Watch live: Christopher Luxon faces questions after Kiwisaver changes in Budget
The government's cuts, savings and new spending have been revealed in this year's
Budget
.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis described her second Budget as 'No BS', while Prime Minister Christopher Luxon labelled it the 'Growth Budget'.
Meanwhile the Labour party says it's being paid for by New Zealand women.
Follow all the latest details, reactions and updates in our blog at the top of this page.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter
curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
14 minutes ago
- NZ Herald
Letters: Phil Goff's art of saying nothing; Parliament shame; bottom trawling destructive
Then came the plot twist. After 40-plus years of having no opinions anyone could remember, Phil discovered he had a voice. Unfortunately about Donald Trump. In a moment of catastrophic authenticity, he shared them publicly. Career over. The moral? In politics, as in nature, survival often depends on not being noticed. Phil Goff mastered this art for decades, only to forget the first rule of political longevity at the final hurdle: when in doubt, say nothing. James Gregory, Parnell. Parliament haka No wonder the coalition government imposed a disproportionately heavy penalty on Te Pāti Māori MPs for their haka in Parliament: the coalition had to challenge such a dazzling criticism of their failure to honour Te Tiriti, one that bypassed the repetitive wrangling that constitutes a normal day in the house. The haka was a powerful, beautiful, unforgettable work of performance art that posed no threat to individuals, but did threaten the destructive, divisive ideology the Government is pursuing. The greatest art speaks truth to power, truth that power would rather we did not hear. Andrea Dawe, Sandringham. The Chase The headline said 'Paul Henry is to host The Chase NZ'. I was amazed by Paul's modesty when he said: '…and I can be enormously charming when I put my mind to it'. Next we learn The Chase NZ is to be filmed in Sydney. This at a time when we are encouraging film makers to come to New Zealand. If the NZ Chase is to be filmed in Sydney, I would rather forget it and stick with the tried-and-true UK version hosted by Bradley Walsh. John Epsom. Relationship with China For the future of our country let's hope our current Prime Minister listens to advice from former leaders on his upcoming trip to Beijing. Helen Clark, Don Brash, Sir Geoffrey Palmer and others all saying the same thing. In 2008, NZ was the first developed country to have a free trade agreement with China, who are now our biggest trading partner by far. Our current Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, is positioning NZ alongside the United States as an adversary of China. In my opinion this is crazy. If China gets annoyed with us and cancels our exports of dairy products, meat, forestry and fruit this could have catastrophic consequences. NZ exports to China are worth $20 billion. Christopher Luxon needs to convince China we value our joint friendship with them. The Chinese will realise we also have longstanding friendships with US, UK and Australia. However, we should state emphatically that we will remain nuclear-free and will not enter into Aukus or similar military alliances aimed at China. Glen Stanton, Mairangi Bay. New Lynn terror attack Families of victims of the New Lynn supermarket stabbings must be aghast to learn that the police Special Tactics Group, specifically deployed to keep the perpetrator under surveillance, decided not to follow him into the supermarket. The team members were armed because of concerns the offender could commit a 'lone wolf' attack yet they stayed outside so as not to blow their cover. This rationalisation was deeply flawed. The tragedy could have been averted. John Walsh, Green Bay. Treaty Principles Bill The expected debacle over the Treaty Principles Bill surprises no one: it was inevitable and highlights the ineptitude of Parliament. Intended to be a place of some gravitas where elected representatives can debate issues and formulate rules by which we can all live, it is in reality a disorganised muddle where politicians preen and carry on like idiots. To misquote Shakespeare, a plague on all your houses. Thank God for the oft-maligned Civil Service that has the unenviable task of making some sense, and creating some order, out of this fiasco. Mike Newland, Matakana. Energy supply A Herald article (June 6) notes the start of construction of the Genesis Energy 100 MW Battery. Genesis chief executive Malcolm Johns is referenced as stating: 'As New Zealand's electricity supply becomes more renewable and subject to weather, this battery will help smooth out fluctuations in supply, ensuring supply remains reliable and secure.' Weather-related fluctuations would have to be of very short duration for the battery to be useful in that context, given it would be flat after just two hours with 100 MW output. The power crisis of the 2024 dry winter lasted two months. Weather-related power variations for time scales of days and months need a much bigger 'battery' – like something equivalent to the Lake Onslow scheme's 1000 MW for 6 months. Earl Bardsley, Hamilton. Bottom trawling Like Edith Cullen (letters, June 6), I am appalled that Aotearoa refuses to ban the hugely destructive practice of bottom trawling. If anyone doubts how devastating this practice