News Briefing: 15 July 2025
HEALTH
Bridie Witton (Stuff): Surgeon warns of ‘tipping point’ as Government boosts private hospital use
Ian Powell: Who benefits from outsourcing planned surgery: follow the funding
Jessica Roden (1News): Nelson Hospital accused of making 'ghost' appointments for patients
Rowan Quinn (RNZ): Auckland's public hospitals at the 'upper limit' of capacity - Health NZ
Rowan Quinn (RNZ): Auckland ambulance patients being diverted to non-hospital clinics
RNZ: Hospice cuts patient numbers: 'We are so desperately sorry for the unavoidable suffering'
Stuff: Watch: Alcohol expert tells Sam Hayes that NZ drinking guidelines are too high and outdated
Olivia Caldwell (ODT): Group shows confidence in hospital plan (paywalled)
Ruth Hill (RNZ): Vaccine hesitancy growing in at-risk communities, providers blame social media misinformation
Evie Richardson (RNZ): Student nurses and midwives on workload, financial pressure
EDUCATION, TRAINING
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Tertiary Education Union says sector's become a political football, slams Te Pūkenga disestablishment
Cate Macintosh (Press/Post): Celebration, confusion and uncertainty over polytechs plan (paywalled)
Lillian Hanly (RNZ): Te Pūkenga changes: 10 polytechs to return to 'regional governance'
Herald: Te Pūkenga: Government restores regional governance for 10 polytechnics, unwinds merger
John Gerritsen (RNZ): More students passing maths and reading, fewer in writing
Matthew Littlewood (ODT): Otago Polytech to regain autonomy (paywalled)
Matthew Martin (Waikato Times/Post): Tokoroa and Taupō Toi Ohomai polytechs face closure (paywalled)
Cécile Meier (BusinessDesk): From prime to offal: Compass puts cheap cuts on school lunch menu (paywalled)
Cate Macintosh (Press/Post): 2300 Ministry of Education learning support staff to strike (paywalled)
Gareth Jones (ODT): Universities are in turbulent times
REGULATORY STANDARDS BILL
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Regulatory Standards Bill: Minister considers compensation for owners of banned crypto ATMs
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): NZ to block corporate lawsuit rights in Asia trade deal
Geoffrey Palmer (Post): Why the Regulatory Standards Bill is dangerous to New Zealand’s democracy (paywalled)
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Spinoff): 30 things I learned from 30 hours of Regulatory Standards Bill hearings
Anne Salmond (Newsroom): Freedom, for whom?
Chris Trotter: Panic In Action (paywalled)
David Harvey: Conduct Unbecoming
Sanjana Hattotuwa: Public submissions to Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Regulatory Standards Bill: A guide, and overview
ECONOMY, TAX
Madeleine Chapman (Spinoff): The cost of living crisis is over – this is just our reality now
Craig Renney: Its not 1931, but it feels like it
Vernon Small (Sunday Star Times): Is the Government just paying lip service to cost of living concerns? (paywalled)
Grant Duncan: The New Zombie economy
Susan Edmunds (RNZ): A radical tax plan to avoid an economic 'car crash'
David Hargreaves (Interest): 'Timeline for NZ's recovery just keeps getting pushed further out'
Cameron Bagrie (BusinessDesk): Good things take time and NZ’s economy will rebound (paywalled)
Roger J Kerr (Interest): Why do Kiwis continually talk their economy down?
RNZ: New Zealand's manufacturing slump continues, slowing economic recovery
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Manufacturers still struggling despite hopes for recovery (paywalled)
PARLIAMENT, POLICY, PUBLIC SECTOR
Chris Trotter (Interest): Conservative New Zealand is still waiting for the Coalition to keep its promises – and NZ First’s poll numbers may be registering their impatience
Laura Walters (Newsroom): The (not so) little leagues turn heads while majors sit by
Te Mahurangi Teinakore and Whatitiri Te Wake (Te Ao Māori News): Tāmaki Makaurau by-election date set: Peeni Henare defends bid despite already being in Parliament
Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira (RNZ): Tāmaki Makaurau by-election to be held in September
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Common ground: The issues so big that politicians will work together to fix them
Thomas Manch (Post): PM’s department confirms job losses as restructure under way (paywalled)
Brian Easton (Pundit): Is Progress Progressive?
Mike Houlahan (ODT: A Different Kind of Power: Good and funny, if not definitive
CLIMATE CHANGE, COMPENSATION FOR WEATHER-RELATED EVENTS
RNZ: Long-term changes needed to bailouts, natural disaster responses - Christopher Luxon
David Hill (Local Democracy Reporting): As the sea level rises, who will pay? Councils seek answers
The Standard: New Zealand starting to feel the pointy end of the climate crisis
Grant Miller (ODT): Flood damage could cost region up to $700m
Fox Meyer (Newsroom): Government drones designed to monitor farm and waste emissions
Eloise Gibson (RNZ): Space Minister Judith Collins goes to ground over alleged government failures managing NZ's first space mission
Pii-Tuulia Nikula (ODT): NZ Post woes show difficulty of decarbonisation
BUSINESS
RNZ: Commerce Commission takes Foodstuffs North Island to court over alleged 'cartel conduct'
Stuff: Commerce Commission to take Foodstuffs North Island and Gilmours to court alleging cartel conduct
1News: Proceedings filed against major grocers for alleged cartel conduct
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): ComCom accuses Foodstuffs North Island of cartel conduct (paywalled)
Oliver Lewis (BusinessDesk): NZ lags behind Australia on freight strategy and data sharing, industry group says (paywalled)
John Weekes (Herald): HelloFresh pleads guilty to five charges after ‘subscription traps’ tricked customers (paywalled)
Taylor Rice (1News): Passing the bucks: Can businesses refuse to let you pay in cash?
Dileepa Fonseka (BusinessDesk): Peter McBride, Antonia Watson, Nicole McKee, Phil Mauger, Ritesh Mani, the Accountants, and a reminder to pay your PR people
David Hargreaves (Interest): Retail card spending lifts slightly in June but retailers 'continuing to battle strong headwinds'
Mike White (Sunday Star Times): No Hallelujah Chorus: Five metres that feels more like eternity (paywalled)
EMPLOYMENT
Sasha Borissenko (Herald): Gig economy on trial as Uber fights drivers’ employee status (paywalled)
Elsie Williams (Press/Post): Young and shut out: Gen Z face the harshest job market in years
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Sunday Star Times): Work, Interrupted: The kids, the mortgage, but no job. What next? (paywalled)
Amelia Wade (Post): Work, Interrupted: Is 50 the new 60? Older workers battling algorithms to get CVs seen (paywalled)
Dionne Christian (Listener): ‘I just want to work’: The reality of life after redundancy (paywalled)
RNZ: Wealth and Work
WELLINGTON
Lillian Hanly (RNZ): Ray Chung's 'vile' email condemned across the political spectrum
Krystal Gibbens (RNZ): Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau says she has received apology from Ray Chung
Tom Hunt (Post): Ray Chung finally apologises to mayor Tory Whanau for lewd email (paywalled)
Ethan Manera (Herald): Crown Observer issues warning after Ray Chung’s lewd Tory Whanau email, council CEO investigating
Joel MacManus (Spinoff): A play-by-play of Ray Chung’s train wreck interview with Sean Plunket
Krystal Gibbens (RNZ): Slinging match as dirty politics engulfs Wellington mayoral race
Tom Hunt (Post): Ray Chung maintains political ‘smear’ claim, as some supporters back away (paywalled)
Dave Armstrong (Post): Just when you thought the campaign could get boring (paywalled)
Justin Wong (Post): Wellington councils deliver election year warning on costs and rates (paywalled)
AUCKLAND
Duncan Greive (Spinoff): Auckland’s annual report card is out again – and its grades have barely budged
RNZ: Auckland not keeping up internationally with land-use, housing and transport - report
Amelia Wade (Post): The State of Auckland: Its productivity problem is holding back NZ (paywalled)
Mike McRoberts (NBR): ’State of the City 2025’ - Auckland’s productivity puzzle deepens (paywalled)
Catherine McGregor (Spinoff): Will 2026 be the year that Auckland gets its mojo back?
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, TRADE
Aziz Al Saafin (1News): NZ joins biggest-ever Australia war drills as US pressures allies on Taiwan
Barbara Dreaver (1News): No senior NZ Govt officials to attend Cook Islands Constitution event
John McKinnon (Post): Finding our place between America and China (paywalled)
Phil O’Reilly (Herald): NZ business must rethink the way it sees Europe (paywalled)
HOUSING, BUILDING SAFETY
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Govt set to quash death sentences on hundreds of quake-prone buildings
Caroline Williams (Stuff): Queenstown housing crisis worsens, waitlist grows by 41% in two years
Bill Hickman (RNZ): Illegal boarding house tenants told to hide from housing inspectors
Miriam Bell (Sunday Star Times): The cost of building a house is high, but it will never get better (paywalled)
Jenny Ling (Northern Advocate): Insulation rule changes could save Northland builders $15,000 per build
Caroline Williams (Stuff): Rotorua housing consents surge as part of plan to get kids out of emergency housing
Emina Kristina Petrović (Newsroom): Should the building industry keep using this controversial material?
Natalia Albert: The Political Abyss of Housing In New Zealand
Greg Ninness (Interest): National median rent declines after almost 18 months of stagnation
Nichole Lewis (Stuff): Should KiwiSaver be opened to investment property?
ENVIRONMENT, CONSERVATION
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Department of Conservation backtracks after decision that could have cost 700 jobs at Otago mine (paywalled)
Ella Scott-Fleming (ODT): Tourism operator seeks permission to stop for chance whale encounters
RNZ: Wastewater discharge into Shotover River escalated to Environment Court
Amanda Gillies (RNZ): The Detail: Warnings resurface over iconic fish
Pete Carey (Listener): Net loss: How our demand for fish is decimating albatross (paywalled)
Charlie MItchell (Press/Post): Frankenmoa and the fantasy of undoing extinction (paywalled)
ODT Editorial: Extinction may be no moa? (paywalled)
MIGRATION, WEALTH VISA
Keith Woodford: New Zealand needs a population policy
ODT Editorial: Home and away as Aust beckons
Dita De Boni (Post): Startup strain? Golden visa money may outpace NZ’s investment options (paywalled)
David Chaplin (BusinessDesk): KiwiSaver caught in super cross-Tasman currents (paywalled)
BANKS
Rob Stock (Post): Poll shows public oppose law change to protect ANZ and ASB banks (paywalled)
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Is Government considering a tax on excess bank profits, in disguise? (paywalled)