A Bangladesh union has extended a plea to New Zealanders to support those affected by a devastating garment factory collapse. The request was made to Christian World Services (CWS) by the Bangladesh National Garment Workers Federation in the wake of a factory collapse in April. The Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, killing [...]

Musician and mental-health worker Johnny Matteson’s latest album has been sent to community radio stations around New Zealand to help fight ongoing stigma towards people with mental illness. With the help of the Like Minds, Like Mine education programme, Matteson’s biography and the album Songs of the Streets have been posted to 33 community radio [...]

A number of influential business and community leaders will give up their daily comforts and rough it for one night in central Auckland to raise money and awareness for homelessness. Not-for-profit organisation Lifewise is holding its annual Big Sleepout at AUT’s Hikuwai Plaza on July 4, where participants will be brave the wintery night out [...]

Auckland Council’s plan to voluntarily and gradually reduce smoking in public 2018 has left one councillor calling the move naive.  Councillor George Wood says his fellow councillors live in “cloud cuckoo land” and are “naive” for thinking a voluntary approach to end public smoking will work. He says the council needs to be stricter on [...]

Auckland Council say its goal is to have zero waste in the city by 2040. The goal has emerged from the super-city’s new waste management plan. Prior to the establishment of the super-city, the seven Auckland councils managed their waste independently. Now, it all comes under Auckland Council. Starting in 2015, three colour-coded bins will [...]

Same-sex marriage becomes possible in the Pacific for the very first time today — and a Samoan marriage equality campaigner says many Pasifika people are open or ambivalent to the idea of marriage reform. Marriage and adoption are now legal possibilities for Tahiti’s third gender, rae-rae ,and other LGBTI communities across the French Pacific, three months [...]

As milk is reintroduced into New Zealand schools, Amnesty International says child poverty here is worrying. A report published by human rights watchdog this week says up to 270,000 New Zealand children are living in poverty. It is a stain on the country’s human rights record, it says. The report’s findings come as no surprise, says [...]

Contradiction in children’s films today made it very difficult to see the sexism behind them, says a psychology lecturer from the Auckland University of Technology. Dr Pani Farvid said because of the second wave of feminism a lot of films would incorporate feminist ideals into their characters, but they would still maintain their “heterosexual desirability”. [...]

Plans are afoot for a marine reserve for the northern side of Waiheke Island. “Every marine scientist will tell you that for the Hauraki Gulf to recover it needs 10 per cent of its area in marine reserve,” says Alex Stone, spokesperson for Friends of the Hauraki Gulf. “At the moment only 0.3 per cent [...]