Westland Mayor Bruce Smith is rejecting a claim by the region's MP Damien O'Connor that there is no long-term plan for the future of Franz Josef township.

It will cost $3 million to clear 1 million litres of chemicals, including flammable and toxic substances, sitting within metres of electricity lines which power the Marsden Point oil refinery.

The first quarantine-free flight since last March has landed at Auckland Airport, with scenes of high emotion and relief.

Managed isolation demand is forecast to outstrip supply by more than 150 rooms in the next three days, but figures over Christmas and New Year cast doubt on the predictions.

The first case of myrtle rust has been found within Auckland's Waitākere Ranges.

The woman facing a murder charge after a man was shot dead in the Wellington suburb of Karori has been granted interim name suppression.

Genome sequencing of Covid-19 cases in managed isolation has revealed more people in managed isolation with the new very infectious variants.

A man and a woman are in hospital after being shot in West Auckland overnight.

New Zealand will benefit from the end of the Trump era and the arrival of "an outstanding human being" as the new president, says a former ambassador to the US.

The police watchdog has found officers who used a taser and put pepper spray between a man's eyes while arresting him was not justified.

Students can now see how they performed in their end-of-year exams and whether they have achieved an NCEA certificate, after results were published online this morning.

The assistant Māori children's commissioner says escapes from residences showed they weren't meeting the complex needs of young people.

Police have launched a national review into a policy of taking photos of young people after it was revealed officers in Wairarapa took illegal photos of rangatahi - but they deny it is a widespread practice.

Government officials have put the brakes on the $24 million project to shore up the floodwalls around Franz Josef Glacier village and build a new bridge over the wild Waiho (Waiau) River.

Dot Gorrie reckons she's not addicted to attending council meetings. But she's been to about 60 in the past three decades, is now seeing Kaipara District Council's sixth mayor in action and has watched eight council elections come and go.

Despite Watercare's financial difficulties, the supercity has no plans to relinquish assets as part of the government's three waters reforms, Mayor Phil Goff says.

Repeated calls for abortion services to be provided in South Auckland have been ignored for more than a decade.

An asthmatic woman who was bombed with pepper spray in her Auckland prison cell is going to court to stop Corrections using the gas, which is marketed as 'making grown men cry since 1975'.