While he's best known for being one half of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, Bret McKenzie's new album is no laughing matter.

Two 24-year-old men have been sentenced to home detention after robbing a 95-year-old man on Christmas Eve.

A Gisborne mayoral candidate is standing by a controversial picture on social media which shows him standing in a hazmat suit with a swastika on the front.

The Associate Education Minister has sought urgent advice about school board elections, after a white supremacist revealed his candidacy for a multicultural Christchurch school.

A doctor who self-prescribed Tramadol has been found guilty of professional misconduct but has avoided being struck off.

Hundreds of international and New Zealand athletes are raring to hit the slopes in the Queenstown Lakes at this year's Winter Games.

A massive clean-up in the top of the south is underway after major flooding, and is being described as likely the "biggest recovery ever faced" in the Marlborough region.

A 25-year-old woman is accused of conspiring to commit burglaries of several businesses in Christchurch.

Police have identified the two children whose bodies were found in suitcases from an abandoned storage unit in Manurewa, but they still can not be named.

Police are investigating a suspicious house fire in the Hamilton suburb of Fairfield.

Police believe the fugitive Tom Phillips - who went bush with his three young children eight months ago - is getting help from a person or group of people. Inspector Will Loughrin wants them to dob Phillips in.

The Defence Force says 94 staff across all the whole military are on leave without pay, and it does not know how many may be in Ukraine.

One person has died after a single vehicle crash in Heathcote Valley, Christchurch overnight.

The country's first training cafe for young people living with disabilities has opened its doors.

Residents in a part of Napier say a stench from factories close by is so bad they can not open their windows or put clothes on their washing lines.

Get your wheels, your shoes, your fishing rod and reel - the old Māngere Bridge has been replaced and is opening to the public.

The Public Service Commissioner has apologised to survivors at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care this afternoon.

New Plymouth district councillors will consider supporting a two-year ban on collecting kaimoana along the coast to the south of the city.