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 look into an immigration scandal, the strange case of the missing bank robber, the
The Front Page: The week’s top stories – Immigration scandal, missing bank robber, Rugby World Cup, coup belt, SkyCity bombshell and royal drama
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Pokie machines inside SkyCity Entertainment Group's Auckland casino. Photo / file
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The news caught everyone off-guard, including SkyCity bosses, who had made no mention of the investigation in the weeks leading up to the announcement.
NZ Herald property editor Anne Gibson tells The Front Page that the DIA asked the Gambling Commission to temporarily suspend the company’s operating licence for 10 days.
This came after an investigation into a complaint made in respect of the company’s obligations as a responsible host.
“When the pandemic broke out in 2020, SkyCity chief executive Michael Ahearne said the company was losing $1 million in revenue for every day it couldn’t operate its casinos in New Zealand,” says Gibson.
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“That would be potentially $10m [in this case], so it’s not really about that. It’s about the name of the business and the compliance with the law.”
The staggering thing here is that SkyCity has even bigger legal concerns in Australia than those posed in this market.
Immigration scandal
A scheme introduced by the Government last year was meant to end migrant exploitation while also making it easier for legitimate employers to hire staff, but it has had quite the opposite effect.
NZ Herald journalist Lincoln Tan explains how we ended up in a situation where dozens of migrant workers were living in a three-bedroom house.
The worst thing is that this only touches the surface of what’s actually going on.
“This is not an isolated incident,” says Tan.
“They’re part of a bigger group of Indians and Bangladeshis. We’re looking at over 100 spread across six properties. They were basically duped by dodgy agents back in their home country ... Twenty-four people in one property is actually more luxurious. The worst case I’ve seen is 39 people in a three-bedroom house.”
The Tom Phillips mystery
The disappearance of Tom Phillips and his three children is one of the strangest tales we’ve seen this year.
The ante was upped even further this week, when police announced they had charged Phillips with aggravated robbery, aggravated wounding and unlawfully possessing a firearm over the armed heist of ANZ Te Kūiti on Rora St.
Newstalk ZB senior reporter Chelsea Daniels joined The Front Page for a bonus episode to explain what we know so far about this man with his uncanny ability to live off the grid.
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Dark horses and favourites
The calamitous draw for this year’s men’s Rugby World Cup has opened the door for one of the lesser-ranked nations to go for a deep run in the competition and perhaps create a few surprises along the way.
With the top five teams in the world – Ireland, South Africa, France, New Zealand and Scotland – all having been drawn in either pool A or pool B, the other side of the draw is wide open.
Speaking from Lyon, Elliott Smith, host of the Rugby Direct podcast host and All Blacks commentator for Newstalk ZB, doesn’t hold back in his criticism of the draw.
“It’s patently ridiculous,” he says.
“This was drawn in December of 2020. I think we might have been in lockdown at that point. I don’t know whether World Rugby just wanted to give the media some content to talk about, but it’s absolutely ridiculous to have the World Cup draw done three years out from the pinnacle tournament.”
Listen to the full episode to hear his picks on the favourites, the dark horses and the potential surprise packages.
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The coup belt
The overthrow of the government of Gabon was the eighth coup in the last four years in the so-called “coup belt”, with Gabon joining Niger, Sudan, Chad, Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso.
All those countries, except Gabon, neighbour each other, pointing to the level of instability across this region.
This trend is also evident more widely across Africa, with the continent being responsible for 102 of the 242 coups we’ve seen globally since 1950.
Professor Stephen Levine, a lecturer on African politics at Victoria University of Wellington, joins The Front Page podcast for a fascinating discussion about why this continent still remains so unstable.
The historical context is key, explains Levine.
The professor says that looking back a the wave of independence that spread through the continent following the end of colonial rule in the 1960s, the importance of the first major coup in Africa should not be overlooked.
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“[The coup] took place in the small West African country of Togo in January 1963. The president’s name was Silvanus Olympio. He was assassinated and, ultimately, the man who claimed to have killed him became president. This first military coup in Africa succeeded and, because it succeeded, it sent a message to other military leaders all across Africa that they could overthrow elected leaders.”
So is there anything that can be done to stop this trend from continuing?
Royal winners and losers
This week marks a year since the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the ascension of King Charles III to the throne after a lifetime of waiting.
NZ Herald lifestyle editor Jenni Mortimer joins the Front Page to discuss the year that was and where the events over the past 12 months have left various members of the royal family.
We dig into the latest news circling around Prince Andrew and also consider whether there’s any possibility of Harry making peace with the rest of the family.
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“Interest in Harry and Meghan is starting to definitely decline,” says Mortimer.
“From a strictly analytics point of view, the happy royal stories are the ones that people are gravitating towards. You put Prince Louis on a balcony compared to Harry and Meghan, and Louis is going to do two to three times as much in terms of audience.”
