Category: Politics

Source: Radio New Zealand

A late night voting error during a fourth evening of urgency last week forced the government to end urgency sooner than expected.

Most Friday evenings at Parliament, not many people are around – maybe the cleaners, maybe a few staffers getting ahead for next week, and most MPs have headed back to their electorates. If anyone is still around, they’re probably having a drink at Parliament’s Pint of Order bar.

But the last Friday night of Parliament’s penultimate sitting block for the year was different (Parliament typically doesn’t sit on a Friday). The House was in the midst of its fourth evening of urgency, which was accorded on Tuesday evening by Deputy Leader of the House Louise Upston.

Urgency gives the government the ability to progress bills through the House more quickly, by enabling longer hours of debating with no stand-down period between each of a bill’s stages of consideration, meaning a bill can go from first to third reading in the same day. This recent bout of urgency saw various stages of 13 bills on the urgency agenda, with none of them bypassing the select committee stage – which is probably the most controversial power that urgency gives governments.

By about 8.30pm on Friday evening, the House was on its last item of business – a committee stage and third reading of the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill.

Apart from being a bit of a tongue twister to pronounce, the word judicature refers to the administration of justice by courts and judges. This particular bill would, among other things, increase the number of High Court judges to 60.

The committee stage is short for the committee of the whole house stage, which is the second to last one of a bill’s journey through the House. Its purpose is for MPs to go through the bill line by line and make sure it will do what it promises.

The committee stage is also a last chance for changes to be made before it goes to its third reading debate which acts as a concluding summary of a bill and final chance for MPs to put their support or opposition on record. These changes are made through amendments.

During the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill’s committee stage, Labour’s Greg O’Connor proposed an amendment that would allow for a more flexible range on the number of judges (60-65). He said it “made more sense than coming back with a bill every time you wanted to increase the numbers even by one.”

It’s common in a committee stage for the minister, who sits in the chair at the table in the middle of the chamber to address any amendments, usually adding why they won’t be adopting them if they are proposed by the opposition.

In reaction to O’Connor’s amendment, Minister for Courts Nicole McKee said it was to do with costs.

“The High Court judges are paid through a permanent legislative authority, which is held in section 1351 of the Senior Courts Act 2016. The judges’ remuneration is set independently by the remuneration authority to maintain judicial independence, and so we need to think about that every time we add numbers to the cap because it means that there has to be an appropriation put aside for that number.”

All proposed amendments (that are ruled in order) are then voted on at the end of each clause or section.

Perhaps as a result of urgency fatigue, when it came to the vote on O’Connor’s amendment, no party called for a follow up recorded vote, meaning the Opposition amendment was agreed to, making it part of the bill.

The plan under urgency had been to move immediately into the third reading, which is the final stage before a bill passes.

Instead, at the end of the committee stage, the government ended urgency prematurely, meaning MPs were free to go home after four long days of debating bills.

Had the House proceeded immediately to the third reading, the amendment would have been locked in. After that point, there would be no easy way to correct the bill. “You’d need amending legislation,” [the Clerk of the House David] Wilson explained. “There is no way back once you start down that path.”

The mechanism the government can use to fix an error like this is sending it back to the committee stage (recommitting) When the bill next appears on the Order Paper for its third reading, it can be recommitted “just to focus on one issue, if there’s just one mistake to fix, and that’s normally the case,” Wilson said.

The bill now sits on the order paper scheduled for its third reading until the government decides to return to it. When it does, the House will likely go back into the committee stage to revisit the clause on High Court judge numbers.

Wilson said that there are risks that come with urgency, especially when MPs have spent consecutive late nights debating legislation.

“Your normal options of only being able to do a bill through one stage in a day means [there is] usually a little bit more time to spot it [compared to under urgency]. Luckily for the government, in this case, they did spot it, and they had time to put the brakes on before it had its third reading”

To listen to The House’s programme in full, click the link near the top of the page.

RNZ’s The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament’s Office of the Clerk.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Analysis – The Labour Party will be chuffed with how its party looks and feels after an energetic annual general meeting in Auckland this weekend.

Party faithful packed out the ASB Waterfront Theatre for what was a slick operation, rounded off by a rousing performance by singer/songwriter Annie Crummer.

Sitting in the crowd, it was hard to believe Labour had lost so badly in the 2023 election – there was whooping and hollering, countless standing ovations and at one point an enormous disco ball.

