Morning Report

Beneficiary advocates want urgent changes to the rules around relationships in the welfare system.

Child Poverty Action Group, Auckland Action Against Poverty and Action Station have written an open letter to the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, saying the rules are punitive and harmful.

They say beneficiaries should be treated as individuals and shouldn't have their payments reduced or cut entirely if they get into a relationship in the nature of a marriage.

RNZ's social issues reporter Sarah Robson has the story.

Two former Prime Ministers are backing calls to move Auckland's used car port to Whangarei.

Both Sir John Key and Helen Clark have publicly backed the Waterfront 2029 campaign and are hoping to raise $250,000 to get it started.

While neither the current government nor the National Party have picked a side at this point, New Zealand First has long campaigned for the shift.

The campaign's spokesperson Michael Goldwater speaks to Corin Dann.

The Justice Minister Andrew Little is not considering changes to the kinds of evidence juries can hear about a murder victim's sexual history in the wake of the Grace Millane trial.

A bill before Parliament will tighten the rules around evidence about a complainant's sexual history, to better protect against unnecessary and distressing questioning, for victims of rape or sexual assault.

Mr Little says he's limited to what he can say about the Millane trial because of the possibility the man convicted of her murder on Friday might appeal.

But broadening the bill is not on the cards.

The Government has delayed the awarding of tenders to run school buses that carry 40 million children a year after a union raised safety concerns.

Documents show these concerns being raised with Ministers, though they have not publicly acknowledged this.

The First union's concerns allege maintenance failings by a major operator, with one bus driver saying he wouldn't let his children ride the buses.

Phil Pennington reports.

Police have shot and killed a man after a 14 hour standoff in Tauranga.

The man was holding two children hostage yesterday when police moved in and shot him.

Police say there was no other option due to growing fears for the children's safety.

RNZ reporter Andrew McRae is at the cordon in Bellvue Tauranga and spoke to Corin Dann.

Residents of a quiet Tauranga street have described hearing multiple gun shots as armed officers moved in on a man holding two young children hostage.

The police say they had no other option as fears grew for the children's safety.

Neighbours told RNZ they had little idea the lives of a four-year-old and a six-year-old were at risk.

Spinner Mitchell Santner shapes as the trump card for New Zealand heading into the final day of the first cricket test against England at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui.

News from the business sector, including a market report.

Twenty-seven protesters who stormed an oil company's support ship in Timaru yesterday morning, spent the night on board, and are still refusing to leave.

The activists allege the ship's owner, the Austrian company OMV, is one of 100 companies responsible for 71 percent of global emissions since 1988.

Jack Brazil is with Environmental Justice Otepoti and is on board the boat and spoke to Corin Dann.

The police say they had no choice but to shoot a man who held children hostage at knife point yesterday.

The standoff started just after midnight on Sunday, when the police say the man's partner escaped from the Bellevue house after he'd threatened her with a knife.

When officers entered the house, they found the man holding a machete to the throat of one of three children he had with him.

They were aged four, six and 11.

Bay of Plenty commander, Andy McGregor, told media last night that one child was freed but two others remained in the house during several hours of exhausting negotiations.