Don’t have time to read the headlines? Watch the Focus Morning Bulletin presented by Cheree Kinnear above.
Auckland Council’s been meeting behind closed doors to consider new proposals for the city’s waterfront.
Our newsroom can reveal the likes of an open-air seawater swimming pool, aquaculture, an exhibition centre are all on the cards.
The new plans suggest raising much of the port land by at least 0.6 metres, to provide climate resilience, and creating pathways for floodwaters.
They reject the idea of a waterfront stadium, however, and there’s no word on how everything will be paid for.
Some Lower Hutt residents are spending nearly an hour in traffic queues just to leave their own suburb every morning, with council warning this is the new normal for at least eight months.
The traffic is a result of remedial slip work that’s begun on Eastern Hutt Rd.
The work comes more than a year after heavy rain brought two huge slips down, leaving some of the houses above uninhabitable.
Support for Labour is falling - but leader Chris Hipkins may be the party’s saving grace.
A Newshub-Reid Research poll shows National up on 36.6 per cent and ACT on 12.1, giving the centre-right enough support to govern.
Labour is down at 32.3 per cent - but Hipkins’ rating as preferred Prime Minister has risen slightly to 24 per cent.
National leader Christopher Luxon is down half a point to 15.9 per cent.
Meanwhile, suggestions of a significant hole in Government revenues could be the last nail in Labour’s coffin, if they prove true.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has confirmed he called in Crown chief executives for a meeting about financial restraint.
Former Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash says it all adds to the view the Government is in financial disarray.
Members of the secondary teachers union will vote on their new pay offer next week.
The Government has accepted an Arbitration Panel’s recommendation, offering a 14.5 percent increase by December 2024.
It means an almost 10-thousand dollar annual pay rise for beginning teachers - on top of a seven-thousand dollar plus lump sum.
PPTA Acting President Chris Abercrombie says the union is recommending the offer to members.
The US Justice Department’s indicted Donald Trump, alleging dishonesty, fraud and deceit.
The former US President’s scheduled to appear in a Washington DC courthouse, on charges to do with alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Counts include conspiracy to defraud the US, obstruct an official proceeding, and infringe citizen’s rights.
The victim was tortured with drills, hot water and a metal pole.