Author: Press Room

A new study suggests scams are becoming one of the most prevalent types of crime in New Zealand, with hundreds of thousands of Kiwis affected.Researcher Jarrod Gilbert believes the Government and private companies are not moving quickly enough to address the issue, leaving us a “soft target”.”Because the scammers are international, they don’t care where they get their money from,” he says.”They will look for countries with weaknesses.”The report was informed by the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey, which shows 10.3% of Kiwis were affected by fraud or deception in the last year.In all, there were 541,000 instances of…

A whistleblower inside the Electoral Commission claims the agency would not currently be able to run an election or byelection because of a lack of capable IT staff.A significant restructure of staff has taken place at the commission and another media outlet has said 12 of the company’s 23 staff have departed in the months before and since a restructure.The commission says there are 14 IT staffers and 14 vacancies, but two are leaving shortly while three staffers are on short term contracts.It means there will be just six members left in IT who worked in the last election once…

“I actually thought, this might be it for me”.That’s what was going through Lisa Young’s mind as she was chased up her West Auckland driveway by a digger.She says, since October, she’s watched and filmed from her fence in the suburb of Swanson as trees have been cleared and trucks arrived at her neighbour’s house to dump all sorts of items — timber, corrugated iron, plastic.Auckland Council officials are looking into what’s been going on at the property and halt or “abatement” orders have been issued.In a statement, Auckland Council’s compliance investigations team leader David Pawson told 1News: “No resource…

Pour and Twist in central Wellington is selling so much matcha the owners’ wrists ache from the vigourous stirring.The cute bamboo whisks used to hand-make every single potent green tea latte are broken. For every coffee that is sold, café owner Elaine Woon reckons they are clocking up to 10 matcha on some days.Elaine and her husband Zuyi have been serving matcha since they opened the specialty coffee and matcha bar in 2017. Prices range from $8 to $12 for their high-grade blend, and despite the price, they get regulars returning every morning for a matcha fix.”I’m like super sore,”…

= By Susan Edmunds of RNZ All the major banks have moved to cut interest rates, after the Reserve Bank delivered a 50 basis point cut to the official cash rate. But one economist has warned the bank may be about to “overshoot” with its rate reductions, and cut too far. Kiwibank said it was passing on the full OCR cut to its floating home loan rates from Monday for new lending and March 10 for existing lending. That takes its variable home loan rate to 6.75%. ASB also passed on the full reduction to floating borrowing, taking its variable…

Members of a tennis club on Auckland’s North Shore are shocked by the theft of their honesty box.Campbells Bay Tennis club members came to play their regular matches on Wednesday morning, only to find a hole where their honesty box for court fees used to be.Club secretary John Roughan told RNZ the offenders dug up the box from the ground and wheeled it away in a rubbish bin.”They had dug the whole thing up,” he said.Roughan said the honesty box was for non-members to put $10-$20, depending on how many were playing and for how long.He said the box had…

Unusual demand at Christchurch ED, not a staff shortage, led to the plea for patients to seek non-urgent medical treatment elsewhere, Health New Zealand says.In a plea on its social media page on Monday, the hospital said its emergency department was “extremely busy” with “large numbers of people coming in for care”.It urged people who were severely unwell to go to the ED or call an ambulance but asked that people with non-life-threatening emergencies go elsewhere “to reduce the pressure” on the department.Everyone presenting at the department would be assessed for urgency, and patients with non-urgent conditions could expect an…

By Natalie Akoorie and Hayden Donnell of RNZ  A number of high-profile senior reporters will leave the New Zealand Herald under its restructure to cut about 30 roles from the newspaper’s editorial team. According to the Herald’s Media Insider, staff that have taken voluntary redundancy include political editor Claire Trevett, deputy business editor Grant Bradley, senior sports reporter Chris Rattue, specialist science reporter Jamie Morton, investigative journalist Nicholas Jones, long-time reporter Kirsty Wynn and social media head Mitch Powell. RNZ understands other senior journalists also applied for voluntary redundancy under the proposal by the Herald’s owner NZME, which was announced in January this year and originally aimed…

Rapper A$AP Rocky was found not guilty today of firing a handgun at a former friend on a Hollywood street in 2021.Los Angeles jurors deliberated for only about three hours before clearing him of two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.The 36-year-old hip-hop star, fashion mogul and burgeoning actor — whose legal name is Rakim Mayers — risked more than 24 years in prison if he had been convicted.On the eve of trial, he turned down a prosecution offer of just six months in jail, along with probation and other conditions, if he would plead guilty to one…

Queenstown burger bar Fergburger has publicly apologised after a tourist was given a receipt containing a racial slur. A photograph of a receipt, dated for Sunday, was posted to social media on Monday by a Taiwanese tourist.The poster alleged their friend did not give their name to the server who then identified them on the receipt as “ching chang”.The tourist also contacted local tour guide Roxie Fu and told her she was “shocked” at the experience. “Fergburger is such a big company that’s iconic to Queenstown and New Zealand, it’s a shock to see this behaviour, especially in such a…