Morning Report

News from the rural and farming sector.

A brief update from the business sector.

Groups supporting beneficiaries have written an open letter to the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, calling for urgent changes to the way the welfare system defines relationships.

At the moment, someone can have their payments reduced, or cut entirely, if they're deemed to be in a relationship in the nature of marriage.

Hannah McGowan is raising two teenagers on the supported living payment and told our reporter Sarah Robson what it's like trying to form new relationships while on the benefit.

An Auckland MRI technician says staff are literally running between patients as they try to get their work done and slash growing backlogs.

More than 2000 Auckland patients are on waiting lists for the scans which are used to help diagnose a number of conditions, including cancer, heart disease and injuries.

The APEX Union represents the workers and its spokeswoman Deborah Powell told reporter Rowan Quinn she's not surprised.

New Zealand are on track to go one nil up in the test series against England heading into the final day of the first test at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui.

Neighbours are shocked after police in Tauranga shoot dead a man holding children hostage.

Safety concerns stop the awarding of tenders for school bus routes.

Andrew Little rules out changes to the kinds of evidence juries can hear about a murder victim's sexual history.

It's Friday so we cross the ditch to Canberra to talk to our correspondent Kerry-Anne Walsh.

The house where Adolf Hitler was born will be turned into a police station in an effort to stop the building from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine.

The house - in the northern Austrian town of Braunau on the German border - has been the subject of a lengthy legal battle with the owners since it was taken into government control in 2016.

Kim Hill speaks with the BBC's Bethany Bell from Vienna.

Four million phones should receive a loud alert this Sunday between six and seven in the evening as part of a national test.

Last year, only six out of 10 New Zealanders received the emergency test and it is hoped this year, the alerts will reach more.

The emergency mobile test is being run by Civil Defence. Director of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, Sarah Stuart-Black, speaks to Kim Hill.

Firefighters battled hundreds of bushfires across Australia on Thursday as scores of blazes sprang up in new locations under hot and windy conditions.

More than 60 fires flared across Victoria, more than 59 across New South Wales, and more than 65 across South Australia.

On South Australia's Lower Yorke Peninsula, at least 11 houses have been lost, huge areas of crops destroyed, and many livestock killed, but a cool change has arrived allowing firefighters to gain the upper hand.

The ABC's Gabriella Marchant speaks to Kim Hill from Adelaide.