg was defeated in Kooyong in 2022 by the teal Monique Ryan. He now has a senior role in the banking world. But it is well known the former treasurer still yearns for politics. He’s made sure his supporters control the Liberal party in Kooyong.
His autobiography comes out next year, which he has worked on with respected author Gideon Haigh. If Frydenberg hasn’t clarified by then whether he’ll have another crack at Kooying, the speculation will be intense.
At this year’s election, Ryan beat Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer with a two-candidate vote of 50.67-49.33%. Hamer is now running for preselection for the state Liberal seat of Malvern, which may remove the issue of Frydenberg pushing aside a woman who came close.
Kooyong has become a hard electorate for a Liberal candidate, with a high proportion of renters; on the other hand, the redistribution before the last election put some Liberal territory in. Ryan would be hard to dislodge but Frydenberg would have name recognition, having won the seat four times.
From his point of view, if he ran he would be taking a series of gambles. Kos Samaras, from RedBridge political consultancy, says he’d face three challenges in trying to reach the leadership and then make the Liberals electorally competitive. One: winning the seat. Two: winning the support of a party that’s been taken over by regional conservatives. Three: convincing that party to embrace a moderate conservative platform that would be saleable in the big cities.
For the Liberal Party, having Frydenberg in parliament would widen their leadership options, and could encourage the recruitment of some other high-profile candidates, as well as attracting more business support.
Would Frydenberg, if he were leader, be a likely vote winner? Ideologically, he’s centrist. He should be able to carry the economic debate competently. The risk would be that he was seen as a return to the past. But everything is relative and potentially he stands up well against the present Liberal top echelon.
Realistically, the next election would be the last opportunity for Frydenberg, now 54, to try for a return to politics. There will be a lot of polling in Kooyong as he weighs up his future.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Your alarm goes off. Somehow you manage to get dressed, drag yourself to the gym, and start squatting.
But why does it feel so hard? Your legs are heavy and the weight you lifted only a couple of days ago – in the afternoon – feels almost impossible.
No, you’re not imagining it. There’s a large body of evidence to suggest most of us are stronger, more powerful, and have better endurance later in the day.
There are several reasons exercising can feel much harder first thing in the morning. Here’s why, and how you can adjust to morning exercise if you need to.
Your circadian rhythm affects your workout
Your body has a natural 24-hour clock that regulates hormones, body temperature and when you feel most awake or ready for sleep.
This clock is called your circadian rhythm. It is controlled by the brain but can also be influenced by external factors such as sunlight. This might explain why exercising in the morning in winter can be especially hard for some of us.
Research shows your circadian rhythm is clearly linked to exercise performance, which tends to follow a daily pattern.
Most people reach their peak between 4 and 7pm. This means we tend to be stronger, faster and more powerful in the afternoon and early evening.
We don’t know exactly why. But there are a few potential explanations.
Your core body temperature is at its lowest around 5am, and steadily increases across the day. When your body temperature rises, your muscles contract more efficiently. We think this is part of the reason people are typically stronger and more powerful later in the day.
Hormonal fluctuations
Insulin – the hormone that regulates blood sugar (glucose) levels – tends to be highest in the morning. This leads to a decrease in blood sugar, meaning less glucose your body can use as fuel, likely affecting how hard you can push.
Nervous system function
While we don’t know exactly why, there is some evidence to suggest your nervous system is better at sending signals to your muscles throughout the day. This allows you to use more of your muscle fibres during exercise, essentially making you stronger.
But what if I’m a morning person?
Your sleep chronotype can also affect exercise performance.
This describes your natural inclination for sleep and wakefulness at certain parts of the day – basically whether you’re a “morning person” (an “early bird”), or feel more productive and alert in the evening (a “night owl”).
Research shows night owls with a late chronotype do notably worse when exercising in the morning, compared to people with an early chronotype.
While we don’t know why this is the case, it might be that night owls experience smaller fluctuations in hormones and temperature throughout the day – although this is just speculation.
Interestingly, being sleep deprived seems to affect physical performance in the afternoon more than in the morning. So if you’re staying up late and not getting much sleep, you may actually find it easier to exercise the next morning than the next afternoon.
So if you’re exercising to get bigger, stronger and fitter, the timing doesn’t actually matter.
Besides, when we exercise often comes down to motivation and convenience. If you like to exercise earlier in the day and that suits you best, there’s no reason to change.
But you can adapt if you need
If you have a sporting event coming up in the morning – and you usually train in the afternoon – you might want to prepare by doing some early exercise so you’re at your peak.
There is evidence to suggest that repeatedly training in the morning can close the gap between your afternoon and morning performance.
Basically, your body can get used to exercising at a particular time, although it will likely take a few weeks to adapt.
Finally, if you find exercising close to bedtime makes you feel too alert and is disrupting your sleep, you may want to try doing something more gentle at night and/or exercising earlier in the day.
Hunter Bennett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
Donald Trump’s net approval has slumped to its lowest this term as the United States government shutdown breaks the record for the longest shutdown. Democrats had big wins in state elections on Tuesday.
I previously covered the ongoing US government shutdown on October 9, eight days into a shutdown that began on October 1. This shutdown has now lasted 38 days, beating the previous record 35-day shutdown that was set during Trump’s first term.
Although Republicans hold the presidency and majorities in both chambers of Congress, they cannot pass a budget without Democratic support in the Senate owing to the Senate’s requirement for 60 votes out of 100 senators to invoke “cloture” and end a “filibuster”.
Republicans hold a 53–47 majority over Democrats in the Senate, so they need seven Democrats to vote with them to obtain cloture. Democrats are refusing to help to pass a budget unless health insurance subsidies are extended.
For the first three weeks of the shutdown, Trump’s ratings were resilient, with his net approval in analyst Nate Silver’s aggregate of national polls rising slightly to -7.5 on October 19.
But since then, Trump’s net approval has slumped 5.5 points to -13.0, a low for him this term. Currently, 55.1% disapprove of Trump’s performance while 42.1% approve.
Trump’s net approval on the four issues tracked by Silver have all fallen recently. He now has a net approval of -4.9 on immigration, -17.6 on the economy, -17.8 on trade and -28.9 on inflation.
In Silver’s historical comparison on how Trump’s ratings compare with previous presidents since Harry Truman at this point in their presidencies, Trump’s net approval is only better than during his own first term. Joe Biden’s net approval was -8.3 at this point, making him the next worst on net approval.
