AM Edition: Top 10 Politics Articles on LiveNews.co.nz for May 6, 2026 – Full Text

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Labour Party has announced its final candidate for the Māori seats in this year’s election, as the contest in various electorates heats up.

Te Pūoho Katene, a Fulbright scholar from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, says it’s a privilege to be selected to contest Te Tai Hauāuru.

He told RNZ he could see where politics focused on the negative, and he wanted to see “hope returned to the table”.

It comes as Associate Professor of Politics Lara Greaves told RNZ there will be a lot of “tight and interesting and very unpredictable races” in the Māori seats.

The Victoria University of Wellington professor said the Māori seats contest would be “incredibly important” for the overall result, after last election saw an overhang created in Parliament.

“Before all of this Pāti Māori drama last year, I was expecting to see the potential for a greater overhang being created.

“Now it’s kind of hard to tell exactly what’s going to happen, but I still think that the Māori electorates are incredibly important.”

Greaves said it was a possibility to see Te Pāti Māori gone entirely, or Te Pāti Māori secure many electorate seats – both scenarios would change “the math” of the makeup of Parliament.

She said they would be unpredictable because the range of contests in the mix, with Labour, Greens, Te Pāti Māori and potential independent candidates running.

“It’s really on a race by race, electorate by electorate basis,” said Greaves, acknowledging the possibility of votes being split with the Greens.

Greaves said Te Pāti Māori had gone down in the polls and expected some kind of effect on the different electorate races, but couldn’t say how exactly that would play out, including whether some MPs would be punished more than others.

She cited Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke as an example, who came out of that “drama situation” looking “fairly put together.”

“Whereas others, perhaps their reputation has been a bit damaged by it.”

Regardless, Greaves said the Māori electorates would likely have a “pretty big influence” on the election.

“They are a feature of the electoral system that could be used strategically.”

Labour’s candidates

Kātene, of Ngāti Toa and Ngāti Whaatua descent, joined a line-up of candidates running for Labour that included sitting MPs and new faces.

Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, who was the only Labour MP to secure a Māori seat last election, would run for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti again.

Willow-Jean Prime would run against the Greens Hūhana Lyndon and Mariameno Kapa-Kingi in Te Tai Tokerau.

Kingi Kiriona, the deputy chairperson of Te Māngai Pāho, would run in Hauraki-Waikato for Labour.

Former Auckland councillor Kerrin Leoni would run in Tāmaki Makaurau, where Te Pāti Māori’s Oriini Kaipara is the current MP.

Former chair of Te Rūnanga o Koukourarata Mananui Ramsden would run in Te Tai Tonga, where Tākuta Ferris holds the seat as an independent.

Whakatāne District Councillor Toni Boynton, an advocate for Māori wards, would run in Waiariki again where co-leader of Te Pāti Māori Rawiri Waititi has held the seat since 2020. While losing the candidate vote, Boynton won the party vote for Labour in 2023.

Kātene told RNZ studying abroad, including with a scholarship in Japan, had shown him how Māori culture “translates across borders.”

His study at Stanford looked at “kumara economics” and the idea that “money is like a kumara” and its “true value lies in its ability to feed people.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing in my day job and in my governance roles, making sure that we can position this Māori economy to drive transformative change for our people and our communities.”

He was humble in his acknowledgment of Debbie Ngarewa-Packer who holds Te Tai Hauāuru currently for Te Pāti Māori.

“She has been fighting a strong fight for a long time, even before her time in Parliament, for her people.

“That’s an important element to bring into these kind of conversations,” said Kātene, who acknowledged he brought a certain set of skills and experiences.

“They’re different from whaea Debbie’s and from the other candidates.”

Labour’s strategy

Labour’s campaign chairperson Willie Jackson told RNZ the candidates selected were of a high caliber in terms of Māori who had done well in terms of Te Ao Māori.

“We’ve got real skills in terms of te reo Māori, in terms of business, in terms of Mana Wāhine, and well known in terms of their own electorates,” said Jackson.

“I think we’re going to go close to winning just about every every seat.”