There is still roughly one year until the next election, but watching Labour leader Chris Hipkins walking out hand in hand with his fiancé Toni Grace definitely had the look of a campaign already underway.

Divisions on tax have seemingly been shelved for now, with most members RNZ spoke to pretty happy with the party’s capital gains tax.

“I think for New Zealand it’s about right,” one man said.

“I think it’s far enough at the moment, to take people with it,” a woman said.

Labour is slowly building up its policy programme, adding low-interest loans for family GP practices to help deliver free GP visits at the weekend.

Campaign chair Kieran McAnulty told RNZ the party’s strategy for the 2026 election was simple.

“It’s clear to us that the government isn’t talking about the things that Kiwis care about most, and we’re determined to make sure that we are.

“If we do that, and every time they hear from us, we’re talking about a solution to the issues that they’re facing. We’ve got a shot.”

McAnulty said the solutions also had to be easy to understand, pointing to Labour’s capital gains tax as an example.

“All the efforts from the National Party to scaremonger about what the capital gains tax is, actually isn’t the case, and people know because it’s so simple, because it’s so straightforward, it’s residential and commercial property, excluding the family home, and nothing else is included.

“There’s a reason that their attacks have fallen flat, because they’re baseless.”

While the party was happy with how its tax policy had been received, it was not getting ahead of itself, McAnulty said.

“We’re not getting too excited. We know that there’s still a year to go. We know there’s a hell of a lot of work still to do and we’re focused on that.

“No one’s getting ahead of themselves, and you can’t take anything for granted. So it’s great that polls are encouraging, but we’re still going to crack on as we were.”

The Labour Party has been polling well, tracking ahead of National on almost all issues, including the cost of living.

It has made hay with voter disillusionment with the coalition, with Hipkins taking every opportunity to trumpet the prospect of a one term National-led government.

“They don’t deserve a second term. One term is all they are gonna get,” he told a cheering crowd at the weekend.

Hipkins is trying to make history, asking the same electorate that booted him out two years ago to give him the top job again.

Asked what had changed between 2023 and now, he said the party had a fresh focus and fresh faces.

“We heard the message from voters at the last election as a government, we were trying to do too many things. We also weren’t speaking to them about the issues that really mattered to them.

“So you’ve seen the Labour Party really refocus over the last two years, very much focused on the issues that are of number one concern to New Zealanders at the moment, jobs, health, homes, cost of living, and we’ll have a different team too.”

Labour has begun rolling out candidate announcements, putting up economist Craig Renney for Wellington Bays and emergency medicine doctor Gary Payinda for Whangārei.

McAnulty said there would be a “range of high profile candidates” announced in the new year, though he was tight-lipped as to who they were.

There is still a long way to go until voters get a chance to have their say on the next government, though it feels like the election campaign has already started.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Labour Party would offer doctors and nurse practitioners low-interest loans to set up new practices or buy into existing ones, if elected next year.

Leader Chris Hipkins made the announcement at the party’s annual general meeting in central Auckland on Sunday afternoon.

He said Labour would provide up to 50 loans each year, prioritising areas that had no general practitioners, or practices with closed or partially closed books.

Doctors could apply for loans of up to 90 percent of the cost of buying into a practice, capped at $500,000.

The loans would only be available for owner-operated general practices, with corporate-owned clinics excluded.

They would be interest-free for the first two years, with monthly repayments beginning on the outstanding balance at an annual interest rate of three percent.

The policy would give doctors up to 10 years to repay the loan and each doctor couold only receive one loan under the scheme.

Hipkins said the loans would be available from 1 July 2027, through the existing Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme.

“This is a practical, targeted way to boost locally-owned clinics across New Zealand and strengthen the ones we already have,” he said. “More doctors in our communities means shorter waits for patients.

“Nearly 650,000 New Zealanders can’t afford to see their doctor when they need to and many others wait too long for an appointment.

“This announcement builds on our plan for three free doctor’s visits, improvements to GP funding and free cervical screening – all aimed at making it easier for people to get care when they need it.”

Hipkins said the policy would compliment his party’s plan to free up 4.5 million doctor’s appointments every year.

“The number of doctor-owned practices is falling, as is the number of doctors who work in doctor-owned practices,” he said. “It’s expensive to start a new practice or buy into an existing one, so our low-interest loans will give doctors the kickstart they need to get established.

