Tension between Auckland Council and the Government has flared up once again. Mayor Wayne Brown is unhappy with the coalition Government’s decision to axe the Auckland fuel tax, arguing that transport projects are going to have to be cancelled – as he has ruled out increasing rates to pay for the funding shortfall. It comes as Auckland Transport faces criticism for eye-watering costs for level pedestrian crossings and lengthy delays with road works on a key commuter route. So does the city need ...
Feb 11, 2024•15 min
Taylor Swift is the most famous person in the world right now. Whether she is shattering records with her globe-trotting world tour and accompanying movie, or using award show wins for one album to announce another, Swiftmania is unavoidable. And that’s not going to change in the next few weeks, with her expected appearance at the Super Bowl alongside her sports star boyfriend, Travis Kelce, before bringing her Eras Tour to Australia. So how has Swift gone from being a country popstar to world d...
Feb 08, 2024•20 min
Aotearoa’s model for stubbing out cigarette use became world-renowned in 2022 when the Government passed legislation banning the sale of tobacco to anyone born after January 2009. However, some fear that progress has gone up in smoke after the coalition Government announced late last year it would repeal the smokefree laws. The plan was labelled ‘completely backwards’ by some public health experts at the time, and in the months since more controversy has followed. Today on The Front Page, Herald...
Feb 07, 2024•16 min
Buckingham Palace stunned the world this week by announcing that King Charles has been diagnosed with a form of cancer. The King had already made headlines after being treated for an enlarged prostate, a procedure that has led to this new and more serious diagnosis. Only 17 months into his reign, what does this health crisis mean for our Head of State, and for the wider monarchy that now has two senior royals off duties for very different health reasons. Today on The Front Page, we’re joined fro...
Feb 07, 2024•20 min
Wellington has found itself at odds with the new Government. Residents of the capital city last year voted to send two Green MPs to Parliament, joining Green Party-endorsed Mayor Tory Whanau in representing the city. While National swept to power in a blue wave in other parts of the country, the election result in Wellington was not exactly an endorsement of the new Government’s policies. So, where does this leave Wellington? How does a city council that desperately needs more money navigate a r...
Feb 06, 2024•20 min
Interpretations of the Treaty of Waitangi – or Te Tiriti o Waitangi – have been some of the most important discussions in Aotearoa's history, but tensions over the documents have reached a fever pitch in recent months after the coalition Government agreed to support a Treaty Principals Bill to the select committee phase. Friction over its meaning is expected to be front and centre today, as politicians, academics and Maori leaders converge on the site where the documents were signed in 1840. Sin...
Feb 05, 2024•15 min
Dancing, DJs and day drinking... A classic summer festival combo. But hand in hand with the music and partying comes a lesser-known festival favourite – waste. Be it beer cans, empty chip pottles or portaloos, events have a habit of creating waste, and in some cases leaving the whenua in a bad state. This was laid bare last month when dozens of tents and piles of garbage was abandoned at the Northern Base festival. Today on The Front Page, Josh Brownlow from Clean Event joins to discuss how fest...
Feb 04, 2024•18 min
For years, the last Government faced constant criticism and attack from National that it wasn’t doing enough to deal with an apparent crime wave spreading across the country. Now, the burden of keeping law and order in check rests with National and their coalition partners. This week, Police Minister Mark Mitchell has had to respond to smash and grab robberies and a supermarket stabbing, but also faced controversy as the government’s promise to get 500 new cops on the beat in two years came unde...
Feb 01, 2024•18 min
Defence Minister Judith Collins will be meeting with her Australian counterpart today as both sides of the Tasman look to move towards ‘interoperability’ and working as one. This meeting comes after more details were revealed about the poor state of our military by the Herald this week. The NZSAS and the wider Defence Force are losing people in droves, and officials are doing their best to throw cash at the situation to prevent our security apparatus from grinding to a halt. So, what exactly is ...
Jan 31, 2024•17 min
Over the last three decades, six people have disappeared from the Piha area on Auckland’s west coast, all never to be seen again. While none of the bodies have been found, coroners have ruled most of the cases likely to be accidents or self-inflicted, and Police have treated them all separately. Yet for some, three men and three women vanishing from the same area feels like too much of a coincidence. Now, mystery documentary on ThreeNow, Black Coast Vanishings, has examined all six cases, and th...
