Author: Press Room

Budget 2025’s significant policy shifts, with major changes to pay equity funding, KiwiSaver contributions, have been described as both moves for the future and an “outrage” in immediate reaction to the Finance Minister’s announcements today.Appearing on TVNZ’s Q+A Special, political commentator Brigitte Morten and former Labour leader David Cunliffe took widely varying stances to Nicola Willis’ second Budget.Cunliffe described the pay equity changes, which it’s estimated will amount to $12.8 billion of savings in Budget 2025, as being a “MAGA-style override”.”Here’s we’re seeing the abrogation of an existing set of claims winding their way through a legal, or quasi-legal process,…

A fourth person has been charged with kidnapping and manslaughter in relation to the death of a woman whose body was found in a bag in Auckland’s Gulf Harbour last year. The body of 70-year-old Chinese woman Shulai Wang was found in a black rubbish bag in the water in Gulf Harbour on March 12, 2024.Wang came to New Zealand from China in August 2023 and had no family here.She had not been reported missing.A 64-year-old man at a property in Orewa was taken into custody this morning, Acting Inspector Tim Williams, Waitematā CIB, said. He is due to appear…

Police are concerned for the welfare of a teenage girl missing for four days from Auckland’s Ponsonby.Marilyn, 14, was last seen in the Ponsonby area on May 18.The girl is described as being 175cm tall with brown eyes and brown hair.”Police and Marilyn’s family have concerns for her welfare and would like to find her as soon as possible,” police said. Anyone with information has been asked to contact police on 111.

A man charged with stalking Jennifer Aniston and crashing his car through the front gate of her home has been found mentally incompetent to stand trial, but he demanded a second opinion at a court hearing.Jimmy Wayne Carwyle a 48-year-old from Mississippi, appeared while in custody behind glass at a Hollywood courthouse that specialises in mental health cases. He had a long, gray beard and wore a thick, blue smock that jails use for suicide prevention.A county-appointed psychiatrist who evaluated Carwyle found the defendant incompetent, Deputy Public Defender Robert Krauss told the judge as he stood near his client with…

From the “no BS Budget” to the “Austerity Budget”, opposition fury remains focused on the Government’s pay equity upheaval with Budget 2025. Protesters angry over the pay equity changes gathered on Parliament’s forecourt as Finance Minister Nicola Willis unveiled the Budget.Opposition leader Chris Hipkins launched a blistering attack on the $12.8 billion saved through overhauling the claims regime, claiming the Government is paying “for its Budget by cutting the wages of working women”. The costs of the pay equity changes were only revealed at the Budget today, despite being pushed through Parliament under urgency two weeks ago.Speaking after Willis delivered…

Promising fiscal responsibility and future-focused investment, Budget 2025 pares back short-term spending while laying foundations for growth at the cost of immediate public service boosts, writes economics professor Michael P. Cameron.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered a pragmatic budget yesterday, balancing fiscal discipline and the promise of economic growth.Willis pitched it as a “responsible Budget” and a necessary response to a challenging economic and fiscal environment.Financial journalist Frances Cook told Breakfast she was “very concerned” by some of the changes made to KiwiSaver. (Source: Breakfast)In her budget statement in Parliament, Willis declared the budget “controls growth in government spending”. To that…

ADVERTISEMENTSerbia’s EU membership “remains a strategic goal” yet depends on a “geostrategic choice” of direction, Kallas said Thursday after meeting Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and government officials in Belgrade, the first stop on her broader Western Balkans tour.“From my discussions with Serbian political leadership it is clear that EU membership remains a strategic goal,” Kallas said. “However, I want to emphasise that we need to see actions also to prove and support those words.””Reforms are how Serbia will advance along its EU path,” she added. “There are no shortcuts for membership. Real progress must be made here in Belgrade.”The EU…

Winning Emmy awards never gets old, it seems. Virtual Eye, the sports division of Dunedin company Animation Research Ltd (ARL), has just won its fourth Sports Emmy award at the 46th Annual Sports Emmy Awards ceremony in New York. And Virtual Eye commercial and production executive vice-president Ben Taylor said, given the company’s trajectory, there could be more in the future. It collaborated with several other technology companies around the world to provide groundbreaking cover of the 2024 PGA Tournament using drones. For that, it won the George Wensel Technical Achievement Award, beating other companies working on other large-scale sporting…

The Government has just announced plans to limit which 18- and 19-year-olds are eligible for benefit payments. A new parental assistance test will be introduced from July 2027 which will determine whether parents are able to financially support their 18- and 19-year-old children who are single and are not working or studying. If they are, those young people will not be eligible for the Jobseeker or Emergency benefit. The announcement came as part of the Government’s 2025 Budget.“Young people can’t expect to go automatically onto a benefit, and parents must be ready to help. This change strengthens financial incentives to…

ADVERTISEMENTThe commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, has said he fears Gaza may soon no longer be a “land for Palestinians to live in” amid intensified Israeli airstrikes and ground operations.Asked in an interview with Euronews earlier this week about Israeli plans to control the Gaza Strip in its entirety, Lazzarini said: “We have seen many (Israeli) plans, some of them more dystopian than the other.”One of those plans, seen exclusively by Euronews last week, suggested the IDF could temporarily introduce martial law and force civilians into designated security zones.“There is absolutely no safe place,”…