On Wednesday night, New Zealand’s Parliament voted by a 63 to 57 majority in favour of amending David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill to make its acceptance conditional on a binding referendum. With the acceptance of the amendment requiring a referendum, the Bill is likely to pass the third reading in November. However, it Read more
Massey University is being accused of suppressing freedom of speech after staff ripped down posters promoting democracy in Hong Kong. Several posters supporting the democratic protests in Hong Kong were pasted on advertising columns at the Palmerston North campus on Thursday night by a group of students wanting to raise awareness for the turmoil unfolding Read more
New Zealand has made the list of the world’s richest countries for the first time ever. The latest Global Wealth Report puts New Zealand fifth in the world – partly thanks to our house prices. The Credit Suisse Research Institute released its report on Tuesday, showing global wealth has risen by NZ$14.2 trillion. That’s a Read more
Investments in companies involved with nuclear weapons still feature in dozens of KiwiSaver funds, research by ethical investment group Mindful Money says The KiwiSaver schemes of ANZ, ASB, AMP, BNZ, Kiwi Wealth and Westpac were among those with funds still tainted with exposure to nuclear weapons despite a public outcry in 2016 following. Continue reading
Sonny Bill Williams says the All Blacks have evolved during his decade with the team. They can now put aside differences including religion and speaking openly about personal struggles is the norm, “I think the cool thing in the last 12 months is a lot of boys in the team are real, speak their mind, Read more
The outgoing headmaster of one of Australia’s most prestigious boys’ schools has used New Zealand research to support his contention that boys do better in single-sex schools. Timothy Wright is retiring in December after 17 years running the Sydney Church of England Grammar School. He said he welcomed discussion around what it meant to be Read more
In 2015 some scientists in China performed a series of experiments involving 86 human embryos to see if they could make changes in a gene known as HBB, which causes the sometimes fatal blood disorder beta-thalassemia. Their work has been widely condemned by other scientists and watchdog groups, who argue the research is unsafe, premature Read more
The Government has been advised to delay making a decision on whether to outlaw gay and trans “conversion therapy” due to concerns about freedom of expression. Read more
Schools blocked an extraordinary 2.2 billion student attempts to access gaming and other banned websites in the last three months. Network for Learning (N4L), which provides fast broadband to schools, says the number of student attempts to access blocked sites more than doubled from 1 billion in the June quarter to 2.2 billion in the Read more
The largest gathering of Catholic Pastoral Musicians in Australia was celebrated at the Catholic Leadership Centre in Melbourne from October 1-3. Expert presenters offered keynotes, workshops, showcases, and over 45 dynamic breakout sessions to over 330 participants from all over Australia and New Zealand, covering a wide range of topics and musical genres. Read more