NZ Herald Live: PM Christopher Luxon speaks to the media
Chris Hipkins wants to reverse the changes, but won't commit to a dollar figure.
Charlie Davies-Carr is now 19 years old and studies law at university. Video / ZM
KiwiSaver cut, Best Start means-tested, $6.6b for business. Nicola Willis' Budget aims for growth but she warns of slow wages and high unemployment. Video / Mark Mitchell
Debt is projected to increase by $60 to $70 billion over the next five years. Video \ Mark Mitchell
Cameron Bagrie says the government saved $21 billion over the forecast period but faces challenges in finding future savings. Video \ Mark Mitchell
Ryan Bridge and an expert panel break down Budget 2025
A serious crash has happened on Dansey Rd near Rotorua.
Finance Minister unveils NZ Budget 2025, the end of an era as Smith & Caughey closes and Trump, Ramaphosa in heated Oval Office exchange.
Donald Trump ambushes South Africa's president during a White House meeting by playing a video alleging 'genocide' of white people in South Africa. Video / The White House
The Halberg Games isn't just a fun event for kids Gemma and Jemma, it's also an exciting reunion! Reporter Zoe catches up with the besties as they compete for their 3rd year.
Cameron Emerson has displayed plenty of courage and dedication on his way to reaching the 100-cap milestone. Video / Neil Reid
A large crowd packed Trust Stadium for the Runit event last night. Video / Mike Scott / Benjamin Plummer
New Zealand Rugby Player of the Year Jorja Miller speaks about transferring to the Black Ferns from the sevens side and her future goals. Video / Alyse Wright
The Bachelor NZ winner said the "only way" she knows how to read books set overseas is by changing the character's voice in her head. Video / The Hits Drive
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RNZ News
12 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Marsden Fund says it was given only a day's notice of further funding cuts
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Dr Shane Reti said public good science was still being supported, and the government would have more options to reinvest in the future. (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi A decades-old fund dedicated to blue-skies research says it was given a day's notice of further funding cuts and told to keep quiet about it until the government made it public. The Marsden Fund, which backs fundamental research - science for the sake of knowledge - is among three contestable funds to lose millions to help set up the new Institute for Advanced Technology . Scientists said slashing funding for such research could have significant unintended consequences for innovation and warned the Prime Minister as such in a letter earlier this month. The cuts come amid a long-awaited review into the sector - final recommendations were delivered to the Science Minister three months ago, but are yet to be made public - and after the government announced the biggest overhaul of the science system in decades , to "ensure a system that generates maximum value for the economy". The reforms so far have seen the dissolution of science commercialisation arm, Callaghan Innovation, and merger of the six Crown Research Institutes into three mega science entities or Public Research Organisations (PROs) plus a fourth dedicated to advanced technology. Callaghan Innovation was dissolved in the government's overhaul of the science sector. (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King The Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) said of the $231 million earmarked for the Institute for Advanced Technology over the next four years, more than half - $150.4m - was to be reallocated from within the science, innovation, and technology portfolio. MBIE's general manager of technology and innovation Dean Ford said it represented a shift in priorities towards emerging technologies that could be commercialised. "The majority of this funding will continue to go into science - but into new areas of research that have significant potential, where New Zealand is developing greater capability." Science Minister Shane Reti said organisations affected by the reallocated funding for the Institute for Advanced Technology, were advised ahead of the public announcement on 18 July. From July 2028, the Endeavour Fund, which provided funding for university researchers, will have its funding cut by $13.5m, and the Health and Research Council will lose $11.5m. While the Marsden Fund will have its funding slashed by a one-off $15m. Just over $24m has been found in the disestablishment of Callaghan Innovation's operations across 2027-29, $18m from the New to R&D Grant for three years from 2025, and $3m is being reprioritised from 'contract management' over the next three years from July 2026. MBIE said $37.5m has also been found from within the Strategic Science Investment Fund from contracts which are coming to an end over the next three years, and $21.6m has been reprioritised from unallocated National Science Challenge funding. The remaining $80m will support the parts of Callaghan Innovation that are being retained. The changes are in addition to the $212m repurposed from research and innovation funds in Budget 2025 to support the overhaul of the science system. In a statement the Royal Society, which administered the Marsden Fund, said it learned of the $15m funding cut the day before the Institute for Advanced Technology was announced. "The Royal Society Te Apārangi received a letter from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) on the afternoon of Friday 18 July 2025, confirming a phonecall the previous evening. "The letter advised that the Marsden Fund will be reduced by a further $15 million in the 2028/29 year, in addition to the reductions already announced in the Government's 2025 Budget in May. "Separately, MBIE requested that this information be treated in strict confidence until the government publicly released it." A briefing to the Science Minister regarding the funding for the Institute was made public on MBIE's website on 6 August . The society said the $15m reallocation "effectively doubles the reductions already announced in this year's budget, amounting to a cut of about 29 percent over the 3 years from 2026/27 to 2028/29". President of the Fund professor Jane Harding said the cuts to fundamental research were likely to have "significant unintended consequences" and "will undermine the long-term potential of the new Institute". "The Society is very concerned that cuts to funding for the fundamental research supported by the Marsden Fund will undermine the long-term potential of the new Institute and other parts of the sector that apply early stage research, by significantly reducing the pipeline of knowledge at the new-discovery end of the process. "This may have important unintended consequences for New Zealand in the long term." The cuts follow a government directive last year, that saw the Marsden Fund abandon support for social science and humanities research and direct at least half of its investments to research with economic potential. A spokesperson for the Health and Research Council said it's too early to know how the loss of $11.5m per year from July 2028 - a 10 percent reduction to its investment fund - and the almost $600,000 cut to its operational budget from next July, will impact the council's work. The Association of Scientists said it's "extremely concerned" by the reprioritisation of funds and says the cuts on top of Budget 2025 mean "our major research funds are in extremely bad shape". Co-president Lucy Stewart said the reduced contract management funding likely meant there would be jobs lost at funders such as the Royal Society and MBIE. Reti said "the government has made it clear on several occasions that we want publicly funded research to focus on solving real world problems that can be commercialised". He said public good science was continuing to be supported, and the government would have more options to reinvest in the future, "with the economic gains that can be made through commercialising research and advanced technologies". Meanwhile, the final report of Sir Peter Gluckman's review of the science system is yet to be made public following its delivery to the Science Minister at the end of April. The long-awaited report was the second part of the Science System Advisory Group's review of the sector, and would include recommendations on the system's funding. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
The Spinoff
29 minutes ago
- The Spinoff
The prime minister we almost had: Grant Robertson's memoir, reviewed
Henry Cooke reviews Anything Could Happen by former deputy prime minister Grant Robertson. He was almost elected Labour leader in 2014. He almost became the prime minister when Jacinda Ardern resigned in 2023. And he almost got a wealth tax over the line that same year. But not quite. In his new memoir Anything Could Happen, we naturally learn much about what Grant Robertson did do, from his days designing election-winning policy for Helen Clark's Labour government (interest-free student loans) to the frantic opening of the fiscal taps during the pandemic. But the book is haunted by all the stuff that Robertson didn't quite achieve. We hear about the achingly close Labour leadership loss to Andrew Little in 2014, and the genuine agonising over whether he should step up when Ardern resigned in 2023. Robertson openly expresses frustration about missed chances and lost arguments, even as he generally gives the other side a fair hearing. By 'the other side', I am talking about fights within the Labour Party – not politics itself. If you've come to this book believing that Robertson spent far too much while finance minister, and hoping for some kind of lightbulb moment of regret, you will be disappointed. Robertson does not argue that he and Labour got all the calls right. But he does make it clear that he still believes that a huge dose of spending was needed to combat the pandemic, and that while some level of cuts was needed by the time he left office, the state of