The Post

The Christophers

Acting lifts film to artistic heights

Art attack

The Government is facing mounting criticism from across the arts sector after cutting more than $27 million from cultural agencies and introducing a cap on charitable donation tax credits, moves critics say risk weakening support for New Zealand...

Secrecy over Sherman exit

TVNZ has refused to release documents and correspondence related to the events that led up to the departure of its former political editor Maiki Sherman, citing multiple reasons, including privacy and confidentiality. The Post made several requests...

PMO climate email snafu

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has admitted a corporate lobbying document at the centre of a climate litigation dispute was sent to a former Beehive staffer’s private email account, prompting a fresh records review. Until now, Prime Minister...

ACC claim rejections queried

More than one in four ACC claims for healthcare-related harm are declined – 26 times the rejection rate for standard claims. Of the 64,314 Kiwis who made claims in the past three years for medical mishaps or other treatment injuries, 16,614 were...

A career centred on fairness

Now retired after a decades-long career during which he was Principal Family Court judge, Law Commissioner and Chief Ombudsman, Sir Peter Boshier has always sought to protect the vulnerable.

MP's early cancer detection 'lucky

Labour Party deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni kept her cancer a secret from the world, and even her parents and children, for more than a year-and-a-half before she decided on a whim to post it on social media. It was important for Sepuloni to share her...

Applause but not a lot of laughs – unless your name is Winston,

As the MP who has sat through the most Budget platitudes by a considerable margin, NZ First leader Winston Peters endured yesterday’s Budget debate as merrily as if it was a new season of his favourite comedy show. Depending on the ballot box, of...

No tricks, no treats BUDGET 2026

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has warned the nation that, despite fevered speculation, there will be no big surprise “new sexy thing”, “sweet new lolly” or magic trick in this afternoon’s Budget. In a Budget-eve interview with The Post, Willis was...

Bite of the (fiscal) pie

Finance Minister Nicola Willis and her associate ministers – Shane Jones, David Seymour and Chris Bishop – made a tasty pit stop at Puku Pies yesterday after making the annual pilgrimage to see the Budget being printed at Blue Star. Willis will deliver...

‘Boomer’ Budget gobbles cash

One of the key megatrends facing New Zealand’s fiscal management is the nation’s large – and growing – boomer state. This is one of the key pressures Finance Minister Nicola Willis will be dealing with in this Budget. The costs are largely set,...

Ambulance refused despite many calls

A Wellington man says he was left horrified after emergency call handlers repeatedly refused to send an ambulance to a man who had collapsed unconscious on the city’s Cuba St and later complained of chest pain. Communications and public relations...

The Mandalorian and Grogu

The Mandalorian and Grogu (M, 132 mins) Directed by Jon Favreau Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ***½ Isee a lot of films. Plus there’s Hurricanes and Wahs games, shows on Wellington’s mighty Radio Active FM to host, a couple of side hustles and my little...

‘Inappropriate’ for democracy

Newly released emails show Wellington mayor Andrew Little’s chief of staff labelled the $41 million new office fit-out “inappropriate” for democracy and bemoaned that future mayors were stuck with it for a quarter of a century. The Wellington City...

Fraudulent licences linked to crashes

Holders of fraudulent driver licences were involved in 10 crashes and allegedly committed 180 traffic offences after the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi became aware something could be wrong. In February 2025, NZTA detected previously “unidentified...

‘Bad news on top of bad news’

Plans to further slash public service jobs will cause “anxiety” in an already subdued Wellington, mayor Andrew Little says – but he’s urging the city to play to its strengths in other areas. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed the Government...

More public service reform

Finance Minister Nicola Willis will use a pre-Budget speech today to launch a new wave of public service reform, including slashing the number of Government agencies, driving public servant headcount down and leaning heavily into digitisation and AI...

Concerns at embassy move

News the Israeli embassy is moving to a new Wellington location, with some tenants currently unaware, is drawing parallels to “human shield” allegations made against Hamas. The Israeli Embassy is on the 13th floor of a Brandon St office block but is...

