Rain warnings for Canterbury.Supplied / MetService
Wild weather is expected to hit much of central New Zealand overnight, with multiple warnings and states of emergency.
MetService has issued a Heavy Rain Warning for Banks Peninsula, starting from 2am Monday and a Heavy Rain Watch for Canterbury Plains and foothills between the Rakaia River and Amberley.
Five districts have now declared a state of emergency – Manawatū, Rangitīkei, Tararua, Waipā and Ōtorohanga.
Manawatū District Council is the latest to make the declaration – in a post on social media, the council said it has activated its emergency response team and is closely monitoring river levels.
Heavy rain, rising rivers, slips, flooding, strong winds, and power outages are likely, the council said.
It advised people to take the declaration seriously and prepare now, while there is still daylight, make sure devices are charged and people have a battery-powered radio at the ready to listen to news updates.
The Rangitīkei, Tararua, Waipā and Ōtorohanga districts are also under states of emergency.
In a post on social media, Rangitīkei District Council said Mayor Andy Watson had made the declaration and the council had activated its emergency response team, and is closely monitoring river levels.
The council said it had also activated its process to close the Napier-Taihape Road.
It warned people to take the declaration seriously and prepare, while there is still daylight, including making sure devices are charged, and there was a battery-powered radio handy to listen to news updates.
An orange heavy rain warning has already been upgraded to a red warning – the highest level. The warning affects Manawatu, Rangatikei and Ruapehu Districts north of Feilding and east of State Highway One from 6pm tonight.
MetService said the heightened warning means there is a threat to life from dangerous river conditions and significant flooding and slips.
It says the weather conditions will isolate communities and make some roads impassable.
Several more weather warnings and watches have been issued for the east and lower North Island and the top of the South Island.
This latest burst of stormy weather comes as several regions reel from severe storms that have already closed roads, flooded properties and damaged infrastructure.
Hutt warnings
The Hutt City Council is also warning that the Waiwhetū Stream could rise rapidly overnight.
Those in the Lower Hutt suburbs of Waiwhetū, Moera, Gracefield, and Seaview are advised to evacuate immediately, and not to wait for an official warning, if rising flood water is seen.
Those needing to evacuate are advised to seek shelter with friends and family if possible – and to take pets and essential items with them.
Residents are asked to call 111 if their life or property is at risk.
They are also urged not to drive or walk through flood water as it is dangerous and may be contaminated.
Wellington trains cancelled
No trains are running in Wellington on Monday morning.
KiwiRail said a Wairarapa passenger train collided with a downed tree on Sunday.
“We are expecting winds of up to 130kph across the Wellington region overnight and on Monday morning. This poses a significant risk to the overhead electric cables across the metro network,” KiwiRail chief metro officer David Gordon said.
“Working with Metlink and Transdev Wellington, we have decided to close the metro network until network-wide daylight inspections can be undertaken. Our teams will be out on the tracks from 6am Monday, but it will take a number of hours to check the network.
“As a result, trains will not be running during the Monday morning peak. We will aim to reopen the network at 10am, depending on any damage discovered and repairs needed.”
Monday morning’s Capital Connection (Palmerston North – Wellington) train has also been cancelled.
While the world has focused on the atrocities in Gaza, Israel continues its support of illegal settlements, hostility and apartheid in the West Bank. Asia-Pacific specialist journalist Ben Bohane reports from Bethlehem for Michael West Media.
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ben Bohane
We are no more than 5 minutes out of Bethlehem on a crisp December morning when my Palestinian driver — let’s call him Ahmed — stops and points to a curl of smoke rising in the valley below, near Beit Jala.
“That’s a local restaurant the Israeli’s are burning since last night. They demand permits even when it is on family land. Israel then gives demolition orders, and no one can stop them.”
It’s the day before Christmas. I’m in the West Bank and Israel for a month to see the situation for myself, to try and understand how this comparatively small area continues to hijack history and our news agenda.
Photojournalist and producer Ben Bohane . . . “Israel has killed more journalists in the past three years than any other government in history.” Image: BB/MWM
The international Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) states 249 media personnel have been killed so far by Israel in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Israel and Iran since the Gaza war began.
Israel has killed more journalists in the past three years than any other government in history,
assassinating more than all media personnel killed in all the wars of the 20th century combined.
Israel has also now banned many reputable international NGOs from operating there. In late January, the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) finally acknowledged the death toll tally compiled by Palestinian health authorities as accurate, saying it believed 71,000 people had been killed so far — the death toll is now more than 72,000.
I’ve come to the other front, the West Bank, as Israeli settlers and the IDF establish new illegal settlements and make life difficult for Palestinians just trying to eke out a living.
While I’m there, Israel announces 19 new settlements, bringing to 69 the number of new settlements approved in the past few years.
They are slowly circling and strangling Palestinian towns by taking the high ground on hilltops, establishing their own roads to link up with other settlements, and destroying ancient olive groves which locals have long relied on for a meagre income.
Some of these trees are many hundreds of years old, and their desecration seems somehow symbolic of Israel’s attempts to change history and geography.
“We are trapped here”, says Ahmed. “Ever since October 7, Israel has closed off our access to Jerusalem and the rest of Israel. A lot of businesses are struggling to survive after 5 years of shutdowns — first it was covid, and then the Gaza war. No tourists for years.”
Unless they are employed in one of a handful of jobs, such as in hospitals or working for a Christian organisation, Palestinians in the West Bank can’t leave. Denied both Palestinian statehood and Israeli citizenship,
West Bank Palestinians are caught in a limbo where they can’t travel into wider Israel or beyond.
“Israel controls all our movements, all our water, and controls our petrol supply”, says Ahmed. “The only thing they don’t control is the air we breathe, and if they could control that, they would.”
Bulldozer warfare We visit a home recently bulldozed by settlers and fields uprooted because they were considered too close to the expanding nearby Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit. As locals lose access to their olive orchards, the only trees safe are those within towns or around their homes.
I see a young boy with a wheelbarrow full of seedlings and uprooted olive saplings moving towards a nearby field. Ahmed translates:
“The boy says that part of their resistance is to immediately replant the olive trees when settlers chop them down. The olives aren’t just an income for us, they are part of our identity on this land.”
We have to be quick when visiting the contested edges of these towns and fields, as settlers are always watching from nearby hilltops and the IDF can be on the scene in less than 5 minutes. On two occasions, my driver yells to get us back in the car for a hurried exit when he spots settlers driving down to intercept us.
Returning to Bethlehem, the annual Christmas parade is underway. Hundreds of Palestinian, Arab and Armenian Christians in uniforms march along roads leading to Manger Square in the heart of Bethlehem.
Palestinian Authority police guard the route and churches, including the Orthodox Basilica of the Nativity, first begun by Emperor Constantine’s Christian mother Saint Helena in the 4th century. Under this Byzantine church is a grotto where Jesus was supposedly born.
This is the first time in two years that Christmas celebrations, including a huge Christmas tree, have taken place. With few foreign tourists, shops in Bethlehem are happy to see many Muslim families from across the West Bank visiting with children to see Santa and the holy sites. It’s a peaceful time with Christian and Muslim families celebrating together.
I met Father Issa Thaljieh, a Palestinian (Greek Orthodox) priest overseeing the Basilica.
“Issa” is the Muslim name for Jesus. He says the number of Christians continues to dwindle, from 10 percent of the Palestinian population during the British mandate period 100 years ago, to around 1 percent today. Most live overseas now, with Israel incentivising their departure.
Apartheid One thing I hadn’t known until I came here is that Israelis are forbidden from entering any West Bank towns. At the entrance to many towns I visited, including Jericho and Bethlehem, are large road signs in red warning Israeli citizens not to enter.
Although usually framed as a security measure to prevent kidnapping, it has the additional impact of preventing ordinary Israelis and Palestinians from mixing together and stops Israelis from really understanding what is going on across the West Bank. It underlined the sense of apartheid, along with the long winding separation wall that snakes between Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank.
Always interested in art and graffiti as forms of resistance, I cruise a length of the wall, near two refugee camps inside Bethlehem and come across artist Banksy’s “Walled Off” hotel, which had only reopened the week before after 5 years of closure.
Upstairs is a gallery supporting local artists, downstairs a museum about the wall and “occupation”, along with a chintzy piano bar styled like a frontier saloon.
The hotel faces a section of the wall emblazoned with graffiti and promises “the worst views in the world”. The wall began construction substantially in 2002, runs for 810 kms and is Israel’s biggest infrastructure project. Banksy’s museum quotes the man put in charge of the build, Danny Tirza:
“The main thing the government told me in giving me the job was,
to include as many Israelis inside the fence and leave as many Palestinians outside as possible.
Down the road, a number of local stores have popped up selling cheap Banksy merch, and apparently, Banksy is fine with all the rip-offs.
Other days are spent visiting Jericho and Hebron with its shrine containing the tomb of Abraham, patriarch of all the monotheistic faiths.
It is a town often at flashpoint between Palestinians and hardcore Israeli settlers who have moved right into pockets of the town, protected by IDF soldiers. A day trip to Ramallah is aborted when my driver says that Israeli forces had entered that morning to destroy dozens of shops and shot two people.
“It’s too dangerous today to visit, and besides, it would take us 5 hours to get through the checkpoints instead of one hour as normal,” he says.
Every day across the West Bank, Palestinians must navigate security challenges, declining business and hungry families. Given the impunity with which Israel operates in Gaza, Palestinians across the West Bank are still standing their ground, but without much hope that the international community will stop Israel’s encroachment.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government wants to extinguish any hope of a two-state solution, but Palestinians will not cede their homes — or their olive trees — easily.
Ben Bohane is Vanuatu-based photojournalist and producer who has reported for global media for more than three decades on religion and war across the world, mainly in the Asia-Pacific region. His website. Republished with permission,
Jeffrey Epstein didn’t operate in a vacuum. His crimes were grotesque, systematic, and, crucially, protected for decades. That alone should unsettle anyone who believes power is held accountable.
What’s disturbing isn’t only what he did, but what didn’t happen afterwards.
How does a trafficker move across borders, fly politicians and royalty, launder wealth, avoid serious prosecution for years, and then conveniently die in a high-security facility with cameras malfunctioning and guards “asleep”?
That’s not a coincidence. That’s institutional failure at best, complicity at worst.
The real scandal is the silence.
Names were known. Networks were hinted at. Evidence existed. Yet accountability stopped at Epstein himself, the perfect firewall.
How power protects itself Once he was gone, so was the urgency. Files sealed. Investigations stalled. Media interest redirected.
This is how power protects itself.
Whether you call it the Deep State, the ruling class, elite immunity, or simply entrenched systems of power, the pattern is familiar:
The powerful are insulated, the truth is managed, and justice is selective.
Epstein wasn’t an anomaly. He was a symptom.
And until transparency replaces secrecy, and accountability reaches upward instead of downward, the question will remain:
Who was Epstein really working for?
And who benefited most from him never speaking?
Maher Khalil Nazzal is a Muslim Palestinian refugee living in Auckland and co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).
Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith voiced concerns about how widespread slavery was in New Zealand, including cases where youths could be brought here ‘essentially to work as domestic help or in jobs to support the family’.
INZ compliance and investigations manager Steve Watson said slavery was among the most serious crimes in New Zealand.
“It was a very disturbing case, and the victims did not deserve to be treated in that way,” he said. “It’s a very, very good sentence, and sends a very clear message that this type of slavery and exploitation won’t be tolerated. It shows that we as a country won’t tolerate it, and that it is one of the worst offences on the statute book. And [the sentence] should serve as a deterrent to others.”
INZ provided significant support to the police and the prosecution, he said, and he urged others to report offending they witness.
Moeaia Tuai in court at his sentencing on Thursday.RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Timeline of a slavemaster
“Slavery and other forms of exploitation, they are serious crimes and they’re often hidden in plain sight,” Watson said.
“So addressing serious exploitation is a priority for the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, right from policy settings through to our operational arms. MBIE and Immigration New Zealand will continue to prosecute people where we find evidence of this sort of behaviour.”
Former trafficking victims have expressed concerns about how much is being done to improve the detection of slavery and prosecute it.
“There have been few cases involving slavery in New Zealand to date,” said Wilkinson-Smith, noting the only previous major prosecution was that of Joseph Matamata in 2020.
The prosecutor in the current case noted that the female complainant had been held as a slave for even longer than Matamata’s male victims.
It was no mitigation that vulnerable victims would accept slavery as being better than a return to extreme poverty, the judge told Tuai.
She said the rapes, other violations and indecent assaults added another level of gravity to Tuai’s enslavement and theft of the young woman’s income.
“She was in a very real sense your slave. She did the work and you got the benefit.”
2003 – 2004 – Tuai and his wife emigrated to New Zealand, he worked as a prison officer for Corrections.
2017 – Tuai brought two young people to New Zealand and put the older male one to work at a boarding house belonging to his wife Senia Tuai’s sister.
2020 – The older victim, by now brought to work in Australia and joined by Tuai, ran away.
2021 – The younger female complainant, brought back to NZ, worked seven days a week for two months in laundromats.
2022 – 2024 – She continued to work, with an estimated $78,000 of her wages going to Tuai.
2024 – She ran away and alerted police to the rapes.
2024 – 2025 – Police and MBIE investigation into the slavery offending.
