Immigration has exploded into a major Election 2026 battleground, with New Zealand First and Labour unveiling sharply different plans for who should be allowed to settle in Aotearoa, how long migrants should wait for permanent residence, and how population growth should be matched with housing and infrastructure. Both parties agree immigration needs to be planned…

The political fallout from the Ministry of Social Development payment debacle is widening, with Labour demanding greater accountability from the Prime Minister and Social Development Minister, the Greens promising to remove automated decision-making from welfare payment decisions, and the PSA warning the failures could be a sign of deeper problems inside an increasingly stretched public…

The Tertiary Education Union is launching a fierce attack on ACT’s plan to ultimately abolish the Waitangi Tribunal, warning the proposal would remove an important mechanism for holding governments accountable for contemporary breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. TEU Te Hautū Kahurangi | Tertiary Education Union National President-Māori Associate Professor Garrick Cooper has condemned the…

A person has died following a devastating house fire on Matakana Island in the Bay of Plenty, with emergency services responding to the blaze in the early hours of Saturday morning. Fire and Emergency New Zealand crews were called to the island at about 4.09am, with firefighters from Matakana Island supported by crews from Greerton…