Since a peak for the US benchmark S&P 500 stock market index on October 29, it has lost 2.5%. But in the last six months, it has gained nearly 20%.
Trump’s ratings will probably rebound if the shutdown ends soon. Unless something goes badly wrong with the US economy or the stock market, his ratings will probably return to net high single-digit negative, not net double-digit negative.
Democrats had big wins at state elections
US state elections occurred on Tuesday in New Jersey and Virginia. Democrats won the Virginia governorship by 57.2–42.6 over Republicans, a gain for Democrats. They also won the other two statewide races for lieutenant-governor and attorney-general.
Democrats won the lower house of the Virginia legislature by 64–36, a 13-seat gain for Democrats. The upper house was not up for election, but Democrats hold a 21–19 majority there. At the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris defeated Trump in Virginia by 5.8 points, though Trump won the overall popular vote by 1.5 points.
Democrats held the New Jersey governorship, winning by 56.4–43.0, far exceeding polls that gave Democrats a low single-digit lead. They lead in the lower house by 53–19, with eight seats uncalled.
If the uncalled seats go to current leaders, Democrats will win by 57–23, a five-seat gain. Democrats hold the upper house by 25–15, which was not up for election. Harris beat Trump in New Jersey in 2024 by 5.9 points.
In June, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani had won the New York City Democratic mayoral nomination, defeating former New York governor Andrew Cuomo by 56.4–43.6 after preferences to win the Democratic primary. On Tuesday, Mamdani defeated Cuomo, who ran as an independent, in the general election
by 50.4–41.6, with 7.1% for a Republican.
Unlike the primary, the general election used first past the post. But preferences would not have changed the outcome as Mamdani exceeded 50%.
In response to Texas Republicans gerrymandering Texas to create five additional federal Republican seats, California Democrats proposed retaliatory gerrymandering of California’s federal seats. A referendum was needed to approve this gerrymander. With 79% reporting, “yes” to gerrymandering had won by 63.9–36.1. Harris won California in 2024 by 20.1 points.
See also my coverage of these elections for The Poll Bludger. In this piece, I wrote about past and upcoming elections in the Netherlands, Bolivia and Chile.
Implications for the 2026 midterm elections
At November 2026 midterm elections, all of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate will be up for election. In Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial elections, there were respectively 8.8 and 7.5 point swings to Democrats from the 2024 presidential margin in those states.
If these swings are applied to Trump’s national margin of 1.5 points in 2024, Democrats would win nationally by 6.0 points (New Jersey swing) or 7.3 (Virginia swing). So if the swing in either state occurs nationally in 2026, Democrats are very likely to gain control of the House.
There will be 35 seats up for election in the Senate next November (33 regular and two special elections). Republicans hold 22 and Democrats 13, but only two Republican seats are thought vulnerable: Maine and North Carolina.
In 2024, Harris won Maine by 6.9 points and Trump only won North Carolina by 2.2 points. Trump won all other states Republicans are defending by at least a double-digit margin. Even if the swing in Virginia happened nationally, Democrats would gain only two seats and Republicans would hold the Senate by 51–49.
It’s become increasingly difficult for Democrats to win the Senate, as the two senators per state rule skews Senate elections towards low-population, rural states.
In the Fiftyplusone generic ballot average, Democrats lead Republicans by 45.0–41.9. The low single-digit lead for Democrats hasn’t changed since April. The current 3.1-point Democrat lead is below what happens from applying the swing in New Jersey and Virginia nationally.
While Trump’s ratings have dropped, there hasn’t been a Democratic surge on the generic ballot. That suggests voters are blaming both parties for the shutdown.
Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on November 7, 2025.
Keith Rankin Analysis – Affording and Financing Wars, with reference to the United States Analysis by Keith Rankin. Are wars affordable? The answer of course is ‘yes and no’. Affording a war is different from financing a war. To make any new thing affordable, either there must be a reallocation of resources or a deployment of resources not otherwise in use. Or a mix of both. Further, resources get
Will the US Supreme Court consider a request to overturn same-sex marriage? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Ellis, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Newcastle It’s been a decade since the US Supreme Court recognised a constitutional right to same-sex marriage in the landmark case, Obergefell v Hodges. The US Supreme Court will meet today to consider a request to overturn that 2015
Own goal: why the Nationals’ retreat on net zero would be bad economics Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Jotzo, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy and Director, Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, Australian National University Chris Gordon/Getty Australia’s National Party has ended its commitment to reaching net zero by 2050. In its anti-net zero plan, the party calls for emissions targets and climate
The future of rugby league in Australia, NZ and the Pacific is here – and it’s brown Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phil Borell, Senior Lecturer (Above the Bar), Aotahi School of Maori and Indigenous Studies, University of Canterbury Getty Images The jerseys might be red or blue, green and gold, or black and white – but rugby league’s future is decidedly brown. As the New Zealand Kiwis and
The Roman empire built 300,000 kilometres of roads: new study Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ray Laurence, Professor of Ancient History, Macquarie University Rosario Lepore / Wikimedia, CC BY At its height, the Roman empire covered some 5 million square kilometres and was home to around 60 million people. This vast territory and huge population were held together via a network of
Can the world prevent a genocide in Sudan? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philipp Kastner, Senior Lecturer in International Law, The University of Western Australia Two years ago, a power struggle erupted between two factions of Sudan’s military. Today, this conflict is spiralling out of control, with thousands being killed in what a United Nations report has called “slaughterhouses”. Last
The government’s dismantling of climate laws breaks years of cross-party agreement Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barry Barton, Professor of Law, University of Waikato Just as world leaders gather for this year’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil, the government’s announcement of its intention to significantly change New Zealand’s climate change law upends years of cross-party consensus. All of the proposals pose serious problems,
Why Blue Pacific’s infrastructure distress is a cocktail poisoning human development progress Keeping a line of sight to the challenges of both COP30 in Brazil next week and also the subsequent Pacific’s COP31. A Pacific perspective. COMMENTARY: By Dr Satyendra Prasad As Pacific’s leaders and civil society prepare for the United Nations Climate Conference in Brazil (COP30) next week, they also need to keep a line of
‘Food deserts’ found even in areas with supermarkets nearby – new study Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tayla Broadbridge, PhD Candidate in Mathematics, University of Adelaide Eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is key to staying healthy and avoiding diseases such as heart disease and stroke. But it’s often easier said than done. Places where many people eat poorly are often called “food deserts”,
Pharmac wants to trim its controversial medicines waiting list – no list at all might be better Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paula Lorgelly, Professor of Health Economics, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images New Zealand’s drug-buying agency Pharmac is currently consulting on a change to how it manages its waiting list for medicines. This represents one of the stages of Pharmac’s “reset” through which the agency
Geopolitics, backsliding and progress: here’s what to expect at this year’s COP30 global climate talks Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Peel, Professor of Law, The University of Melbourne The Amazonian city of Belém, Brazil Ricardo Lima/Getty Along with delegates from all over the world, I’ll be heading to the United Nations COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian Amazon city of Belém. Like many others, I’m unsure
As global climate action threatens to stall, can Australia step up at COP30 in Brazil? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wesley Morgan, Research Associate, Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney Naomi Rahim/Getty Ten years on from the landmark Paris Agreement, countries have taken big strides in limiting emissions and the clean energy transition is accelerating rapidly. But geopolitical headwinds are growing and the damage bill
As retail workers brace for the silly season, this 20c solution could dial down customer verbal abuse Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Mortimer, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Queensland University of Technology More than 1.4 million people are employed in Australian retail and fast food businesses. Sadly, it’s not always a happy or safe place to work. A union survey of more than 4,600 frontline workers found
Universal Music went from suing an AI company to partnering with it. What will it mean for artists? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Oliver Bown, Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney Getty Images Last week, artificial intelligence (AI) music company Udio announced an out-of-court settlement with Universal Music Group (UMG) over a lawsuit that accused Udio (as well as another AI music company called Suno) of copyright infringement. The lawsuit was brought
Access to water has a long racial history in Durban: I followed the story in the city’s archives Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristin Brig, Lecturer in Public Health & Society, Washington University in St. Louis The water infrastructure politics of eThekwini, the municipality that includes the city of Durban, have been splashed across the digital pages of South Africa’s news outlets in recent years. They’ve covered the 2022 floods
Censorship crusade: Israel targets platforms and online archives to ‘rewrite Gaza’ SPECIAL REPORT: By Robert Inlakesh Israelis are determined to erase the evidence of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, through the use of paid and instructed propagandists to reshape the historical record. Zionists have also taken over social media platforms. Those who are critical of Israel are being censored or arrested. From YouTube to X, Wikipedia, and
Grattan on Friday: November 11 1975 – watching history being made, from the best seats in the house Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Opposition Leader Malcom Fraser, Lord Mayor of Melbourne Ron Walker and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in Melbourne on November 10, 1975. City of Melbourne, CC BY In his just-released memoir, historian and former diplomat Lachlan
Bryce Edwards: Mamdani lessons – NZ left need to catch up with the Zeitgeist COMMENTARY: By Bryce Edwards Yesterday’s victory of “democratic socialist” Zohran Mamdani in the race for the New York mayoralty is fuelling debate among progressives around the world about the way forward. And this has significant implications and lessons for the political left in New Zealand, casting the Labour and Green parties as too tired and
‘America’s big case’: the US Supreme Court raises doubts about Trump’s tariff regime Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Gascoigne, Macquarie Research Fellow in International Economic Law, Macquarie University The US Supreme Court has heard arguments overnight on the legality of President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs on most countries around the world. The number of sceptical questions posed by the justices in the hearings
New laws will force streaming giants to invest in local content – but it’s too soon to celebrate Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexa Scarlata, Lecturer, Digital Communication, RMIT University This week the Labor government announced it is poised to introduce a bill to parliament that will impose regulatory obligations on major subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services operating in Australia. The legislation will require services such as Netflix, Disney+ and Prime
Are wars affordable? The answer of course is ‘yes and no’.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Affording a war is different from financing a war. To make any new thing affordable, either there must be a reallocation of resources or a deployment of resources not otherwise in use. Or a mix of both. Further, resources get destroyed, and not only the resources of the ‘loser’.
Wars may be fully tax-funded – that is, by increased taxation – by one or more belligerents; but most usually they are not. Otherwise, wars are financed. Financing is a mechanism which enables the distribution of spending to differ from the distribution of income. Typically, spending by warring parties exceeds their incomes, so must be financed through government ‘fiscal’ deficits.
Income is the rights to current goods and services; that is, to current output. Present tense. In particular wages, profits, rents, royalties. Finance is the principal mechanism whereby such rights to current output are transferred by some people (including businesses and governments) to other people. By giving up a right to current output, a party either gains a right (ie a ‘claim’) to future output or is fulfilling an obligation – a debt – incurred in the past. Thus, giving up rights to current output is called either ‘saving’ or ‘debt repayment’. Saving, conceding such rights in return for claims on future output, is commonly understood as lending or ‘advancing’ funds.
We note that in many cases, debtors – parties holding obligations incurred in the past – have discretion over when they fulfil their obligations. Likewise, savers (creditors) have some discretion over when they call in (ie realise, spend) their savings; that is, discretion over when they exercise – ie liquidate – their historical claims to current output. As a general matter, is it a good thing if those two matters of debtor and creditor discretion balance out, creating a sense of ‘equilibrium’.
Historically, however, creditors have often failed to liquidate their claims at all; many creditors like to hold onto their claims for indefinite periods, thereby enabling debts to be merely ‘serviced’ rather than repaid. Unrealised claims are called ‘wealth’, and many people like to hold wealth until they die, rather than spend it.
If insufficient current output is purchased by past savers, it becomes a systemic requirement that new debts are contracted and spent.
When sovereign governments contract new debts to fulfil this systemic requirement (possibly as ‘debtors of last resort’), this is ‘fiscal accommodation’. When governments refuse to contract new debts to fulfil this systemic requirement, we may call this either ‘fiscal consolidation’ or ‘public austerity’.
Wars – and preparations for war – may be destructive (or at least non-productive) examples of fiscal accommodation; such accommodating militarisation may achieve that purpose without specific intent to do so. (In the 1930s the renowned economist John Maynard Keynes offered, as an example of contextually beneficial non-productive fiscal accommodation, governments paying workers to dig up holes and fill them in again!)
Wars
Medieval wars were often short-term affairs, because of seasonal patterns of labour demand. Wars have for the most part been labour intensive; and that’s still the case today, even if the casualties of post-modern wars are more likely to be civilians and less likely to be soldiers and sailors.
Medieval sieges often had to be terminated around August because the soldiers in the sieging army had to return to collect the harvest. September was the time of the year when there was virtually zero unemployment. Siege defence was made possible because harvest labour requirements would likely break the stalemate. The corollary is that medieval wars could be afforded because, in late-spring and early-summer, there was seasonally unemployed labour.
In the modern period (approximately 1490 to 1990), especially in Europe, labour became increasingly divorced from agriculture, making it possible to have ever larger standing armies (and navies), making bigger and longer wars possible. Further, the modern period saw the emergence of sovereign nation states; so, increasingly, war finance became intrinsically connected to public finance. Wars of exploitation and territorial expansion became a central feature of the emergent mercantile States.
Public finance and war finance were essentially the same thing in the golden eras of merchant capitalism (roughly 1550 to 1800) and subsequent industrial capitalism. That financial conflation is re-emerging as a new reality of the twentyfirst century, as sovereigns (and their foreign state and non-state proxies) up their military spending while simultaneously diminishing their commitments to the peacetime provision of public goods.
Fast forward to the years from 1989 to 2011
This transition period from modern to post-modern may be seen as a particularly peaceful period – after the Great World War of 1914 to 1945; after the wars of recolonisation and decolonisation which may be seen to have ended in 1979 with the revolution in Iran and Vietnam ending the post-colonial genocide in Cambodia; after the wars in Lebanon, the Falkland Islands, and Iran-Iraq; and after the fall of the empire of the Soviet Union.
The millennial years 1989 to 2011 are sometimes called the ‘unipolar moment’, when the United States could and would call the shots; typically with a foolhardy and exceptionalist perspective of the world as a kind of playpen for Washington and New York largesse. And with a neoliberal outlook through which narratives about the Great Depression and World War Two were recast. In the latter case, World War Two became a grand narration of ‘Hitler versus the Jews’; most of the many other lessons arising from the years 1914 to 1945 were largely forgotten.
I am particularly interested in the affording and financing of the Second Gulf War (essentially 2003 to 2009, an asymmetric war between United States and Iraq); although good starting points are the post-Tiananmen (after 1989) emergence of China and the execution in 1990 by the United States of the First Gulf War.
These charts of financial balances for China and the United States give some important clues about who paid for the Gulf Wars. (For the United States in particular, it is necessary for now, to not be distracted by the dramatic financial accommodations between 2009 and 2021, relating to the Global Financial Crisis and the Covid19 Pandemic.) They show variations over time in private saving and spending, government deficit spending, and these nations’ saver/spender relationships with their outside worlds.
Chart by Keith Rankin.Chart by Keith Rankin.
We note that most of the economic and financial cost of war comes after the main event (eg after 1990, and after 2003); as military equipment needs to be replenished, armies need to be expanded, and destruction zones need to be rebuilt. Indeed, the costs of a standing defence force are high whether or not there is a war.
1990, the middle of a period of both economic and financial flux in the world, came at the end of a recovery in the United States following the 1987 sharemarket crash. So, almost unusually, there was no speculative bubble in place, there was increased saving as people looked more to future spending than present spending, and the labour market remained weak.
For the United States, we see in the years from 1991 to 1993, high saving in the private sector – largely household saving – and comparably high spending in the government sector. Thus, domestic private savings directly funded the war. Unemployment in the United States was lower than it otherwise would have been. While savers were not asked whether they were happy that their caution was being translated into government military spending, it’s unlikely that they minded too much; the ‘war against Saddam’ was not an unpopular war in the United States.
In times of recession, when more people than usual are unemployed or underemployed, affording a war is easier but financing a war is harder. Liberal governments must make financial accommodations by departing from the standard fiscal rules they impose upon themselves. (We note that, just this year, 2025, the German Bundestag has made such an accommodation, and abandoned its self-set and dearly-held fiscal rule; giving itself a blank cheque to pursue debt-funded military spending.)
Most modern wars have been afforded through a process of restrained consumption, financed through the mechanism of new government debt and a build-up of household credits; governments owing, and households owning new debt. As a side-effect, and considering the United States, this affording and funding enlarges the combined balance sheet of American banks: more assets (government debts) and more liabilities (private savings).
Affording wars is always a matter of economic resources being deployed into military theatres, whether that is redeployed from civilian production or a reduction of resource underemployment. From a financing point of view, the four options are that wars are funded by taxes (which would not show up on this type of chart), by domestic saving (as happened in the United States from 1991 to 1993), by foreign saving (as happened in the mid-2000s), or by foreign aid from patron to proxy.
War financed by foreign saving may mean direct or indirect foreign funding. Much of the Allies funding in the Great World War was financed by American debt which, in the fullness of time, would be written off; making that war significantly American gift funded, even if at the time the advances were only intended and consented as loans. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom afforded their war only with substantial reductions in normal consumption; this was even more true for most of the other participating nation states.
In the United States chart above, we see (in green) that in every year shown except 1991, the United States has incurred debts to the rest of the world. Though these foreign advances were unusually low in the early 1990s. America’s war in 1990 was domestically funded, and relatively easily afforded.
(We note that that Gulf War involved both an invasion by Iraq and an invasion of Iraq. I make no attempt to discuss the affording or financing of the war from the point of view of either Iraq or Kuwait. Clearly, however, there was a substantial loss and degradation of life in Iraq, and degradation of land and infrastructure.)
The Wars of the 2000s, especially the Second Gulf War from 2003
The United States economy changed dramatically with the birth of the Internet-Age, just after the First Gulf War. Private balances follow a classic ‘bubble’ formation from 1994 to 2000/01; this came to be known as the dotcom bubble, and was characterised by a new ‘information technology’ sector being speculatively debt-financed. Government tax revenues ballooned, leading to unheard-of government budget surpluses. In addition, the United States economy attracted increased foreign credits before the turn of the millennium, though not much then from China.
We can see the collapse of the dotcom bubble in 2001, with a marked reduction in private debt spending, and the ensuing unusually high foreign financing of the United States economy.
The wars of the new-millennium began with the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, followed by the bigger United States invasion of Iraq in 2003. These wars were foreign-funded, the US chart shows, and lasted – in their predominant phase – throughout the Bush presidency. (Refer Iraq War troop surge of 2007.)
