Morning Report

Controversy appears to have followed Israel Folau to his Super League debut with the Catalans Dragons in the south of France at the weekend.

Two women say they were told to remove rainbow flags, a symbol of LGBT pride, on 'health and safety grounds'.

That comes after Folau's contract with the Wallabies was terminated last year due to homophobic social media posts.

Corin Dann speaks to the BBC's Joe Lynskey.

Fears are rising for food security as massive swarms of locusts sweep across east Africa, destroying crops.

Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are facing their worst outbreaks in decades, while Uganda, Tanzania and South Sudan are all on high alert for the insects.

Locusts are the world's oldest and most destructive migratory pest.

An average swarm can travel up to 150 kilometres in a single day and can devour enough food to feed millions of people within that time.

Susie Ferguson speaks to Cyril Ferrand, from the Nairobi office of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations

Hundreds of cyclists will take part in a memorial ride today in Wellington to pay their respects to Brent Norriss, a cyclist who was killed while cycling on State Highway 2 on 3 February.

The cyclists will ride from Parliament to Petone this evening.

Patrick Morgan is from the Cycling Action Network.

He speaks to Susie Ferguson.

The government agency WorkSafe is promising to clamp down over 'hidden' deaths that have sent the tally of work-place fatalities rocketing.

The official count made in 2018 was 42 deaths.

That more than doubled In 2019 to 86 before the Whakaari/White Island tragedy.

The total in the end for the year was 108 deaths. WorkSafe has realised it had a blind spot over transport deaths for years. It says it's changing tack with the help of $150 million of new money.

At the same time, the agency has been criticised for doing fewer investigations.

The police are making very few health and safety inquiries into road crashes on behalf of WorkSafe and the Transport Agency has so far not replaced the flawed truck operator safety rating system it scrapped a year ago.

WorkSafe's new chief executive Phil Parkes admits it all adds up to a system that's sub optimal - but not that they dropped the ball.

He speaks to Phil Pennington.

A brief update on the movements in the financial sector.

Researchers say councils need to be doing much more to ensure homes and other buildings are not wiped out when a mega-tsunami eventually strikes the east coast of the North Island.

Scientists predict a one-in-1000-year tsunami will happen at some point but just two of ten councils in the firing line are considering the risk as they develop land, future-proof infrastructure, and issue building consents.

RNZ reporter Katie Todd has been investigating with support from the Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism Fund.

The Government is locked in talks about overhauling the residence visa programme to prioritise highly skilled immigrants.

Some skilled workers are waiting more than 15 months for the visas, and the immigration minister says he has told officials to speed them up.

Gill Bonnett reports.

The police have announced a five week trial of an eagle helicopter in Christchurch.

The helicopter, taken from the fleet in Auckland, will be starting to fly around the city from today, until 20 March.

Police Commissioner Mike Bush speaks to Susie Ferguson.

Forestry Minister Shane Jones says help is on the way for the forestry industry which is struggling with supply chain problems in China, due to the outbreak of Covid-19.

He speaks to Corin Dann.

Despite a prediction that a couple of New Zealand teams would struggle in this year's Super Rugby competition, the local teams are reasonably well placed after three weeks.