Category: New Zealand

New Zealand Pavlovas and Pastries Hit by Egg Ban

New Zealand’s nationwide ban on battery caged hens has created an egg shortage, pushing up prices for eggs and the foods requiring it, such as breakfast staples and desserts. Battery cages are small, wire cages used to house egg-laying hens. Each cage is about 40 centimetres (16 inches) and contains four to seven hens. In…


New Zealand Won’t Require Chinese Arrivals to Show COVID-19 Test

The New Zealand government said on Wednesday it would not require travellers from China to produce a negative COVID-19 test, bucking a trend that has seen a number of nations implement such measures as cases surge in China. New Zealand’s COVID-19 minister, Ayesha Verrall, said in a statement that a public health risk assessment had…


Civil Rights Losing Out to New Zealand’s War on Tobacco

Commentary Occasionally, one comes across a law that creates more problems than it tries to solve. The New Zealand Parliament adopted such a law on Dec. 13, the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022. The law stipulates that a person “must not sell a smoked tobacco product to a person born…


New Zealand Chinese Rally to Support ‘White Paper Revolution’

Over one hundred New Zealand Chinese rallied on Dec. 2 at Auckland’s Aotea Square, mourning victims of a fatal apartment fire in Urumqi and showing solidarity with Chinese protests against the regime’s zero-COVID policy. Members of New Zealand’s parliament showed support. White papers, with words supporting China’s “White Paper Movement” and calling for the Chinese…


New Zealand Court Strips Anti-Vax Parents of Medical Custody of Ill Baby

A New Zealand court ruled against the parents of a sick infant on Dec. 7, temporarily stripping them of medical custody of their son after they refused blood transfusions from vaccinated donors, requesting that the health system allow them access to blood from unvaccinated donors who were standing ready to donate. The four-month-old boy, who…


New Zealand Court Strips Anti-Vaccine Parents of Medical Custody of Ill Baby

A New Zealand court ruled against the parents of a sick infant on Dec. 7, temporarily stripping them of medical custody of their son after they refused blood transfusions from vaccinated donors, requesting that the health system allow them access to blood from unvaccinated donors who were standing ready to donate. The four-month-old boy, who…


New Zealand Plans Law to Require Facebook, Google to Pay for News

WELLINGTON—The New Zealand government said it will introduce a law that will require big online digital companies such as Alphabet Inc’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc. to pay New Zealand media companies for the local news content that appears on their feeds. Minister of Broadcasting Willie Jackson said in a statement on Sunday that the…


Bodies-in-Suitcases Suspect Appears in New Zealand Court

WELLINGTON, New Zealand—A woman who was extradited from South Korea this week after the bodies of her two children were found in abandoned suitcases made her first court appearance in New Zealand on Wednesday. The 42-year-old woman has been charged with two counts of murder. She was not required to enter a plea during the…


Lowering the Right to Vote to 16 Years of Age Is Misguided

Commentary On Nov. 21, the Supreme Court of New Zealand, in Make It 16 Incorporated v Attorney-General (pdf) declared that the legal provisions “which provide for a minimum voting age of 18 years are inconsistent with the right … to be free from discrimination on the basis of age.” The Court has now waded into…


Head of New Zealand Reserve Bank Concedes It Is Engineering a Recession

Adrian Orr, governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), admitted the bank was engineering a recession to lower inflation. The remark comes a day after the central bank raised the official cash rate (OCR) by a record 75 basis points to 4.25 percent. In its monetary policy statement (pdf), the RBNZ revealed the economy…