Education Minister launches new Parent Portal
Photo:
RNZ / REECE BAKER
The government has launched a new 'Parent Portal' - an online resource intended to help families to play their part in their child's learning.
"This is about giving parents clarity, confidence, and practical tools to support their child's learning journey," Education Minister Erica Stanford said on Sunday.
She said it would provide a clear, easy-to-understand, year-by-year guide to what children will be learning in English and maths under the new curriculum.
The Parent Portal will include:
"This is the first time parents will have access to such a comprehensive and practical resource," Stanford said.
She added that more resources would be added to the platform over time.
"Parents are a crucial part of their child's education journey. Available on any device, the portal is about restoring their place at the heart of learning and giving them the confidence to make a real difference."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero
,
a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
10 hours ago
- RNZ News
Aratere makes its final sailing across Cook Strait
Cook Strait ferry Aratere sails into in Wellington on Monday. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii The Aratere arrived in Wellington for the final time on Monday, ending almost three decades of Cook Strait sailings. It was announced in April the ferry would stop crossing the Cook Strait to make way for new port infrastructure needed for two new ships set to arrive in 2029. The ferry first arrived on New Zealand's shores in 1999 having been built in Spain at the Hijos de shipyard a year prior and replaced the Aratika, which had been in service from 1974. Aratere ferry has been in service in New Zealand since 1999. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Maritime Union Wellington Branch Secretary Fiona Mansell worked on the Aratere as a cabin attendant and said it would be "really sad" to see the ship sail into the capital for the last time. "It's kind of like losing something or somebody that's very close to you." Mansell told RNZ the ferry's crew created the best memories onboard it. "They're with each other you know a lot, they become family, not just friends, not just crew mates." The ship's retirement was difficult to deal with, she said. "It's a big loss to the crew, to our membership, to this country, to our city." Cool Tranz truck driver Morgan MacAllister-Robb had been sailing on the Interislander frequently for his 35-year career. Over the past six years he had been onboard the Aratere six days a week - which equated to 312 trips annually. MacAllister-Robb said by a stroke of luck he had a ticket on its last crossing. "I didn't even actually have to plan it, it just happens to be one of my scheduled sailings." He said that the Aratere was his favourite of the three ferries in the Interislander fleet, and that it would be weird to not see it in Wellington and Picton port. In its first months of service, it faced several mechanical problems - including a sailing on 24 February 1999 where it suffered a series of power failures that left it adrift in Wellington Harbour. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Days later KiwiRail - then called Tranz Rail - put out a large full page ad in the Weekend Herald which had a picture of the ferry with the text: "Sorry it hasn't been plain sailing". There were problems with the ship highlighted throughout that year and in the 2000s, which included the time it was taken out in heavy conditions and lurched forward, which lightly injured five people. It led to the introduction of new heavy weather protocols for Cook Strait ferry operators. In late April 2011 the Aratere headed to Singapore for six months for a $53 million 30 metre extension which increased the amount of passengers it could hold from 400 to 650. The work was done by cutting the ship in half and inserting what was called the "mid-body". As part of that work, new propellers were fitted to it which became a focus when two years later the ferry's starboard propeller was lost in Cook Strait. Transport Accident Investigation Commission's (TAIC) chief investigator Tim Burfoot said the propeller was fitted poorly, and that was likely because KiwiRail either did not seek, or follow, expert advice. The propeller from the Aratere was found in Cook Strait after it fell off in November 2013. Photo: RNZ On an evening sailing on 21 June 2024, the Aratere ran aground just outside of Picton with 47 passengers on board. No one was injured, but it triggered another Transport Accident Investigation Commission investigation, with its interim report finding a 36-second auto pilot mistake led to the grounding. The report showed that a new Kongsberg steering system had been installed on the Aratere just weeks prior in May, and 83 inter-island crossings were made in the three subsequent weeks. It also found the crew did not know how to take back control from the autopilot, and it took about two minutes before the ship was brought back under manual control. In April, Rail Minister Winston Peters announced it would be retired due to it being the only ferry where rail freight can roll on and off it. That means it can't use another wharf in Picton while port upgrades there and in Wellington are underway for two new ferries, set to arrive in 2029. At the time Peters said it would have cost $120 million to keep the Aratere in service. The retirement has caused a restructure at KiwiRail with some jobs on the chopping block. In a statement, KiwiRail said that confirmation of what jobs would end and what staff could be redeployed in the company would come at the end of August. It said that a decision had not made on the future of the Aratere post retirement yet and it would lay up at its Wellington berth in the meantime. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Otago Daily Times
11 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
'Disaster waiting to happen': Carbon farming stokes pest, fire fears
