After four days of intense competition Te Kapa Haka o Whangara Mai Tawhiti were crowned the Te Matatini 2017 champions.

Can’t understand Te Reo Māori? Hakarongo Mai can help you out. This year, the live translation service for Te Matatini launched an app to help non-Te Reo speakers keep up with performances. Made with funding from NZ On Air.

A rugby player accused of assaulting a woman with intent to rape her has pleaded guilty.

COMMENT: The mayors of New Zealand's three most impoverished districts have asked the Prime Minister to establish "demarcation zones".

Labour says it would marry Gisborne's need for jobs with the country's need for housing.

New Zealand is now experiencing the worst of the fire season, a top officer says, with a dangerous combination of high temperatures and low relative humidity creating tinder-dry conditions across eastern hot-spots.

Qatar Airways has a reputation for lavish parties to launch new routes and says its gala dinner in Auckland will be no exception.

It's a perfect summer's day in Waitangi and Auckland, but messy weather with gales and rain are expected in some parts of the country.

The sun has come out to play and is here to stay, with a scorcher of a long weekend across the country.

Mayors in three of New Zealand's poorest districts - the Far North, Rotorua and Gisborne - want to take over central Government agencies in their areas to eradicate "entrenched poverty".

While the eastern region swelters in one of the most rain-deprived Januaries in more than a century, some western areas have been drenched.

An Australian lawyer is searching for Kiwi victims of serial paedophile Catholic priest Father Denis McAlinden. Alyce Johnson of

Tevita Lokotui, who plays the tuba in the school's brass band, is recovering after having his leg amputated at the knee as a result of the Christmas Eve bus crash.

Dozens of teachers were disciplined or struck off last year for sexual, inappropriate or aggressive behaviour towards students.

Family and friends will gather today to say goodbye to a father and son who died together in a truck crash.

Find out what place will be 31C on Auckland Anniversary weekend and read our list of the top five places to bask in the sun.

An 8-year-old boy who died alongside his father in a truck crash in the Hawke's Bay wanted to drive trucks just like his dad, family say.

Members of a shearing gang were injured this morning when the van they were in left the road and smashed into a tree.

A Gisborne teenager has died after he was critically injured after he fell from the roof of a moving car.

An elderly Gisborne woman's handbag was stolen while she took holy communion at a city church on Sunday and other church parishioners have been warned about it.

Firefighters are returning to the scene of a major scrub fire that gutted a house, destroyed a shed and forced the evacuation of baches and homes in the Hawke's Bay.

The three children aged five, eight and nine have been referred to Youth Aid.

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and charged over an alleged sex attack on a woman in Gisborne on New Year's Day.

Emergency services are battling a scrub fire in Gisborne.

A Gisborne family have made a plea for the return of their stolen husky.

Police in Gisborne are hunting a man who attacked a woman as she slept at a campground early on New Year's Day.

Big swells predicted to surge up the eastern side of New Zealand from Kaikoura to north of Mahia Peninsula

EXCLUSIVE: Family members recall how Leotisia Malakai - the third victim of a horrific bus crash near Gisborne - slipped into a coma and never woke up.

Leticia Malakai's death brings the holiday road toll to 19 - the highest since the 2011/2012 period.

As most Kiwis were partying to see the new year in, others were being born.