Author: Press Room

Oprah Winfrey is heading back to Australia and New Zealand later this year for a series of live speaking engagements in what will be her first visit to the region in a decade.The tour, titled Oprah In Conversation: Presented by Lilly, included five events across major cities in Australasia, finishing up in Auckland on December 14 at Spark Arena.”One of the things I have always enjoyed is sitting down for real, honest, enlightening conversations, and this experience is all about that,” said Winfrey. The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including toddler found in suitcase on bus, Russian volcano erupts, and…

New Zealand’s National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is in for a major shakeup as the Government proposes replacing all levels of NCEA.At the announcement in Auckland this morning, Education Minister Erica Stanford and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the proposal would “restore excellence to New Zealand’s education system”, by scrapping the current qualification system for secondary school students. “For over two decades, NCEA has been the foundation of our senior secondary education. It has been designed as being a flexible, inclusive and to recognise the wide range of skills and learning,” Stanford said. “And while it has delivered in…

The Government is proposing to replace the current NCEA with new national qualifications, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Education Minister Erica Stanford announced this morning. The pair made the announcement in Auckland this morning, saying the current system “doesn’t always deliver what students and employers need”. “We want every New Zealander to reach their full potential and contribute to a thriving economy — and that starts with our students,” Luxon said. “The evidence shows NCEA is not consistent and can be hard to navigate.” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. (Source: 1News)The proposal includes:Removing NCEA Level 1, requiring students to take English…

North Shore Hospital has an entire ward of people stuck in hospital with no medical reason to be there.The 20-bed ward was created in May for patients who were effectively medically discharged but did not have anywhere to go for lower level care, such as an aged care facility.RNZ understands they were not under the direct care of doctors, but were looked after by nurses and allied health staff such as physiotherapists and social workers.Some were there for weeks.Health NZ’s Waitematā operations director Brad Healey said started the dedicated ward to help boost capacity in the busy winter period.It had…

Rural mental health advocate Kathryn Wright is undertaking what she believes to be the first social research in New Zealand on population loss due to forestry conversions. The Te Anau woman is completing a PhD through the Centre for Sustainability at the University of Otago on rural community connections and mental health, and how land use change affects that. The reason she chose the topic was to make positive change and she hoped the research would inform government policy around forestry conversions, and to strengthen applications for funding from small rural communities. Having recently received ethics approval for her research,…

A 27-year-old woman has been charged with ill-treatment/neglect of a child, after a toddler was found alive in a suitcase in a bus luggage compartment yesterday afternoon. Waitematā Acting Field Crime Manager, Detective Inspector Simon Harrison said police were called after a passenger asked for access to the luggage compartment during a planned stop in Kaiwaka shortly before 1pm. The driver became concerned when he noticed the bag moving. When the driver opened the suitcase, they discovered the two-year-old girl.Harrison said the little girl was reported to be very hot, but otherwise appeared physically unharmed. “She was transported to hospital,…

Housing Minister Chris Bishop says he’s reluctantly “open” to changing emergency housing eligibility rules as providers report rising rough sleeping and homelessness.He said the Government was seeking “urgent advice” to address the issue. But Bishop’s comments come despite assiduously rejecting assertions that his tightening of emergency housing eligibility rules has kicked more people onto the streets.Asked in a Q+A interview, the minister said he was “open” to tweaking a clause which required applicants to prove they hadn’t contributed to their own housing need.”I’m open to it. I’m not foreclosing the option of doing that,” he said. “I don’t really want…

Published on 03/08/2025 – 19:13 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT Bavaria’s Minister-President Markus Söder is shaking up the coalition agreement of Germany’s so-called black-red federal government. In a ZDF summer interview on Sunday, Söder said he is in favour of reducing benefits for certain Ukrainian refugees, who currently receive a citizen’s allowance. The German citizen’s allowance is a state welfare benefit given to those with little or no income to ensure a minimum standard of living. Söder specified that only newly arrived refugees from Ukraine should receive reduced social benefits, adding that it must be ensured that there is “no more citizen’s allowance…

A new report into the role that sport clubs play in New Zealand communities has highlighted the struggles they are facing to deliver sport.The Stronger Communities Through Sport report comes off the back of seven years of research, drawing on findings from the National Sport Club Survey (NSCS), an initiative of the New Zealand Amateur Sport Association (NZASA) and Auckland University of Technology.The report provides an insight into the shifting landscape of grassroots sport in New Zealand from 2018 to 2024 and NZASA chairperson Gordon Noble-Campbell said some of the findings were sobering.Volunteer numbers have dropped by 28% since 2018,…

Tauranga businesses have slated paid parking around the CBD, with one restaurant owner saying it would “kill all the businesses”.The comments were made at a Downtown Tauranga meeting where businesses shared their concerns about parking with Tauranga City Council.About 25 CBD businesses attended Thursday night’s meeting alongside council staff and councillors Rod Taylor, Glen Crowther and Kevin Schuler.Parking in the city has been a long-standing issue, with free parking trialled in the past.Paid on-street parking was meant to begin on August 4 in the city centre fringe between the eastern end of 4th Ave and Park St, north of the…