Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has denied he sought to update its principal bilateral agreement with Samoa, despite his Samoan counterpart reportedly claiming the opposite.

Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's first and only prime minister of Indian descent, has warned that the island nation is "worse off today than we were at independence".

Henrietta Devoe is standing by her call to abolish the Ministry for Pacific Peoples, questioning whether it has delivered for Pasifika communities.

Many parts of Papua New Guinea are feeling the full force of El Niño, with devastating impacts now reported from the Highlands to the coastal provinces.

The Pacific Conference of Churches also wants all Pacific Islands Forum engagement with Israel suspended until it complies with international court rulings and UN resolutions.

Hundreds of homes are without power and evacuations are underway as fire crews battle a scrub fire in the central Otago town of Roxburgh.

Cordons are in place at a property in the Christchurch suburb of Phillipstown following a reported assault, police say.

Researchers are teaching a select few Waikato dogs to sniff out a tropical disease known as snail fever.

A large and growing scrub fire near the Desert Road was sparked by gunfire, the Defence Force says.

Orange weather warnings cover much of the South Island and some of the North Island, with flights disrupted, damage to buildings, wing mirrors blown off cars, and gusts hampering firefighting in several places.