Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

The Government has promised bigger projects will be built faster and more cost-effectively under their fast-track approval scheme.

This legislation, which would give power to ministers to sign-off consents for major infrastructure projects, has passed its first reading in the House.

Minister for Regional Economic Development Shane Jones says a 'long-term pipeline' of projects will encourage investors.

"We need to build a pipeline of projects, to show both ourselves and people overseas that if you want to invest in New Zealand, there's a long-term pipeline of both private and public sector projects."

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Former Prime Minister Helen Clark says trimming TVNZ's flagship news show in half would be tragic.

TVNZ has confirmed it is proposing to cut up to 68 roles.

Our newsroom understands about 35 are news roles.

It comes a week after Warner Brothers Discovery announced a proposal to scrap Newshub.

Clark says we'd barely get 14 minutes of news, then sport and the weather, and that just wouldn't cover it.

"You wouldn't carry much of a newsroom to fill a bulletin that literally would be 14 or 15 minutes worth of news- so I think that would be a sad day."

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Both of the Warriors' first two NRL home games have sold out.

The remaining tickets available for tomorrow night's campaign opener against Cronulla were snapped up this morning.

It's the club's first opening round sell-out at Mount Smart since their first match in 1995 against the Brisbane Broncos.

Sportstalk host D'Arcy Waldegrave explains further.

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Auckland Council has proposed moving from weekly to fortnightly rubbish collection times.

This concept is among a selection of other suggestions to move the city closer to a zero-waste target by 2040.

Auckland councillor Daniel Newman is 'sceptical' about the practical applications of this idea.

"Some people will cope marvellously, but there are thousands of families, bigger households, particularly in wards like mine in South Auckland- where the rubbish collection each week is a pretty important occasion." 

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First it was Newshub, now it's TVNZ.

We are still waiting on the details- staff have been told there will be 68 job losses, but the rest they’ll find out tomorrow.

The speculation in the media is that half of those job cuts will be in the newsroom. Fair Go and Sunday reportedly will be merged, Breakfast and Seven sharp are affected, as is the late bulletin.

Shortland Street will be cut down to three nights a week at some point, and the main news bulletin will reportedly be cut down to 30 minutes, but nothing is confirmed right now.

To be honest, if they want to save the ship, that is how brutal they need to be, particularly with that bulletin. That thing needs to be cut in half.

When I first started working at TVNZ slightly less than 20 years ago, senior news bosses were already talking about needing to do that. It is well overdue.

And it’s actually not unusual internationally to have shorter news bulletins. The Germans have a 15 minute bulletin at 8pm, In the UK, the BBC News at Six is half an hour, it happens all around the world.

Seven Sharp, it they want to be brutal, should probably be cut altogether- you can probably buy a half-hour programme from overseas for much cheaper to put in that slot.

I don't say this because I want this to happen, I don’t want less news on TV. I don’t want less New Zealand content on screens.

But we need to be realistic, people are turning the TV off. And TVNZ cannot keep spending this much money on a product that fewer and fewer people want to use. It's not sustainable to keep pumping the same amount of money in when you're getting less from it.

It's a little bit like the postal service. Fewer and fewer people are using it nowadays, so it has to change and trim the budget to reflect the demand.

You don't get post delivered five days a week anymore, you get it three days a week. And fewer people are watching the news, so it needs to cut costs.

And actually not just the news, it's the whole of TVNZ. At some point, there will be so few people watching linear TV, we will have to pull the plug altogether. In the same way that one day we will have to stop the postal deliveries.

There is some hope for TVNZ, they’re going hard investing in TVNZ Plus- which is their online platform that's like the TVNZ version of Netflix.

Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. But while that is the future, linear TV is not.

So these job losses, sadly, will not be the last.

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The UK Government is expected to announce a 2 percent cut to National Insurance tax when ministers reveal their annual economic snapshot.

The current Government is yet to call a general election date, and experts say they need to boost public favour within a stagnant economy.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey says the Government is 'diving for support' amid declining public opinion.

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Tonight on The Huddle, Jack Tame from ZB's Saturday Mornings and Q&A and Phil O'Reilly from Iron Duke Partners joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day- and more!

Speculation says TVNZ could be looking to cut jobs ahead of their all-hands business meeting tomorrow. What do we think? Is the industry going through a rough patch?

The director of a taxpayer funned anti-extremism research group is under pressure, after accusing the Government of being a child-hating 'death cult'. Were these comments a step too far?

New research shows more Kiwis are in favour of tipping- does New Zealand need to embrace tipping culture?

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Non-residential building work has shot up in the December 2023 quarter, according to the latest data.

Commercial buildings have outpaced residential homes, with residential building activity dropping 2 percent in the December quarter.

Infometrics Principal Economist Brad Olsen explains what this means for economic growth ahead of the upcoming GDP results.

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BNZ is following other banks in cutting some mortgage rates, following ANZ and ASB.

This comes off the back of last week's Reserve Bank decision to keep the Official Cash Rate unchanged at 5.5 percent.

NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny says higher interest rates are driving prospective home buyers away- and the banks need to win people back.

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The Government is set to place greater scrutiny on New Zealanders trying to access emergency housing.

The Minister for Social Development has announced the verification process, eligibility settings and obligations will be strengthened.

It includes checking whether someone has 'unreasonably contributed to their need for housing'.

ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper says more case workers will be needed to address these standards- but change in this area is needed. 

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