Morning Report

The coronavirus outbreak has forced more than a thousand New Zealand forestry workers out of a job. 

The Forest Industry Contractors Association says about 30 percent of the country's logging crews are unable to work and no one knows how long it will last.

Māori make up two thirds of forestry crews.

RNZ Māori news correspondent Leigh-Marama McLachlan says it's hitting Māori communities hard.

Māori film director Libby Hakaraia says Taika Waititi's Oscar win shows the world that indigenous film maker should be at the table. 

Yesterday Taika Waititi won Best Adapted Screenplay for his movie Jojo Rabbit.

Accepting the award, Waititi, who had earlier acknowledged the traditional owners of the land Hollywood sits on, had a message for indigenous children.

Hakaraia is a producer, director and owner of Blue Bach Films.

She speaks to Gyles Beckford.

A helicopter pilot who was among the first to respond to the Whakaari - White Island disaster wants to know if the people he helped rescue have survived.

Tom Storey has asked police to let him know the identities of those he pulled off the island on 9 December, and what's happened to them.

Storey was also with some of those who died in their final moments, including his friend Hayden Marshall-Inman, whose body subsequently washed away and has not been found.

He spoke to RNZ reporter Matthew Theunissen about the day of the tragedy and how he's coping two months on.

Women who have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to abusive ex-husbands if they stay in their family home after a divorce say the law is retraumatising domestic violence victims.

They want the proposed changes to the laws for dividing property after divorce to consider family violence.

They say anything less sends the wrong message.

Gill Bonnett filed this report.

A political grenade has been lobbed in to election year - with the Deputy Prime Minister's party facing investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

New Zealand First will review how it handles donations after the Electoral Commission ruled that some money given to its foundation was not properly handled or declared.

Here's RNZ deputy political editor Craig McCulloch.

The Black Caps are hoping the likely return of captain Kane Williamson today is a sign of things to come.

News from the business sector, including a market report.

New Zealanders who live in Australia have had to battle officials to board an evacuation flight out of China after they were told by four separate Australian officials they would not be allowed into the country.

Chen Liu spoke to David Faulkner, the chairman of advocacy group Oz Kiwi.

News from the rural and farming sector.

A brief update from the business sector.