Jan 30, 2024•18 min
The cost-of-living crisis has come for the world’s biggest streaming services. Neon earlier this month became the first service in New Zealand to include ads on the platform, after Netflix and Disney Plus kick started the trend internationally last year. It comes as what was a major growth industry a few years ago slows, with the services starting to slash budgets, and in some cases wiping underperforming shows to save on taxes. So with prices rising and content slowing, what does the future hol...
Jan 29, 2024•17 min
It’s a year on from the Interislander’s terrifying Kaitaki incident. The ferry lost power in Cook Strait with 864 people on board and issued a mayday call as it drifted towards Wellington’s rocky south coast. Luckily, disaster was narrowly avoided, and there was some comfort that KiwiRail had new mega ferries ordered and on the way to replace the ageing Interislander fleet. But fast-forward to today and KiwiRail’s mega ferry project has been canned after Finance Minister Nicola Willis refused to...
Jan 28, 2024•18 min
Last year, Auckland was shaken by a weather event on the city’s anniversary weekend that seemingly no one saw coming. Four people lost their lives in the shock weather event, while countless other homes were flooded or destroyed, with those affected still picking up the pieces a year later. Auckland Council and then-freshly elected mayor Wayne Brown came under fire for their handling of the crisis. Now, NZ Herald deputy head of news Tom Dillane has revisited the events of January 27th 2023 to fi...
Jan 25, 2024•20 min
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced this week that New Zealand is sending a six-person team to Yemen to provide maritime security in the Red Sea. It comes after weeks of attacks by Houthi rebels on commercial ships navigating the route, and subsequent retaliatory air strikes by the US and UK. All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of the ongoing Gaza conflict, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejecting international calls for a two-state solution to end the war. So wh...
Jan 24, 2024•18 min
High inflation, job insecurity, and interest rates through the roof have been plaguing New Zealanders over the last few years. While it looks like we are turning a post-Covid corner, new threats are on the horizon as global conflicts continue, and questions remain over what the new Government's plans for fixing the economy actually are. From house prices and rental costs to migration woes, this year is shaping up to be a big year for the economy. Today on The Front Page, we're joined by Kiwibank...
Jan 23, 2024•17 min
The National-led coalition has only been in office for two months, but already its work around Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Te Reo Maori has prompted backlash across Aotearoa. Last Friday a Ministry of Justice paper was leaked warning the Government’s proposed legislation to define the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi could be “highly contentious”. Part of the document suggested this was due to the “fundamental constitutional nature of the subject matter” and “lack of consultation with the public ...
Jan 22, 2024•20 min
This week, our politicians are heading back to work... not that there has actually been much of a break. International crises like the Gaza conflict have needed the Government’s attention over the summer, and while we’ve been soaking up the sun, ministers have been back at their desks for a while now, sifting through reports and cancelled projects as the coalition looks to advance its 100 day plan. So, as everyone heads back to the Beehive, what are the top issues on the Government’s agenda, how...
Jan 21, 2024•18 min
Just when you thought Wellington’s water woes couldn’t get any worse, they have. The city is facing severe water shortages with warnings residents may have to boil their drinking water and some suburbs could run completely dry. People have queued for hours to get their hands on emergency water tanks. It comes as the city is losing 44 per cent of its treated drinking water to leaks, making for a communications nightmare when it comes to telling locals to conserve water. So, how did it get to this...
Jan 18, 2024•18 min
The skylines of our cities are starting to change. Slowly but surely, new high-rise housing developments are cropping up all over Auckland. From built-to-rent schemes, to luxury hotels, to developer-iwi partnerships, there’s a wide variety of projects underway, all with different markets in mind. Something they all have in common, though, is that they signal a move away from suburban sprawl, to a new type of city living. So what are the main projects opening this year, how affordable will they b...
Jan 17, 2024•17 min
Parliament has not even returned for 2024 yet, but we’ve already got our first political scandal of the year. Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman has quit Parliament after multiple allegations of shoplifting surfaced over the last few weeks. Citing mental health concerns in her statement, it has once again raised questions about the stress placed on MPs and their suitability to serve, while the Green Party again faces scrutiny over their handling of the case. NZ Herald deputy political editor and ho...