Jackson said the party’s strategy was “simple”, and the party had a “clear economic policy strategy.”

“In terms of the needs of our people, those needs are in the housing, health and jobs area.

He spoke of getting rid of “rubbish legislation” the current government was implementing, including “watering down the Treaty”.

When asked what was in it for Māori specifically, he referenced the previous Labour government’s “one billion dollar of investment.”

Distinguishing Labour from Te Pāti Māori he said Labour was the leading party in the country.

“We’re the ones who roll the money out.

“Why would you waste a party vote there?

“Don’t be wasting your time with the Māori Party.”

He rejected the notion of making deals between parties.

Green Party candidates

The Greens had three candidates selected so far: Hūhana Lyndon who had run in Te Tai Tokerau previously, Heather Te Au-Skipworth running in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and Tania Waikato in Waiariki.

Co-leader Marama Davidson said the party was putting its “full backing” behind Lyndon who had a “massive chance” in the northern seat.

“She has got a real reputation and record for being on the ground with whānau, but also taking your voice into the house, into the hallways of power.”

Te Au-Skipworth had previously been a Te Pāti Māori candidate, while Waikato represented Te Pāti Maori in the Privileges Committee.

Asked why they had moved to the Green Party, Davidson told RNZ it “wasn’t about any other political party.”

“This is about the Green Party having held the space for Te Ao Māori politics for decades now.

“You can’t have environmental protection and climate protection and social justice without upholding Te Tiriti.

“So it’s actually about us. We’ve always been holding this line as a movement, as a party, and we’re grateful that more and more people are starting to see that and know that about the Green Party.

Like Jackson, Davidson said there would be no deals between parties or arrangements made to secure seats.

“No one owns any electorates. No one owns any seats. That is really up to the people to decide” she said.

Te Pāti Māori MPs and the seats themselves

Te Pāti Māori has yet to confirm its candidates for this year, that will come in a few weeks.

Tākuta Ferris’ plans were yet to be announced as well, but a social media post on Tuesday from the Te Tai Tonga electorate stated its executive had “formally resigned” their positions effectively immediately.

“We will no longer compromise our integrity or values by enabling bad leadership,” the post read. Ferris has been approached for comment.

And it’s still unclear whether Mariameno Kapa Kingi will run as a candidate for Te Pāti Māori, or an independent.

The National Party has said it would run candidates in the Māori seats, but none had been selected yet.

Meanwhile, New Zealand First planned to campaign this year on a referendum regarding the existence of the seats themselves.

The ACT party has long held the position it would abolish the seats.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Education Minister Erica Stanford has responded to critics of her controversial curriculum rewrite with a mix of conciliation and defiance.

Stanford told RNZ changes would be made to six draft curriculums but indicated major revisions were off the table, suggesting some critics had not read the documents properly.

Her comments followed several subject associations sharing submissions calling for major changes and in some cases total rewrites of five of the six documents.

The submissions followed an open letter last month from organisations with a mandate to speak for thousands of teachers and principals urging the government to halt its curriculum changes.

Stanford told RNZ there would be changes as there were with the English and maths curriculums introduced last year.

“We took a huge amount of feedback in with English and maths and we made significant changes and we’ll do that again with all of these subject areas. That’s the point of consultation,” she said.

But Stanford ruled out complete rewrites of the documents as requested by Physical Education New Zealand in its submission on the Health and PE draft.

“The PE teachers especially seem to be wanting us to push back to a very vague curriculum that’s stripped of any sort of knowledge and those important skills that need to be taught,” she said.

“We have to be really clear that it’s got to be consistent and it’s got to be knowledge-rich and it has to be scaffolded over time and we’re not going to move away from that. But if we have got some things that we’re introducing too early or there’s too much or there’s stuff that we’ve not considered we’ll certainly take that into consideration.”

Stanford said the draft curriculum specified the skills and knowledge children should learn but it left room for teachers to instill the values and understanding of movement that she said Physical Education New Zealand wanted in the document.

Timeline still being decided

She said she would make announcements about the timeline for introducing the new curriculums – currently three next year and three in 2028 – but stressed she had been taking advice on that before the Principals Federation and NZEI published their open letter calling for a pause.

“I’ve already been working with many of the principal associations for a long time around pace,” she said.

“We already rephased the pace once, or rephased the roll-out, and we’ve been talking to them about how we can potentially look at doing that again. I’m going to be making announcements in the near future about that.”

Asked to what extent timeline changes were limited by the government’s plan to introduce a new secondary school qualification to replace NCEA from 2029, Stanford said there was room for flexibility.

“We’ve done English and maths and those were the two key. There are other areas that are important for obvious reasons like science, and social science has a huge amount of knowledge in it,” she said.

“So there are some subjects that are potentially more critical… than others. It’s not that I’m saying they’re more important because I love the Arts, they were my favourite subjects at school, but when we make compromise of course we have to prioritise some things over others.”

No organisation representing teachers or principals has spoken out in support of the government’s changes, but Stanford claimed most teachers backed her.

“Schools I’ve talked to are hugely on board,” she said.

“I was at a conference on the weekend… 500 teachers and principals from around New Zealand who are there to learn about the science of learning and implementing it in their schools – hugely on board. My view is that it is a quite vocal minority that are opposed to these changes.”

Stanford said the government would provide schools with the resources they needed to introduce the new curriculums successfully, adding that the English and maths curriculums were going well despite initial pushback from some schools.

‘It is a very big change from what people are used’

Curriculum coherence group member and New Zealand Initiative researcher Michael Johnston said the opposition was noisy, but he was not sure it represented the majority of teachers and principals.

“I do think that there’s quite a distribution for how prepared schools and teachers are for the changes that are afoot,” he said.

He said the proposed curriculums were very different to what most teachers were used to.

“It is a very big change from what people are used to and when people look at it they will see far more content than they did in the previous curriculum and they might wonder how are we going to teach all this,” he said.

“That is going to be a challenge but also the curriculum is designed to be taught in a way that our teachers are perhaps not used to and it is possible using really efficient teaching methods to get a lot more done. Having said that, it’s going to take a while and I don’t think anybody’s expecting perfection on day one and neither are these drafts necessarily perfect that’s why there’s a consultation.”

Asked if middle ground could be found, Johnston said: “The consultations will be taken seriously and where there are valid criticisms I think the drafts will be changed. But again, it is a big change and a big change takes some time to get people’s heads around and I think that just has to be understood.”

Opposition to the changes appeared to be strongest in primary schools and Johnston said the Curriculum Coherence Group was concerned that the sector might be over-burdened because its teachers were generalists who had to get grips with all of the new curriculums.

“One of things that we really need is to show teachers how they can integrate teaching across the different learning areas, that they don’t have to teach it all separately,” he said.

“Teachers can’t be expected to just know that, they need to be given the resources.”

Johnston said schools were not being expected to teach the curriculums perfectly as soon as they were introduced.

“The timeline is fast but it’s also necessary,” he said.

“She’s [Education Minister Erica Stanford] made the point that every year that goes by we have more kids sold short so there is a reason for the velocity as well.

“The process has been very rapid, nobody can deny that. When England revised its curriculum it took many years. They have the luxury of a five-year political cycle, we have a three-year political cycle and like it or not, that has an influence.”

The Education Ministry’s Curriculum Centre deputy secretary Pauline Cleaver said the ministry received about 3800 submissions on the six drafts.

“Consultation is designed to gather a wide range of views, including strong criticism, and we expected people to engage strongly with the draft. Hearing all feedback is an important part of the process,” she said.

“We are now carefully working through the feedback, which is helping to identify where the draft materials need greater clarity, and where educators are seeking reassurance about how the curriculum will work in everyday classroom practice.”

Cleaver said the ministry was on track to publish the updated curriculum in the middle of the year.

“Once the feedback has been fully considered, the minister will outline the next steps, including any implications for timing and implementation,” she said.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

MIL OSI

MIL OSI

Source: Green Party

The Green Party says today’s local government reorganisation announcement is fundamentally undemocratic, shows a lack of understanding of how local government operates, and ignores the findings of the Government’s own expert bodies.