Teenager Peta Trimis celebrates an outrageous strike for the Central Coast MarinersElias Rodriguez / www.photosport.nz
Chasing a fifth straight win and club record, the Wellington Phoenix women suffered a 2-1 defeat to bogey team Central Coast Mariners in their A-League clash.
Players from both sides battled fierce winds hitting the Wellington region with blustery conditions slowing the tempo of the match at Porirua Park on Sunday evening.
A stunning free kick from 19-year-old attacker Peta Trimis put the Mariners in front in the 16th minute as she curled a right-footed strike into the top corner.
Phoenix striker Mackenzie Anthony hit the equaliser in the 28th minute scoring her first goal for Wellington.
Central Coast’s Tamar Levin used the strong winds swirling for the reigning A-League champions to score on the stroke of halftime.
The defeat ends the Phoenix’s four-game winning run as they were outplayed by a side showing greater patience and superior finishing skills in the howling winds.
Wellington are second on the competition ladder, two points behind leaders Melbourne City.
A fifth State of Emergency has been declared ahead of severe weather expected to strike tonight and overnight.
Manawatū District Council is the latest to make the declaration – in a post on social media, the council said it has activated its emergency response team and is closely monitoring river levels.
Heavy rain, rising rivers, slips, flooding, strong winds, and power outages are likely, the council said.
It advised people to take the declaration seriously and prepare now, while there is still daylight, make sure devices are charged and people have a battery-powered radio at the ready to listen to news updates.
The Rangitīkei, Tararua, Waipā and Ōtorohanga districts are also under states of emergency.
In a post on social media, Rangitīkei District Council said Mayor Andy Watson had made the declaration and the council had activated its emergency response team, and is closely monitoring river levels.
The council said it had also activated its process to close the Napier-Taihape Road.
It warned people to take the declaration seriously and prepare, while there is still daylight, including making sure devices are charged, and there was a battery-powered radio handy to listen to news updates.
An orange heavy rain warning has already been upgraded to a red warning – the highest level. The warning affects Manawatu, Rangatikei and Ruapehu Districts north of Feilding and east of State Highway One from 6pm tonight.
MetService said the heightened warning means there is a threat to life from dangerous river conditions and significant flooding and slips.
It says the weather conditions will isolate communities and make some roads impassable.
Several more weather warnings and watches have been issued for the east and lower North Island and the top of the South Island.
This latest burst of stormy weather comes as several regions reel from severe storms that have already closed roads, flooded properties and damaged infrastructure.
We’ll be bringing you the latest weather news updates in our live blog through the afternoon and evening.
A fourth State of Emergency has been declared ahead of severe weather expected to strike tonight and overnight.
Manawatū District Council is the latest to make the declaration – in a post on social media, the council said it has activated its emergency response team and is closely monitoring river levels.
Heavy rain, rising rivers, slips, flooding, strong winds, and power outages are likely, the council said.
It advised people to take the declaration seriously and prepare now, while there is still daylight, make sure devices are charged and people have a battery-powered radio at the ready to listen to news updates.
The Tararua, Waipā and Ōtorohanga districts are also under states of emergency.
An orange heavy rain warning has already been upgraded to a red warning – the highest level. The warning affects Manawatu, Rangatikei and Ruapehu Districts north of Feilding and east of State Highway One from 6pm tonight.
MetService says the heightened warning means there is a threat to life from dangerous river conditions and significant flooding and slips.
It says the weather conditions will isolate communities and make some roads impassable.
Several more weather warnings and watches have been issued for the east and lower North Island and the top of the South Island.
This latest burst of stormy weather comes as several regions reel from severe storms that have already closed roads, flooded properties and damaged infrastructure.
We’ll be bringing you the latest weather news updates in our live blog through the afternoon and evening.
Follow all the action as the NZ Māori All Stars take on the Australian Indigenous All Stars at FMG Stadium, Waikato.
Six Warriors have been named for the Māori men: captain James Fisher-Harris, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, Adam Pompey, Te Maire Martin and Jacob Laban.
Kick-off is at 5.45pm.
Team lists:
Māori All Stars: Warriors star Charnze Nicholl-Klokstad will start at five-eighth and partner teammate Te Maire Martin in the halves. The pair are among five Warriors players in the Māori team, including co-captain James Fisher-Harris, who will start at lock. Winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and second-rower Jacob Laban are the other newcomers. With Nicholl-Klokstad to wear the No.6 jersey, Keano Kini will start at fullback – the pair being among six members of the New Zealand team which won last year’s Pacific Cup final against Samoa. Panthers centre Casey McLean, Fisher-Harris, Briton Nikora and Martin are the others. Bulldogs recruit Leo Thompson and his replacement at the Knights, former Raiders prop Trey Mooney, will start in the front row, with Manly’s Zach Dockar-Clay at hooker.
Indigenous All Stars: Dolphins gun Trai Fuller takes over the fullback role from club team-mate Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow this year. Nicho Hynes returns to the side as halfback, partnering with Sharks team-mate Braydon Trindall, after both missed last year with Vegas commitments. Jayden Campbell, who made his debut last year as five-eighth, moves to the bench. Jack Wighton returns at centre and will become the most capped men’s Indigenous player with nine appearances. Coach Ronald Griffiths has named six debutants in his team of 20, including North Sydney Bears lock Caleb Tohi, who has come in for injured Wests Tigers forward Ethan Roberts. He joins two other players in Redcliffe Dolphins hooker Brent Woolf and Titans-contracted rake Ollie Pascoe who are yet to make their NRL debuts.
Liam Swiggs / RNZ
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Australia celebrate their New Zealand SailGP victory off auckland’s Wynyard Point.Getty Images
Despite defending his New Zealand SailGP crown off Auckland’s Wynyard Point, Aussie supremo Tom Slingsby harbours mixed feelings about how his team achieved their feat.
The three-time series champion had a front-row view of the horrible high-speed crash that sent New Zealand and France out of the regatta on Saturday, and admitted the Kiwis’ absence played a big part in the Flying Roos’ repeat success.
“Us winning in Auckland again, I’m not sure why, but it’s become a very happy hunting ground for us and it was very unfortunate the Kiwis weren’t there today,” Slingsby reflected. “We always want to compete against the best teams and the Kiwis, in those conditions, would have been our biggest rivals, I feel.
“Sad for them not being there, but we just focused on ourselves and we’re really happy to convert it into a win.”
Slingsby and Black Foils counterpart Peter Burling have developed a strong rivalry over their years on the professional sailing circuit, and the incident took its toll on the Aussies, as it did on the rest of the fleet.
“I happened to be looking right at it when it happened,” he said. “It was very scary.
“The Kiwis, as a team, we love to hate them, but individually, I love all of those guys. They’re just amazing people and, when a crash like that happens, I instantly think, ‘They’re all my friends and friends I’ve had for a long, long time’.
“When they called off the race, I was happy, because my mind definitely wasn’t on the game. We want the Kiwis out there and we don’t want to see anything like that ever.”
NZ grinder Louis Sinclair suffered compound fractures to both legs in the mayhem and underwent surgery on his right leg overnight. Slingsby messaged Burling to offer his support and hoped to see the Kiwis back on the water soon, although Sydney in two weeks seemed a stretch.
“They’re a champion team,” he said. “No-one knows timelines or when they’ll be back, but we know the day they come back, even if it’s not for championship wins this season, they’ll be out to win as much prize money and events as they can.”
NZ boat ‘Amokura’ was virtually destroyed, when it swerved into the path of the French, who flew over the bow and sliced it in two.
Some drivers questioned the sense of having 13 boats jockeying for position on such a small course in tricky wind conditions and organisers responded by introducing a split-fleet format for the first time on Sunday.
The fleet had experimented with smaller fields in practice, with the anticipated addition of a 14th team next year likely to force the change fulltime.
Slingsby had mixed feelings about the reduced format.
“The racer in me wants the full fleet there,” he said. “I just feel like the full fleet is why we do this – it’s lots of boats and lots happening.
Black Foils boat ‘Amokura’ is salvaged, after crashing with France on the Waitematā Harbour.Felix Diemer for SailGP
“At the same time, you’ve got to make changes, when something like that happens, whether it’s a permanent change or not. At least for today, I totally agree with the split fleet.
“We need to show we’re making changes here and not taking this accident lightly. With windy conditions today and a bigger forecast, I think it was the right call.”
While common sense prevailed, the diluted version felt like the SailGP equivalent of golden oldies scrums in rugby. Let’s just get out of Auckland with no further damage.
Racing was already brought forward to avoid the worst of the weather forecast and conditions changed dramatically again for the three-boat final, where speeds reached 100kmh and crews battled just to keep their boats upright.
Slingsby and his team now head home to Sydney, and he doubts two weeks will allow enough time for New Zealand or France to repair their boats.
“From my technical and structural knowledge of these boats, I think there’s no chance either of those boats are there,” he said.
“For sure you’re facing mental battles. We had a bit incident in Christchurch a couple of years ago and I remember, heading back out onto the racetrack, there were a few little scars there.
“As soon as they fire the gun, I was able to black it out and we got straight back into it.
“I know Peter Burling better than most people, and he will just get back in there and be ripping around the whole way.”
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Keith Rankin, 13 February 2026
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
On 14 January, Al Jazeera produced an episode of ‘Inside Story’, their daily current affairs feature programme: Why is the US Fed chair criminal probe causing global alarm?The context is the conflict between the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, versus the man who appointed him to that role, President Donald Trump. In the sense of this conflict, Powell is the archetypal technocrat (the spokesperson for his craft guild), and Trump is playing the role of the democrat (the spokesperson for the American people).
(We note that, in New Zealand, something similar but different is happening; effectively a conflict – for a tiny slice of the historical narrative – between former Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr and the current Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis. It may be said that power is held by those who control the money, and by those who control the narrative.)
The format of Inside Story is that of three remotely-located expert or otherwise-interested interviewees, interviewed by a news-anchor studio interviewer. (Former Newshub newsreader Tom McRae serves as one such interviewer.)
For this episode, the interviewer was Adrian Finighan. The interviewees were: an American political commentator, Eric Ham; a London-based commentator representing the finance industry, Justin Urquhart-Stewart; and a celebrity Irish monetary economist, David McWilliams. (McWilliams was speaking in New Zealand last October; claims have been made that he is the “Attenborough” of economics.)
It is to McWilliams that I particularly wish to focus my comments; so, below, I have transcribed his contributions to the panel discussion. (I will confine my comments re McWilliams to his contributions to the Al Jazeera programme, and not to his writings or other presentations.) But first I have transcribed opening words from Finighan, Ham, and Urquhart-Stewart. There are also comments from Jerome Powell, reporter Fintan Monaghan, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. (To maintain focus the transcriptions have been slightly condensed; the original interview is available, see above.)
Finighan, Ham, and Urquhart-Stewart
Finighan: “A criminal investigation into the Chair of the Fed, Jerome Powell … could have implications well beyond the US … a swift and sharp response from central banks around the world, a joint statement expressing solidarity with Powell.”
Powell: “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President … [through] political pressure or intimidation.”
The general tone here is that Powell – the chairman of a committee – is the good guy, and Trump the bad guy. In this sense the discussion falls into the trope that if there’s a bad guy [ie Trump], then the bad guy’s adversary must be a good guy. Note how Powell presents himself as the ‘man of the people’, even though in reality he is anything but.
Of course, it goes without saying that a narrowly focussed criminal law investigation is not an appropriate forum for discussing democracy and monetary policy. And there is no doubt that President Trump is intimidating, and has a tendency for ad hominem flights of fancy. We should note, for clarification, that the criminal charges referred to relate to the expansion of a building, and not to misconduct in the setting of interest rates.
Reporter, Fintan Monaghan: “The two [President and Chairman] have been at odds over the setting of interest rates for most of the past year. Trump wants cuts. That might give the economy a short-term boost by bringing down the cost of borrowing money, but Powell has resisted because it could cause inflation. … Heads of major central banks around the world, including the ECB’s Christine Lagarde, have voiced support for Powell and the independence of the Fed. Central Banks have traditionally operated separately from the central government. That keeps long-term decisions about the health of the economy separate from short-term political [aka democratic] interests.”
Friedrich Merz: “I hope there will remain a broad consensus that central banks must remain independent because independent central banks are a guarantee that a currency can remain stable in the long term.”
We may note these themes are emphasised by those who we might call ‘monetary policy hawks’; and most central bankers are monetary policy hawks in that they emphasise the notion of raising interest rates as the sine qua non [without which not] of anti-inflation purgative emulsions.
To claim that Reserve Banks have traditionally operated separately from the central government, indicates that some commentators have a very short sense of history. Most central banks operated as a long-arm of government for most of their histories (and most are less than 100 years old; the RBNZ has existed since 1934). The American Fed is usually regarded as having been independent since 1951, though it’s always been a political organisation with politically appointed leaders. Most Reserve Banks have a single shareholder; the Government. During Abenomics, Japan’s central bank was fundamentally a part of Shinzo Abe’s macroeconomic program. As was New Zealand’s Reserve Bank in, say, the late 1930s, when it played a crucial role in implementing the economic policies which launched New Zealand into the position of a global exemplar for a modern egalitarian economy.
We note also that central bankers generally favour the cynical word ‘political’ over the much happier word ‘democratic’. And we note that Friedrich Merz may be confused. He appears to be referring to a national or imperial ‘currency’ such as the Euro, whereas monetary policy at its highest calling seeks to protect the internal value of money; not its external value. (The internal value relates to inflation and deflation; external value relates to currencies’ exchange rates.)
Eric Ham [author and political commentator]: “… that very independence which has actually fuelled United States’s monetary growth.”
Justin Urquhart-Stewart [chairman of an investment platform]: “There is one vital word that central bankers have to give out and that is confidence … this is the first time that I’ve seen central bankers getting together almost as a ‘trade-union’ … [in response to] political interference.’
Ham, like most political commentators, is all-at-sea when trying to comment on monetary matters. I presume that he meant to say ‘economic growth’ rather than ‘monetary growth’. Certainly the wizards of money – ie the Lords of Finance [in the 1930s, the Bankers Who Broke the World] – believe, or claim to believe, that central bank independence fuels long-run economic growth.
Yet, I have a sneaky suspicion that Ham meant what he said. In the mercantilist worldview, a worldview upheld by President Trump, ‘monetary growth’ and ‘economic growth’ are tantamount to the same thing. New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, is also a businessman who believes that making hard-won money represents the economic purpose of human life.
In the golden age of mercantilism, from around 1500 to 1800, money was understood to have been legitimately made by mining, exporting, or stealing. (Queen Elizabeth the First was the monarch best known for having resorted to the latter; she boosted the Royal navy for that purpose.) In this view, only mining represents a legitimate addition to the global money supply. Kings and Queens however sometimes resorted to a fourth method, ‘debasement’; modern monetary bankers are still fighting that battle of yore, with ‘public debt’ representing their principal concept of debased money.
On the ‘other side of the coin’ from monetary philosophers – or is it the ‘other side of the ledger’ – there were accountant bankers. One of their clever tricks was double-entry bookkeeping. Another closely related trick was fractional banking. These (along with a clearing-mechanism developed from medieval Italian banking) became the central technologies of modern banking practice. (Many of the earliest bankers were goldsmiths, who on-lent other people’s gold and silver deposits – albeit by issuing receipts, the forerunners of paper money – without telling the depositors. When in trouble, these fractional moneylenders required a fast horse, and contacts who could smuggle them out of the country! The final piece of the modern-banking puzzle was limited-liability status, facilitating an appropriate amount of risk-taking. These are the initially-disreputable technologies that lubricate capitalism and give it its dynamism. Bankers were not alchemists trying to make money independent of the economies it serves.)
Re Urquhart-Stewart, he emphasised the role of confidence – ie belief – in monetary policy. A word widely used by monetary economists is ‘expectations’. Thus, the role that twentyfirst century monetary authorities have assumed is to manage public expectations, even if they have to resort to some kind of poker trick to do so. An important part of this is to maintain a druid-like sense of authority; to tell a good collegial story – not necessarily an accurate story – in order to give themselves an arcane aura of credibility. Democratically-elected politicians – among others – are required to believe their story.
This may be the first time that Urquhart-Stewart has been aware of central bankers getting together as a union or college or guild; but their recent “joint statement” is by no means their first rodeo. Central bankers of the world – like staunch cowboys – regularly get together at a place called Jackson Hole in Wyoming, USA. (And the lords of finance of the late 1920s – the preeminent central bankers of the United Kingdom, United States, France and Germany – were all in regular contact with each other.) On this note, New Zealand’s own Reserve Bank governor, Anna Breman, was one of Urquhart-Stewart’s unionists; and, for her efforts, she had her fingernails clipped by Nicola Willis. (In the recent state of New Zealand’s political cycle, Willis and Luxon have been more in Trump’s camp than in Powell’s, expressing frustration with an unnecessarily slow process of lowering interest rates. This runs counter to their position in the summer of 2023/24; then the new government’s first act in Parliament was to raise the monetary policy bias in favour of generally higher interest rates.)
In the earlier days of central banking, central bankers were more likely to have been well-connected bankers. Nowadays they are more likely to have been economists, specialising in monetary economics and finance. The division between these two cultures goes back at least as far as to the disputations in the 1840s and 1850s between the economists’ Currency School, and the bankers’ Banking School. While the Banking School may have had the better of the argument, as demonstrated by the ongoing development of monetary practice, the Currency School won the culture war.
Before I go on to reveal economist David McWilliams’ substantial contribution to the Al Jazeera programme, we should note that the setting of interest rates through monetary policy is a fundamentally interventionist overriding of the market determination of a price; it represents an exception to the sanctity of the price-mechanism which is fundamental to economics. Neoliberal anti-interventionists tend to show strong support for interest rate intervention; just not intervention by kings or queens or presidents or ministers of finance; they favour intervention by someone they have confidence in. It is part of a wider belief on the part of economic liberals that it is good for our health that money (unlike sugar) should always be scarce; and that the technocratic authorities, if they must err, should err on the side of money being too scarce.
David McWilliams’ ‘Testimony’
I transcribe McWilliams several contributions to the Inside Story programme:
Contribution One: “I’m speaking to you as a former central bank economist … authoritarian leaders from Nero to Lenin, from Hitler to Henry VIII have always tried to interfere with who prints the money, who gets the money and at what price. … This issue is about who gets to set the growth rate of the American economy. Is it the Federal Reserve or is it the President? … Typically, it is the Federal Reserve that gets to set the growth rate, consistent with a low rate of inflation, is going to be X, and were going to drive our monetary policy and our rate of interest according to that. Politicians are always wanting to put their foot down on the accelerator, more growth, more election success, more people feeling good in the very short term. Central bankers push their foot down on the brakes … because we are worried about the rate of inflation. … The central bankers get [their extraordinary power] because they are concerned about the long-term rate of inflation. Politicians are not concerned about the rate of inflation, and as a consequence they want things to accelerate quicker. … The rate of inflation, which affects poor people more than rich people, will go up. The long-term rate of interest, which affects your mortgage rate, will go up. I think, for the world in general, the idea that the people who actually manage and preserve the integrity of the US dollar are no longer concerned about the integrity of the dollar and much more concerned about short-term politics; that will scare people, not just in the High Street, but also in financial markets.”
Re “printing money”, it’s an intentionally pejorative label for money creation through banking based on double-entry book-keeping. Before ‘printing’, there was ‘minting’, which has been the necessary historical privilege of all kings; not just Nero and Henry VIII. McWilliams conflates printing with minting. When money was principally coins, it was the ‘head’ of the king on the coin that gave the public confidence in that coin; the minted coins represented the liability of the kings to the public. It’s not the place here to comment on the monetary policies of Lenin and Hitler. But, re Henry VIII, I recommend the book Gresham’s Law, by John Guy. Thomas Gresham served as banker to four of the Tudor monarchs, in the middle decades of the sixteenth century. Securing additional public debt for Henry VIII – ie, additional to the minted coinage – could be a difficult and hair-raising experience; actually tantamount to smuggling.
McWilliams posits that the technocratic monetary Tzar, Powell, has – and should have – the power to “set the growth rate of the American economy”. This assertion is problematic in that it is neither accurate nor democratic. Attributing the GDP of the United States to one man does a huge disservice to the other 330 million Americans, and grants Powell more concentrated power than Nero ever had. McWilliams doesn’t mention the word ‘productivity’ once, which is unusual for a media economist; it is more common to hear that long-term growth is determined by productivity than by central banks.
McWilliams goes on to say that elected politicians want economic growth rates higher than what monetary economists think they should want, effectively claiming that democracy is inherently inflationary, that inflation is the greatest of all economic sins, and that “politicians are not concerned about inflation”.
The whole discussion reveals overemphasis on a false conflict or dissonance between ‘long-term’ and ‘short-term’. In reality the long-term is no more than a sequence of short terms. We, all of us, all the time, live in the short-term.
His incorrect argument that inflation adversely affects poor people more than rich people is patently false, made most obvious by the facts that higher interest rates clearly favour the receivers of interest, and that past inflation has played a major role in establishing the wealth of today’s rich. We should note that active ‘inflation-fighting’ does not necessarily mean that prices become lower than they would otherwise be; central bank inflation-fighting is a costly process that contributes to the cost-of-living. If we are constantly inflation-fighting in the short-term, and the long-term is a succession of short-terms, then the cost of inflation-fighting becomes a ubiquitous presence in our lives.
Basically, his argument is that if we [ie people like himself] don’t put interest rates up [in the short-term] then interest rates will go up [in the long term]. We need to raise interest rates in order to lower interest rates, he claims. This illogical argument is essentially that inflation necessarily connects low interest today with high interest tomorrow (and vice versa); that interest rates act like an unlubricated seesaw in which one end is labelled ‘short-term’ and the other end is labelled ‘long-term’.
In his last two sentences above, McWilliams claims that a political appointee to replace Powell – compared to a career appointee – would undermine the “integrity of the US dollar”. There is a sense that the US dollar should be the master of the world economy, not its servant. By the way, all appointments by politicians are political; democracy is political.
Contribution Two: “Central backers are charged with – dully obsessed with – the rate of inflation. The rate of inflation is in effect the value of your take-home pay. … The second thing is of course ‘distribution effects’, who pays most. What you find is that, when the rate of inflation goes up, poor people pay more than rich people. Because a higher percentage of a poor person’s income is going to be going on basics … everybody is affected badly, but the poor are affected worse. And then the final point is that for anyone who has a mortgage … inflation means that interest rates will go up. Donald Trump is so keen to reduce interest rates because he is an endemic debtor. There’s always a split in the world between those people who are creditors, who lend money, and debtors, those people who borrow money. As a general rule those people who borrow money want the cost of borrowing to be as low as possible. And if you’ve spent your lifetime defaulting, borrowing, defaulting again, then your DNA will be biassed towards lower not higher interest rates. But who rewards the saver if the rate of interest is artificially low?”
Central bankers, but not McWilliams, make a virtue of themselves being dull technocrats.
The rate of inflation is not the value of your-take home pay. Inflation is an increase in prices, not a level of prices. Inflation, meaning a decrease in what a dollar will buy, strictly affects all prices, including wages; and including luxuries as well as necessities. What McWilliams is arguing is that inflation, though itself not about relative prices, nevertheless has a biased impact on relative prices. Relative prices are in fact caused by market forces; changes in the demand for and supply of different commodities and factors of production. Certainly, changes in interest rates represent a change in relative prices, because the rate of interest (comparable to the wage rate) is the price of a factor of production. If inflation is the only thing that’s going on, a four percent increase in prices will be matched simultaneously by a four percent increase in wages, so the value of your take-home pay is unchanged. All inflation does is reduce what a person’s money-in-the-bank will buy, and make it easier for a person to repay debts. It’s true that markets will respond to inflation by raising the money cost of future debt. Do markets really need help from the monetary druids who claim that interest rates should be raised in an interventionist manner, not only in response to inflation but also ahead of what they claim is expected inflation.
The line from people like McWilliams is that debt is akin to a form of sin, whereas squirrelling money away at four percent annual interest is a virtue. This is religious metaphysics, not science. How many people who have made a lot of money did so simply from squirreling away their wages? Not many. Rich people, except those who simply inherited from daddy, incurred debt to become rich. Rich nations incurred debt – private and public debt – to become rich. Debt has played and continues to play an absolutely fundamental role in economic and civilisational development.
Even in nature the squirrels are not rewarded. They earn no interest on their nuts, and they are subject to a ‘use it or lose it regime’. Nuts which are saved for too long become inedible, or simply go missing. Yes, savers should be rewarded when capital is scarce and people with unspent income need to be induced to take investment risks. In the twentyfirst century, however, the world has been awash with private stashes of idle money; central bankers should not be using public policy to serve the interests of the owners of these stashes.
Contribution Three: “Is the institution stronger than the personalities? I think what we are talking about is a power grab, and we know there’s nobody more powerful in society than the person who controls the money. Money is the glue that gels society together. It is an awesome weapon on the part of governments, which is why I suspect central banks have been independent for so long. We’ve largely seen a revolution of the central banks in the 1970s; by the 1990s with the exception of the UK most were independent. … This is about power and the exercising of power; and I would say that money is a far more powerful tool than ideology, than even warfare, than certainly all sorts of other weapons in the hands of presidents. So, what we are seeing here is a man who doesn’t really understand – or isn’t bound by – the rules of the game, so he’s tearing up the rules as we go along. This is a particularly acute tearing-up. Why? Because he’s actually affecting financial markets, corporate interests, Wall Street’s interests, so there may well be a massive pushback. But to answer your question, if there is a patsy at the helm of the Fed it will undermine the credibility of the United States dollar at a time when the dollar is under credible threat. The United States is no longer the overwhelmingly dominant economy in the world; it is technically number one, but it is being gradually dragged back downwards by China and in the long term by other countries as they grow. So, I think President Trump doesn’t understand the exorbitant privilege that the United States has as [having] the reserve currency of the world. There is nothing more powerful than that you can print money for free as the reserve currency, and people have to give you real stuff to buy that currency that you print for free. How amazing a deal is this? And for the Americans to self-sabotage from the White House seems to be the politics of idiocy.”
Here McWilliams reveals the power agenda of the monetary church. Money should be controlled by the church, themselves; not by the people through their elected or unelected representatives. Henry VIII struggled with the Rome-based Catholic Church in the 1530s. Henry won. What we see today, in McWilliams’ words, is the new church in another power struggle; a struggle – possibly a struggle to the death – that the new faith is probably winning. Who should we trust; the king or the church? The “rules of the game”, by the way, were set by the monetary economists – the currency school – of the nineteenth century. Those rules went quiet in the 1930s, but they started to reassert themselves in the 1970s; in the mid-1980s in New Zealand.
McWilliams does understand the power of double-entry bookkeeping as applied to banks – the power to “print money for free”. And he is correct that Trumponomics – Trumpian mercantilism – is an unwitting policy to self-sabotage the United States’ economy. But to transfer power to a college of druids is not the answer, either. Rather, lay people should all be better educated about money; but not so-educated by these monetary Jesuits. Henry VIII was taught statecraft by Cardinal Wolsey. He overthrew Wolsey – his mentor and his tormentor – but was unable to seek, let alone find, a better counsellor; Henry lost his way. Today we have democracy; a civilisation-project that is still immature, a project whose survival cannot be guaranteed. For all Trump’s faults, he is nevertheless more sensitive to ‘the people’ than are the technocrats who, while really serving the church of sacred money, claim to “serve the public”.
Contribution Four: “I would like your viewers to just remind themselves that the key word here is ‘trust’; what keeps money sacred, almost has an alchemic value, is trust. I trust it, you trust it, we trust each other. Now if you chip away at that trust, which is ephemeral, entirely in our heads, you begin to chip away at the very foundations of the system that we all have in, that system remains stable. So once you put the trust in the currency in the hands of somebody who is untrustworthy you begin to open all sorts of dilemmas about what’s the value of money, who prints it, will it buy what it says it buys, and can I save it. These are massive, massive issues.”
I can say here that ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’, that delegating our credulity to a college of wizards and metaphysicians is not our best way forward. What David McWilliams (and the people he speaks for) says here, while more Hogwarts than hogwash, perhaps belongs in the Age of Aquarius; like Christian Hawkesby’s ‘North Star’ (refer Reserve Bank cuts OCR 25 basis points, RNZ Morning Report, 29 May 2025). That, of course does not redeem President Trump.
In an important sense, McWilliams is correct. Money is free; freer than a piece of paper. But it’s always an accounting liability; a liability incurred by whoever’s signature or head is on it. Neither kings nor bankers have an incentive to overcook the money supply. It’s their heads that are on the line. The secrets are to always have enough money in circulation; and that it is better to err on the side of too much than too little. Value can seemingly be created from nothing; that’s always been so. But money, and any other form of promise, is not itself ‘value’; rather money is a set of claims on value. The alchemy perception is that a piece of paper with a signature – or a metallic disc with a king’s head etched on it, or a deposit entry in a bank account – may have intrinsic value, may in itself be wealth. But no, such things are only promises. If promises are to be kept, then sabotage – including self-sabotage – should be avoided.
(As an aside, it has often been believed that a destructive weapon of war was to flood a country’s economy with credible counterfeit money. The Germans allegedly tried it in the United Kingdom in World War Two, but to no avail. The Japanese also tried it in the Philippines; I have actually seen a case of counterfeit money recovered from a Japanese crashed aircraft in Mindanao, Philippines. Fascinating!)
Conclusion
The monetarists’ essential argument is that if the policy objective is to have future lower interest rates you have to have higher interest rates now. That is, the preventative for high interest rates is high interest rates! (By ‘monetarists’, I refer to the monetary bankers and the growing numbers of ‘finance-experts’ of the new Currency School, distinct from the now-scarce practical banker-accountants of the old Banking School.)
Mysticism about money is rife, and ripe, especially within the guardian church. The Church of Money is a part of the New Technocracy that is surreptitiously overwhelming the institutions of democracy.
Re John Maynard Keynes, on the short-term versus the long-term. Keynes said: “In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again”; meaning that actual life is always lived in the short-term, and that the distinction between the short-term and the long-term is essentially vacuous.
The monetarists’ view is normative; that in the event of an economic stagnation or decline, those who had already built ‘nest eggs’ (portfolios of financial claims) should have priority access to diminished goods and services; priority over the workers and capitalists who would be producing those goods and services. That is, priority access to a diminished ‘economic pie’ should be given to rich old gentlemen and gentlewomen, with the greatest priority to be given to those with the biggest portfolios regardless of how those nest eggs were obtained. This is not a policy to benefit the poor.
Further, the implementation of neoliberal monetary policies – today’s Currency School or Currency Church, which favours intervention on the side of less money and dear money – substantially increases the likelihood of national and global economic decline, in the short-term and in the long-term. Just as a car with insufficient lubricating oil will not go well. Such a car may complete a short run, albeit inefficiently; but it will not complete a long run.
*******
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.
Last week, the facility completely failed – sending tens of millions of litres per day of raw sewage into the Cook Strait.
The wind toppled this dead tree in the Wellington suburb of Mount Cook, taking down power lines to at least one house.RNZ / John Gerritsen
The council said in windy conditions, there’s a risk seaspray containing bugs could cause illness.
Wellington Water is also warning that raw sewage may need to be pumped out of the plant due to the increased pressure from incoming rain.
“The focus today is to minimise any need to use the short outfall while keeping our operators safe.”
The water company said its latest round of testing showed some high levels of bacteria in the results, which was expected.
Meanwhile, Air New Zealand is warning of potential flight disruptions as a result of the strong winds.
Chief operating officer Alex Marren said winds over 50 knots are expected, likely causing delays and cancellations.
He said low visibility, combined with ongoing airport upgrades in Wellington, could add to the disruption.
Wellington Electricity is also warning those in the capital to prepare.
“Make sure trampolines and other outdoor objects are secured for safety reasons, and to prevent them from damaging property and overhead electrical equipment.”
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on February 15, 2026.
Funny, tender, goofy – Catherine O’Hara lit up the screen every time she showed up Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben McCann, Associate Professor of French Studies, Adelaide University Catherine O’Hara, the beloved actor and comedian who has died aged 71, occupied that rare position in contemporary screen culture: a comic actor, a cult figure and a mainstream star. Her work spanned more than 50 years, from
Australia’s Pacific worker scheme is far from perfect – but we can make it better Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Mares, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme (PALM) is a crucial source of workers across regional Australia. About 32,000 people from nine Pacific nations and Timor-Leste work in Australia under PALM. Over seven months
Indonesian protesters slam Prabowo over ‘peacekeeping’ troops for Gaza Asia Pacific Report Protesters have condemned Indonesia’s plan to take part in the International Stabilisaton Force for Gaza as Israel continues to violate the ceasefire on an almost daily basis. Carrying placards declaring “Break the siege”, “Gaza is not for sale”, “So, when will the Palestinians get to decide their own future” and crosses over
High Court defeat piles pressure on ’embarrassed’ Fiji PM Rabuka’s leadership, says academic By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor A court ruling in favour of Fiji’s dismissed anti-corruption chief has “embarrassed” Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, a New Zealand-based Fiji politics academic says. University of Canterbury distinguished professor Steven Ratuva told RNZ Pacific Waves that while the Fiji High Court decision on Barbara Malimali offered “clarity” on the separation
Dog parks are an unexploited arena for a television dramedy – so now we have ABC’s Dog Park Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phoebe Hart, Associate Professor, Film Screen & Animation, Queensland University of Technology Raise a paw if your dog ever helped you to meet a new two-legged friend? The premise of ABC’s Dog Park capitalises on the fact pet ownership in Australia is increasing, with canines being the
NZ protesters condemn ‘IDF kill chain’ link to Gaza genocide Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – Asia Pacific Report New Zealand protesters have again spotlighted the country’s stake in US space militarisation today and speakers branded Rocket Lab as an alleged key link in the “IDF kill chain” as part of the Gaza genocide. “Rocket Lab is a celebrated New Zealand success
Francesca Albanese: Why a revolutionary shift on global justice is underway Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese has dismissed recent accusations of anti-Semitism against her as “shameful and defamatory” in an interview on France 24. She has also warned that “the plan to fully destroy Gaza continues” and denounced Israeli measures in the
Stuart Rees: Cowardice over Gaza dressed up as state authority on Sydney’s streets Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – COMMENTARY: By Stuart Rees The violence surrounding protests against the visit of Israel’s president was not an accident of crowd control. It reflects a deeper political failure – where authority suppresses dissent rather than confronting uncomfortable truths about Gaza, protest rights and democratic responsibility. In official
Wild weather is sweeping through the east and lower North Island and some parts of the South Island, with orange weather warnings, and yellow watches across much of the motu, for heavy rain and strong winds.
In some places, MetService forecasters have warned there is a threat to life from dangerous river conditions, significant flooding and slips.
States of emergency have been issued for Tararua District. Waipā District and Ōtorohanga District.
This latest burst of stormy weather comes as several regions reel from severe storms that have already closed roads, flooded properties and damaged infrastructure.
We’ll be bringing you the latest weather news updates in our live blog through the afternoon and evening.
Police say the incident happened at around 9pm on Saturday night.RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
A Hamilton woman has been seriously assaulted in her own home after confronting two men trying to get inside.
Police said the assault happened on Clarkin Road in Fairfield at about 9pm on Saturday.
The woman was injured and needed hospital treatment.
Police said her attackers took off toward River Road.
Detective Senior Sergeant Neilson said police would be carrying out reassurance patrols in the area.
“Nobody should be unsafe in their own home and the victim is understandably shaken. We’re providing wrap around support for her.”
Police are appealing to the public for information, and say even the smallest detail could be crucial.
“If you know something about this abhorrent crime, please come forward as soon as possible.
“We’re still working to establish the full circumstances and ask anyone with CCTV or dashcam footage from the neighbourhood around Clarkin Road to review the video and contact us if it shows suspicious or unusual activity.”
Police were particularly interested in the period between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on Saturday.
The public can report information online at 105.police.govt.nz or call 105, using the reference number 260215/9344.
SailGP organisers have decided to split the fleet for day two of racing off Wynyard Point, after the huge high-speed crash between New Zealand and France on Saturday.
One sailor from each team was taken to hospital, with Kiwi grinder Louis Sinclair reported in stable condition with compound fractures to both legs.
Neither team will front for competition on Sunday, when stronger conditions are expected on the water.
Racing starts at 11.30am.
Follow all the live action here:
Black Foils’ boat Amokura lifted out of the water, after crashing with France.Felix Diemer for SailGP
The ACT leader has distinguished his party from its coalition partners in a state of the nation speech, giving a blunt assessment of how tough things are at the moment, especially for young people.
ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour took a swipe at “bureaucratic” governments that aren’t balancing their books, turned an old call for a smaller government into a campaign promise, and rejected the “endless blame game” of scapegoating one group after another.
Seymour spoke to around 200 party supporters at a venue in Christchurch while around 30 Free Palestine protestors gathered outside, alongside a police presence.
Some protestors were also heard chanting inside the venue, with sirens being played during his introduction by deputy leader Brooke van Velden.
Seymour said the number of people leaving the country was a “flashing light on the dashboard of New Zealand”, and he used his speech to specify the “hard choices” needed to “turn down those lights.”
He spoke of five warning lights that needed to be “overcome.”
ACT leader David Seymour during his State of the Nation speech in Christchurch.RNZ/Delphine Herbert
ACT’s five warning lights
First, he mentioned the cost-of-living crisis, but called it a productivity slump instead, saying wages hadn’t kept up with inflation.
“People work their guts out only to find that they’re further behind, and it’s no wonder that people are getting jaded and angry.”
Related to this, he said, was the problem that the government wasn’t balancing it books, saying the country was on a collision course with bankruptcy unless “we find the courage to change our spending habits.”
“If there are no nasty surprises for the next five years, we’re on track as a government to post a small surplus by 2030, but after that, our aging population will put us back in the red for more decades of deficit spending, where the red ink carries on.”
Seymour highlighted the risk to democracy throughout the world, because people find governments “frustrating and unresponsive”.
While he didn’t think democracy was in serious danger in New Zealand, “we are subject to the same frustrations.”
“People lose faith and trust in our institutions. They see government is so damn bureaucratic and unresponsive.”
He said New Zealanders don’t have a “positive, inclusive sense of who we are”.
“This experiment of dividing ourselves into a treaty partnership between Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti has been a disaster.”
Lastly, he said an entire generation felt let down by those problems, and young New Zealanders who look at their student loan, wages, taxes and the housing market, “they can’t make the numbers add up.”
“No one is saying that the boomers had it easy. Baby Boomers worked hard for what they have, but they worked hard because hard work was a rewarding strategy.
“That deal feels broken.”
He returned to those who were “voting with their feet”.
“It’s a great failing to fail at the expectations of your own citizens.”
ACT Party supporters wait to hear David Seymour’s ‘State of the Nation’ speech in Christchurch, 15 February 2026.Delphine Herbert / RNZ
He said ACT would be the party to “tell it like it is,” and take on hard issues and provide brave but constructive solutions in order to “set the country up for success”.
He drew a clear line between the current government and the “potential next government” of Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori, which he said frightened him.
“I listen to Chris Hipkins, and I hear Jacinda Ardern ‘light’ – a lilting voice that says all the right things, promises Nirvana, but never says how we’ll pay for it or tackle the key issues.
“He reminds me of what I imagine an anesthetist would sound like, just before he gives you the injection to knock you out and make you forget about the pain.
“I listen to the Greens, and I wake up quickly.
“They used to speak for the environment, but increasingly, they channel the young generation’s fear and frustrations, which are legitimate, by blaming others’ success and even bleeding into disgusting and unforgivable anti-semitism.”
He also mentioned Chlöe Swarbrick directly, calling her the “drag down merchant.”
“I listen to Te Pāti Māori and they sort of frighten me, but they also bewilder me,” said Seymour.