By Alexa Cook of RNZ The increasing number of farms being planted in trees for carbon farming is raising fears about the spread of pests and fire risk. Some farmers are spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on pest control to prevent deer and pigs eating their crops, while also forking out for higher insurance premiums due to the risk of fire. Out near Porangahau in Central Hawke's Bay, farmer James Hunter is worried about the future of his farm. His neighbour's 2000 hectare Motere Station has just been planted in pine trees, after it was sold last year to Chinese forestry company K&A Sustainability Ltd. "If we think it's so good to offset our carbon by planting pine trees, why do I have to carry the cost with everything I hold precious being destroyed?" he asks. The Hunter family has farmed Rangitoto Station for more than 170 years. The rolling to steep hill country offers unbeatable views of Pacific Ocean, while inland the farm's many valleys are filled with canopies of poplar trees to prevent erosion. For the past 40 years, Hunter has been on a mission to create kilometres of wetlands on the farm, regenerate many hectares of native bush, and fence off special areas that are now protected under QEII National Trust covenants. "It's such a buzz," said Hunter. His eyes lit up as he explained how the wetlands naturally filtered and cleaned what ran off the land, collecting sediment so the water that ran out to the rivers and oceans was clean. It has taken countless hours of work and substantial investment, but he feared these precious habitats were at risk of pests from the new forestry plantation. "What's bothering me is that all of this work that I've done - the deer are going to destroy it, and if it's not the deer, the pigs will come out and eat the lambs," he said. The Hunters' farm early in the 1990s (above) before wetlands and native bush were established, compared with today (below) where the farm has about 15 hectares of wetlands filtering the run off. Photos: RNZ Forest Owners Association chief executive Elizabeth Heeg told RNZ that pest control was part of regional council management plans. She said the association did not collect data on how much forestry owners spent on pest control, but it varied depending on the region and size of forest. "They take these issues seriously for their communities. We are having more trouble with pigs in recent years than we'd had previously. "Deer numbers in some places are expanding, we need to have good game management out there and think about where these populations have expanded to a point where they need professional intervention to be knocked back," she said. Another risk that farmers were worried about was wildfire. Hunter has lived through many severe droughts and told RNZ that with an increasing number of pines being planted in the area, he was seriously concerned about the fire risk. He said there was a lack of responsibility from forest owners to mitigate them. "The forest people are not putting in anything to control fires. If there's a big fire and the only good dam out here is my water supply dam, and it's the middle of a drought and they drain it, where does that leave me? "Why should I have to carry the cost of firefighting, when they've done nothing other than plant every available inch, even though they were told not to plant the airstrip... they did," he said. It was rural communities like his that he had seen decimated by the forestry industry, as Hunter said once the trees were planted there was no employment opportunities until harvest, or if it was a carbon farm then it was locked up and left. He is among many who are warning that this rural way of life - of living off the land and mustering stock with horses and dogs - is disappearing. "It's the dream - and if we plant New Zealand, we're going to shut out people's dreams. We're going to shut out the opportunity to progress. "There are so many issues attached to forestry and you can't unwind it," he said. 'It's a disaster waiting to happen' Fellow Hawke's Bay farmer Bruce Wills has had a lifetime of farming next to forestry. His family farmed at Trelinoe Park in Te Pohua from 1955 to 2018 and witnessed the boom of forestry after Cyclone Bola in 1988, when pine trees were touted as the solution to controlling erosion. Bit by bit his farm was surrounded in forestry, which Wills said resulted in a flood of pests eating his crops, costing him tens of thousands of dollars a year in pest control alone. "We spent an enormous amount of time and effort and money controlling possums, goats, deer, pigs that poured in from the forestry and grazed on pastures overnight. "These are the sort of challenges that New Zealand hasn't woken up to yet with the proliferation of carbon farms," he said. Having forestry neighbours on every boundary also carried a huge insurance cost because of the fire risk. "Certainly towards the the latter years when we were fully surrounded and had the significant risk all around us... we doubled and sometimes more, our public liability insurance. "So we were carrying $10 million plus of cover for public liability because of that pine tree risk to our business if a fire escaped from our property," he said. Wills said in his experience, many forest owners were not prepared for fire and he believed many people underestimated the fire risk of forestry. "Most New Zealanders are complacent to this risk and it will come and bit us now with this increased risk of pine tree fuel ready to be ignited. "It worries me a lot, and in the climate that we've got. It's a disaster waiting to happen," said Wills. 'There are still ongoing issues we need to manage' - forestry management company PF Olsen manages more than 160,000 hectares of forestry in New Zealand, including the K&A Sustainability Ltd owned block next to Hunter. Managing director Scott Downs told RNZ that forest owners were working with Fire and Emergency to develop fire risk management plans. However, he said what each forest spent on fire mitigation varied hugely depending on their location and size. "I think fire is a few years away in terms of risk, so they haven't necessarily started thinking fully about that yet... but it will definitely be on the agenda," he said. Downs said PF Olsen met regularly with landowners, such as farmers, and were always available to discuss their concerns. "We're a local company so we have local people on the ground who can go out and visit these sites regularly. We're not a faceless corporation or entity that they have no contact with or struggle to get hold of," he said. As for pest control, PF Olsen said while it did not have exact figures on what its forest owners spent, it was a cost that was included in the forest management budgets. "Obviously there is a lot more pest control in the first four years or so when the trees are growing, then it reduces after that. "But there are still ongoing issues there that we need to manage, in terms of we don't want to be a harbouring site for pigs and deer that create havoc with neighbours, because we want to be a good neighbour," said Downs. 