WELLINGTON SEWAGE DISASTER
Natasha Gordon (Herald): Wellington sewage spill: Andrew Little meets Christopher Luxon over Moa Point plant failure
Harriet Laughton (Post): Mayor says sewage spill ‘out of this world’ amid calls for ministerial inquiry (paywalled)
RNZ: Wellington mayor Andrew Little wants ministerial inquiry into Moa Point sewage plant failure
Tom Rose (Herald): Moa Point sewage plant fix to take months as untreated sewage still floods Wellington coast
Christopher Cornwall (Newsroom): Sewage spill a potential ecological catastrophe
Laura Frykberg (Stuff): Underwater ecosystems at risk of ‘dying off’ if Wellington’s sewage leak continues
Science Media Centre: How Wellington’s wastewater failure could impact sea life
1News: Could be months until people can swim again after Wellington sewage leak
Science Media Centre: Moa Point wastewater plant shuts down
Peter Bassett: Wellington’s sewage crisis wasn’t an accident
ENERGY
Giles Dexter (RNZ): New liquified natural gas terminal: ‘Vital’ or ‘bonkers’?
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Taranaki’s Liquefied Natural Gas import facility expected to save New Zealanders millions
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): New electricity levy ‘not a tax’, PM says
Mandy Te (Interest): LNG import terminal could be operating as soon as 2027 or early 2028
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Government plans levy on power users to pay for $1 billion LNG import terminal (paywalled)
Henry Cooke (Press): It’s not a tax, it’s a levy! National and Labour swap lines on LNG terminal spat (paywalled)
Ian Llewellyn (BusinessDesk): LNG import plan signals $2–$4/MWh levy on electricity bills (paywalled)
EPSTEIN FILES
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): What the Epstein scandal means for NZ politics
Chris Trotter (Interest): Dirty secrets
Chris Marriner (Stuff): Kiwi manager Brice Gordon interviewed by FBI in 2007 over Epstein ‘massages’, document shows
ELECTION AND PARLIAMENT
Adam Pearse (Herald): Hung Parliament predicted, cost of living increases as priority issue in latest poll
RNZ: New poll predicts hung Parliament
Henry Cooke (Post): New poll shows hung Parliament as Green Party bolster left bloc (paywalled)
James Ball (1News): What parties say about the threat of AI to fool voters
Mike Grimshaw: Centrist Ex Nihilo?
Joel Maxwell (Stuff): He’s shaping up as kingmaker again, but I think Winston Peters and NZ First have never been weaker
David Harvey (Listener): Public opposition matters but in law-making, it’s quality, not quantity, that counts (paywalled)
GOVERNMENT
Andrea Vance (Press): Millions paid, complaints hidden: how the public service secretly settles workplace bullying (paywalled)
Tom Peters (World Socialist Website): New Zealand government defends social inequality on Waitangi Day
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Government being indifferent towards rural communities (paywalled)
LAW
Finn Blackwell (RNZ): District Court Judge Ema Aitken faces Judicial Conduct Panel for disrupting NZ First event
Catrin Owen (Stuff): A New Zealand first: Judge ‘fights for their judicial career’ over alleged behaviour towards Winston Peters at Northern Club
Derek Cheng (Herald): The Government’s trespass law proposal: The ‘should have known’ rule that can land you in jail (paywalled)
Al Williams (Herald): Jury duty woes: Aucklander slams process, calls for reform
Deborah Chambers (Herald): Why judicial power should have a use-by date (paywalled)
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, DEFENCE AND TRADE
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Trade Minister Todd McClay standing by his India Free Trade Agreement claims as others point out contradictions (paywalled)
Richard Prebble (Herald): India free trade deal: What Winston Peters gets wrong on visas (paywalled)
RNZ: PM Christopher Luxon says US president Donald Trump should apologise for ‘racist’ Obama post
Justin Hu (1News): NZ should follow Canada’s Carney amid global ruptures, Goff says
Reuben Steff (Press): Trump’s return will force NZ to confront its systemic decline (paywalled)
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Trump makes his weirdest appointment yet – what it means for NZ
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Fiona Ellis (Waikato Times): ‘They should be apolitical’: Ex-mayor slams election funding in Hamilton (paywalled)
Mike Yardley (Press): The City That Stinks - Quality of life ‘seriously degraded’ (paywalled)
Tina Law (Press): Door-to-door visits over Christchurch stench as resident demands an investigation (paywalled)
Tina Law (Press): Councillors ‘irate’ to discover $6.2m platform is just a website, not a smart phone app (paywalled)
Bernard Orsman (Herald): Property and infrastructure industry bosses want certainty over Auckland’s planning rules
TRANSPORT
Amanda Gillies (Newsroom): EV boom hits the brakes
Hayden Donnell (Spinoff): Idea: Let’s not screw up our train system just as it’s getting good
Kasey McDonnell: Why trams should rebuild Wellington
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Driver’s licence fees could be hiked next year despite Government celebrating ‘initially’ cutting them (paywalled)
Tim Hunter (NBR): Behold the toll tax (paywalled)
CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT AND DISASTERS
Chelsea Daniels (Herald): Climate threat puts Kiwi homes on brink of becoming worthless
Tom Robinson (The Conversation): Landslides are NZ’s deadliest natural hazard. Why does it still tolerate the risk?
Charlie Mitchell (Press): The native fish that foretold a river’s collapse (paywalled)
MINING AND EXTRACTION
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Press): Ministers set to accept the inevitable after Trans Tasman Resources seabed mine rejected (paywalled)
Jamie Ensor (Herald): Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says New Zealand is ‘going to need support’, ‘capital investment’ for critical mineral sector as talks with US continue
NBR: Fast-Track decision ‘difficult to accept’, says TTR chair (paywalled)
HEALTH
Kim Baker Wilson (RNZ): ‘A cascade of errors’: Johnathon Taituma died after St John ambulance delays, coroner finds
Venetia Sherson (Spinoff): NZ emergency rooms: No place for old men (or women)
Hinemoa Elder (Post): NZ’s meth crisis is growing — and we’re underfunding the fix (paywalled)
ECONOMY AND BUSINESS
Jamie Gray (Herald): KiwiSaver fees to top $1.1b as funds hit $145b – Morningstar report (paywalled)
Rebecca Howard (BusinessDesk): RBNZ to be cautiously hawkish in Anna Breman’s first rate decision (paywalled)
Fiona Rotherham (NBR): How Kiwi businesses will close the gap on modern slavery (paywalled)
SHOULD NZ JOIN AUSTRALIA?
Geoffrey Palmer (Newsroom): Constitutional reasons NZ should not join Australia
David Farrar: The great Australia debate
CARTOONS