We can trace this funding of the Bush-wars by examining the China chart. From 2002, we see a clear rise in Chinese private saving and of ‘foreign investment’. The ‘rest of the world’ percentages represent spending in the rest of the world (from China’s perspective) made possible by non-spending in China.
At its peak, China’s foreign investment ‘current account surplus’ – for our purpose, China’s excess of exports over imports – reached almost 10% of GDP in 2007. This co-dependency of Chinese exports and American imports has been called by some Chimerica; the best known proponent of this concept is the British global historian Niall Ferguson.
As well as considering the percentages, we remind ourselves that Chinese supercharged annual economic growth, which bottomed-out at 8% in 1999-2001, climbed to 14% in 2007. Given earlier growth in the 1980s and 1990s, China was no longer starting from a low base. These were massively increased levels of Chinese economic output in the 2000s; output sent from China rather than spent in China.
The result was that industrial capacity within the United States was freed up to supply military goods rather than civilian goods. While China provided the ‘butter’ (ie consumer goods), Uncle Sam was freed to specialise in the production and deployment of ‘guns’.
While China paid for the Second Gulf War through its massive export surpluses, for the West in general and the United States in particular, the war was fought for free; a ‘free lunch’ so to speak. Of course it wasn’t technically free; China built up a massive amount of financial claims on the United States, though it was never clear how or when China might exercise those claims. China is yet to show any desire to acquire the American imports which would constitute the settlement of China’s claims on the United States.
China will only be reimbursed for its massive lending to the United States in 2003 to 2008 when we see, in its future financial balances’ chart, a whole lot of green on the upper ‘savers’ side. Otherwise, China’s loans to the United States will morph into gifts. An export surplus can only be reimbursed in the form of an export deficit; not China’s style in current or near-future times.
Tax Cuts
Not only did the United States wage two major wars in West Asia, close to America’s Indian Ocean antipodes, it did the unheard-of for a nation at war; it reduced its tax rates. While the most obvious way to fund a war is to raise taxes, the United States did the precise opposite; to not fund the wars ‘because it could’. China was happily paying for those American wars. For many Americans not directly involved, these wars were more than a ‘free lunch’; they were, through tax cuts, a ‘sugar hit’.
Indeed, this detachment of fighting from cost-bearing has become the most dangerous facet of the emergent ‘Warrior epoch’. Western elites have come to believe that they can undertake wars – be they ‘good wars’ or ‘bad wars’ – without themselves facing up to the reality that all wars are costly.
The United States legislated two major rounds of tax cuts, in 2001 and 2003. The first round was undertaken in the light of the Clinton budget surpluses (see the year 2000), and without awareness that war was coming. Those Clinton fiscal surpluses were unsustainable, a consequence of the dotcom bubble mini-boom, though the tax cuts (ill-targeted as they were) helped to fiscally accommodate the recovery from the 2000/01 dotcom bust.
The 2003 federal tax cuts were inexcusable. Initiated just as the pre-Gulf-War hype was peaking, these tax cuts passed through Congress and the Senate during the peak initial phases of the war. The incongruence of simultaneous military aggression at scale and tax decreases was astounding in its brazenness.
After 2011
The principal wars in the 2010s were located in Afghanistan and Syria; there was additional militarisation in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, associated with the eastward expansion of Nato.
China played a constructive new role in that decade.
An important feature of global financial imbalances – very clear in the American chart – was the Global Financial Crisis, showing resurgent American private saving (mainly debt repayment) and the spectacular (and necessary) US Government accommodation of that dramatic change in private behaviour. Then we see a return to normality from 2013 to 2019. Higher than usual United States government deficits were a critical part of the global recovery from the financial crisis. (We may mention in passing that the New Zealand government’s fiscal policy – under National and Labour – has been and still is non-accommodating; the pandemic year 2020 being the exception that ‘proves’ the rule.)
For the second critical component of the 2010s’ global economic recovery, we can see a big change in China’s financial balances. In particular, we see the emergence of the Chinese consumer and taxpayer (much less blue and less red). And Chinese net exports substantially diminished as a share of the Chinese economy. Consumer spending and government spending in China and the other BRICsrevived global demand for non-military goods and services.
Although the United States incurred a specific debt to China during the Second Gulf War in the 2000s, subsequently the whole West ‘owes’ China a considerable debt of gratitude for its role in restarting the global economy around 2010. Thankyous to China have been considerably lacking, however, as the West increasingly seeks to point its military hardware at China.
The West – led by the United States – has gamified war, and has become indifferent to non-western lives. There are also too many signs that western elites are becoming indifferent to western working-class lives; starting with indifference to the many immigrants who are already performing so much of the necessary labour to support higher-middle-class living standards.
China, already on the verge of a balance-sheet recession in the view of Richard Koo, may now be following in the financial and economic footsteps of Japan in the 1990s (see my Red Gold; Japan’s lesson for the world). Certainly China’s financial balances’ chart (above) is starting to look very Japanese, with a smallish and stable export surplus, and large government deficits.
2020s’ Wars
After the 2020 Covid19 Financial Crisis, which, as in 2009, required huge fiscal accommodations – especially by the United States federal government – wars have become proxy affairs whereby the means of war have been largely gifted by patrons to their proxies. Such financing leaves only small marks on countries’ financial balances charts. Though the patron nations will have larger-than-otherwise government deficits; see the United States’ government balance (above) for 2023 and 2025 (and the 2025 forecast).
The financing of the two sides of the Sudan ‘Civil War’ appears too convoluted to examine here. It would seem to involve proxies of proxies, and to be an important outlet for internationally traded military goods.
For the West, the affording of the wars in Ukraine and Israel-Palestine would appear to be mainly through a mix of gifts and loans by patron governments, meaning involved governments undersupplying too few peacetime public goods. (Too little ‘butter’, to use that metaphor, and too many guns.)
Russian citizens will be incurring substantial opportunity costs, mainly through higher taxes, a reallocation of government spending, and reduced opportunities for its citizens to live international lives. Ukraine seems to be funding its war through a mix of foreign gifting and government debt; though its people – like Russians – have been paying a high price through reductions in their living standards.