the books was far from as dire as his critics now constantly claim. (Unsurprisingly for a committed sports minister, he calls in the international referee for this issue – noting that New Zealand's credit rating survived the pandemic intact, leaving it as one of 12 national economies with the top triple-A rating from two of the big global credit rating agencies by Budget 2022.) His argument is somewhat undercut by Treasury's long-term insights briefings, released just weeks before this book was published but long after it was written, which shows officials believed the stimulatory spending was too high after Budget 2022 and was contributing to inflation. Robertson was never the kind of finance minister the median Treasury staffer would adore. He might run a university now, but he will be a politician forever, and it shows in the passing strays he has for the National Party – he notes that one of the first things new leader Christopher Luxon did was call for Labour to spend more money. So no, this is not an apologia for the country's debt track, and if you came looking for that you will not find it. But if instead you are trying to understand more about the decisions of the sixth Labour government, you will have a far better time. Unlike Ardern's recent memoir, this is a book squarely aimed at New Zealanders, meaning Robertson can actually get into the meat of some issues rather than just briefly explain them for foreigners. Tax, monetary policy and the difficulty of hosting international sporting competitions are all dealt with at some length. Robertson embeds into this policy and political history a lot of personal detail. We learn about his somewhat troubled upbringing as a gay teenager in 1980s Dunedin, how he met his partner Alf, his brief career as a diplomat, and a lot about a back problem in recent years that contributed both to mental health issues and his decision not to take over from Ardern. Yet Robertson the policy strategist is never that far away – he explains his father's imprisonment for stealing company money in part by noting that the fraud put his family above the student allowance income cap. As a book the memoir is extremely readable and often funny, much like a Robertson general debate speech. I ate it up in about 48 hours and I think anyone interested in New Zealand politics could do similar with no real boredom. Sections on Labour's time in opposition contain juicy tidbits from the Cunliffe debacle that leave you wanting more, as well as Robertson's play-by-play of Andrew Little's resignation as leader, including Robertson's exasperation with him. We get what I believe to be the fullest accounting yet of the NZ First and Labour negotiations in 2017, including Ardern staring down Winston Peters over his desire for a numbers-based immigration cap. This was a red line for Labour and one that Ardern worried had cost them government – and according to Robertson ended up making Peters so bitter he ruined much of the government's work programme in both immigration and workplace relations, given they shared a minister. Indeed, the enmity between Robertson and Peters emerges as one of the clearest throughlines in the book. The relationship between Labour and NZ First in government sounds like it was far worse offstage than on it. Where Robertson does admit fault with the Covid cash infusion is with the so-called 'shovel ready' programme of spending announced in Budget 2020, which deeply involved NZ First's Shane Jones and therefore became 'politicised', in Robertson's viewing. The base-level bitterness Robertson feels for a man and party who stymied so much of his programme has likely been increased by Peters' embrace of the Covid fringe. After all it is hard to imagine Ardern stepping down without that Covid backlash spilling onto parliament's lawn – and Robertson is clear that he thought Ardern stepping down would greatly harm the party's chance of re-election. If Ardern hadn't stepped down, Robertson might still be in the Beehive, or at least able to properly run on a wealth tax in 2023 as he had long planned. He might not have time to write a book, busy instead with the cut and thrust of politics he was addicted to for so long, trying to get the books back in order himself. In fairness, all political memoirs are tales of chances not taken and battles not won. They are almost always written once the protagonist has lost an election or somehow been turfed from office. Robertson just has a few more sliding doors moments than most. Anything Could Happen by Grant Robertson ($40, Allen & Unwin) is available from Unity Books.
Newsroom
2 hours ago
- Newsroom
Fund manager deepfake scam evidence criminals are ‘maturing'
Organised crime efforts to defraud New Zealanders are using increasingly clever technology while spending time and money familiarising themselves with New Zealand's investment landscape. Late last week, KiwiSaver provider Fisher Funds issued something of a public service announcement about a deep fake video of its founder Carmel Fisher doing the rounds on social media platforms.