“If they want to be living as Māori, well, that’s ka pai.
“If they want everyone to live in a Māori society with themselves as tangata whenua, sitting atop a hierarchy of identity, that’s where we part company.”
He said ACT’s first mission was to keep them out of power. Seymour said if he’d had a dollar for every person who told him they’d leave New Zealand if Labour got back into power, ACT’s fundraising would be done for the year.
He explained he didn’t receive money each time he’d been told, so if people wanted to donate, there was a QR code on the table.
But he also drew a distinction between his own party and his partners in government, in which ACT is now polling lowest. In the latest Reid Research Poll, from January, National was on 31.9 percent, New Zealand First was on 9.8 percent while ACT was on 7.6 percent.
Seymour said on Sunday ACT had spent the past two years proving it was up to the job of “fixing what matters” and that it had an “outsized role” in making savings.
He cited the new school lunch scheme, pay equity changes and that the party had “knocked $200 million off” the cost of the Waikato Medical School.
“We calculate that if you gave your party vote to act last time, then you have saved the taxpayer $57,000.”
He highlighted work done by ACT ministers in government, “Brooke is fixing the Holidays Act, even as she fixes unfair employment laws and restores common sense to Health and Safety law by focusing it on critical risks”.
He highlighted the work done by ACT ministers in government as “competent managers.”
He also highlighted Act policy wins such as reinstating mortgage interest tax deductibility.
He mentioned the Treaty Principles Bill, which was defeated at its second reading, saying “we may have lost the vote, but we won the debate”, and that the first vote won’t be the final say on the legislation.
ACT’s solutions
He proposed the party’s solutions were based on three ideas to “break our country’s slump”:
1. Equal rights for all citizens, “so we can all feel like we’re part of a country with a positive and inclusive identity”
2. Positive-sum thinking, rather than “scapegoating some small group of New Zealanders,” before listing farmers, firearm owners, supermarket operators, landlords and bankers
3. A smaller, more efficient Government “that you can trust to deliver services for taxes you can actually afford”
Seymour said the country needed an accurate and uplifting story, “we are not two peoples.”
“We are many peoples united by a common story,” he said, referencing a nation of settlers, “we don’t see wealth as something to divide, but something to create.”
He also rejected the “endless blame game”.
“Scapegoating one group after another hasn’t solved a single problem. We believe that most people, most of the time, are just trying to make the best of their time on earth, and we should start with that spirit.”
Beyond that, he said the books still needed to be balanced, wages raised, and faith restored in democracy.
He highlighted again a long-standing ACT party call for a smaller, more efficient government. In May last year, Seymour criticised the ministerial line-up as looking “bloated” and full of “meaningless titles”.
The pime mnister rejected the criticism at the time. However, late last year the government announced a mega ministry which will take on the work of housing, transport, and local government functions.
He said ACT would campaign this year on a smaller government, which would be made up of:
No more than 20 ministers, who all sit in Cabinet
No more than 30 departments, so most ministers have only one
No department answers to more than one minister
No minister has a portfolio; there are only departments with budgets to manage
He said it was an idea “whose time has come”, and the party would be campaigning to ensure it “happens completely.”
The chairman of a controversial ministerial advisory group that will disband months earlier than planned rejected advice from officials about which office it should rent, preferring a more expensive option for privacy reasons.
The Ministerial Advisory Group for Victims of Retail Crime is renting space in a Symonds Street building in central Auckland, paying $119,000 for the 2025/26 year.
The group was created in mid-2024 and correspondence obtained from that time shows officials from the Ministry of Justice, which provides the group with administrative support, initially said that option wasn’t the most-effective.
Officials recommended a shared office with Kāinga Ora, but group chairman Sunny Kaushal said this wasn’t suitable for privacy reasons.
This week Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced the group would disband in May, four months earlier than planned.
Justice Minister Paul GoldsmithRNZ / Nathan McKinnon
The announcement followed RNZ revealing that three of the group’s five members had resigned in recent weeks, leaving just Kaushal and Hamilton liquor retailer Ash Parmar.
One of the members who resigned, Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young, said her relationship with Kaushal became untenable.
The group has faced criticism for its spending and value for money, including over Kaushal’s fees as chairman.
But, Kaushal and Goldsmith have defended the group’s work, saying it had provided advice on a range of issues such as trespass law reform and self-defence.
Documents obtained by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union show a shortlist of three possible offices was developed, after Kaushal had reviewed 26 possible options.
The Symonds Street office was one of the three, but not the one officials initially favoured. That was a shared space with Kāinga Ora in Ellerslie.
RNZ / Marika Khabazi
However, in the documents, the Ellerslie office was described as “open plan… which isn’t appropriate for confidential conversations”.
“This option was originally our recommendation, however, the chairman has advised this doesn’t meet his requirements due to the privacy concerns.”
So instead the Symonds Street office was recommended.
“While this option is not the most cost-effective it is the recommended option due to the property being secure, minimal risk of individuals’ breach of privacy, and furniture is supplied, making the move in more seamless, as well as benefiting the environment.”
A third office, in Parnell, was considered, but the landlord there wouldn’t add a break clause to any rental agreement.
‘This isn’t the SIS’
This week the ministry confirmed the Symonds Street lease would now end in May, rather than September.
A spokesman for Goldsmith said questions about operational matters should be directed to the ministry.
Ministry deputy secretary, policy, Caroline Greaney said as at 31 December, the 389 sqm Symonds Street office was the usual place of work for three staff members and Kaushal.
“It also serves as the venue for group member meetings, and stakeholder meetings and functions.”
The ministry couldn’t immediately say how many stakeholder meetings and functions it had held.
Kaushal told RNZ he’d previously answered questions about the office.
The documents obtained by the Taxpayers’ Union show the total cost for the Symonds Street office in 2025/26 was $131,000, when other expenses such as power were factored in.
Union investigations co-ordinator Rhys Hurley said paying that much for an office of such a size was a farce.
“The original recommendation from the Ministry of Justice was to take the most cost-effective office,” he said.
“The chairman was concerned about privacy, but this isn’t the SIS. The next time a quango like this needs space, they can borrow some of ours.”
Hurley said the most cost-effective option for taxpayers should have been taken.
Labour police spokeswoman Ginny Andersen said the group had been a disaster since it began.
“[Prime Minister Chris] Luxon and Goldsmith have spent millions, a lot of which is going to Sunny Kaushal’s office space, overpriced events, and Kaushal’s lofty remuneration, only to rehash bad ideas like citizen’s arrest in return.
“Goldsmith needs to front up about why they allowed the group to spend on more expensive office options when more affordable options were available.”
After a public outcry, the government is imposing a two-year ban on taking shellfish from rockpools north of Auckland.
The ban is for all of the Whangaparāoa Peninsula, and further north at Kawau Bay and Ōmaha Bay.
Locals have said more people are taking sea life and beaches were being stripped bare.
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones said on Sunday most people did the right thing “and gather only what is appropriate and legal”, but others were exploiting and collapsing ecosystems.
The ban will take effect from 12 March and will be enforced by fishery officers.
Oceans and Fisheries Under-Secretary Jenny Marcroft said officials “have been directed to explore how community volunteers can be supported to encourage visitors to do the right thing”.
“Fisheries New Zealand will also develop multilingual educational material to support this closure and the ongoing management of intertidal fisheries.”
Fisheries worked with the Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust, Jones said, to enact a traditional rāhui.
“My decision excludes some of the species and areas requested by Ngāti Manuhiri where existing closures and restrictions apply.”
All seaweed, invertebrate and shellfish were covered, he said, as well as sponges, starfish, anemone and sea cucumbers.
Sea urchin (kina) were excluded from the ban.RNZ/Nick Monro
Spiny rock lobster and scallops were already covered by existing closures.
Sea urchin (kina) were excluded “and can still be taken within the current recreational fishing limits”.
“I decided to allow kina to continue to be taken as managing kina barrens is a priority for me. Officials will continue to actively monitor and manage kina population.”
The closure did not apply to any aquaculture activities such as marine farming or the collection of spat (small juvenile shellfish), Jones and Marcroft said.
“It’s important that these coastal management restrictions do not impact on marine farming and the aquaculture development so it can continue to support our economy and provide jobs in our communities,” Jones said.
Protesters have condemned Indonesia’s plan to take part in the International Stabilisaton Force for Gaza as Israel continues to violate the ceasefire on an almost daily basis.
Carrying placards declaring “Break the siege”, “Gaza is not for sale”, “So, when will the Palestinians get to decide their own future” and crosses over the Israeli flag, protesters marched through streets in Jakarta dressed in keffiyeh and Palestinian flags.
President Prabowo Subianto is due to join a meeting of what US President Donald Trump calls the “Board of Peace” in Washington on Thursday, reports Al Jazeera.
Indonesia’s involvement is controversial with Prabowo facing mounting criticism for the deployment plans.
Many critics are saying the plan could “sideline” the Palestinians and are accusing Subianto of “serving Israel’s goals”.
He has sought to reassure Muslim leaders that Indonesia would withdraw if Palestinian interests in self-determination are not advanced.
Indonesia peecekeeping force plan Video: Al Jazeera
Fiji is also facing controversy over reported plans that it may also be deploying troops for the ISF.
However, Fiji’s Defence Minister Pio Tikoduadua has clarified that Fiji has not yet made any commitment to participate, saying six days ago that the country has only received an invitation, reports Pacnews.
In a statement posted on social media, Tikoduadua stressed that no response had been given at this stage.
“Let me be clear: Fiji has only received an invitation to be part of the Gaza international stabilisation force. We have not yet responded,” he said.
Writing for Asia Pacific Report, former Fiji military officer Jim Sanday who commanded Fijian peacekeeping battalions in Lebanon and Sinai, was highly critical of the proposal, saying its United Nations reputation risked being damaged while being “excluded from decision-making”.
In 2025, Sanday led the National Security and Defence Review (NSDR) and co-authored the National Security Strategy that was approved by Cabinet in June 2025.
Deputy Prime Minister and ACT leader David Seymour will deliver his latest ‘State of the Nation’ speech in Christchurch on Sunday morning.
Last year, Seymour said the country was at a tipping point between “two invisible tribes” and what the country did in the next few years would decide “which way we go”.
He also urged New Zealanders to get past the “squeamishness about privatisation”.
Seymour is expected to speak at 10.45am. Afterwards, he will take questions from the media.
David Seymour.RNZ / MARIKA KHABAZI
The event will be livestreamed in the player above.
SailGP organisers have decided to split the fleet for day two of racing off Wynyard Point, after the huge high-speed crash between New Zealand and France on Saturday.
One sailor from each team was taken to hospital, with Kiwi grinder Louis Sinclair reported in stable condition with compound fractures to both legs.
Neither team will front for competition on Sunday, when stronger conditions are expected on the water.
Racing starts at 11.30am.
Follow all the live action here:
Black Foils’ boat Amokura lifted out of the water, after crashing with France.Felix Diemer for SailGP
Emerald Fennell’s film of Wuthering Heights, starring Australian actors Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Catherine, bills itself as the “greatest love story of all time”. A poll of British readers agreed.
But what would Heathcliff think?
Heathcliff, if you’ve not read the book, seen one of the many adaptations, or heard Kate Bush’s iconic song, is the protagonist of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë’s sole novel (published originally under the pseudonym Ellis Bell). He’s the ethnically ambiguous foster child of the Earnshaw family, who live in the titular Wuthering Heights on the windswept, desolate Yorkshire moors: the backdrop for his obsessive, doomed relationship with his foster-sister Catherine.
The new film poster evokes a romance ‘clinch cover’.
Supplied
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
“With the wastewater catastrophe ongoing, the Moa Point treatment plant continues to be cleaned. But what was raw sewage pouring into the water is now screened wastewater,” Newstalk ZB’s Wellington newsreader Max Towle told listeners last Monday.
Better news? Only a little.
“Mayor Andrew Little said there’ll be a terrible stench in areas as crews try to rectify the situation,” said Towle.
“That solid waste has been lying around for a couple of three days, so the odour will be apparent,” Little warned.
And 30 minutes later, ZB News was back with news of a fresh sewage leak.
“Crews over the weekend had to respond to overflow from a manhole near Mana Esplanade after pumps backed off and went off-sequence,” Towle told weary Wellington listeners.
It never rains, but it pours… out into the sea and even out of manholes in Mana, further denting the mana of greater Wellington.
“We’ll see more of these sorts of things happening. All our pumps and our pipes need replacing – and it’s just more infrastructure spending,” Porirua Mayor Anita Baker told Newstalk ZB.
And she wasn’t the only one saying that lately.
Nationwide pipe problem
“These are long-run assets that last 50, 70 years,” Prime Minister Christopher said on RNZ’s Morning Report soon after, making the point that the soiled state of the nation’s capital is part of a national problem.
“Wellington Water in particular had a hybrid model that really hasn’t worked, where each council had to chip in cash to band-aid over solutions and problems as they’ve emerged rather than [have] a consistent long-term, strategic plan for managing what are strategic assets,” he said.
Noting that Canterbury swimming spots were also closed after wastewater was discharged into Canterbury Harbour, the Herald‘s editorial on Monday called it “a rude reminder.”
“It might be another town next month, but we will all need to cut the crap and invest in the future of this country.”
Cutting the crap out of the south coast outfall ASAP is the priority in the capital, but it also echoed what Sunday Star-Times editor Tracy Watkins had said in her paper last weekend. Under the headline Should we wait till we are down to our last pipe? she also pointed the finger at all of us on the electoral roll.
“We – the voters – are the real culprits. We are repeat hip-pocket offenders who keep getting sucked in by politicians who milk our prejudices while avoiding the hard choices,” Watkins said.
But another of her colleagues with a weekly column in the paper, Luke Malpass, pointed the finger at politicians.
He reckoned Labour squandered a chance to sort it out with Three Waters, and now rate-capping under National will lock in underinvestment.
“This is about political choices. Leadership matters. So does making the case and accepting that projects are expensive, unpopular during construction and guaranteed to attract critics – at least until they’re finished.”
But once they’re finished, they also need to keep working – unlike Moa Point right now.
Blame game
The focus of blame also narrowed to Wellington’s local politicians.
On the Breaking Views blog of the right-leaning think tank NZCPR, Peter Bassett – described as an “observer… writing on how narrative replaces scrutiny” claimed “the WCC voted for cycleways but not for sewage protection”.
He cited a single Long-Term Plan Committee meeting five years ago at which a $400m wastewater renewals proposal was not adopted, but a cycleways option was.
He described Green councillors as “zealous apostles for cycling” driven by “climate justice philosophy”, and said the media failed to question former Greens councillor and current Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul.
His article was widely shared online this week and aired on Newstalk ZB by Kerre Woodham.
It also prompted Ryan Bridge on his Herald Now show to ask her: “What’s more important – flushing the toilet or riding a bike?”
Paul pointed out that no amendment was proposed at the time that would have boosted Moa Point, and that spending on water infrastructure during the two council terms from 2017 was substantially higher than in previous ones. That was true.
But is it also true that councillors with skewed priorities made a fateful choice in 2021 that exacerbated the current disaster?
In the Weekend Post on Saturday, Sean Rush – an energy and infrastructure lawyer – said funding was “not diverted from wastewater to cycleways” and was not the reason for the failure at Moa Point.
The proposed plan for wastewater in 2021 would have bumped rates up by almost 6 percent on its own – and Moa Point wasn’t the focus of it.
Accelerating the cycleways would only boost rates by just over half a percent more than the existing plan, he claimed.
On the front page of The Post this weekend, national affairs editor Andrea Vance detailed a startling series of faults and financial blowouts that really did contribute to the failure at Moa Point.
She and her Post colleagues – include long-serving Wellington reporter Tom Hunt – have reported daily since the disaster, as well as documenting wastewater problems before it.
Post readers have learned a lot more from their paper than from media recycling retrospective opinion pieces that seem to have an axe to grind about the Greens and narratives in the media.
Bring on the gas
While Wellington struggled with its sewage solids and liquids, the government made a bold move on gas this week – a terminal for LNG to take the edge off future power shortages.
Vital or bonkers? asked an RNZ headline, reflecting the views of supporters and opponents.
Bridge offered the not-so-helpful opinion that “depending on who you ask, this is either brilliant or batshit.” (Partial success or failure was apparently not an option.)
Other hosts on the opinion-heavy radio network – including Woodham, Mike Hosking and John McDonald – all fell in behind the idea, insisting that sustainable sources of energy were too unreliable. But the estimated billion-dollar-plus bill for it quickly became the focus too, and whether it was a “tax”, a “levy” or a “charge”.
“By the end of the day, the only sort of clarity that we have is it’s very, very clear the government totally botched the comms on this big time,” Stuff’s Jenna Lynch told ThreeNews viewers, after reporting on the political semantics.
Other reporters focused on whether it would be popular with the public.
“Auckland Central has more than 55,000 votes for grabs – and voters we spoke to today shared a common concern – the rising cost of living,” said ThreeNews reporter Zane Small, opening his report on Tuesday.
“Campaigning on energy security for tomorrow may be a tough sell to voters today,” he concluded.
But whether the plan can deliver more and cheaper power in future was the key point.
The Herald‘s veteran correspondent Audrey Young said the promise that power bills will be lower was “wild” – and fine print in the Cabinet paper had warnings.
“The costings provided by respondents through the procurement process all include significant caveats, so should be considered indicative only,” the paper said.
Several pundits noted that when the previous government called things a “levy”. National in Opposition had condemned them as “taxes”, and now the boot’s on the other foot.
“Time will tell if it’s just a divisionary tactic to keep the government on its toes or a sign that Labour has a properly different energy policy to bring to the table. Until then, I guess we’ll just argue about whether it’s a tax or not,” Henry Cooke concluded in The Post.
Been here before
Three years ago, Chris Hipkins was the prime minister when Cyclone Gabrielle showed that our transport, telecoms and emergency systems were not resilient enough.
“We can’t continue the way that we have been going. We’re going to have to look very closely at how we make sure we’ve got as resilient an infrastructure as possible,” he said in 2023.
“These storms are reminding everybody that governments actually have big problems to deal with. And we are back talking about infrastructure, for god’s sake,” an exasperated Kathryn Ryan told Nine to Noon listeners in February 2023.
The Cook Strait ferries had been conking out over that summer, too, and the government was backing away from Three Waters, and the Infrastructure Commission claimed $78b had been committed to infrastructure projects already underway.
Three years on, infrastructure anxiety is back in the headlines – in the year of an election to be fought by the same political leaders.
Are media focusing too heavily on the political debates again, rather than the big picture of infrastructure deficit?
“Yes, but this is an old chestnut which has come up every election for decades. We now have a positive chance of success through the National Infrastructure Commission,” Mike Bishara – publisher of the magazine, Infrastructure Asia Pacific, and the website InfrastructureNews.co.nz – told Mediawatch.
“It’s almost as if a mandated infrastructure pipeline for the next 30 years is too important to leave in the hands of partisan politicians. In fairness, our ridiculous three-year election cycle gives them little chance of being anything else,” said Bishara, whose article in the recently published 2026 Infrastructure Yearbook asks: ‘Can the infrastructure pipeline survive politics?’
“Daily news reporters are doing their job pretty well. They don’t have a lot of time for questions to evasive ministers when they’ve got a deadline looming in an hour or so. As long as the issue is clearly out there in the public domain, we can feel that we’ve done our job.”
Bishara is frustrated by some media reporting that is preoccupied with the total cost of projects and who might bear the cost.
His 2026 yearbook points to the Draft National Infrastructure Plan, finding that our infrastructure spending per capita is high by world standards, but the returns are among the lowest in the OECD.
“Productivity is the key. That’s the root cause of all our problems. There’s not a great deal of urgency put on that. [Politicians] are far more comfortable dealing with sound bites about problems and hoping that the media just concentrate on that.”
When the election rolls around, will these issues be put forward in the media? Or drowned out by the general cost-of-living issues the media focus on a lot?
“I think the issues will be well aired. The daily reporting that we see on TV is well-balanced and researched. We have excellent publications around, like NBR. We’ve got commentators who do address these issues directly.”
“What we have to have is… a commitment across all political parties to hold sacrosanct mandated infrastructure necessities.”
“Media can help with that, but it requires cooperation from politicians themselves. No matter how good a journalist is, if you keep asking the same question and getting the same answer, it’s very hard. That leaves people who have the time and capacity to investigate the statements.”
“The media remain pivotal in its reportage of the election.”
The Employment Relations Bill could override the Uber court decision.RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Over the past two years, the government has broken legislative records – helped by more frequent use of Parliamentary urgency and additional sittings.
As a result, it would not be surprising if the prime minister’s to-do list had been whittled down to a toothpick. But Parliament shows no sign of slowing its legislative pace.
The government added an extra morning sitting again this week, pushing aside Thursday’s Select Committees to focus on passing bills in the House. Extra mornings have become the norm, rather than the exception.
The government hoped to progress ten different bills this week, with three moving through multiple stages. Two of those bills were strongly contested, while the third was unanimously supported.
We have already discussed the Public Service Amendment Bill, which, among other things, removes the obligation that the public service reflect the community it serves.
You can also hear audio relating to that bill (and others), at the green and gold podcast link above.
The unanimously supported bill widens the definition of who Anzac Day remembers, to include all Kiwis who have served, rather than just specific veterans and specific conflicts. No party is against this idea.
The third bill, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, was more acrimonious. Labour’s Jan Tinetti began bluntly:
“Here we are again: another week and another government bill that’s putting a wrecking ball to the rights of workers in this country. …This bill is an absolute disgrace. It is an outright ideological attack on the rights of working New Zealanders, on the dignity of work, and on the very values that keep our community strong in this country. This Employment Relations Amendment Bill doesn’t amend the law, it amputates it.”
The bill finished its second reading debate on Tuesday, and then wrestled its way through a long Committee of the Whole House stage on Wednesday evening and into Thursday morning.
Lopsided debating
The debate was highly contentious, but not really contested. For example, here is National MP Rima Nakhle’s entire speech from the second reading.
“Speaker, thank you. While the Employment Relations Act has indeed provided important protections, over time, some of these settings have created unintended costs and risks for employers.
“What this bill and the changes proposed in this bill do is rebalance the system so that it works fairly for both employees and employers. I commend this bill to the House.”
MPs get 10 minutes to speak per “call”. Nakhle’s speech lasted barely 30 seconds. That is not unusual. The government wants speed, so coalition backbenchers say almost nothing on most bills.
This gives junior governing-side MPs scant debating experience, and it doesn’t help get the government’s arguments across in the House either.
Much of the time, Parliament’s debating is an oddly lopsided affair. The opposition does most of the debating, and the government wins all the votes.
On many bills, the only government speech that makes substantive arguments for passing a bill is the initial speech given by the minister whose bill it is.
ACT MP Brooke van Velden, Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety.RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The Employment Relations Amendment Bill
To find a speech that solidly outlines the government’s position on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, we must reach back two weeks to when ACT’s Brooke van Velden, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, opened the second reading debate.
“This bill is a key part of the government’s commitment to providing greater certainty for businesses and workers; supporting economic growth; and ensuring our employment relations framework is fit for a modern, dynamic economy.”
Van Velden described the bill’s foci as: “providing greater certainty for contracting parties; strengthening the consideration of accountability for the employee’s behaviour in the personal grievance process; providing an income threshold for ineligibility for unjustified dismissal personal grievances [now $200,000 p/a]; and removing the 30-day rule to improve freedom of choice and cut red tape at the beginning of employment. Together, these changes will improve labour market flexibility across the spectrum.”
The minister also outlined some adjustments to the bill.
“The bill introduces a new gateway test that provides a clearer and more efficient legal test for clear-cut, genuine contracting arrangements, which gives weight to the intention of contracting parties.
“The gateway test now explicitly covers situations where a business facilitates work for a third party… For the intention criterion, the test now clarifies that a business can specify in the written agreement that the worker is either an ‘independent contractor’ or ‘not an employee’. This means businesses that don’t classify workers as independent contractors can still use the gateway test.”
“For the restriction criterion, the test makes clear that contracting a worker for full-time work will not, in and of itself, constitute a restriction on working for others.
“This addresses a risk that the Employment Relations Authority or the Employment Court might interpret full-time work as a restriction on being able to do other work.”
Camilla Belich chairing the Education and Workforce Select Committee.VNP / Phil Smith
Among the opposition speakers, putting a varying point of view, was Labour’s Camilla Bellich.
“[The bill], effectively, rewinds and takes away the victory that some of our most vulnerable workers in New Zealand, Uber workers, gig workers, won in the Supreme Court only in November last year… What is this government doing?
“It is reversing their win through this terrible piece of legislation that will take those hard-won gains that those Uber workers made in the Supreme Court and, effectively, turn those around through the introduction of this gateway test.
“The test for who is an employee is something that is common throughout Commonwealth jurisdictions. It looks to the real nature of the work, which should be the test that we use.
“The test in this bill reverses that and makes it much easier for employers to say, ‘You are not an employee. You don’t get holiday pay. You don’t get parental leave. You don’t get sick leave. You don’t get the minimum wage. You don’t get anything, because you’re not an employee.’ That is what this bill does.”
Belich said the 30-day rule would be abolished, and that had implications for new workers.
“It essentially means that when you start in a job, instead of being covered by the collective employment agreement, …you’ll most likely be covered by an individual employment agreement unless you decide independently to join a trade union.
“The reason that that is really important is because what a lot of individual employment contracts have in them is a trial period-essentially a 90-day period where, similar to what will be introduced here, you have absolutely no rights at all, and you can be sacked for any reason at all.”
There had been plans to get the Employment Relations Amendment bill finalised in this week’s final hour of Parliament, on Thursday afternoon, but the government opted instead to begin the third reading of the Anzac Day Amendment Bill.
The Anzac Day bill seemed especially appropriate within a debating chamber that is, quite literally, a giant war memorial, with plaques for all of the many conflicts and actions New Zealand has been involved in.
And despite powerful speeches of painful history and personal grief, it was still a more convivial discussion than a third reading of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill.
*RNZ’s The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament’s Office of the Clerk. Enjoy ourarticlesorpodcastat RNZ.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Just over a decade ago, Cora-Allan was living in Canada when she was invited to make burial garments for her grandparents from traditional Niuean barkcloth.
Although the Auckland artist “didn’t think too deeply” about it, returning to New Zealand with her partner and first baby in 2016, she threw herself into a “whirlwind” of researching and teaching herself the art form.
Now, as one of the only practitioners making large-scale hiapo in Aotearoa, Cora-Allan is at the forefront of reviving the art form. She chats to Culture 101 about finding her cultural identity as a Māori and Niuean woman and her new exhibition Recording Mauri: Moments of Light and Earth – on at Wellington’s City Gallery till May.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson speaks to media.Andrew Cornaga/www.photosport.nz
It’s fair to say that Tim Percival knows a thing or two about media management and relationships. After all, he had to work for Eddie Jones for a while back when the headline-generating Australian was in charge of England. Currently, the communications lead for the RFU, Percival has put his experiences into a new book, Off The Record & On The Ball.
It’s not just about his experiences, though. Percival sought the help over 30 elite level coaches, including extensive quotes from former Chiefs, Wales and Lions boss Warren Gatland.
The result is a revealing look at the way the media operates within an often variable degree of trust, one that can change with the blow of a whistle or stroke of a keyboard. The book acts effectively as a ‘how to’ guide for both sides of the media/athlete relationship, explaining a lot of the unwritten rules and conventions around an industry that’s often widely misunderstood by the audience that follows it.
Off the Record & On the Ball, by Tim Percival.supplied
One of the main areas of conjecture, especially now that the value of disingenuous empathy as social media currency has never been higher, is around the role of journalists as critics. One of the most notorious instances of that was Gatland’s welcome back to New Zealand as coach of the British & Irish Lions in 2017, where he was greeted with a full page newspaper cartoon depicting him as a clown.
“I don’t think it affected my performance,” Gatland says in the book, with the series against the All Blacks ending in a dramatic drawn third test at Eden Park.
“I was really conscious of the negativity and I’m 100 percent convinced it came from the All Black coaches at the time. It was a deliberate ploy to put pressure on me from day one. It made me determined to do well. It galvanised me and I though, you know, I’m going to work harder here.”
The book also talks about the siege mentality that’s often used by teams to create motivation, against an outside perceived injustice that’s either real or imagined.
Wales’ head coach Warren GatlandInpho / www.photosport.nz
Veteran former Premier League manager Harry Redknapp, who was famous for giving off the cuff press conferences leaning out of his car window while leaving training, is liberally quoted in the book. He reveals a level of respect between himself and the media, saying he understands that they “have a job to do”.
“I couldn’t drive past someone at seven o’clock in the morning in January, when it’s freezing cold. It’s not in my nature to go straight past someone without stopping and speaking to them. If I can help them do their job, then what difference does that make to me?”
The overarching theme of Percival’s message is that while there’s no one clear right way for athletes, teams or coaches to operate with the media and vice versa, there are plenty of wrong ones. It’s frustrating that the default option, especially now that not just every comment but also not commenting on certain issues by athletes are dissected by the public, is to simply shun social media entirely.
Gatland makes the sad point that it wasn’t the online criticism of himself, rather that of son Bryn that got to him the most.
“Some of the vitriol on social media, it’s just nasty. It’s disgraceful.”
Perhaps that’s where publications like this can help educate the most, because at least Gatland has a right of reply when conversations are held in press conferences and under a ratified journalistic structure. Comments sections don’t have that and likely never will, so the more the public know about how sports journalism actually works, the healthier the environment will be for everyone.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Ryan Vickers said the weatherbomb that hit parts of the district was so localised, he had no idea how bad it was from his Hamilton home just 30 minutes away.
But after a long and nervous night for his mother, who was left trapped on the farm after flooding destroyed vehicle access, he drove to the property at the base of Mt Pirongia on Saturday.
What he saw shocked him.
“I’ve lived in rural communities most of my life, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Vickers said a relatively small creek on the property flooded, presumably banking up before bursting with huge force.
“I feel like what must have happened is a slip covered the creek further up, and then it kind of broke, like a dam breaking.
“What came down was the water shifting massive boulders bigger than cars and just throwing them down the mountain.
“It took out logs and trees. Stuff within five metres either side of the river [has] just been shredded, picked up and thrown down the hill.
“Then it got to the bridge, the crossing mum and dad had going up to their farm, and it’s just smashed that as well.”
To get to the Waipā farm, Vickers was forced to take back roads and travel across farmland, before using heavy machinery to clear tracks and create a path out through the back of the farm.
He said while the property had a generator, he expected it to be without water for days.
Fences, bridges, roads and livestock have been damaged or swept away, and several nearby properties are cut off.
He said it was a close-knit community, and everyone would pitch in to help out.
The driveway belonging to Ryan Vicker’s parents was scoured by raging floodwaters which took out roads and bridges.Ryan Vickers
His mother was no stranger to intense weather and flooding, but she described the noise of tumbling boulders as terrifying.
“She was worried, given what happened at the Mount, she was worried a slip could come down at their place, and she was up there by herself because Dad’s working on another farm at the moment.”
His mum got no sleep on Friday, and was a little “shell-shocked” by the experience, he said.
Vickers said the increasing frequency of these type of events pointed to a shift in the climate.
“All these hundred-year events that happen every few years, something’s changed hasn’t it?”
The South Waikato region took a particular beating from Friday’s thunderstorms, with roads, homes and infrastructure damaged in widespread flooding.
Around 80 people were forced to evacuate their homes and a motorist died when his vehicle became submerged at Puketotara on Saturday night.
Flooding and slips have closed State Highway 3 between Te Awamutu and Ōtorohanga, State Highway 39 – Pirongia to Ōtorohanga, and State Highway 31 – Kawhia to Tihiroa, as well as dozens of local roads.
A local state of emergency for the Ōtorohanga district was declared in the early hours of Saturday morning, with a declaration for Waipā following on Saturday afternoon.
Labelled an environmental disaster by the city’s mayor, Wellington Water has warned it could be months before the plant is operating again and the waters are again swimmable.
Leggett said leadership carried responsibility, and stepping aside would allow Wellington Water to focus on fixing the problems and restoring public trust.
An independent government review would examine the causes of the failure. Leggett said he would fully cooperate with that process.
His last day will be Monday. Deputy chair Bill Bayfield will take over as interim chair.
Heavy rain and severe gales are forecast to batter the eastern and southern North Island, parts of Marlborough and North Canterbury, and the Chatham Islands.
MetService issued multiple orange heavy rain and strong wind warnings on Sunday, warning of dangerous conditions from Sunday morning through to Monday evening.
Heavy rain warnings in place
An orange heavy rain warning is in force for Gisborne/Tairāwhiti south of Poverty Bay and Hawke’s Bay, about and east of Wairoa, from 6am Sunday until 5am Monday. Between 100 and 150 millimetres of rain is forecast, with peak intensities of 15 to 25mm per hour on Sunday afternoon.
Rain may briefly ease overnight before becoming heavy again early Monday. There is a moderate chance of the warning being upgraded to red.
Further south, Hawke’s Bay south of Waipukurau, including the Ruahine Range and eastern hills from Cape Kidnappers southwards, is under an orange warning from noon Sunday until 9am Monday.
MetService expects 100 to 140mm of rain, with intense bursts of 20 to 30mm per hour, especially overnight Sunday into Monday.
Inland areas of Whanganui and Manawatū north of Marton, including Taihape, are covered by a warning from 6pm Sunday until 2pm Monday, with 100 to 150mm of rain forecast and peak rates of 10 to 20mm per hour.
A prolonged warning is also in place for Wairarapa, the Tararua District and the Tararua Range from 2pm Sunday until 7pm Monday. MetService says 120 to 160mm of rain is expected over the eastern hills and Tararua Range, and 50 to 80mm across the rest of Wairarapa.
Intensities of 20 to 25mm per hour are possible in elevated areas, particularly overnight.
MetService warns streams and rivers may rise rapidly, with surface flooding, slips and hazardous driving conditions likely.
Damaging winds forecast
Severe gales are also expected.
Wairarapa and the Tararua District are under an orange strong wind warning from 6pm Sunday until 9am Monday, with southwesterly gusts reaching 120km/h in exposed places.
In Wellington and eastern Marlborough, north of Clarence, severe south to southwesterlies are forecast from 6pm Sunday until 3pm Monday, with damaging gusts of up to 130km/h in exposed areas.
Although winds are expected to ease during Monday afternoon, they may remain close to severe gale strength in some places until midnight.
Meanwhile, Gisborne/Tairāwhiti south of Poverty Bay and Hawke’s Bay face severe west to southwesterlies from 5pm Sunday until 7am Monday, with coastal gusts also reaching 130km/h. There is a moderate chance this warning could be upgraded to red.
MetService says damaging winds could bring down trees and powerlines, and make travel hazardous, particularly for high-sided vehicles and motorcycles.
Emergencies ongoing
The latest warnings come as parts of the country remain in recovery mode from recent storms.
Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell says the country is in a “perpetual cycle of response and recovery”, with 25 local states of emergency declared in the past two years.
In Waipā, the district council says its Te Tahi Water Treatment Plant has been significantly damaged. Water has been redirected to Pirongia at reduced flow, and residents are being asked to conserve water for drinking and hygiene only, and to flush toilets sparingly.
One moment summed up the Blues’ night against the Chiefs, and it happened before the game had even kicked off. An honour guard of the original 1996 Super 12 winning side stood ready to clap the Blues onto Eden Park, but no one told the players and they ran out the other side, leaving the crowd groaning in embarrassment.
The well-intentioned yet poorly executed theme then continued for most of the next 80 minutes, with the Blues showing glimpses of what they’re capable of. Unfortunately for them and the crowd, it was usually followed by a knock-on or a penalty. It took over half-an-hour for them to score at all, which then wasn’t followed up by any meaningful period of dominance.
Even at halftime the clunkiness was evident, three Kiss Cam targets awkwardly weren’t even looking at the screen and missed their cue – on Valentine’s Day no less.
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It’s not as if the Chiefs were any better in their eventual 19-15 win, mind you. It seemed like both sides were still in preseason mode and it wasn’t until the game entered the final 10 minutes that they were able to click into gear, with three All Blacks combining for the winning try.
That effort from Cortez Ratima was enough for new Chiefs coach Jono Gibbes to breathe a sigh of relief.
“We absorbed a hell of a lot of pressure in that second half,” he admitted post-match.
“What it took was us just staying in that moment and falling back to our prep. We worked it up the middle of the field and had one opportunity, which we converted.”
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Meanwhile, Blues captain Dalton Papali’i lamented his side’s inability to seize key moments.
“We took our foot off the throat, they got two penalties down in our half. It’s small moments that win or lose these games and we gave them three moments to execute, and they did. It cost us the game.”
All I need is a Miracle, while the Highlanders shock the Crusaders
Miracle Faiilagi is two things – a headline writer’s dream and a very, very good rugby player. His three tries helped Moana Pasifika won the Battle of the Pacific 40-26 over the Drua, a surprisingly comfortable scoreline at the otherwise formidable Churchill Park in Lautoka.
Not many were giving Moana much hope after Ardie Savea’s exit for this season, but if they can dig deep and rally around Faiilagi, there’s a way forward for the expansion team whose even existence is constantly precarious.
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While the Highlanders’ 25-23 win over the Crusaders was impressive and celebrated everywhere outside of red and black country, you don’t need to look too far into the past to know that this isn’t the best indicator of how their season will go. This is the second season in a row that they’ve beaten the defending champions in their first home game, last year they ended up losing nine of their next 10 games and coming last.
The same can be said for the Crusaders, who were very flat and still had a chance to win it on the last play. Their redemption season in 2025 still had hiccups, like a big loss to Moana at home, but ultimately that was a long way from the business end of the competition that the Crusaders generally revel in. Put simply: they will be a lot better than this going forward.
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Meanwhile, Max Jorgensen may well have scored the try of the season already on Friday night with his ankle-breaking effort in the Waratahs’ surprisingly comprehensive win over the Reds. Like the Highlanders, the Tahs have form when it comes to early season mirages, but the hope for a strong side in Sydney is something that goes beyond their long suffering fans.
The Tahs’ 2014 final win was the highest attended Super Rugby game in history. It’s fair to say that the appetite among competition bosses to have the narrative revolve around the biggest potential market is large, but it’ll take more than this one result to make that happen.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Christchurch City Council is looking at bringing in drinking water to parts of the city as supermarkets sell out, after a boil water notice for bacteria contamination was sent to tens of thousands of residents.
A public health alert was issued on Saturday afternoon for around 14,000 households in New Brighton, Burwood, Wainoni, Aranui and Southshore.
It said all water, including filtered water, needed to be continuously boiled for at least one minute after routine testing discovered total coliforms in the Rawhiti water zone.
Total coliforms are a broad category of bacteria that can be found in faeces, but also live in the environment, including in soil and plants.
They do not generally pose a direct health risk, but the presence of total coliforms indicated bacteria were present and that treatment has not been effective or that treated water was vulnerable to contamination, according to the website of water regulator Taumata Arowai.
Residents and people travelling into the area received multiple emergency text alerts about the problem throughout Saturday.
Linwood Ward Councillor Yani Johanson said boil water notices on metropolitan water supplies were relatively rare, though noted the Rawhiti zone was under a notice for four days following the discovery of e.coli in 2019.
He had pressed the council for more details and advocated for bringing in water tankers to key spots to alleviate the burden for residents.
Some residents would be anxious and would want as much detail as possible about the levels of bacteria and the cause, particularly given the supply is chlorinated, he said.
Residents in the affected suburbs were already struggling with a surge in offensive odours from the city’s damaged sewage plant, which have plagued the eastern suburbs since a fire destroyed key infrastructure at the Bromley Wastewater Plant in 2021, and had intensified again over recent weeks.
“It’s another blow for the community,” he said.
Coastal Ward Councillor Celeste Donovan said the council was looking at options to bring in water, especially as supermarkets in the area were struggling to keep bottled water stocked.
Celeste Donovan with former Mayor Lianne Dalziel.Supplied / Kirk Hargreaves
On Saturday, the council arranged for a water tanker as New Brighton hosted thousands at the Coast to Coast finish line.
Donovan said there was never a good time to get news of bacterial contamination, but the alerts began just as more than 1000 multi-sport athletes, their supporters and spectators descended on New Brighton pier.
“Obviously with a lot of people who aren’t able to boil water at home, we wanted to make sure that people had access to water on site because we had thousands of people turning up for the Coast to Coast.”
Donovan said the influx of visitors was one of the reasons for the repeated emergency alerts, which reached everyone in the area – not just residents.
The council would update the community once further testing had taken place, but it could take a few days to lift the notice even if test results were clear as the council will have to identify the source of the bacteria before it can remove the boil notice, she said.
People could check if they were in the affected area on the council website or Facebook page, she said.
She acknowledged the community’s frustration at another infrastructure issue affecting residents in the area.
“I think that’s why it’s important we put out good information now, but there is a lot of frustration in the community and it highlights how important it is to continue to invest in infrastructure like our water pipes and making sure we avoid things like rates caps in the future,” Donovan said.
Bromley sewage plant.Screenshot / Christchurch City Council
Last month, anger boiled over about increasingly bad odours and a lack of information, with residents walking out of a heated public meeting after demanding more information, better communication and more support.
“The main thing is actually getting rid of the stench, which is the goal, of course. So speeding up the permanent fix is the priority and making sure that those live in that impacted area get all the support they need.”
A Christchurch City Council spokesperson said routine testing found total coliforms, but not E.coli in the water supply.
“Total coliforms are a group of bacteria commonly found in the environment, and their presence in the water network serves as an indicator of potential contamination and the possible existence of harmful pathogens.”
The council said staff and contractors were undertaking further testing and investigations to understand the cause of the contamination.
The boil water notice will be in place until further notice, it said.
Ryan Vickers said the weatherbomb that hit parts of the district was so localised, he had no idea how bad it was from his Hamilton home just 30 minutes away.
But after a long and nervous night for his mother, who was left trapped on the farm after flooding destroyed vehicle access, he drove to the property at the base of Mt Pirongia on Saturday.
What he saw shocked him.
“I’ve lived in rural communities most of my life, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Vickers said a relatively small creek on the property flooded, presumably banking up before bursting with huge force.
“I feel like what must have happened is a slip covered the creek further up, and then it kind of broke, like a dam breaking.
“What came down was the water shifting massive boulders bigger than cars and just throwing them down the mountain.
“It took out logs and trees. Stuff within five metres either side of the river [has] just been shredded, picked up and thrown down the hill.
“Then it got to the bridge, the crossing mum and dad had going up to their farm, and it’s just smashed that as well.”
To get to the Waipā farm, Vickers was forced to take back roads and travel across farmland, before using heavy machinery to clear tracks and create a path out through the back of the farm.
He said while the property had a generator, he expected it to be without water for days.
Fences, bridges, roads and livestock have been damaged or swept away, and several nearby properties are cut off.
He said it was a close-knit community, and everyone would pitch in to help out.
The driveway belonging to Ryan Vicker’s parents was scoured by raging floodwaters which took out roads and bridges.Ryan Vickers
His mother was no stranger to intense weather and flooding, but she described the noise of tumbling boulders as terrifying.
“She was worried, given what happened at the Mount, she was worried a slip could come down at their place, and she was up there by herself because Dad’s working on another farm at the moment.”
His mum got no sleep on Friday, and was a little “shell-shocked” by the experience, he said.
Vickers said the increasing frequency of these type of events pointed to a shift in the climate.
“All these hundred-year events that happen every few years, something’s changed hasn’t it?”
The South Waikato region took a particular beating from Friday’s thunderstorms, with roads, homes and infrastructure damaged in widespread flooding.
Around 80 people were forced to evacuate their homes and a motorist died when his vehicle became submerged at Puketotara on Saturday night.
Flooding and slips have closed State Highway 3 between Te Awamutu and Ōtorohanga, State Highway 39 – Pirongia to Ōtorohanga, and State Highway 31 – Kawhia to Tihiroa, as well as dozens of local roads.
A local state of emergency for the Ōtorohanga district was declared in the early hours of Saturday morning, with a declaration for Waipā following on Saturday afternoon.
New Zealand and French boats crash during SailGP racing on Waitematā Harbour.Phil Walter
New Zealand SailGP
11.30am Sunday, 15 February*
Wynyard Point, Auckland
Live updates on RNZ
*Start time has been changed due to the weather
Kiwi SailGP driver Phil Robertson hopes the high-speed crash between New Zealand and France on Auckland’s Waitematā Harbour will force a rethink of racing format for the rest of the 2026 championship.
Competition was suspended during race three of New Zealand SailGP, after the two rivals collided during the sprint to the first mark. Replays showed the Black Foils apparently lose control of their rudder and spin into the path of the French, whose boat flew over the bow of Amokura.
All crew were quickly accounted for, but two sailors – one from each team – were injured and rushed ashore to hospital.
The rest of the fleet continued around the mark, but the contest was called off, as they headed back towards the scene of the crash, where the two boats were still entangled midcourse.
Soon after, organisers suspended racing for the day. The French boat was towed back to Wynyard Basin, but Amokura lay in pieces on the harbour and likely be out of action for quite a while.
The incident shook up the entire fleet, with Italian team driver Robertson recounting his own close call in the build-up.
“It’s obviously pretty hectic,” he said. “You never really want to see anything like that.
Italy driver Phil Robertson holds court at the SailGP media conference.Alan Lee/Photosport
“It’s a bit shocking, but it’s racing and it was a racing incident that went on out there.”
Auckland-born Robertson described how the New Zealand boat initially veered towards his boat, but seemed to regain control to avoid that contact.
“I saw them in my peripheral, as they started sliding towards us, then took a glance over my shoulder and saw them spin out. I didn’t really see the rest, until we stopped and looked back, and saw two boats on top of each other – it’s not very nice to see that.
“These boats are pretty hard to control at those high speeds and everyone’s pushing like mad on those reaches. They got a bit slidey, which is very natural to happen, and slid towards us, but you trust they’re going to get grip again and they did.”
New Zealand SailGP is the first time the fleet has raced with 13 boats, with Artemis Sweden joining the championship this year.
At last month’s season-opener in Perth, the Spanish boat suffered damage in practice and was unable to compete.
Organisers hope to add another team next year and have experimented with splitting the fleet into two heats of seven.
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“I think it’s the shortest racecourse in SailGP and 13 boats… yeah, I don’t know,” Robertson offered. “I think questions will be asked.
“I think when it’s conditions like this, I think that [two fleets] will be the expectation. We know it’s going to be tricky and there will be crashes, but it just minimises the risk, when there’s a bit more space on the course.
“Bigger courses sure, 13 boats no problem, but I think small courses and big breeze, when everyone’s on the limit of control already, it’s probably a smart idea to start having that conversation seriously.
“I assume a few sailors will be asking a few questions.”
Despite the Auckland incident, British driver Dylan Fletcher still favours the bigger fleet.
“I’d rather it stay as one fleet,” the defending SailGP champion said. “It doesn’t honestly feel that different, whether you’ve got 11 or 13.
“It’s relatively similar. Even at the start, you’ve got that separation.
“From my point of view, I love the racing with 13 boats. It’s unfortunate we won’t have that for a little bit of while now, but that’s the way it is.”
New Zealand and France come together midfleet, as they sprinted to the first mark of race three.Phil Walter
Robertson has been a SailGP fixture since the professional sailing began in 2019, steering teams from China, Spain and Canada, before joining the Italian outfit last year.
With a weather bomb forecast for the North Island this weekend, the local lad was quizzed about the prospect of racing in big winds on the Waitematā at Friday’s official media conference.
His reaction: “You wet your pants a little and move on.”
Italy narrowly avoided their own disaster, when they were caught in a gust of win that almost tipped them over during the build-up to race one. They barely managed to regain equilibrium and bring their boat back down on both hulls.
Sunday racing has already been moved forward a few hours to avoid the worst of the weather, but most drivers anticipate even more testing conditions on day two.
“Look, the accident was obviously extremely unfortunate, but I don’t think anyone’s really going to change,” Robertson said. “It’s a little bit out of the ordinary and you trust everyone’s being careful out there.
“That’s probably a situation I don’t think anyone envisioned, a boat spinning out and getting run over. It’s always in our mind that someone may crash in front of you, but coming from that position the Kiwis were in and into the French like that, no-one’s really thought about that situation before.”
“I think all the sailors are pretty shaken up, seeing that sight. It’s not something you want to see and I’m sure it affects everyone a bit.”
New Zealand protesters have again spotlighted the country’s stake in US space militarisation today and speakers branded Rocket Lab as an alleged key link in the “IDF kill chain” as part of the Gaza genocide.
“Rocket Lab is a celebrated New Zealand success story, with a stated mission to open access to space and improve life on Earth,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) advocate Brendan Corbett.
“Yet many of its key contracts are with the US military and their suppliers.
“It is driven by share price increases and creating value for shareholders.”
Corbett said the global space militarisation market size was valued at US$61 billion (about NZ$100 billion) in 2025 and was projected to grow from US$66 billion this year to US$116 billion by 2034.
North America dominated space militarisation last year with a market share of more than 40 percent.
“Break the Rocket Lab kill chain,” says the protester banner on Queens Wharf in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
‘World war threat’ “The overwhelming majority of our human family are totally appalled at this march to militarisation of space and the threat of world war,” Corbett told the crowd in Te Komititanga Square as they marked the 123rd week of protest over the Gaza genocide.
“But not the war mongering investor class. They make more money.
“Guess what people? Increasing geopolitical rivalry and security threats propels market growth.”
A so-called “ceasefire” came into effect in Gaza on October 10, but since then Israeli violations almost daily have killed 591 Palestinians and wounded 1578 – and children dying at a rate of about two a day — with the besieged enclave facing a severe humanitarian crisis.
Overall, the death toll in the Gaza Strip has topped 72,049 with 171,691 wounded – mostly women and children — since the start of the war, according to Palestinian health authorities.
PSNA activist Brendan Corbett . . . “Military tech companies no longer pretend they are ethical and humane.” Image: Asia Pacific Report
The government has raised the total number of launches allowed for Rocket Lab at its Mahia launch pad tenfold to 1000, as the cap set at 100 in 2017 is close to being breached.
However, a physics professor at Auckland University, Dr Richard Easther, told RNZ News this week that he did not trust the New Zealand Space Agency to make good decisions while the agency said it had assessed all space activities against clear legislative criteria.
Geopolitical tension Corbett stressed the increasing geopolitical tension, rivalries and escalating security threats across the globe.
This situation was expected to encourage countries to strengthen space-based defence capabilities.
Military forces of various nations required satellites and space systems to maintain secure communications, surveillance, and navigation under hostile conditions.
A “Rocket Lab = death for money” banner at today’s protest in Te Komititanga Square. Image: Asia Pacific Report
“This is the Rocket Lab, Black Sky, Palantir, IDF kill chain,” said Corbett, referring to the Israeli Defence Forces, although critics prefer to characterise IDF as the IOF – “Israeli Offence Forces” in view of Tel Aviv having attacked five countries in the region last year.
“This demand drives procurement of hardened, redundant, and cyber-secure space infrastructure — ”these are the factors contributing to space militarisation market growth”.
Corbett quoted Palantir chief executive officer Alex Karp telling investors in a call last month: “Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the best in the world, and when it’s necessary to scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them.”
“Military tech companies no longer pretend they are ethical and humane,” Corbett said.
Space technologies He explained how space militarisation included deployment and use of space technologies for military applications such as reconnaissance, communications, navigation and so on.
It involved satellites, ground systems and related technologies for defence.
“This is the market niche that fuels Rocket Lab’s business plan,” he said.
Some countries used space and counter-space capabilities and integrated them into regular military exercises.
With space militarisation, countries integrated space assets such as satellites, ground stations, and launch systems into defence operations.
“These factors are driving the overall market growth,” Corbett said. “These are the activities that are driving us to war.”
“Sanctions now” placard pictured outside a McDonalds store – the US-based corporation sponsors Israel’s IDF military. Image: Asia Pacific Report
RIMPAC 2026 exercises He cited some of the major companies involved, including Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon Technologies — both investors in Rocket Lab — Northrop Gumman Corporation, Airbus Defence and Space, and others.
Other speakers included Kia Ora Gaza activist Patrick O’Dea – who reminded the crowd of nuclear-free protest success in blocking visits by US warships in the 1980s – PSNA’s Neil Scott, and Maire Leadbeater of West Papua Action Tāmaki.
O’Dea challenged the crowd top campaign against New Zealand taking part in the RIMPAC 2026 military exercises in Hawai’i during June to August and “collaborating with the IDF”.
Protesters marched with banners declaring “Break the Rocket Lab kill chain” and “Rocket Lab – death for money” to Queens Wharf where a visiting Norwegian cruise ship Viking Orion (1000 passengers) was moored.