“Today’s announcement is fundamentally undemocratic and a cynical move in election year. None of the coalition parties campaigned on this,” says Green Party spokesperson for Local Government, Mike Davidson.

“It shows a disregard for community input, and ignores the findings of both the independent Infrastructure Commission and the Future for Local Government Working Group.”

Councils are in the middle of working on their Annual Plans, which must be signed off by the end of June. They are simultaneously working through sweeping reforms to the Resource Management Act, emergency management, rates caps, and the local government sector itself.

“Councils are trying to balance maintaining and building infrastructure with keeping rates affordable. This timeline leaves little time for the thoughtful and thorough cross-council mahi needed by elected members and staff, and no time to engage communities in what their future might be.”

“It’s death by a thousand cuts. The Government originally gave councils years to consider these changes, and is now giving top-down direction that ignores community voice. This is all from a Government who claimed, over and over, to be about localism.”

“These decisions are complex and need options to be explored, with input from a wide range of stakeholders. Councils have different water governance structures, major assets like ports and airports, and different community needs.”

“Transitional boards and political appointments hand-picked by the Ministers will undermine democratic decision-making at a local level. That’s something the National Party campaigned on at the last election, and something they have failed to deliver on.”

“The National Party continue to blame others rather than tackle the biggest issues councils and our communities actually face: aging infrastructure, affordability driven by a lack of alternative funding tools, rising inequality, and the increasing impact of climate-driven weather events.”

“The Greens oppose this top-down approach. We urge the Government to work with councils and communities to come up with enduring solutions that will best serve our communities now and into the future,” says Davidson.

MIL OSI

Source: Radio New Zealand

Small and medium-sized businesses are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the government ahead of this month’s budget as rising costs and a weak economic outlook eat away at confidence.

MYOB’s Annual Business Monitor indicates 35 percent of more than 1000 SME owners and operators surveyed were dissatisfied with the coalition government, outnumbering those who were satisfied (33 percent), with 31 percent remaining neutral.

The survey indicated businesses were under pressure from increasing overhead costs, which were up an average of $1200 per month, while insurance premiums rose an average of $1800 in the past year or by $3200 for an average medium-sized businesses.

“At the beginning of this year, our insights suggested most SMEs were starting 2026 more hopeful about their prospects and backed by relatively stable revenue and cashflow, but rising costs and recent increasing uncertainty may have clouded over some of the growth ambitions we saw coming through,” MYOB chief executive Paul Robson said.

“These factors, as well as a slower-than-anticipated economic recovery, can often shape some of the sentiment by businesses around the support available to them.”

SMEs voting intentions

Despite satisfaction dipping, the coalition parties maintained a clear majority of support from SME operators.

By political party, National was still the first choice among business owners, with 37 percent of those polled expecting to vote for the party at this year’s general election, while coalition partners – NZ First and ACT – each had 11 percent support.

Support for opposition parties had seen some grown, with 20 percent of SME decision-makers intending to vote for Labour (up 5 percent), while the Greens improved slightly to 4 percent.

Support for the Opportunities Party was two percent, while Te Pāti Māori had one percent support.

“We have seen some movement in voting intentions compared to the run up to the last election, and just over one-in-10 SME decision-makers are undecided about their vote,” Robson said.

“Given the size of the SME community in New Zealand, that is still a significant number of votes to compete for and overall, business owners will be looking for practical policy platforms that deliver targeted support where it is most impactful.”

SMEs said the top three actions the government could take to better support business this year were reducing compliance burdens, alleviating cost pressures, and supporting investment.

What SMEs want

• Reinstating the ACC No Claims Discount for small businesses (32%)
• Greater efforts to simplify health and safety compliance requirements (28%)
• Changing the current low value asset write-off of $1000 to be a permanent instant asset write-off of $10,000 (26%)
• Increase the provisional tax threshold (24%)
• Action to address insurance affordability for SMEs (23%)
• Energy bill relief via tax rebates (23%).

“While there is little doubt about the balancing act the current government faces in investing in the future of New Zealand business and managing existing debt levels, there is clear opportunity for practical support for local SMEs that will ease some of the load they are carrying day-to-day,” Robson said.

“Business owners will be monitoring outcomes of the upcoming budget keenly to see what’s in it for them, but looking further ahead to the election on the horizon, the parties that put forward credible, targeted policies for SMEs will strengthen their appeal to a segment that represents a significant share of the voting public.”

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A former Broadcasting Standards Authority member says abolishing the regulator gets rid of one of the few ways people can challenge harmful media content.

Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith said the media landscape has changed since the BSA was set up in 1989 and regulation hasn’t kept up.

Former BSA member Pulotu Tupe Solomon-Tanoa’i told Checkpoint the change is a loss for communities.

Meanwhile, the government wants to explore options for self-regulation for broadcasters including through the New Zealand Media Council which has oversight of print media.

An associate professor in media and communication at Victoria University of Wellington said it was a “momentous” move to scrap the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

Peter Thompson, who is also part of the Better Public Media organisation, said he was also surprised there hadn’t been any significant public consultation on the matter.

He called the move “politically expedient” and “democratically indefensible.”

“In essence, we’re abandoning enforceable content standards for the media in a digital ecology where many media are struggling to maintain professional standards.

“I expected a far more fulsome discussion of the options that were under consideration before any decision was taken.”

Thompson said removing content standards like accuracy, balance and fairness in an environment where the media were under so much pressure “really invites a significant political risk,” because it meant any media operator that chose to ignore those standards “effectively can now do so with impunity.”

He agreed media regulations needed modernising, but pointed out the BSA had been one of the key actors that’s been arguing to update them.

Thompson said the reason the decision to scrap the BSA was so momentous was the impact it could have on journalism and therefore democracy.

He said there was already a “commercial race to the bottom”, which makes it easier to proceed on the basis of “cutting corners, cutting costs, cutting journalists, in many cases”.

“Having a set of enforceable standards puts a clear line in the sand about what the public and society at large expects from our media sector.”

He didn’t think there’d be a wholesale abandonment of those standards, because that would be a problem for brand image.

But he was concerned about a “significant opportunity cost” being attached to upholding those standards, which could then lead to compromising on those standards.

“That could happen on a slow but steady trend, such that we’re led eventually in a race to the bottom, where all we have is commercial media companies fighting viciously over eyeballs and advertising share and ignoring the key tenets that uphold the Fourth Estate.”

He said those who had been arguing the BSA was “some sort of Stasi like bureaucracy out to stifle free speech” were deliberately misunderstanding its function.

“The Broadcasting Standards Authority, in many ways, is an anachronism.

“But key standards such as accuracy, balance and fairness are not an anachronism, and nor I have to say are they a threat to free speech.

“In fact, they are the very standards that underpin responsible free speech and dialogue in a democratic society.”

Media Council to engage with government

The New Zealand Media Council Chair Brook Cameron told RNZ it would engage with the government as it progressed their considerations on the future of the BSA.

“The purpose of the New Zealand Media Council is to support trust in media and freedom of expression by upholding high standards of journalism.

“The Media Council has a robust process for receiving and determining complaints to ensure the public has confidence in a fair and independent NZ media sector.”

The Platform celebrates decision

The Platform was celebrating the decision, with host Sean Plunket posting on social media that it was a “wonderful 4th Birthday present” for the outlet, which marks that anniversary on Saturday.

He told RNZ he had been “a little surprised” that the government had stepped in on the matter but the result was good news for freedom of speech and for New Zealanders.

“People are saying this is a victory for The Platform or a victory for me, not really. I didn’t choose this fight. I was sitting there doing what this outfit’s been doing for the last four years, and I find it amazing that the BSA decided to pick a fight which ended up in its own demise,” he said.

“It means that an outdated government bureaucracy that was seeking to write its own rules and entertaining complaints that didn’t have any real basis has been told that it needs to go away and that its time is over.”

He had no intention of joining the Media Council, he said.

“I don’t want to sit around the table with big newspapers and media players who are owned by overseas investors quite often, and are mostly interested in selling advertising for real estate agents.”

If misinformation was being spread online, people could complain to those spreading it, he said.

“I mean, Radio New Zealand spreads misinformation, right? And no one’s stopping you guys from doing it… you guys are just going to have to be more careful about fact checking and whether or not you’re displaying inherent bias, as we all are.

“At the end of the day, I’ll tell you what regulates The Platform is our audience. They’ll tell us when we get it wrong, and our numbers will go down and people won’t listen to us.”

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: New Zealand Government

The Government has agreed to progress with disestablishing the Broadcasting Standards Authority and investigate self-regulation options, Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith says.

“New Zealand’s media landscape has changed dramatically, but our regulatory settings have not kept up.

“The BSA regime was designed for a broadcasting environment that is rapidly disappearing. Today, audiences move seamlessly between traditional broadcasting, on‑demand services, podcasts and online platforms – yet only a small portion of that content is subject to the BSA’s regulatory oversight. It doesn’t make sense.

“The current framework can create inconsistencies and unfair outcomes for media providers, with similar content treated differently depending on whether it is broadcast live or accessed on demand.

“Print media already self regulates through the New Zealand Media Council, and some broadcasters have opted to be part of it. Our expectation is the media council will become the primary regulator for journalism. 

“I’m confident that greater industry self-regulation is the most practical way to level the playing field across platforms, and can provide an appropriate level of oversight to maintain ethical journalistic standards and audience trust.

“Several other pieces of legislation, including the Criminal Procedure Act, make reference to the BSA and other relevant provisions contained in the Broadcasting Act 1989. Legislation to repeal the provisions relating to the BSA will be drafted in the coming months. The BSA will continue in its role until legislation is passed into law.”

MIL OSI

Source: Radio New Zealand

Some mayors say council reforms will help communities gain their voice, while others fear they’ll lose their identity.

Ministers on Tuesday gave councils an ultimatum: come up with plans within three months or the government will do it for you.

Councils were to form voluntary groups and present their ideas to government about how they wanted to reorganise.

Local Government Minister Simon Watts and RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop said there was broad support from councils, and some had already made headway on plans.

Others with a history of disagreement on the matter told RNZ three months was not a lot of time.

Nelson mayor Nick Smith has long held the view that merging with Tasman was “the right answer” for his city, citing common interests and unnecessary duplication.

Nelson voted in favour of amalgamation in 2012 – but Tasman voted against.

“I think time has moved on,” Smith said.

“I hope my Tasman colleagues recognise that the ‘do nothing’ option is not going to be consistent with the direction of government.”

But Tasman mayor Tim King was leaning towards waiting for the government’s “backstop” process which would force reform before the 2028 local elections.

He would have preferred central government just decide on the country’s local government model, “rather than the divisive argument that inevitably comes with communities trying to thrash out these sort of governance arrangements for themselves”.

The biggest problem councils faced was financial pressure, and amalgamation “doesn’t necessarily save money and it doesn’t necessarily make everything magically better,” King said.

Bespoke, different structures around the country were not the most efficient or effective system, he said.

The rural – urban divide

Southland mayor Rob Scott is ready to go, having already proposed creating two unitary authorities – one for Invercargill, and for the rural areas of Southland District and Gore District.

“Trying to run them under one council … you’d end up with a very city-centric kind of approach,” he said.

Fewer, bigger councils, with community boards, was “the right way to go”, Scott said.

“It’s actually decentralising … and putting a whole lot of power into our community boards and getting that real localised decision-making happening, which I believe is the actual blueprint for how we should run local government in New Zealand.”

But Gore mayor Ben Bell was less convinced, saying it would be “incredibly complicated” to effectively split the regional council in two.

A single council would probably make the most sense, he said: “not that I necessarily support it”.

“If the numbers stack up, and it’s the right thing for our ratepayers, and that’s what they want, then absolutely … I do what the ratepayers want me to do,” he said.

“But there is also a real big call from … the rural part of our communities, that they want to keep their rural identity, and that merging with the city would make it more of an urban identity.”

Timaru mayor Nigel Bowen looked forward to teaming up with smaller councils, escaping the influence of bigger cities.

“We’ve long had the complaint … that you’ve got that urban voice seat sitting in Christchurch that can dominate a regional council table, and effectively they’re making regional policy decisions for rural communities, and that’s been a real concern of ours for some time,” he said.

The “obvious” option was to join the other two South Canterbury councils – Mackenzie and Waimate – and potentially Ashburton and Waitaki which would offer even more scale, he said.

Bowen said rural councils might be worried they’d be swallowed up by bigger councils, but said there were ways to ensure local voices were heard – like having more local boards.

“I would hope that councils see this as an opportunity to lead their own destiny, rather than have it done to them.”

Councils press on with plans already underway

The three Wairarapa councils had already been discussing either merging themselves, or going even wider and joining up with the Wellington region.

South Wairarapa mayor Dame Fran Wilde was pleased the reform announcement seemed to leave room for “bespoke arrangements” so new entities would not be forced to follow Auckland’s model.

Auckland has 21 local boards responsible for local decision-making, and Wilde said while they were big, they did not have much power.

“My view has always been that that is the wrong model, that if they want more unitaries, big unitaries, they need to give more power to the local authorities,” she said.

“I get the impression from what the government has said that this is a possibility if we ask for it.”

Whangārei mayor Ken Couper said despite Northland already being well into amalgamation talks, the three-month timeframe would be “quite a challenge”.

“But … I guess what they’re clearly saying to us is, if we want to have a ‘for Northland, by Northland’ solution, then this is our opportunity.

“So that should be enough impetus for us to take it really seriously, rather than wait around and have something imposed on us that we may not like.”

The announcement strengthened the process that was already started, he said.

Taranaki councils were also “early adopters”, having already begun conversations, said New Plymouth Mayor Max Brough.

Whether or not they would be able to agree on a plan within three months was the “billion dollar question”, he said.

“I guess if we don’t, we can sit back and find out what’s going to happen to us,” he said.

Some may be concerned that local voices would be lost, Brough said.

“You’ve got to make sure you get the representation right around the district, that’s probably one of the biggest hurdles to the whole thing.

“The rest of it’s just meat and three vege stuff.”

Officials will evaluate councils’ ideas and Cabinet will make final decisions next year, with the reforms set to be in place before the 2028 local elections.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Hundreds visited Auckland Art Gallery over the weekend to view more than 60 works by 42 Chinese artists that included photography, sculptures, installations, moving images and new media.

Titled Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now, the exhibition is the first major survey of Chinese contemporary art displayed in Auckland on this scale.

The exhibition features work by some of China’s best-known contemporary artists, including Ai Weiwei, Xu Zhen, Xiao Lu and Cao Fei, alongside artists exhibiting in New Zealand for the first time.

Among the key works is Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, a photographic series capturing an act of deliberate destruction that raises questions about history and cultural memory.

Also on view is a striking sculptural work by multimedia artist Xu Zhen.

Standing 7.5 metres tall and weighing 3 tonnes, the work brings together a Buddhist figure associated with China’s Tianlongshan Grottoes and the sweeping form of Greek sculpture Winged Victory of Samothrace.

Another featured work is a robotic Corinthian column that stands nearly 4m tall and occupies an 8m x 8m footprint, giving a classical symbol of Western civilization an unsettling – almost living – presence.

The exhibition opened to the public on Saturday, attracting visitors from all walks of life for a first look.

Troy Zhou, who has lived in New Zealand for about a decade, said he felt proud as a Chinese New Zealander to see such a large-scale presentation of Chinese contemporary art.

He said the exhibition offered people from different backgrounds an opportunity to better understand Chinese culture.

“I think it is a window for the world to understand China,” he said.

“Artistic expressions are diverse. Through the work of these artists, visitors from different countries and ethnic groups can find resonance with their own cultures.

“They can learn more about Chinese culture through these artworks.”

Heather Cunningham, who has previously visited China with her daughter, said she was struck by some of the political elements in the exhibition and by the courage of some Chinese artists in questioning and challenging history.

She said the exhibition also gave her a new perspective on Chinese contemporary art, including its use of technology.

“This is very technologically advanced in terms of the video,” she said.

“The layered look, how the videos are used, how the photographs are used, how they are presented, the subject matter. It is very new to me, which is so exciting.”

Clara Curtice, who visited Beijing and Shanghai about a decade ago, said she was also struck by the political elements represented in the exhibition.

“I am really enjoying considering that there is still a strong political element to what these artists are trying to say, and that they use old types of Chinese art to express modern political ideas,” she said.

Curtice was impressed by the way the exhibition reflected China’s rapid transformation and the enormous disruption experienced by its people over a short period of time.

“It reminds me that this is a significant population, and there are a multitude of different ways of seeing the world,” she said. “It is a really interesting space.”

Hutch Wilco, exhibition project manager at Auckland Art Gallery, said Auckland’s Chinese community had grown rapidly over the past 15 years and that New Zealanders’ interest in contemporary Chinese culture and art had also increased.

Wilco said the exhibition highlighted the breadth of contemporary Chinese art.

Spanning the period from China’s reforms and the introduction of an “open door” policy in 1978 to the present day, the show reflects the country’s dramatic transformation over more than four decades, he said.

“There’s this sense of speed in the development in China,” he said.

“That is something we are all feeling globally, particularly since Covid, with changes to society, changes to global politics … and the impact of artificial intelligence.

“I think we can learn from the experience that has really sort of preceded us in the experience of China and Chinese artists.”

Pu Yingwei, a Beijing-based artist, has two paintings on display in the exhibition – one titled Purple King Kong: Red and Blue Entangled in Space and the other Chinacapital 1978.

Pu said his artworks explored the complexities of China’s rapid development, its rise as a global power and the ways that transformation had shaped the country’s relationship with the wider world.

“Chinacapital 1978 tells the story of China’s reform and opening up, and the emergence of a completely new China,” he said.

“It looks at the impact that transformation had on the world, as well as the changes within China itself.”

Pu said his second work, Purple King Kong, examined the entangled relationship between red and blue.

“Red represents China and blue represents Western ideology,” he said.

“The purple figure, formed from a mixture of red and blue, is a metaphor for China’s reform and opening up.”

Pu said the exhibition had also given him an opportunity to see works by other Chinese artists, some for the first time.

“I think this exhibition will provide both New Zealand and Chinese audiences with new insights into contemporary Chinese art,” he said.

Chen Wei, another Chinese artist who travelled to Auckland for the opening of the exhibition, has a photographic work titled Today Is Unsuitable for Shooting on display.

The image, made from a carefully constructed set assembled in his studio, reflects the difficulty of accurately capturing Beijing’s smog.

Chen said the exhibition of contemporary art gave visiting Chinese artists a chance to catch a glimpse of New Zealand’s artistic and cultural landscape.

“When we come here, we can also learn about local culture. At the same time, we invite local audiences to walk into a period of our history,” he said.

“All history is connected. China’s development is closely related to the development of the world.”

Wang Ziquan, a Shanghai-based cross-media artist, has a sculptural work titled Compromise on display in Auckland.

Wang said his practice focused on creating sculptures without relying on traditional sculpting methods.

He hoped audiences could sense the rapid changes taking place in Chinese contemporary art in his work.

“Even things that might once have barely been considered art are now becoming artistic [in China],” he said, noting that internet memes could now be considered a form of contemporary art.

“The shift is enormous,” he said. “Contemporary art today does not necessarily need to be about profound social issues or grand themes. It can also be about small things hidden in the details.”

Wilco agreed, saying the exhibition explored globalization, its effects and the ways different cultures come into contact with one another.

He hoped every visitor would find something in the show that resonated with them.

The exhibition is supported by the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation and the New Zealand government’s Events Boost Fund. It runs through 23 August.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand