Every weekday at 5am, the New Zealand Herald presents The Front Page, a daily news podcast covering the biggest stories of the day. Here’s a rundown of key stories that made headlines this week. We looked into the coming threat of El Niño, the lack of money in the
The Front Page: The week’s top stories – El Nino, Peter Jackson’s land grab, election campaign
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The soil is set to dry rapidly in the coming months as we enter an El Nino phase. Photo / NZME
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We previously had strong El Nino conditions in 2015-16, 1997-8, 1982-3 and 1972-3 – and the consequences were felt around the country.
“New Zealand had historically bad, and very costly, droughts in some of those years,” says Noll.
“From an agriculture perspective, even though it’s been very wet and your paddocks may still be damp, the combination of drier weather and winds could see soil moisture levels drying out pretty rapidly.”
The question now is whether the country is prepared for what’s coming our way.
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Where’s the money?
The next Government faces some tough economic decisions if it wants to get the country’s books back in the black.
The Pre-election Economic Fiscal Update (Prefu) showed that we would avoid a recession, but the country will face ongoing deficits in the coming years.
Speaking to Georgina Campbell for On the Campaign, the NZ Herald’s election podcast, Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny explained this leaves the next Government, regardless of which party takes over, in a tough position.
“Basically, these forecasts show they don’t have much money to play with. There isn’t much in the kitty,” she said.
This ultimately leaves the country in a perilous position, where global economic instability or another natural disaster could have a dire impact.
Electoral problems
No democracy is perfect, and ours is certainly due a few updates.
According to an independent panel commissioned by the Government, everything from our voting age to party donations to election thresholds and rules on who should and shouldn’t be allowed to vote could do with a few tweaks.
Speaking to The Front Page, Otago University legal expert Professor Andrew Geddis says this panel was consulted to look into aspects of our electoral system in a methodical way.
While the report suggests dropping the voting age to 16 and extending the rights of criminals to vote, it remains unclear whether any politicians will have the stomach to actually bring about any of the changes.
Moroccan tragedy
A week ago, Morocco faced its most severe earthquake in six decades.
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NZ Herald travel journalist Sarah Pollok was on the ground in Marrakesh when the world around her started shaking.
“The area I’m staying at is just a kilometre or two west of the main city centre in Marrakesh, which is where most of the devastation has happened – particularly in Medina or the old town,” she told The Front Page.
Pollok revisited some of the places that were most affected and said entire buildings had been reduced to rubble.
“There are dozens and dozens of displaced families who have either lost their homes or are too scared to return,” she says.
“They’re setting up temporary homes in the square. It’s definitely confronting.”
Peter Jackson’s expanding empire
Movie mogul Peter Jackson has quietly been building an empire in the real world.
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NZ Herald investigative reporter Matt Nippert joined The Front Page to discuss the reasons why Jackson has acquired more than $350 million worth of property across Wellington and Queenstown.
“He’s very much a hometown boy,” says Nippert.
“He’s bought up a lot of the churches in the neighbourhood, particularly ones where the congregations have dwindled and the buildings are old and need substantial repairs that the congregation can’t afford. He has also been buying up old movie and performing theatres, and he also helped with the Embassy restoration.
“He has a strong interest in his local neighbourhood. And yes, you say Nimby all you want, but he does seem to treat Miramar, the entire peninsula, as his backyard.”
So how concerned should we be about a wealthy individual acquiring so much land?
The big cancer lag
A study from 2021 showed that the median wait time for new medicines in New Zealand was 1014 days, compared to 422 days in Australia.
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Cancer Society chief executive Rachael Hart says the impact of that kind of delay should not be underestimated.
For someone with life-limiting cancer, the potential impact of more than a thousand days is really significant. New Zealanders simply don’t get access to cancer treatments that people in similar countries get. It’s a problem that’s existed for a while now, and it’s a growing community concern.”
In its manifesto for this year, the Cancer Society has called for some significant changes to Pharmac to enable people to get access to the drugs they need.
Hart runs us through the big changes they’re recommending and explains all the ways that Aotearoa lags behind Australia in terms of treatment and prevention.
The hole in National’s tax plans
The National Party has been grilled this week on its foreign buyers’ tax policy.
The big question now is whether any of this criticism will actually have an impact on what voters think.
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The polls currently show National with a healthy lead over Labour – and it will ultimately take something signficant to turn that around.
The latest criticism of the policy has come from three experts - economist Sam Warburton, former Reserve Bank head of financial markets Michael Reddell and Corelogic head of research Nick Goodall - who modelled three different scenarios that only turned up estimates of between $212.7 million and $286.8m a year.
That would leave a fiscal hole of $2.1 billion over the four-year forecast period.
Luxon has, however, defended the plan as “rock solid”. Whether this is enough to convince the voting public is yet to be seen.
