Luxon: Speech To The 2022 National Party Annual Conference
Kia ora! What a brilliant conference! The energy wave from this weekend will carry us right through to election year and I say: bring it on... More>>

National: Five Years Of Failure For Light Rail
Construction of light rail in Auckland might not begin until 2025 despite tomorrow marking five years since Jacinda Ardern announced it would be delivered to Mt Roskill by 2021, National’s Transport spokesperson Simeon Brown says... More>>

Government: Representation Bill Passes Third Reading In Parliament
Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu welcomes the passing of new legislation tonight to reinstate Ngāi Tahu councillors to Environment Canterbury... More>>

Barfoot & Thompson: Auckland Rental Prices Inch Up Again, But Upward Trend Could Ease In Coming Months
Data from nearly 16,000 rental properties managed by real estate agency Barfoot & Thompson shows Auckland’s average weekly rent rose by $6.12 (or 1 percent) during the second quarter... More>>

ComCom: Draft Report Says Regulatory System Favours Established Building Products
The Commerce Commission’s draft report into competition in the residential building supplies industry has identified two main factors negatively impacting competition... More>>

Statistics: Annual Wage Inflation Rises To 3.4 Percent
Wage inflation, measured by the labour cost index (LCI), was 3.4 percent in the year ended June 2022, while average ordinary time hourly earnings rose 6.4 percent, Stats NZ said today... More>>

ALSO:

• Stats NZ - Unemployment Rate At 3.3 Percent

Keith Rankin: Some Important But Little Known Facts About Taiwan
The nuclear clock is closer than ever (since 1962) to 'midnight'. Taiwan and Ukraine are of course the two flashpoints. It is important that the citizens of the world understand the key facts... More>>

Dunne Speaks: Aspirations Are All Very Well, But It's Getting It Right That Counts
In a weekend television interview, the Prime Minister pushed back on a suggestion her government is far better at talking about things than achieving them. She countered that “I would not ever change the fact that we have always throughout been highly aspirational…what you’re asking me essentially is to shy away from aspiration”... More>>

Gilding The Cage Of Suburbia: Farewelling Neighbours
The statistics of Australia’s longest running drama series about sickeningly idyllic suburbia will interest soap show boffins. It lasted 5,955 episodes over 37 seasons, starting in 1985. Its anaemically thin plotlines, subpar acting, and emphasis on ideals bound to cause indigestion, did not prevent Neighbours from being mandatory viewing. Neighbours was, especially for British audiences, fetish and cult, shrine and devotion... More>>

Palestinian Ministry of Health: Developments In The Health Situation During The Israeli Aggression On The Cities & Governorates Of The Gaza Strip
For the second day in a row, the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip continues by targeting overcrowded residential areas and neighborhoods, as the death toll rose to 13 citizens, including a 5-year-old girl and a 23-year-old woman... More>>


UN: Horn Of Africa Faces Most ‘Catastrophic’ Food Insecurity In Decades, Warns WHO
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday that the Greater Horn of Africa is experiencing one of the worst famines of the last 70 years... More>>

FAO: Warns 90 Per Cent Of Earth’s Topsoil At Risk By 2050
A full 90 per cent of the Earth’s precious topsoil is likely to be at risk by 2050, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO...
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Howard Davis: NZSQ Conclude National Tour With ‘Release’ Programme

The NZSQ concluded their national tour in Wellington with a three-part programme, the triumphant final installment of which was entitled ‘Release.’ It included three pieces representing radical musical innovation... More>>

Howard Davis: The Show Must Go On - ‘La Traviata’ Opening Night Wobbles
Casting problems have beset ‘La Traviata’ since its first performance in March 1853 at Venice’s La Fenice opera house. Sadly, Saturday night’s premiere at Wellington’s newly-restored St James Theatre proved no different... More>>

Howard Davis: Dennis Villeneuve’s Dune - A Brief History

So many elements of Herbert’s novel have since become tropes of popular SciFi that Villeneuve’s film sometimes seems deceptively derivative. What makes all this nonsense essential viewing is his astonishing visual sensibility. More>>

Howard Davis: Jill Trevelyan's Rita Angus

Although Angus has become one of Aotearoa’s best-loved painters, the story of her life remained little known and poorly understood before Jill Trevelyan's acclaimed and revelatory biography, which has been republished by Te Papa press. More>>