Jan 16, 2024•13 min
Auckland Light Rail is finally dead. The National-led Government has killed off the scheme first proposed by Labour on the 2017 campaign trail. Millions were spent on the project, which went through multiple iterations but never quite managed to get on track. The failure of the project has raised questions about how our Government’s approach to infrastructure will work, and why these schemes are so expensive and difficult to get off the ground. Today on The Front Page, NZ Herald senior writer Si...
Jan 15, 2024•19 min
Shark sightings have dominated Kiwi headlines this summer, with Surf Life Saving New Zealand recording several dozen reports over the holiday period. While some may view this as summer hysteria, the sightings did prompt water evacuations at certain beaches, and one woman suffered significant injuries to her leg after being attacked by a shark while walking through an estuary. So is global warming playing a hand in bringing these sharks close to shore, and what, if anything, can Kiwi water users ...
Jan 14, 2024•20 min
While we’re on our summer break, The Front Page has been taking a look back at some of the biggest news stories and top-rated episodes from the podcast this year. Back in April, two record drug busts within Aotearoa’s borders prompted us to take a look at why more and more drugs were passing through our borders. In the months since, more stories have landed in the NZ Herald newsroom of record hauls, including 140 kilograms of cocaine seized at the Ports of Auckland, 25 kilograms of meth found in...
Jan 11, 2024•17 min
While The Front Page is taking its summer break, we are shining a spotlight on some of the biggest podcasts and news events from the NZ Herald network over the last year. For years, Kiwis have pondered the identity of the ‘prominent businessman’, who, after several eventful court cases, was found guilty of sexually assaulting three men over a number of years. In 2023, he was unmasked as James Wallace, at the time a knight recognised for his services to the arts as one of our country’s biggest pa...
Jan 10, 2024•20 min
While we’re on our summer break, The Front Page is looking back at some of the biggest news stories and top rated episodes from the podcast this year. One of the big talking points in Aotearoa for years has been the state of our education. Concerns over falling test results, and dropping numeracy and literacy rates have worried parents, educators and politicians for some time – and this all became worse during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The new National-led government has vowed to tack...
Jan 09, 2024•17 min
While The Front Page is taking its summer break, we are shining a spotlight on some of the biggest podcasts and news events from the New Zealand Herald network over the last year. Cold cases are relatively few and far between in Aotearoa. And that’s what makes the case of Donald Fraser stand out. 90 years after Fraser was shot dead in his bed at the Racecourse Hotel in Christchurch, questions linger about who was responsible, and why no one was ever brought to justice. Open Justice journalist Ri...
Jan 08, 2024•37 min
While we’re on our summer break, The Front Page is taking a look back at some of the biggest news stories and top rated episodes from the podcast this year. No family ever expects to find themselves in court – but for thousands in Aotearoa, that is the reality they find themselves in. In August, the NZ Herald ran a series on the Family Court , poring through the case files and talking to those at the coalface of a part of our legal system that is under crisis. Herald senior writer Jane Phare dis...
Jan 07, 2024•16 min
While The Front Page is taking its summer break, we are shining a spotlight on some of the biggest podcasts and news events from the NZ Herald network over the last year. It’s a new year, and many of us will be looking for ways to improve our lives as we try to keep up with our new year resolutions. In the Herald podcast series, The Little Things , hosts Francesca Rudkin and Louise Ayrey are trying to do the same, by looking at what the science says about living a healthier life. In this episode...
Jan 04, 2024•37 min
While we’re on our summer break, The Front Page is taking a look back at some of the biggest news stories and top rated episodes from the podcast this year. For decades, Waiwera Thermal Resort was one of the go-to places for Kiwis looking to cool off on a hot summer’s day. This year though marked the final nail in the coffin for the once popular destination. For six years, the complex has sat empty, but 2023 saw demolition crews come for the iconic slides, statues and pools. So how did this tour...
Jan 03, 2024•17 min
While The Front Page is taking its summer break, we will be shining a spotlight on some of the biggest podcasts and news events from the New Zealand Herald network over the last year. In February 2015, Goy Thongsi went on a diving expedition in Christchurch with four men she hardly knew. Within a few hours of setting out onto the water, Goy was dead and missing, and a cloud of suspicion surrounded her diving companions. In this season of the Herald’s true crime podcast, Chasing Ghosts, Open Just...
Jan 02, 2024•17 min
