Dear Subscribers
We had a technical problem this morning, and the News Briefing wasn’t sent out. Apologies, here is this morning’s edition:
BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION, HOUSING
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Councils, builders pleased with liability changes, but insurers warn of challenges
1News: Govt to rewrite liability provisions in building consents reform
RNZ: Watch: Major shake-up of building consents announced
Mandy Te (Interest): Building consent system: Government to look into consumer protections for proportionate liability
Mandy Te (Interest): Government makes major changes to building consent system
Luke Malpass (Post): Government announces ‘biggest building consent reform in decades’ (paywalled)
Bridie Witton (Stuff): Building consent overhaul ‘the most significant in a generation’, minister says
Brent Melville and Nicholas Pointon (NBR): Govt outlines biggest overhaul of building consents in 21 years (paywalled)
Ellen O’Dwyer (RNZ): Ministers urged to visit troubled Wellington suburb of Newtown
Simon Wilson (Herald): Auckland housing: Three-storey designation to go from hundreds of thousands of homes
David Long (Stuff): All aboard for allowing 15-storey towers around Auckland train stations
Oliver Lewis (BusinessDesk): Auckland Council looks to pull medium density housing rules, restrict development in flood zones
Pokere Paewai (RNZ): Rotorua hapū trust expand affordable rental initiative
John Lewis (ODT): Online hate spurs positive action (paywalled)
PRIMARY AND EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES, ANIMAL WELFARE
Monique Steele (RNZ): Planned return of live cattle export gets held up
Marty Sharpe (Stuff): This is the location of the year’s biggest fine for ‘dirty dairying’
Elsie Williams (Press): ‘No significant concerns’ over animal welfare at Lincoln University farm (paywalled)
Alka Prasad (Post): Growers and Govt push for less red tape, but it could add to existing pollution (paywalled)
Craig Ashworth (Local Democracy Reporting): Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources says Fast-track case closed despite official criticism
Rachel Maher (Herald): Protesters suspended 80m in air claim ‘hostile’ tactics used by Stockton mining company
Joanne Naish (Press): Three weeks in a coal bucket: close-quarters protesting on the West Coast (paywalled)
Anthony Harris (ODT): Orange roughy must be taken off the menu
Flip Grater (Press): Vote like your life depends on freshwater - because it does (paywalled)
Andrew Bevin (Newsroom): Conversion ban leaves question mark over forestry’s growth prospects
Richard Dawkins (Herald): Government’s farm-to-forest ban doesn’t go far enough
Alexa Cook (RNZ): 'Disaster waiting to happen': Fears carbon farming increases risk of wild fire
Linda Hall (Local Democracy Reporting): Hawke’s Bay fires: Fine criticised as ‘economic incentive to burn’
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Thomas Manch (Post): The Government’s water reforms may not be going to plan (paywalled)
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Central Govt's differing approach to local govt
Joel MacManus (Spinoff): Windbag: Andrew Little looks to Auckland to fix Wellington
Dave Armstrong (Post): The best of the city’s budget blowouts honoured
Frances Chin (Post): Hospo staff on front line of making Wellington nights safer (paywalled)
Alexia Russell (RNZ): The Detail: Is Auckland really the 'City of Fails', or does it just have a cashflow problem?
Maxine Jacobs (Press): Greater Christchurch Partnership lacks direction, losing confidence, review finds (paywalled)
Grant Miller (ODT): Report on council boss leaked to DCC candidates (paywalled)
Matthew Rosenberg (Local Democracy Reporting): High Court case, contentious letterbox drop: Who is Andrew Clark?
Kira Carrington (Local Democracy Reporting): Marlborough’s first Māori ward councillor on scepticism and acceptance
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE, NATIONAL SECURITY
Treasa Dunworth (The Conversation): NZ is trailing its allies over Palestinian statehood – but there’s still time to show leadership
Herald: ‘It was one in the morning’: Luxon skips Ukraine call due to bad time zone
Anneke Smith (RNZ): PM skips Coalition of the Willing meeting
Kelly Dennett (Post): ‘Good stuff’: PM Luxon says Trump-Putin weekend summit an ‘encouraging’ sign (paywalled)
Craig McCulloch (RNZ): UN letter: PM firm with ministers on who should be sending responses
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Foreign ministry warns of deteriorating finances in future
Herald: What New Zealanders need to know about travelling to the US
Jimmy Ellingham (RNZ): Soldier admits handing over sensitive information to person he thought was foreign agent
Alecia Rousseau (Stuff): Espionage court martial: Soldier admits trying to spy for foreign country
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Far-right NZ soldier pleads guilty to attempted espionage
David Farrar: The obvious answer is Trump
GRANT ROBERTSON MEMOIR
Henry Cooke (Spinoff): The prime minister we almost had: Grant Robertson’s memoir, reviewed
Audrey Young (Herald): Grant Robertson reveals clash with Adrian Orr over housing policy
Mike Houlahan (ODT): Grant Robertson troubled by 'health issues' in build-up to last election
Kelly Dennett (Stuff): Grant Robertson: ‘A lot of the history of my time was being written around me’
Newsroom: Robertson trashes Cunliffe (extract)
PAY EQUITY
Laura Walters (Newsroom): Unions launch legal action over pay equity changes
Zane Small (Stuff): The issue that is ‘not going to go away’ for the coalition
RNZ: Pay equity: Five unions to take government to court over law changes
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Teachers, nurses, ‘down in the dumps’, taking the Government to court over pay
ENERGY
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Market should decide who secures dwindling supply of gas, says Energy Minister (paywalled)
Dita De Boni (Post): NZ’s energy system better than many but lags Iceland, Australia: report (paywalled)
RNZ: Contact Energy reports 41 boost in profit
Jamie Gray (Herald): Contact Energy CEO says building more renewables key to solving NZ’s energy issues (paywalled)
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): Thinking about solar? Here are questions to ask
Ian Llewellyn (BusinessDesk): Bureaucracy delaying new electricity generation, Contact CEO Mike Fuge says (paywalled)
Thomas Scrimgeour (1News): Dissolving the nuclear taboo would benefit NZ hugely – but do we have the guts?
HEALTH, DISABILITY
Mildred Armah (Stuff): ‘Out of touch’: Disability community angry at minister’s social media post
RNZ: Our Changing World: New Zealand’s youth vaping rates
Nicholas Jones (Stuff): Special report: A stranger’s lungs could save this woman’s life - but time is running out
Rob Stock (Post): Insurers should deter genetic testing, say those whose lives it has saved (paywalled)
Emma Ricketts (Stuff): Five deaths a week and dozens of hospitalisations show Covid hasn’t gone away
Megan Wilson (Bay of Plenty Times): Disabled Tauranga woman denied funding for off-road wheelchair repair
EDUCATION
Patrick Walsh (Herald): Opinion: Axing of NCEA needs to proceed with caution (paywalled)
Julia Gabel (Herald): Minister Judith Collins apologises for ‘mixing the message’ over secondary school teachers’ pay
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Primary school teachers begin two-week series of stop-work meetings after pay talks stall
1News: Te reo in schoolbooks: 'Govt has it the wrong way round'
Michael Johnston (Post): Te reo in year 1: beginning readers need one language at a time (paywalled)
Ella Stewart (RNZ): ‘Leaks', 'mould' and sewage: The kura in Christchurch still waiting for permanent site
MEDIA
Gavin Ellis: RNZ National may have the circuit breaker it sorely needs
Catherine McGregor (Spinoff): RNZ at a crossroads after scathing independent review
Anna Rawhiti-Connell (Spinoff): Is it OK for RNZ National to target less than 25% of the population?
Bill Kerton (Spinoff): RNZ has been in decline for years – why did it pay $30,000 to have the obvious stated?
Dave Hull (Stuff): ‘We used to matter’: Dame Julie Christie warns New Zealand television is losing global relevance
ECONOMY, COST OF LIVING
Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): Nation of Debt: Higher taxes, deeper spending cuts inevitable as economy suffers from long Covid (paywalled)
RNZ: Christopher Luxon says he's 'focused 100%' on economy, not passports
Herald: Government keeps AA+ credit rating but Fitch warns National and Labour to keep ‘culture of fiscal responsibility’ (paywalled)
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): How even the cost of a bread-and-milk run has changed
Gyles Beckford (RNZ): Another OCR cut on the cards, but how many more?
David Hargreaves (Interest): Businesses see inflation staying high
David Hargreaves (Interest): Services sector shows improvement in July - but still contracting
Andrew Patterson (Newsroom): Another rate cut expected this week, but then what?
COVID
Chris Trotter (Interest): We were New Zealanders before we were anything else. National’s response would have been the same as Labour’s
Jaime Lyth (Herald): Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says Hipkins is trying to ‘gaslight’ NZ on Covid-19 inquiry no-show
John Bowie (Law Fuel): Dentons NZ: The Unseen Hand Behind Labour’s Covid Curtain
Jack Tame (Newstalk ZB): Transparency and the flaws of the Covid Inquiry
ENVIRONMENT, CONSERVATION
Kirsty Johnston (RNZ): How Jacinda Ardern’s ‘groundbreaking’ climate law has become ‘a shell’
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Auckland’s heating up but risks flunking out of global cities group
RNZ: Department of Conservation targets businesses and philanthropists in funding drive
Allan Brent: The cultural and political settlement for public conservation land
Phil Pennington (RNZ): DOC need to replace more than half of its fleet of boats due to ageing
RNZ: Consultation for proposal to cut crayfish catch limits off Northland's east coast begins
FOREIGN INVESTORS, IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP
Rebecca Howard (BusinessDesk): Golden circle: House sales for foreign investors 'favour the rich’ (paywalled)
Dileepa Fonseka (BusinessDesk): Cabinet to decide fate of foreign buyer ban in coming weeks, Luxon says (paywalled)
The Standard: The Curious Case of Central Otago
RNZ: Should Māori born overseas automatically be NZ citizens? Father fights for children classed as illegal overstayers
RNZ: Tourism operator's plea to let tourists over 35 work in New Zealand
TRANSPORT
Simon Kingham (The Conversation): Road-user charges can pay for more than just road maintenance - NZ could lead the way
Julia Gabel (Herald): Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says Government will ‘get to the bottom’ of Airways outage
John Weekes (Herald): Airways NZ air traffic problems: Aviation boss says compensation talks should happen (paywalled)