is, they should watch David Attenborough's latest movie Ocean. His team managed to get right up close to capture industrial trawlers at work and confronts us with the sight of the grey and lifeless desert it leaves in its wake. Attenborough offers hope but that rests on 'no take zones' and giving the devastated areas time to recover. Why are we going in the wrong direction? Maire Leadbeater, Mt Albert A quick word What do the president of the Law Society, the Deputy Police Commissioner and the Prime Minister's deputy press secretary have in common? Arrogance and stupidity? Bruce Tubb, Devonport. I suspect one of the weaknesses of the public health system is that important decisions are made by persons who have no intention of using the public system themselves. Elizabeth Aloupis, Auckland. A sad day for our beloved Aotearoa ... so ashamed of our Parliament today - Privileges Committee - really says it all, those who are privileged. Bouquets to Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori, who all understood and conveyed the importance of the excessive censure recommended - thank you for representing us with truth and conviction. Janette Anderson, Paeroa. Waikeria Prison, New Zealand's latest and newest hotel. You build them and they will fill them as you get more inside than you get on the outside. Why doesn't the Government do more to keep the prison invasion down is beyond me. We are too soft in New Zealand. Gary Stewart, Foxton Beach. I watched an item on TV1 news this evening (June 5) which included coverage of, what I guess was, the debating chamber of Parliament. My question is - where the heck were all our elected politicians? There appeared to be very few 'bums on seats' so I'm wondering what the heck we're paying them to do if they can't even turn up to work? Shelley Batt, Rotorua. Each year at this time, we can view television coverage of the madness that is the motorcycle racing on the Isle of Man. The event is notorious for its dangers, accidents and its dreadful death statistics. Many recent safety improvements to the course have been made but many stone walls and an undulating roadway remain. The guts of riders is astonishing and to risk one's life at a sporting event is incomprehensible. But every year there is no shortage of starters willing to take the risk whatever us mere mortals may be capable of comprehending. Larry Mitchell, Rothesay Bay.
RNZ News
25 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Te Tai Tokerau takes both top beef farming prizes at Ahuwhenua Trophy 2025 awards
Hūhana Lyndon, Tama Potaka and Pita Morrison on stage at the Ahuwhenua Trophy 2025 award ceremony. Photo: Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira Māori from Te Tai Tokerau were the big winners at the 2025 Ahuwhenua Trophy 2025 awards with both top prizes going to Northland farmers. The Northland-based Whangaroa Ngaiotonga Trust was awarded the 2025 Ahuwhenua Trophy for excellence in Māori sheep and beef farming, while Te Tai Tokerau farm manager Coby Warmington took out the 2025 Young Māori Farmer Award at a packed ceremony in Palmerston North on Friday. The Ahuwhenua Trophy dates back to 1933 and was established by Sir Āpirana Ngata and the Governor General at the time, Lord Charles Bledisloe. It remains one of the most prestigious and contested awards for Māori farming. At least 800 people gather for the Ahuwhenua Trophy 2025 award ceremony. Photo: Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira At least 800 people were at the event, including Te Arikinui Kuini Nga wai hono I te po, the Māori Queen, Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka and other Māori farmers and their whānau. The Whangaroa Ngaiotonga Trust's whenua is located near the east coast settlement of Whangaruru, north of Whangārei. Its cattle farm takes up about a third of the 1100 hectares of land owned by the trust. In 1952, the Department of Māori Affairs held a hui for the then-484 registered owners of the whenua. Despite only 70 being present and only 24 signing a resolution in support, the department went ahead with the consolidation of the whenua into a 'Land Development Scheme' disconnecting the people from the whenua for decades. The trust took back control of the whenua in 2020 with little-to-no farming know-how and no stock. Since then, it has transformed the whenua into a thriving bull-beef operation with around 1200 bulls. In her acceptance speech, Green MP and Whangaroa Ngaiotonga Trust co-chair Hūhana Lyndon said thanked her wider Ngāti Wai whānau and elders for their support. "Our tūpuna fought so hard to have the land returned and when you are unable to walk your whenua, when you have a tenant that would not let you on without supervision, our ability to take our land back was transformational." Ahuwhenua Trophy 2025 Award winner Pita Morrison accepting the supreme award. Photo: Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira Co-chair Pita Morrison thanked the whānau who travelled south to support the trust, and those who had passed on. "From the time of our founding tipuna, Manaia, who came to our whenua, our people have been here … if it was not for the strength that our tūpuna have given to us and our people we would not be here. "To our people that are here today, as the descendants of our old people, I thank you, mihi to you, on behalf of our trust and we are so proud to be here with you today," Morrison said. Ahuwhenua Trophy 2025 Young