'We are all concerned about increasing fire risk' Figures from Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz)show the annual average for vegetation fires is about 4350. Between July 2023 and June 2025, Fenz attended 547 vegetation fires where some of the area burned was recorded as having land cover in exotic forest, and 78 of those fires were more than one hectare in size. The Forest Owners Association said many of its members did take responsibility for managing their land properly. Chief executive Elizabeth Heeg said $21 million a year was spent on fire protection. "We really encourage all rural landowners that forests to engage with our guidelines on our website. "It's really important we are all up to speed on what the current practice is," she said. When asked if there were any mandatory requirements for forest owners to reduce the risk, Heeg told RNZ there were forest service levies and some legal requirements. "If someone is not managing that risk effectively, then Fenz can come in with a range of responses. "We are all concerned about increasing fire risk, and that's why it's really important that we are working together on how we are going to manage fires, and fire prevention," she said. Fenz Hawke's Bay community risk manager Nigel Hall agreed that forestry was a big fire risk, and said Fenz was always talking to forestry owners. He said the fire service had extensive maps of forests which included the age and type of trees, topography of the land, access tracks, and water supply locations. "They're doing all they can to mitigate fires within their own forests and they are putting fire breaks around key infrastructure , for example powerlines that go through forests," said Hall. He said for carbon forests, which are usually not pruned like the timber production forests, the fire risk can be greater because there was more fuel. "They are higher risk once they are going... but potentially they are lower risk to start with because they are greener underneath. "But for any forest, the likelihood of us actually going in to the forest to extinguish it, we just won't be doing that. Once a fire has taken hold the only way we can fight it is with helicopters," he said. Since 2017 Fenz has established Service Level Agreements with forest owners, and Fenz national manager risk reduction Jonathan Tan said there were currently 14 Service Level Agreements in place with forest owners, with four to be completed. "Many forest owners either had wildfire capabilities prior to 2017 or have since invested in firefighting resources, including Forest Rural Firefighting appliances, water tankers, and trained personnel within their workforce," he said.
Scoop
a day ago
- Scoop
Can My Father's Partner Take His House?
Got questions? RNZ is launching a new podcast, No Stupid Questions with Susan Edmunds, next month. We'd love to hear more of your questions about money and the economy. You can send through written questions, like these ones, but - even better - you can drop us a voice memo to our email questions@ What happens if my father owns a house, but now has a partner for several years who moved in to the house and has put the power in her name to prove she's lived there for a certain time. If my father dies before her with no will, will she get the house or us kids? Justine Wood is a specialist trustee at Public Trust and helped me answer your question. Basically, when someone dies without a will, it's referred to as "dying intestate". That means specific legislation comes into play that determines who will get which bits of the person's estate. That means the partner may well be entitled to a share of the house. "Based on the family circumstances you've outlined, the partner may be entitled to receive the personal chattels, such as vehicles, furniture and jewellery, the first $155,000 of the estate and a third share of the remainder of the estate," she said. "This will depend on the couple meeting the legal criteria of having a de facto relationship at the time. The remaining two thirds of anything left would be distributed equally between his children. "Administering an estate when there is no will can be costly and take longer to sort out. Having a will helps your family understand what you'd like done with your estate after your gone - and it makes the process of managing your passing less stressful on loved ones." The Administration Act defines de facto relationship in line with the Property (Relationships) Act. This said a de facto relationship is a couple who are at least 18, living together as a couple and not married or in a civil union. Things that might be taken into account are the duration of the relationship, the nature and extent of common residence, whether there is a sexual relationship, the degree of financial interdependence and dependence, ownership of property, the degree of mutual commitment to a shared life, the care and support of children, performance of household duties and the reputation and public aspects of the relationship. It would make sense for your father to draw up a will. Even with a will, his partner may have rights under the Property (Relationships) Act - they may need to sign a contracting out agreement if he wants to ensure that the property is left to you. Are there any disadvantages in keeping KiwiSaver funds there in KiwiSaver after retirement age? Is it best to fill the forms now and take some, if not all? There really is no disadvantage to leaving your money in KiwiSaver once you're retired, if that's what makes the most sense for you at the moment. It would be a good idea to get some advice on the funds your money is invested in, though. Depending on how much you've got in your KiwiSaver, it might make sense to divide it up and invest it in a few different funds. You might have some in a conservative or even cash fund that you can tap into if you need it in the near term, for unexpected bills or things like that, some in a balanced fund for the medium term and then some money in a growth fund for the longer term. The growth fund will probably bump around a bit but should deliver better returns overall, which might help make your money last longer through your retirement.