“Two-thirds of practice owners and partners are intending to retire in the next 10 years, so it’s vital we can support the next generation to keep the doors and books open.

“This scheme is just one way Labour can help ensure healthcare is there where you need it, when you need it.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Waitangi Tribunal has found the Crown’s decision to exclude the Treaty from a draft geothermal development strategy would be a Treaty breach.

The strategy was developed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment with the aim of doubling New Zealand’s geothermal energy by 2040.

Minister for Māori Development and Minister for Māori Crown Relations Tama Potaka, Minister for RMA Reform Chris Bishop and Minister for Resources Shane Jones were involved in the draft.

On 7 November the Waitangi Tribunal held a discrete hearing on the Crown’s draft geothermal development strategy ‘From the Ground Up – A draft strategy to unlock New Zealand’s geothermal potential’.

It was revealed that in the hearing, Jones noted an objective to finalise the strategy later this year for Cabinet approval.

The Waitangi Tribunal said in its report most of the claimants at the hearing supported the draft strategy and it was a promising initiative for Māori economic development.

But the Tribunal noted the strategy also raised a number of issues, and called on the Crown to take the time to strengthen the strategy with Māori, noting specific actions for economic development in the action plan remained significantly underdone.

The Tribunal found that protection was not integrated in the action plan.

“On the specific issue of kaitiakitanga, the report notes that the Treaty principle of active protection requires the Crown to actively protect taonga, and that this is a particularly serious issue in a strategy designed to double geothermal energy in 15 years.

“The Tribunal further found that the strategy concerns the development of geothermal taonga of immense significance to Māori, the exercise by Māori of tino rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga in respect of those taonga, and Crown-Māori cooperation on a major economic development platform.

“The Tribunal therefore found that the Crown’s decision to exclude the Treaty from the strategy would be a Treaty breach.

“The Tribunal did not consider this exclusion reasonable when the same Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment team and minister included the Treaty in the Minerals Strategy seven months earlier.

“In particular, the Tribunal found that the Treaty partnership, which requires the utmost good faith and mutual respect of each other’s authority, should be reflected in any strategy aimed at the Crown and Māori working together to achieve important outcomes.”

Another concern raised was that the Crown incorrectly characterised geothermal taonga in the strategy as ‘surface features’, such as geysers.

The report said this would breach the Treaty unless the definition was corrected, but there was still time to make amendments before the strategy was finalised.

The Tribunal also noted few specific opportunities in the strategy for iwi and hapū as distinct from Māori landowners.

The report stated the issue of Māori rights and interests, in particular the question of Māori customary title or ownership issues, needed to be addressed.

As this interim report was released part way through the Tribunal’s hearings, the Tribunal said it was not yet in a position to make findings on these issues.

The Tribunal welcomed the Crown’s inclusion of an action to consider the findings and recommendations of its stage 3 report, when this was released.

The report said that for time being, the Crown should engage directly with the groups who hold those rights.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

US diplomats have yet to raise the matter of migration with New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) after being directed to do so by the Trump administration.

A New York Times report on Wednesday said US embassies in Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand had been instructed to pressure their governments to heavily restrict migration.

Ambassadors and their staff were advised to “regularly engage host governments and their respective authorities to raise US concerns about violent crimes associated with people of a migration background”, according to the Times.

In a statement to RNZ, an MFATspokesperson said: “There has been no such engagement.”

1News also reported comments from an unnamed US State Department official expressing concern that liberal democracies were signing up to “the globalised migration narrative”.

“The idea that you can just import large amounts of people from a different culture – a radically different culture even – and assume that everything will be fine and hunky dory when case studies have shown that that isn’t the case,” the official told 1News.

“It’s a risk that we see potentially affecting New Zealand as time goes on.”

Speaking earlier this week, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said New Zealand’s immigration policy would be decided by New Zealanders.

“New Zealand has an outstanding immigration system,” he said. “We have good control of our borders. We don’t have problems like I observe in other countries around the world with illegal immigration.”

Luxon told reporters he was very proud of New Zealand’s policy and the many immigrants who had made New Zealand home.

“They’ve made New Zealand a much better place.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand was once a world leader in getting people to give up cigarettes, but we seem to have pulled up the brakes

In 34 days we hit the deadline for our world-leading ambitions to get our smoking rate down to less than five percent of the population.

To reach that Smokefree 2025 target we need 120,000 people to quit smoking pretty much immediately.

“That’s about 63,000 Māori, 21,000 Pasifika, 35,000 Europeans needed to quit,” says Chris Bullen, Auckland University public health professor and a leading researcher in the smokefree Aotearoa sector.

We’re not going to make it, but have we failed?

It depends on who you are, says Bullen.

“It’s come down and spectacularly so for certain populations,” he says.

Pākehā women living in high income suburbs have already reached the goal – that demographic is well below five percent.

For Māori it is three times the five percent target, Pasifika smokers are double the desired number.

Should we aim for Smokefree 2030?

Today, The Detail looks at why we missed the goal, the impact of this government’s removal of smokefree protections introduced by the previous Labour government under the Smokefree Action Plan, and what is next in the tobacco control battle.

When Smokefree 2025 was launched around 2011/2012 after a recommendation from the Māori Affairs Selection Committee, around 16.4 percent of adult New Zealanders smoked.

The latest figures from the annual NZ Health Survey show that figure is now 6.8 percent, similar to the previous year but down from 11.9 percent in 2019/20.

Some say we should celebrate what we’ve achieved, and they rubbish the latest rankings in the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index, which has seen us plummet from second to 53rd place.

But dig into the numbers and they reveal deep inequities with Māori smoking rates at 15 percent and Pasifika at 10.3 percent.

“It’s an absolute failure and I think the present government’s been particularly bad in doing it,” says Anaru Waa, associate professor at Otago University based in Wellington. His research focuses on how we can eliminate tobacco-related harm among whānau Māori.

He’d like to see our Smokefree aim shifted out to 2030, and for it to be not just smoke-free but nicotine-free, because of all the new nicotine products on the market.

Bullen says the launch of Smokefree 2025 around 13 years ago was a breakthrough.

“It was an important lesson for me was that setting goals and targets can be very powerful,” says Bullen. “But it was also a lesson in that it seemed so far away, that for politicians on a three-year electoral cycle it was somebody else’s issue to grapple with.”

“So I guess they thought they’d just get a free ride because smoking was going out of fashion and by 2025 it would be a thing of the past. Of course it’s not.”

Bullen says there’s been cross party support for the idea and ongoing tobacco tax increases and regulations such as smokefree cars and indoor spaces all add up to incremental changes.

“But it was not until Ayesha Verrell (former Labour Health Minister) took up the cause and said 2025 is almost upon us, we need to do something. And that’s where the action plan was promoted and became law, very briefly, until it was repealed when the coalition government took power.”

Labour’s Smokefree 2025 Action Plan included three key measures; banning the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2009, slashing the number of tobacco retailers and cutting 95 percent of the nicotine from cigarettes.

But before the measures came into force the legislation supporting them was repealed by the Coalition Government.

Bullen says the policy was supported by the majority of New Zealanders in polling and by the vast majority of healthcare professionals. The repeal mobilised protestors with placards to the streets.

He says the repeal cannot entirely be blamed for the failure to hit the Smokefree target across the population but it sent a subtle message to smokers, “to say, you know our foot’s gone off the accelerator pedal, maybe it’s not so bad”.

The removal of targets for GPs and hospitals to give brief advice and support to people to quit smoking, also had an impact.

“Different governments do these things for various other reasons but that has had a measurable decline in the number of referrals coming to smoking cessation services from GPs.

“The whole system has to work together and I don’t think we’ve had a co ordinated, focussed system that’s really messaged loudly that we have got a goal as a nation and it’s something we can do collectively to support each other to get to that goal. That voice hasn’t been shouted loudly enough.”

The associate health minister Casey Costello has defended the government’s policies and called the Smokefree target ‘ambitious’. She has pointed to the latest figures that show that smoking among young people is below 3.2 percent as the best news.

“That’s exactly what we wanted our young people to see. We wanted our young people not to start,” she has said.

But Anaru Waa says New Zealand’s policies are not keeping up with the new products that are constantly being developed by the tobacco industry designed to hook young people.

“Nicotine drinks, nicotine gummy bears, you name it, just shove nicotine in it and you’ve got a hooked population.

“These aren’t nicotine replacement therapies with low nicotine ….. nicotine is a very highly addictive drug and the industries are awfully good at making it palatable and easy to get addicted to very quickly, then you tend to have the addiction for life.”

He says to achieve the Smokefree goal the measures that were scrapped by this government need to be returned but he also wants strict policies to extend further to products including vapes, with the ultimate aim of shutting out the tobacco industry.

“For some people who can’t quit it (vaping) might be an alternative but we also know that most of the people taking up vapes are youth and young adults and a lot of them have never smoked at all.

“These are the new generation of people using nicotine products and I’m thinking in 20 or 30 years time they’ll wonder why they were thrown under the bus at a time we could have prevented that.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Parliament’s Justice Committee has released its report into the Electoral Amendment Bill.

The select committee recommended the bill be passed by majority, but suggested some amendments.

The bill would prevent same-day enrolments, establishing a deadline of 13 days before election day for people to enrol or update their details.

It would also ban prisoners from voting, and tighten up the rules around treating. Postal requirements for voting will also be removed.

The bill had its first reading in July.

The committee proposed “transitional arrangements” for prisoner voting, so that disqualification would only apply to all prisoners detained for a sentence of three years or more, and prisoners sentenced to less than three years whose relevant offence occurred after the bill’s commencement.

This, the committee said, would address situations where someone sentenced to less than three years’ offence may have been committed at a time when the law did not disqualify them.

The bill also allows for the introduction of automatic enrolment updates, so the Electoral Commission can update someone’s address directly following a data match.

The committee proposed amending the bill so the Electoral Commission needs to notify that person their address would be updated.

It also proposed an amendment so Electoral Commission could remove someone’s name from the dormant role and register them as an elector, if it is satisfied they should be registered.

In its differing view on the bill, Labour said the government’s suggestion the bill was necessary to improve the timeliness, efficiency, integrity, and resilience of elections was “a fiction” and the bill would role back one of the most accessible voting systems in the world.

“Much of this legislation has the effect of suppressing voting. We are deeply concerned that many people will be unable to vote at the next election and either be refused access to the ballot box, or have their vote disallowed because they did not appropriately update their enrolment before voting commenced. If this occurs there is a real risk that the legitimacy of the outcome of the election will be undermined.”

The Green Party also considered it “concerning” that the flexibility would be removed.

“Voting habits for life are formed during these formative years so if our election settings are permissive of the busyness and chaos of everyday life, particularly for young people, this will have flow-on, lifelong effects.”

The Greens also opposed the prisoner voting ban in the strongest possible terms.

“When a person is sentenced to a term of imprisonment, they relinquish their freedom of movement. People in custody do not relinquish their human rights, nor their civic rights, or any set of rights besides freedom of movement.”

Te Pāti Māori also opposed the bill, claiming it would “rig” the next election in the government’s favour.

“This bill will disproportionately impact our rangatahi, Māori, Pasifika, and Asian communities, and a majority of the disenfranchised voters would not support any of the government parties.”

Te Tai Tonga MP Tākuta Ferris said the expansion of treating offences was “criminalising tikanga” and the earlier enrolment deadline “ignores the lived realities of Māori voters”.

In July, Attorney-General Judith Collins found the bill to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act, and indicated 100,000 or more people could be directly or indirectly disenfranchised by the rules banning enrolment in the final 13 days before an election.

Collins also found the blanket disqualification from registration for people in prison would disenfranchise people who had a right to vote, and could not be justified.

The government, however, is pressing ahead, with the Prime Minister and Justice Minister both of the view that being a member of society comes with rights and responsibilities.

The committee received 2738 written submissions on the bill, from 2708 submitters.

The Ministry of Justice found 80.2 percent of submitters opposed the bill, with 0.5 percent supporting it.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Labour leader Chris Hipkins says he’s confident his party has changed enough since the 2023 election to win next year’s contest.

Speaking to RNZ before Labour’s annual general meeting in Auckland on Friday night, Hipkins said the party was shifting from reviewing policy to campaign mode.

“The focus for us now is to really get onto a campaign footing. We’ve been consolidating after the last election, we’ve been reviewing all our policy.

“We’re largely through that process now and so now we’re really getting onto a campaign footing and getting ready to win the election next year.”

The party went back to the policy drawing board after voters emphatically voted it out off the back of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Roughly one year out from next year’s election, Labour had so far presented the electorate with a pared back policy platform.

It includes a New Zealand Future Fund, a gaming rebate and a capital gains tax to fund three free GP visits and cervical screening.

This time last year, Hipkins told Labour’s membership the electorate had voted for change in 2023, and the party would have to change to win it back.

“The policy announcements that we’ve made already are very different from the sorts of things we were talking about in government last time,” he said this week.

Casting his mind back to 2023, Hipkins said he had laid down his conditions on staying on as leader just four days after the bruising election result.

“I said to the team pretty clearly, if you want me to stay as the leader, one of the conditions for that is going to be that we are going to work cohesively together as a team and I will be focused on making sure that happens, and that’s exactly what has happened.”

Hipkins successfully pitched its long-awaited capital gains tax in October, though he was pushed to do so earlier than planned after details were leaked to RNZ.

It was hardly the start the party would have wanted for such a contentious policy, though Hipkins said the idea seemed to have landed well.

“We worked through the capital gains tax policy very, very carefully to make sure that what we were putting before the electorate was something that people could understand the need for and they could understand how it would work and it’s landed very well with the New Zealand public.

“Our work on the three free doctors visits, similarly, went through a very thorough process so that we could be confident that we could deliver on that commitment.”

Labour’s policy platform as it stood was one big bottom line for the party, he said.

“These are things that we will deliver on in government,” he said.

Labour has capitalised on voter disillusionment with the coalition, leading National on the cost of living, health, the economy and housing in the latest IPSOS Issues Monitor survey.

However on current polling numbers it couldn’t go it alone and would need the support of the Greens and Te Pāti Māori

Hipkins had been keeping the Māori Party at arms length ever since internal ructions began and had since laid out his party’s intention to contest all of the Māori seats.

“I think Te Pāti Māori has got themselves into a world of difficulty. They’re not in any fit shape to play a constructive role in the current Parliament, much less a future government.

“And that’s one of the reasons that we’re going to be out there to win every one of those Māori seats back at the next election. I know Māori voters want a change of government at the next election, and my message to them is, voting Labour guarantees you a change of government.”

Voters would have to wait until next year to learn more about Labour’s policy platform heading into the election, with only small fry ideas to come in 2025.

“There’s a little bit more to come. They’re not major announcements but they will colour in a few of the blanks for people,” Hipkins said.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand’s biggest navy ship HMNZS Aotearoa has made a trip through the sensitive Taiwan Strait.

The Strait is part of the South China Sea, over which several countries, including China and the Philippines, have contested territorial claims.

Reuters reported Chinese forces tracked and followed the ship.

Defence Minister Judith Collins said the supply vessel had been on deployment since September after having maintenance done in Singapore.

It sailed through the Strait on 5 November on its way to the North Asian region to take part in UN monitoring of sanctions against North Korea.

Collins said all actions during the transit had been safe, professional and consistent with international law.

That included exercising the right to freedom of navigation, as guaranteed under the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea.

“The NZDF conducts all activities in accordance with international law and best practice. By doing this, we are demonstrating our commitment to the international rules-based system in our near region – the Indo-Pacific”.

The Aotearoa also sailed through the Strait last year in September. The minister said at the time it was with an Australian ship as part of routine activity.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has urged banks to slash their home loan rates by passing on “as much as possible” of the latest cut to the official cash rate (OCR).

Banks began dropping floating rates on Wednesday after the Reserve Bank cut the OCR by 25 basis points, as expected, to 2.25 percent, the lowest since June 2022.

Speaking in Auckland on Thursday, Willis said the Reserve Bank would monitor how banks responded to the OCR cut, but she hoped it would flow through to mortgage-holders.

“My message to the New Zealand banks is a very clear one: pass on as much as possible,” she said.

“When you do, that makes a significant difference to our economy. And actually, as some of New Zealand’s biggest businesses, you have a stake in this economy. So pass those rates on.”

In its forecasts released on Wednesday, the central bank said the risks for inflation were “balanced”.

Willis told reporters she expected the economy to pick up and inflation to come down even more next year, meaning a real difference to the cost-of-living.

“Conditions are going to get easier for a lot of New Zealand workers and families,” she said.

“All of the data and indicators I’m seeing tell me that next year will be a lot better.”

Willis accepted people were under “no obligation” to believe her analysis until they started feeling the improvement for themselves.

“New Zealanders have been very resilient,” she said. “Your efforts are not in vain… we have better times ahead of us.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand