Overheating new homes rules delayed until 2031 in New Zealand
Officials have confirmed overheating rules will skip the 2028 Building Code review, leaving families in hot new townhouses waiting until 2031.
Category: Society
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Mackenzie Country tourists dodge paid toilets as council weighs charges at Lake Tekapo, Twizel and Fairlie
Tourists in the Mackenzie Country are going to great lengths to avoid paying $1.50 for a toilet, and the district’s ratepayers are cleaning up after them. Mackenzie District Council today…
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Funeral directors write off thousands to bury New Zealanders who die with nothing and no one
Funeral directors who agree to cremate or bury New Zealanders who die with no money and no one to claim them are writing off thousands of dollars a time, and…
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Dunedin student drinking can’t be solved by arrests, police say after Castle Street party injury
Police say arrests won’t fix Dunedin’s student drinking after a 400-person Castle Street party left one person with critical head injuries.
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Red Beach Surf Life Saving Club goes solar to save more than $9000 a year on power
Red Beach Surf Life Saving Club on Auckland’s Hibiscus Coast has switched on a 96-panel solar system that is forecast to cut its power bill by more than $9,000 a…
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Gloriavale trust loses its charity status for serious wrongdoing as Howard Temple is banned for five years
The trust that owns almost everything at Gloriavale, the closed religious community on the West Coast, will be struck off the Charities Register tomorrow after the Charities Registration Board found…
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Four Christchurch sites shortlisted for the March 15 national memorial as families are asked to choose
Victoria Lake, South Rolleston Avenue and two Avon River sites are on the shortlist for a national memorial to the 51 people killed in the 2019 mosque attacks.
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Police issue 918 stalking notices and lay 140 charges in the first three months of New Zealand’s stalking law
New Zealand Police issued 918 stalking and harassment notices and laid 140 charges in the first three months of the country’s new stalking law, according to figures released by police…
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Māngere Budgeting Services Trust ran New Zealand’s first Bring Your Bills day in Ōtāhuhu
Banks, power and phone companies in one South Auckland hall for New Zealand’s first Bring Your Bills event.
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Victoria Bouvet planted her late mother’s roses in a Christchurch rental and won her $2,400 bond back
A prize-winning gardener, her late mother’s roses, a flooded backyard and a Tenancy Tribunal decision that returned every dollar of her bond.
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Todd Maitland, the Waihī concreter who won Apprentice of the Year after Rex Podmore gave him a chance
Waihī concreter Todd Maitland won New Zealand’s top concreting apprentice award at 21, four years after an employer gave him a go.
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When New Zealand turns old
An animated population pyramid of New Zealand from 1950 to 2078. Over-65s outnumber children from 2027, the median age passes 40 in 2031 and deaths overtake births in the 2050s.
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Halberg Games South returns to Christchurch with more than 80 young athletes
More than 80 South Island athletes with physical disabilities will compete in the third Halberg Games South at Ngā Puna Wai and Rangi Ruru on 3 and 4 October 2026.
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Sockburn post counter closes on 10 November as 1500 people sign a petition
NZ Post will shut the staffed Sockburn counter in western Christchurch on 10 November, and the deed behind its store network only requires community consultation in rural areas.
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Sir Peter Buck, Te Rangi Hīroa, the Urenui doctor who became the world’s great scholar of Polynesia
He was a Te Aute boy and an Otago-trained doctor, an MP for Northern Maori, the second-in-command of the New Zealand (Māori) Pioneer Battalion at Gallipoli, the director of the…
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Pet Refuge runs out of space after taking in 17 dogs in two weeks
Seventeen dogs arrived in a fortnight, filling every bed the charity has and pushing six more onto a waitlist.
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Dame Whina Cooper, the Hokianga rangatira who turned three lives into one long argument with the Crown
She was 18 when she filled in the drains as fast as the European farmer could dig them, 55 when she became the first president of the Māori Women’s Welfare…
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Te Moananui-a-Kiwa Ngārimu, the Whareponga shepherd who threw stones on the night Tebaga Gap broke
Te Moananui-a-Kiwa Ngārimu was 24 when his platoon of Ngāti Porou soldiers took the rocky under-feature of Point 209 in Tunisia and held it through one night of German Panzergrenadier…
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Jason Wynyard, the Kawakawa axeman who won the world woodchopping title 14 times
Jason Wynyard won the Stihl Timbersports world series 14 times between 1997 and 2017, held world records in both the standing chop and the single buck, and inherited the only…
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Renters report mould and cold in homes signed off as Healthy Homes compliant
A survey of 3,310 New Zealand renters puts Bayleys, Quinovic and Barfoot and Thompson at the top of the list for mould, cold and draughts in managed rentals.
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Wynton Rufer, the Wellington striker who conquered European football
He was 19 in Spain at the 1982 World Cup and 31 when he topped the Champions League scoring charts. The story of how a Strathmore boy with a Swiss…
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John Walker, the Manurewa boy who broke the four-minute mile a hundred and thirty-five times
On the evening of 12 August 1975, on a windy track in Gothenburg with a Swedish pacemaker who dropped out 100 metres early, a 23-year-old from Manurewa named John Walker…
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Wellington households march on Parliament as water bills head for $6,200 a year
About 300 people walked from Frank Kitts Park to Parliament on Thursday to protest at the size of the Wellington region’s first separate water bills, and at forecasts showing those…
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Methven locals say Airbnb buyers are pricing them out of their own town
Ashburton District Council estimates 130 to 170 short-term lets are operating in Methven, a town of fewer than 1000 homes. Residents, motel owners and the ski field do not agree…
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Richard Hadlee, the Christchurch boy who turned a long run into a short one and bowled New Zealand into the world
On the morning of Friday 8 November 1985 at the Gabba in Brisbane, a 34-year-old Cantabrian with a slightly receding hairline and a measured fifteen-pace approach ran in to bowl…
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Kmart ordered to pay Christchurch parents $15,000 over asbestos in children’s play sand
The Disputes Tribunal has ordered Kmart to reimburse Elle Chrisp and David Dingwall $15,185.42 after play sand bought for their twins was found to contain tremolite asbestos.
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Murray Halberg, the boy with the withered arm who ran a lap of his own at Rome
He was 17 when a rugby tackle in 1949 left his left arm paralysed and the doctors told his mother he was unlikely to last the week. Eleven years later,…
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New citizen’s arrest powers are in force and police say the safest option is still to call 111
New Zealanders can now detain a person they find committing any offence under the Crimes Act, at any hour of the day, after the biggest expansion of citizen’s arrest powers…
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Four in ten renters report mould and damp despite healthy homes assurances
A survey of 3,310 renters found 42.7 percent report mould, damp or draughts in homes they were told met the healthy homes standards.
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Colin Meads, the King Country lock who carried New Zealand on his shoulders for fifteen years and most of his country with him
On a grey Edinburgh afternoon in December 1967, the largest man on the field at Murrayfield was sent to the dressing room with three minutes to play, the second All…