Wild weather ‘meth crisis’ for home buyers

With New Zealand experiencing a storm on average every eight days, thousands of properties in coastal inundation and flood zones could become uninsurable. Our new series explores the impacts of relentless weather events on families and communities,...

Te Papa jobs to go

Te Papa has confirmed a net loss of 20 roles in its latest round of restructuring. The national museum confirmed that 62 positions would be disestablished yesterday, however, 42 new positions would be created, according to an internal document...

Scaling up

Property investor and coach Ilse Wolfe bought and held more than 30 rental properties before she began helping others to do the same, using the BRRRR – buy, renovate, rent, refinance, repeat – strategy. Wolfe shares her experience and advice as part...

Judith Collins takes final bow on politics

National Party stalwart Judith Collins has closed out her decades-long political career with a curtsy and a word of warning to her colleagues. First elected in 2002, Collins has held a formidable number of roles over her 24 years in politics,...

Waterfront safety back in spotlight

Wellington’s waterfront safety will again to come under scrutiny, with an inquest confirmed into the harbour drowning of a Christchurch teacher – nearly 18 months after a coroner called for urgent action. The inquest into the 2023 death of Isaac...

Motorway contractor probe by SFO SERIOUS FRAUD OFFICE

The Serious Fraud Office is investigating the contractor alliance responsible for Auckland’s motorway network, amid allegations of financial discrepancies of between $700,000 and $1.3 million, conflicts of interest, and preferential treatment of a...

Jake Sanders

The strange re-emergence of a serial conman

Chaos, failure and serious risk to life

Sweeping condemnations of the emergency response after Kaitaki lost all power in Cook Strait have been detailed in a new report, showing Maritime NZ failed to properly respond to the scale of the evolving disaster. The Transport Accident Investigation...

$14.4m spent on consultants MARITIME

The state-owned company delivering the new Cook Strait ferry fleet has spent more than $14.4 million on external contractors and consultants in its first 13 months of operation. But that’s not the total bill. Ferry Holdings Limited (FHL) won’t...

'Rushed and unsustainable'

Primary curriculum changes are “rushed and unsustainable” as educators struggle to come to grips with rapid changes, according toasurvey. Primary teachers’ union NZEI surveyed 7800 primary school teachers from 700 schools to discover how teachers felt...

Signed and sealed

New Zealand has signed a major new trade deal with Singapore, committing both countries to protecting the movement of food and fuel amid the global crunch looming large over New Zealand’s ability to import refined fuel. The deal was signed at the...

Treasury warning over ferry project

A critical Government review slapped a high-risk “amber” warning on the Cook Strait ferry replacement programme, finding “back-to-front” planning and decaying port infrastructure have left the project exposed to delays and higher costs. The Targeted...

Policing the Chathams

Cracks in coalition

National’s Nicola Willis has accused Winston Peters of acting in bad faith and contrary to the coalition agreement in an extraordinary attack following his release of emails on the Iran war. Willis went so far as to suggest the 81-year-old Peters was...

Tools of a home stager

Sharn Potaka puts her experience as a visual merchandiser for bougie retailer Anthropologie to use to help sellers present their homes. She talks to Joanna Davis. Sharn Potaka founded her own home staging company, Evoke Home Staging, in 2017. Then it...

Cook Strait safety ‘betrayal’ MARITIME

The cash saved from cancelling an open ocean tugboat for Cook Strait has gone into a scheme which will make it cheaper for international airlines to fly into the country. Maritime NZ national secretary Carl Findlay says the “revelation” is “a betrayal...

Price cuts signal market shift

New Zealand property sellers trimmed tens of thousands off their asking prices taking an average reduction of more than $33,000 per listing in the first three months of the year. New quarterly figures from realestate. co.nz showed vendors who dropped...

Capital becomes Wahllington

Warriors captain James Fisher-Harris has been there and done it all in the NRL. For him, the intensity and noise at a packed Hnry Stadium in Wellington on Saturday night rivalled all those big occasions. “It felt like a finals game, how loud it was....

The Takoradi Run

The overwhelming scale of the wilderness in the Chilean fiords is hard to comprehend. Our much-loved Fiordland boasts 14 fiords over 200 kilometres of coastline. The Norwegian fiords have 900 fiords over 2500km of coastline. Chile has a remarkable 1000...

Cash for buyouts unlikely

The cost of buying out uninhabitable, flood-stricken homes is likely beyond Wellington City Council, with mayor Andrew Little signalling the city could turn to the Government for support once property assessments are complete. “Minister for Local...

Virginia Fallon

On Sunday, we have a birthday. Sunday is not the actual birth day because the actual one falls on Monday, a day which is inconvenient for all this sprawling extended family to get together. Because we have work, naps, appointments and kindy, we gather...

Cleanup begins

Wellington MPs are calling for the unlocking of an emergency government fund to help people affected by the severe weather – but mayors say now is not the time. Work and Income can make Civil Defence Payments to people affected by an emergency. For a...

The storm that didn’t miss

Two short, sharp hits of damaging and flooding rain, a missing man, a Wellington regional state of emergency, and a city caught off guard – but experts say the technology for better predictions simply does not yet exist. The torrential rain that...

From normal to ‘mayhem’

The year was 1976. Fifty years on, Neil Baker can recall the floods that ravaged Stokes Valley in Lower Hutt. Saturday’s deluge proved to be the closest contender. Saturday morning’s sudden burst of rain – up to 40mm an hour in some areas – caught...

Meth in the suburbs

They had jobs, homes and routines – lives that by all accounts looked stable from the outside. Then methamphetamine entered the picture. Katie Ham investigates the everyday lives destroyed by New Zealand’s most prolific drug and the system that keeps...

Energy spend questioned

The coalition Government has spent more than $7 million consulting on energy policy this term. But the Green Party says this would have better spent helping people get solar. MBIE’s energy markets branch spent almost $890,000 in 2023/24, on...

Willis’ questions for the White House

Finance Minister Nicola Willis is heading to the White House to press United States officials when global conditions might return to “normal”. Willis is in Washington DC for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank spring meetings,...

KiwiRail’s ferry future now unclear

The Government won’t commit to who will run the Interislander service once the new Cook Strait ferries arrive in 2029, with Winston Peters saying KiwiRail needs to prove its worth. Interislander is one of New Zealand’s most well-known brands and has...

Thought Hormuz couldn’t get worse? It just did

US President Donald Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz marks a new and dangerous period in the conflict with Iran. The blockade comes after unsuccessful talks to end the conflict, which were undertaken by US Vice-President JD Vance in Pakistan...

The brave and the prepared

It was a storm that threatened to deliver another heavy blow to the weather-weary North Island – but Cyclone Vaianu’s glancing touch to eastern coastlines proved a sigh of relief for many. While there is still plenty of cleanup expected from the...

You, Me & Tuscany

You, Me & Tuscany (PG, 105 mins) Directed by Kat Coiro Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett Agood friend bailed me up at our regular caffeine hang-out last week and told me I’ve been writing too many four-star reviews. And, the truth is, I’ve been thinking the...

Plans for motorways scaled back

Some projects in the Government’s major motorway programme are being scaled back to ensure they can be delivered in “a cost-effective way”, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. The roads of national significance (RoNS) programme originated under the...

Virginia Fallon

I’ve recently been spending a good part of my working days eavesdropping. It’s not the sort of eavesdropping that my mum tends to think I do at work: pressed against the window with a notebook and sense of civic duty, or intruding, ears flapping, on...

New $2.21 Temu tax

It now costs more to import low-value goods, and one retail expert says this is likely to slow down the flow of cheap goods flooding the market from the likes of Temu and Shein. All imported and exported low-value goods worth less than $1000 coming...

Cheers to that

Hospitality operators are welcoming the news that alcohol can now be served as normal over Easter weekend, with one saying his sales had doubled. The Government passed a member’s bill on Thursday, allowing venues to sell alcohol as usual over Easter,...

Good vibes and good beans . . .

Good Fortune Coffee sits inside an old villa on Fitzherbert St – the last remnant of a once-residential East Petone long since swallowed by industry. Inside, a plastic Jesus figurine watches over coffee beans roasting below, while customers sip flat...

