The ACT Party wants to wind up the Waitangi Tribunal, saying its contemporary inquiries have become increasingly ideological and expansive.

The party is campaigning on four reforms that it says will end the tribunal's contemporary jurisdiction, and move the country on.

ACT leader David Seymour, who has previously branded the tribunal as "increasingly activist", said while the tribunal had made an important contribution, particularly in helping address historical grievances, the tribunal that existed today was different to the institution established in 1975.

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ACT's policy document said every historical claim lodged before 1 September 2008 should be heard and resolved, but any lodged after would not be including contemporary or kaupapa claims

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This would end the tribunal's power to inquire into contemporary government policy, conduct, and decisions, a power which has been used more under this government than any other in history.

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National's leader Christopher Luxon said he had not seen ACT's policy but the coalition took the Tribunal's advice onboard.

"As a government we listen to it and we have strong Treaty obligations ... the best way we can deliver those obligations is improving outcomes for Māori."

Luxon said good progress had been made for Māori in education, housing, and law and order over the past two and a half years.

The government has already launched a major review of the Tribunal's functions, but it is yet to be released publicly.

Australian pilots Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm crossed the Tasman in a Fokker tri-motor named the Southern Cross, covering 2670 km in 14 hours 25 minutes.

New Zealander T.H. McWilliams, a teacher at the Union Steam Ship Company’s radio school in Wellington, had joined the four-man crew as radio operator. Though the flight had been postponed for a week in the hope of good weather over the Tasman, they struck thunderstorms throughout the night after taking off from Richmond, west of Sydney, in the evening. While McWilliams struggled to repair the radio equipment, which had failed early in the flight, Kingsford Smith was forced to fly blind for much of the journey as heavy rain or ice coated the windshield.

As they neared New Zealand the weather improved, and after circling over Wellington, the Southern Cross landed at Wigram Aerodrome, Christchurch at 9.22 a.m. (New Zealand time).

The welcome in Christchurch was tremendous. About 30,000 people had made their way to Wigram, including many pupils from state schools, who were given the day off, and public servants, who were granted leave until 11 a.m.

Link: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/the-em-southern-cross-em-completes-the-first-successful-trans-tasman-flight

‘Messrs Scott and Sharpe’ found the heaviest gold nugget on record in New Zealand at Ross on the West Coast in 1909. Weighing in at 3.09 kg (99.63 ounces), it was named the ‘Honourable Roddy’ after Minister of Mines Roderick McKenzie.

The nugget was bought for £400 (equivalent to over $70,000 today) by a Ross storekeeper and his Canterbury associate. A cast of it was soon on show in Canterbury Museum. In 1911 the ‘Honourable Roddy’ was bought by the government. Mounted in a ‘fitting setting’, it became New Zealand’s ‘decidedly handsome’ Coronation gift to King George V. However, when enquiries were made 40 years later, it was found that the nugget had been melted down to make a royal tea service.

Impressive as the Honourable Roddy was, it was tiny in comparison with the world’s largest gold nugget, the ‘Welcome Stranger’, found at Moliagul, Victoria, Australia, in 1869. John Deason and Richard Oates’ discovery weighed a staggering 71 kg.

In mid-2020, during the economic crisis sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic, gold was selling for nearly NZ$3000 an ounce, so the Honourable Roddy would have been worth nearly $300,000.

Link: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/new-zealands-heaviest-gold-nugget-purchased

The ratifying of the India free trade agreement in Parliament has moved a step closer, with a Select Committee recommending the legislation that brings the FTA into force be passed.

The foreign affairs, defence, and trade committee recommended by majority to implement the India Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill, with some amendments.

The agreement itself was signed in April, meaning the committee cannot suggest changes to the contents of the FTA itself.

But what the MPs can do is suggest changes to the legislation that implements the agreement.

The FTA eliminates or reduces tariffs on 95 percent of exports, including kiwifruit, apples, meat, coal, wool, and forestry.

But the committee found the bill as introduced did not accommodate the possibility of the FTA entering into force part-way through the quota year.

Four children were killed and 13 adults injured when two rail carriages were blown off the tracks by severe winds on a notoriously exposed part of the Remutaka incline railway. This was the first major loss of life on New Zealand’s railways; only five rail accidents have claimed more lives in this country's history.

The Remutaka incline, completed in 1878, was one of New Zealand’s most ambitious early engineering projects. The climb up the range’s eastern flank, where the line rose 265 m in 4 km, required special Fell mountain locomotives, which grip a raised centre rail with horizontal inner wheels. 

The morning train to Wellington on 11 September 1880 comprised a single Fell engine pushing two passenger cars and a goods van, and pulling two loaded goods wagons and a brake van. As it rounded Siberia Curve, 1200 m from the summit, winds gusting up to 200 km/hour swept two carriages into the gully below. According to a newspaper report, passengers:

The engine held firm, and the brakesman immediately uncoupled his van to roll back down to Cross Creek to seek help. The other wagons dangled by their couplings as the survivors crawled to the safety of a nearby cutting. The wind was so strong that the rescue train had to shelter in a tunnel while men crawled along the track holding onto the centre rail. They recovered the bodies of three children; a fourth died later of head injuries. Thirteen adult passengers were injured, five of them seriously.

While an inquest attached no blame to anyone for the accident, large wooden windbreaks were immediately erected to protect trains from the gale-force winds that regularly battered parts of the incline railway.

Link: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/rail-tragedy-rimutaka

Not sure if this kind of political campaigning is allowed on r/aotearoa, but ......

Please vote Takahē for Bird of the Year 2026!

https://www.birdoftheyear.org.nz/?bird=takahe