Māori Farmer Award winner Coby Warmington Photo: Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira It was a similar sentiment from Young Māori Famer Award winner Coby Warmington, 28, who thanked his wife Holly and his fellow finalists who he described as "obviously great farmers" but "even better people". Warmington (Te Mahurehure, Ngāpuhi) started working at Waima Topu Beef in January 2021 as a shepherd and general hand while the farm was starting a re-building phase and was promoted to farm manager only two years later, in March 2023. Each finalist received a $5000 scholarship, courtesy of Te Tumu Paeroa, The Office of the Māori Trustee, with the overall winner getting a total of $10,000. Warmington said he wanted to start implementing some of things he learned on his own farm in Waima. "I was supported by my employers to apply for the award and I just wanted to test my limits, socially. "It's been amazing, meeting all these great people and spending time with all these young Māori leaders. I'll never forget the experience." Te Tumu Paeroa lead Dr Charlotte Severne said the scholarship would likely be used to get more skills overseas. "It's for them to study and study further, that opportunity to put something into themselves. Studying is not cheap. "These ones have more qualifications than some who have entered the awards so they'll look at training offshore, maybe do a tour offshore. That's as good as any tohū, I think." Severne said. Māori development Minister Tama Potaka said whenua was an integral part of Māori identity. "For us its something that is enduring and perpetual, we won't let go of our whakapapa because it defines who we are. As a result, we do have to figure out how we use that as a foundation for our livelihoods, for jobs, for enterprise and for opportunities for our young people. "I had the great opportunity to grow up on a sheep and beef farm only 45 minutes away in a place called Rata, up Rangitīkei. We had amongst our families 150,000 to 160,000 sheep there in the 1900s. "Certainly for me it's, again, linking back to identity and whakapapa but also providing a platform for economic growth." Potaka said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
'Kick in the guts': Government knocks back most of Christchurch council's housing plans
Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger says the government's knock-back of the council's housing plans is a "kick in the guts". Photo: RNZ/Nathan Mckinnon The mayor of Christchurch says a government knock-back on it's three year battle to create a custom carve-out of national housing intensification rules feels like a "kick in the guts", but others are welcoming the certainty of the move. On Friday, Minister for Resource Management Act Reform Chris Bishop issued a final decision on 17 of 20 recommendations the city council had referred after rejecting recommendations from an independent panel on the council's plan to shape a bespoke Christchurch response to national housing density policy). Minister Bishop rejected the bulk of the council's proposals. In 2021, the then-government released its National Policy Statement on Urban Development, a plan to ramp up housing intensification across most urban areas but focused on the five high growth centres of Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch, amid bi-partisan support for the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, though the National Party would later withdraw its backing . The bill contained Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS), which detail what development can occur without the need for resource consent, public notification and consultation in the areas identified as most in need of housing intensification. Those rules were intended to apply across all residential zones in those identified cities, unless "qualifying matters" made intensification inappropriate. In 2022, the council voted to reject the standards , despite warnings a commissioner could be appointed . Instead, the council began several years of consultation, submissions and hearings on Plan Change 14 - its proposed changes to the district plan that would give effect to the Medium Density Residential Standards, but in a way it claimed better acknowledged the character and context of the city. The council temporarily halted the process following the last election, and was later granted an extension until the end of this year on some aspescts of the plan change. Minister Bishop declined a further extension request last month. The council's stance culminated in an Independent Hearing Panel (IHP), which reported back in the middle of last year. The council accepted the majority of the IHP's recommendations, which were incorporated into the district plan. But it rejected various aspects of the proposed plan, making twenty counter-recommendations that went to the Minister. The minister announced on Friday he had rejected 14 of the council's recommendations, accepted three and deferred his decision on three more. Minister for Resource Management Act Reform Chris Bishop has rejected the bulk of the council's proposals. Photo: VNP/Louis Collins The decision means some parts of the city will be zoned higher-density housing and taller buildings, while the council will not be allowed to use several different "qualifying matters" to refuse consents even in high density zones - most controversially, one that hinged on the impediment of sunlight and proposed the Garden City should get an exemption because its southern location meant sunlight angles differ. Bishop's announcement locks in changes for areas in and around the CBD, and the "town centres" of Riccarton, Hornby and Linwood, which will be zoned high density residential. Taller buildings will be allowed within 600 metres of shopping areas in some suburbs - 32m (around ten storeys high) for the Hornby shopping area, 14m for high density residential zones surrounding the shopping area, 22m (around six storeys) for Linwood's town centre, and 14m for high density residential zones around it. The council's bids to create qualifying matters on the basis of sunlight access, recession planes (a line or plane which limits how close a building can be to a property boundary), or by location - such as 'the City Spine' (major transport routes) or Riccarton Bush - also failed. Nor did the minster accept areas around Peer Street in Ilam or the Papanui War Memorial Avenues should be excluded from density rules or allowed special consideration. The council proposals the minister did accept were Local Centre Intensification Precinct - intensification around eight of the city's commercial centres, including Barrington, Prestons and Wigram; increasing the building height overlay for the former stock yards site on Deans Avenue (a prime spot adjacent to Hagley Park, currently used as car parking for the Christchurch Hospital shuttle service) to up to 36m; and allowing high density residential zoning for Milton Street (the site of the Milton St substation, which Fletchers plans to build 80 homes on). All other council alternative recommendations were rejected in favour of the hearing panel recommendations. The minister has deferred decision-making for the heritage listing for Daresbury - a historic home in Fendalton; Antonio Hall - a derelict historic home on Riccarton Rd; and Piko Character Area - a Riccarton residential neighbourhood made up of many original state houses from the 1930s - until the council decided on the underlying zoning. "In putting these decisions forward to the government, we obviously wanted to get all of our alternative recommendations approved. So to only have three of them get the tick is a kick in the guts," mayor Phil Mauger said. "This plan change has been a huge undertaking for our city, and we've said right the way through that we want to get the best outcome we possibly can. This doesn't feel like the best outcome. "To that end, we'll keep working hard as a council, and there are still major decisions yet to be made when it comes to housing density and planning across much of Christchurch, so watch this space." The decisions come into effect immediately and cannot be appealed to the Environment Court. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon New Zealand has one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the OECD. Urbanist collective Greater Ōtautahi welcomed the minister's decision. Chairperson M Grace-Stent said the decision finally brought some certainty after years of delays, decision making, submissions and hearing panels. "What we're most excited about is that Ōtautahi Christchurch is set up for the future, it has certainty around where it can grow and where it can continue to develop in the future." The decision will not mean apartment buildings spring up overnight, they said. "It's still going to be a slow developing process, just as our cities always continually change. This is just another step." The city also needed to turn its attention to improving public transport. "Ōtautahi Christchurch definitely needs a reevaluation of its transport system. We've been calling for the introduction of mass rapid transport across the city to support and facilitate the kind of growth and development that needs to happen, and to make sure that everyone has a choice about how they're getting around the city and aren't forced to just pick cars." Grace-Stent said the debate touched on ideas embedded in the national psyche about how and where New Zealanders live. They said the quarter-acre dream of a stand alone house on a large section is unsustainable and doesn't not always produce greater social outcomes. "Not everyone wants to live the exact same lifestyle - allowing more housing to be built allows people to make that choice for themselves. So if people want to be living on 1/4 acre block, they're allowed to, and if people want to be living in an apartment close to their friends and amenities and where they work, they also have that choice." They acknowledged that some medium and high density housing is not built to high standards, but said some of that was due to limitations of the current zoning process, which can mean the lowest bidder builds on these sites. "This is just the first step into assuring that everyone has a home that is liveable and that works for them, and is good quality. There also needs to be changes throughout the way that we are think about housing and building houses across the country," Grace-Stent said. The decisions, which come into effect immediately, are final and cannot be appealed to the Environment Court. The council has until the end of the year to decide on density rules for the rest of the city. It was unable to confirm by deadline how much it had spent fighting the density rules, but had budgeted for $7 million dollars between 2021 and the middle of this year. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