Israel continues to be a net exporter, so its deliveries of military hardware from the United States should definitely be regarded as aid rather than imports. Lucky Israel! To be able to fight its neighbours on such favourable terms is a privilege rarely granted.
In Retrospect
Wars are costly. Very intensive and extensive in the use of resources and the destruction of resources; let alone the loss of quantity and quality of life.
In all wars, all parties incur costs; significant costs. Sometimes, a party to a war can avoid most of those costs through having someone else pay. Of course, the United States paid to some extent for the wars against Iraq in terms of American lives lost and degraded; little cost was borne by those Americans who propagated those wars, though.
The material costs of the wars in the 2000s were paid – indirectly – by Chinese households not consuming large swathes of the goods they produced; Chinese workers and capitalists were, on an increasingly massive scale, exporting the fruits of their labour and their capital to the United States. More sending than spending. Much more. (A Marxian analysis would attribute the seemingly costless affording of the US-Iraq war to the extraction of ‘surplus value’ from the Chinese working class by the American capitalist class.)
Yet these Chinese costpayers didn’t much mind, because – while their abilities to enjoy the increasing fruits of their labours were highly constrained by China’s export policy – they were happily stacking up claims on future production; deferred enjoyment, rather than the pure exploitation which occurred in the early years of Chinese Communism.
China bore the West’s costs in other ways too; in those years Chinese people suffered huge environmental costs, at a time when natural environments were improving in the deindustrialising West.
There was a wider set of ongoing costs, however, arising from the ensuing highly unbalanced global capitalism. United States’ industrial survival is now largely dependent on its specialisation in military hardware and software; meaning that the United States’ economic deformation has made that country into a predatory warrior state. Violences, especially upon non-Americans, are today directly committed by the American state; and through both exported and gifted military goods and services, and through violations committed directly by America’s proxies (and, as in Sudan, by its proxies’ proxies).
Wars, when they happen, are affordable because they happened. They are very costly, both in terms of their opportunity costs (the loss of other uses to which the deployed resources could have been put) and the human misery of death, destruction of habitat and taonga, and injury. They are commonly financed by third parties – eg Chinese households – who may or may not enjoy reimbursement for their credit advanced.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
It’s been a decade since the US Supreme Court recognised a constitutional right to same-sex marriage in the landmark case, Obergefell v Hodges. The US Supreme Court will meet today to consider a request to overturn that 2015 decision.
In 2015, Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk, made global headlines when she refused to grant a marriage license to a gay couple based on her religious beliefs. The couple, David Moore and David Ermold, filed a lawsuit against her, alleging she had violated their constitutional right to marry.
In a separate case, a US District judge ordered Davis to issue marriage licences to both gay and straight couples. When she refused, she was briefly jailed.
Then, in 2016, the Kentucky legislature passed a law that sought to accommodate clerks opposed to same-sex marriage by removing their names and signatures from licensing forms.
In the meantime, Moore and Ermold’s case continued. In 2023, a jury awarded them damages of US$50,000 (A$77,000) each.
Davis appealed that decision, arguing she could not be held liable because issuing Moore and Ermold a marriage license would have violated her right to freely exercise her religion. Davis’ appeal was rejected by the 6th Circuit Court on the grounds the First Amendment protects her as a private citizen, but not in her role as a government clerk.
This is when the US Supreme Court became involved. Davis is now asking the highest court in the country to review the 6th Circuit Court’s decision. She is arguing that she appeared before that court as an individual, not as a representative of the state.
There’s something bigger at stake, though. Davis is also asking the Supreme Court to overrule their 2015 decision in the Obergefell case that legalised same-sex marriages federally.
Today, at its private conference, the Supreme Court will decide whether to review Davis’ request.
What are the chances same-sex marriage could be overturned?
The chances of the US Supreme Court reviewing the case are unlikely – the court receives more than 7,000 such petitions each year and only chooses to hear 1% of them.
If it was to grant a review, the court would also likely consider Davis’ petition at two consecutive conferences.
However, given the more conservative configuration of justices on the Supreme Court, Obergefell v Hodges cannot be taken for granted.
It would take the votes of just four justices to take up the question and grant a review. It would then require a fifth justice to overturn Obergefell. The current court is dominated by conservative appointees by six to three.
Three of the conservative justices also wrote their own dissents to Obergefell. As Justice Samuel Alito wrote at the time, “the Constitution says nothing about a right to same-sex marriage.”
One argument the conservative justices could use to overturn Obergefell is the view same-sex marriage does not pass the “history and tradition” test.
This happened in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022 that overturned Roe v Wade and ended the US constitutional right to abortion, handing jurisdiction back to the states.
Alito reasoned at the time abortion did not meet the test because it was not “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition”.
Another reason the court might choose to overturn Obergefell is that the conservative majority has prioritised First Amendment free speech protections over other constitutional and legal rights.
They argue, for instance, that Davis’ didn’t develop her current First Amendment argument until very late in the process, in her reply to the 6th Circuit Court, filed nine years into the case.
By waiting so long to raise this argument, they argue, Davis has deprived them and the lower courts of “a fair opportunity to address it”.
State legislatures and LGBTQ+ rights
Davis’ petition for a review may seem like a longshot. But it illuminates a worrying trend in the US of conservative lawmakers trying to curtail LGBTQ+ rights in the states.
109 bills that would weaken civil rights laws (including 61 based on religious exemptions); and
277 bills that would restrict student and educator rights.
Seventy-one of the bills have been passed into law, including nine based on religious exemptions.
A tactic in this strategy is to introduce resolutions in state legislatures calling on the US Supreme Court to overturn its ruling in Obergefell. These resolutions are considered symbolic, as state law does not have control over what the Supreme Court does. But they outline a persistent, anti-same-sex marriage narrative.
Anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation and disinformation
There is also a broader assault on sexual and gender diversity happening in the US, much of which was foregrounded in The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 manifesto for a 2025 Republican presidency.
The LGBTQ+ community finds itself under constant threat from an onslaught of coordinated online campaigns, in addition to constant legal and legislative action. And this directly impacts the capacity for safe LGBTQ+ participation in public life.
As a result, LGBTQ+ individuals and organisations are already reconsidering their relationship with visibility, and how they can continue to advocate for progress.
Justin Ellis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Jotzo, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy and Director, Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, Australian National University
Australia’s National Party has ended its commitment to reaching net zero by 2050.
In its anti-net zero plan, the party calls for emissions targets and climate policies to be watered down. The plan draws on a new report.
This would be economically damaging. Walking away from net zero would undermine investment confidence, raise power prices, drive up taxes, undermine green export potential, harm Australia’s international reputation and run against our intrinsic interest in strong global climate policy as a nation highly exposed to climate damage.
The announcement by the Nationals shouldn’t be interpreted as the policy of a future government, given the rural party is the junior partner in the Coalition, the Liberal party is struggling to respond, and there’ll be more political positioning to come. But it will have influence. The spectre of policy reversal spooks businesses and investors.
Australia’s long-term economic and broader national interest is aligned with strong climate action. This fundamental interest will very likely prevail above the political skirmishes and cycles. Yet Australia’s climate wars could flare up again, with uncertainty, detours, delays and inefficiencies.
In a “disorderly transition” scenario, the report estimates wages in 2050 would be 2.5% lower and per capita GDP 1.6% lower compared with the steady trajectory of progress implied by the government’s 2035 emissions target of a 62–70% cut below 2005 levels. These aren’t trivial numbers – they represent a palpable loss to Australian households and quality of life.
A disorderly transition means delayed action and stranded assets. It’s more expensive in part because of uncertainty driving up financing costs for the necessary investments.
Is Australia cutting emissions faster than than the OECD?
National party leaders claim Australia has been cutting emissions faster than other rich countries. In their announcement, they made a very specific claim:
OECD countries have been cutting their emissions by 1% per year. Australia has been cutting its emissions by about 2% per year – double the OECD rate. Our emissions cuts will be capped and calibrated, which is common sense.
The maths of the claim is simple, but the substance of it is misrepresented. Australia has cut overall national emissions around 29% below 2005 levels, while other rich countries in the OECD have cut emissions 15% on average.
There are two fallacies here. First, Australia is unique among developed countries in that land-use change and forestry emissions played a large role in the national emissions profile until the 2000s. Falls in emissions have mainly come from these sectors.
In every other sector bar electricity, Australia’s emissions have increased or flatlined since 2005. When land use and forestry is excluded, emissions have only fallen 5%. So in the metric that matters for the OECD comparison and for the actual low-emissions transition, Australia is below average, not in front.
Second, Australia is wealthier and has higher emissions on a per capita basis than the OECD average. There’s greater opportunity to cut emissions faster, and a higher expectation that Australia do so. Emissions can be cut deeply while maintaining activity not just in electricity but in industry, transport and agriculture.
Power-sector paralysis
The Nationals suggest propping up ageing coal plants with government intervention.
Left alone, the energy market will phase out coal in favour of wind and solar power. That’s because old coal plants are expensive to run and are less and less reliable. Renewables and storage are cheaper options.
Keeping coal power on life support would cost Australians more, through higher power prices or higher taxes to pay for subsidies.
It would sap investor confidence, drive up investment finance costs and slow down the needed modernisation of the power sector. Investors would be looking elsewhere.
Industrial modernisation delayed
Another suggestion by the Nationals is to scrap or weaken incentives for heavy industries to cut emissions under the Safeguard Mechanism, which allows emissions credit trading. This would delay modernisation of industrial facilities and worsen investment conditions because of policy uncertainty.
Under the Nationals plan, Australia’s land-based carbon credit scheme would revert back to a government “emissions reductions fund”, with government buying the credits, rather than have industry buy credits as currently.
This would mean fewer carbon projects on the land, lower credit prices, and less money for diversified income streams to landholders, farming and forestry businesses.
Squandering green opportunities
Shelving climate ambition and policy would also pull the rug out from under Australia’s ample green commodity opportunities. Australia has the chance to become a large exporter of commodities such as green iron and ammonia and to move into sustainable, high-value and low-emissions agriculture for export.
This relies to a fair extent on reputation. Other countries are poised to capture these emerging markets. And international demand for coal and gas will decline anyway.
Choosing prosperity
After years as a climate laggard, Australia’s international reputation on climate policy has improved. This will be on display at the COP30 climate conference in Brazil over the next two weeks. Pacific neighbours, trading partners and investment funds have taken note.
Parts of the political spectrum might see an advantage in playing to the Trump administration on climate change. But that would come at a cost to relationships and economic opportunities with other countries, including China, the clean energy investment leader.
The world’s energy and industrial system will shift to low-carbon options. The question is whether Australia embraces that transformation to our advantage, or locks into declining industries while economic opportunities pass by. Walking away from net-zero offers no pathway to future prosperity.
Australia’s previous economic successes have stemmed from embracing new opportunities, such as riding the China-led resources boom. The conservative side of politics knows this. Choosing prosperity over politics would have it on the side of sensible climate policy.
Frank Jotzo leads research projects on climate, energy and industry policy. He advises state governments including as a commissioner with the NSW Net Zero Commission and chair of the Queensland Clean Economy Expert Panel. He also led the Carbon Leakage Review for the federal government.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phil Borell, Senior Lecturer (Above the Bar), Aotahi School of Maori and Indigenous Studies, University of Canterbury
Getty Images
The jerseys might be red or blue, green and gold, or black and white – but rugby league’s future is decidedly brown.
As the New Zealand Kiwis and Toa Samoa prepare to clash for the Rugby League Pacific Championship’s Pacific Cup on Sunday, it’s clear the top calibre Pacific players have catapulted the game to another level.
That energy was on full display as Toa Samoa fended off Mate Ma’a Tonga in Brisbane two weeks ago, while the PNG Kumuls clinched their third straight Pacific Bowl with a commanding victory over Fiji Bati last week.
This weekend promises plenty more action: along with the men’s cup decider, the Kiwi Ferns will square off against the Australian Jillaroos in the women’s competition final on Sunday.
Launched by the National Rugby League (NRL), the Pacific Championships are the latest evolution of the Oceania Cup – which itself replaced the old ANZAC Test once played solely between Australia and New Zealand.
The shift reflects the code’s growing centre of gravity in the Pacific, where nations such as Samoa, Tonga and Papua New Guinea are now driving the game’s expansion – on and off the field.
Tonga supporters at Auckland’s Eden Park this month: the same intensity in the stands their players show on the field. Hannah Peters/Getty Images
What hasn’t attracted as much attention, however, is the impact of their fans.
Almost 45,000 diehard Samoan and Tongan supporters packed Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium two weeks ago, creating an atmosphere the tier-one nations could only dream of.
What do we do with Samoa and Tonga? We have something here that is a jewel in the crown that rivals State of Origin.
It’s worth remembering the ancient rivalry between the island nations of Samoa and Tonga predates not only State of Origin, but also the Australian nation state itself.
When Mate Ma’a Tonga played the Kiwis at Eden Park on Sunday, Tongan fans – affectionately known as the “sea of red” – made up the clear majority of a record 38,144-strong crowd.
Their passionate support for a team that ultimately lost has seen the sea of red dubbed the “greatest show in sports”.
Pacific fans are arguably what make the game what it is today: unwavering in their support, patriotic to extremes and as visible as they are vocal. These fans have lifted rugby league up, rather than the other way around.
From our seats, as Māori and Pacific academics and sporting practitioners, Pacific rugby league not only rivals State of Origin, it has the potential to surpass it as a true global rivalry that extends beyond Australian states.
The New Zealand Kiwis celebrate their win over Australia in the 2023 Pacific Championship final. Phil Walter/Getty Images
League loyalty comes home
As more elite Pacific players join the exodus away from the green and gold or black and white jerseys of their host nations – including Payne Haas, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Jason Taumalolo and Isaiya Katoa, among others – it’s becoming even clearer the international game’s current growth depends heavily on Pacific talent.
The Australian Kangaroos will always be strong, with or without Pacific players: they have a seemingly endless conveyor belt of young people eager to play the game.
But that doesn’t mean they won’t feel the loss as their Origin superstars navigate their way back “home” to represent their heritage.
The real impact, however, may be felt most by the New Zealand Kiwis and New Zealand Rugby League as they work to redefine themselves. The Kiwis were once the first home-away-from-home for Pacific rugby league players.
Before Samoan and Tongan teams were playing test matches against tier-one nations, most of their NRL players had links to Aotearoa through birth or migration. This often led to them representing the Kiwis at the highest level.
Now, as Tongan and Samoan teams become serious contenders, New Zealand is likely to take the biggest hit. This isn’t a bad thing. If anything, it will open pathways for more Pacific athletes to earn higher honours.
But it does create uncertainty about what New Zealand and Australian teams might look like in a few years, after having had first choice of Pacific athletes for so long.
It’s clear the future of rugby league is brown – let’s nurture it.
Phil Borell is the Chairman of Canterbury Rugby League.
Dion Enari does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
At its height, the Roman empire covered some 5 million square kilometres and was home to around 60 million people. This vast territory and huge population were held together via a network of long-distance roads connecting places hundreds and even thousands of kilometres apart.
Compared with a modern road, a Roman road was in many ways over-engineered. Layers of material often extended a metre or two into the ground beneath the surface, and in Italy roads were paved with volcanic rock or limestone.
Roads were also furnished with milestones bearing distance measurements. These would help calculate how long a journey might take or the time for a letter to reach a person elsewhere.
Thanks to these long-lasting archaeological remnants, as well as written records, we can build a picture of what the road network looked like thousands of years ago.
A new, comprehensive map and digital dataset published by a team of researchers led by Tom Brughmans at Aarhus University in Denmark shows almost 300,000 kilometres of roads spanning an area of close to 4 million square kilometres.
The Roman road network circa 150 AD. Itiner-e, CC BY
The road network
The Itiner-e dataset was pieced together from archaeological and historical records, topographic maps, and satellite imagery.
It represents a substantial 59% increase over the previous mapping of 188,555 kilometres of Roman roads. This is a very significant expansion of our mapped knowledge of ancient infrastructure.
About one-third of the 14,769 defined road sections in the dataset are classified as long-distance main roads (such as the famous Via Appia that links Rome to southern Italy). The other two-thirds are secondary roads, mostly with no known name.
The researchers have been transparent about the reliability of their data. Only 2.7% of the mapped roads have precisely known locations, while 89.8% are less precisely known and 7.4% represent hypothesised routes based on available evidence.
More realistic roads – but detail still lacking
Itiner-e has improved on past efforts with improved coverage of roads in the Iberian Peninsula, Greece and North Africa, as well as a crucial methodological refinement in how routes are mapped.
Rather than imposing idealised straight lines, the researchers adapted previously proposed routes to fit geographical realities. This means mountain roads can follow winding, practical paths, for example.
Itiner-e includes more realistic terrain-hugging road shapes than some earlier maps. Itiner-e, CC BY
Although there is a considerable increase in the data for Roman roads in this mapping, it does not include all the available data for the existence of Roman roads. Looking at the hinterland of Rome, for example, I found great attention to the major roads and secondary roads but no attempt to map the smaller local networks of roads that have come to light in field surveys over the past century.
Itiner-e has great strength as a map of the big picture, but it also points to a need to create localised maps with greater detail. These could use our knowledge of the transport infrastructure of specific cities.
There is much published archaeological evidence that is yet to be incorporated into a digital platform and map to make it available to a wider academic constituency.
Travel time in the Roman empire
Fragment of a Roman milestone erected along the road Via Nova in Jordan. Adam Pažout / Itiner-e, CC BY
Itiner-e’s map also incorporates key elements from Stanford University’s Orbis interface, which calculates the time it would have taken to travel from point A to B in the ancient world.
The basis for travel by road is assumed to have been humans walking (4km per hour), ox carts (2km per hour), pack animals (4.5km per hour) and horse courier (6km per hour).
This is fine, but it leaves out mule-drawn carriages, which were the major form of passenger travel. Mules have greater strength and endurance than horses, and became the preferred motive power in the Roman empire.
What next?
Itiner-e provides a new means to investigate Roman transportation. We can relate the map to the presence of known cities, and begin to understand the nature of the transport network in supporting the lives of the people who lived in them.
This opens new avenues of inquiry as well. With the network of roads defined, we might be able to estimate the number of animals such as mules, donkeys, oxen and horses required to support a system of communication.
For example, how many journeys were required to communicate the death of an emperor (often not in Rome but in one of the provinces) to all parts of the empire?
Some inscriptions refer to specifically dated renewal of sections of the network of roads, due to the collapse of bridges and so on. It may be possible to investigate the effect of such a collapse of a section of the road network using Itiner-e.
These and many other questions remain to be answered.
Ray Laurence does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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