'An open wound'

This week’s quashing of David Tamihere’s convictions for murdering two Swedish tourists in 1989 has brought one of New Zealand’s most troubling cases back into the spotlight. But for some, as Mike White reports, the case’s tragic impacts never...

On a screen near you

Acombination of cooler days, longer nights, Easter and school holidays means movie-watching is likely to be high on your agenda this April. Fortunately, there’s a wide selection of new titles heading our way to both Kiwi cinema screens and streaming...

'Slap in the face'

Fire and Emergency’s board members are today getting pay rises of up to 79% amid prolonged industrial action. A departmental briefing, obtained by The Post, recommended Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden approve large increases to board pay...

Ticketing overhaul: ‘Just get on with it’

A scathing report into the $1.3 billion project to allow bank cards and phones as payment on public transport has found the delayed launch dates are still “ambitious”, despite ongoing cost risks. The National Ticketing Solution (NTS) was first signed...

Super-duper CubaDupa dazzles

Cuba St turned into a technicoloured explosion of sound, scent and spectacle over the weekend, as thousands poured into the capital for the annual CubaDupa festival. Once again, CubaDupa cemented its place as one of Wellington’s most vibrant weekends.

How to talk kids about porn

All it takes is one click to confirm you’re over 18. Then you’re in. Within seconds, explicit videos appear on the Pornhub homepage – a woman with a man standing on her neck, teens being gagged, women being slapped and porn stars having gang...

Water entity red alert

It is yet to fix its first leak, but Wellington’s incoming water agency is already poised to open in the red – and may need a ratepayer cash injection as councils load $1.7 billion of debt on to the new entity. Former Wellington City councillor Tim...

Changed man

It was code-hopping All Black Sonny Bill Williams who helped Tana Umaga realise he had to make some important personal changes to become a more effective rugby coach. That frank admission came during a reflective discussion with media at Moana...

Wellington's water shake-up

Long-haul flights at risk

Foreign airlines are warning they may slash long-haul flights to New Zealand if jet-fuel supplies tighten, with industry leaders seeking urgent assurances from the Government. Board of Airline Representatives chief executive Cath O’Brien says carriers...

The Shanghai revelation

Why had I waited so long? I’d written off an entire country after two weeks of chaos 15 years ago. My ATM card died in Beijing. I spent an entire day in a bank, miming my way through failed transactions. I was constantly lost, and the smog never...

Mine of information

Mine of information Division deepens over goldmine plans INSIGHT

Fuel on the fire

As a run on petrol causes some stations to run dry, the Government is planning for the worst with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon bluntly stating yesterday “things could get worse before they actually get better”. While the Government reassured Kiwis...

Trendsetters

WELLINGTON ‘Break-ups are very difficult’

An emotional Chris Hipkins says he will not publicly litigate a series of unsubstantiated personal claims his ex-wife has made about their relationship – including claims of an affair. The Labour Party leader confirmed yesterday that he had sought...

Oscars 2026

New Zealander Kate Hawley has won the Oscar for Best Costume Design for her work on Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, while Wellington-headquartered digital visual effects and computer animation company Wētā FX has won the Oscar for Best Visual...

Drug trial in spotlight again

One early morning in May 2024, Danielle Hofmeister sat at the kitchen table trying to paint her young twins’ faces for school “spirit week”. It should have been simple – a few quick brush strokes before the rush of backpacks, lunchboxes and the walk...

Digital delusion

How a fuelrationed NZ might look

Finance Minister Nicola says the Government is working out what New Zealand would look like under fuel rationing for the first time in decades. Willis cautioned that New Zealand is many weeks from potentially needing such measures with about 50 days...

Putting off life’s prickly problems

Last night – or more accurately at some ungodly hour of this morning – a hedgehog wandered into my bedroom. I discovered this because even on carpet hedgehogs are surprisingly noisy. There was snuffling, scrabbling and a sound like someone repeatedly...

‘Considered and appropriate’

The Government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic was effective but imperfect, a Royal Commission has found. The second leg of the powerful inquiry – secured in the coalition agreements – interrogated key decisions about vaccine safety and mandates,...