The Detail wraps up its sixth year with an all-in look at what the team enjoyed most (and least) about 2024

It's The Detail's last episode of 2024 and that means it's time to look back on the highlights, moan about the lowlights and laugh at the just plain weird of the year…

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Despite a law against paying employees differently based on their gender, we've still got a gender pay gap. A new bill could help.

A bill before Parliament aims to close the gender pay gap by allowing employees to discuss their wages with each other. Proponents say it's about time.
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Every year, 1500 refugees come through the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre. For many, it's the first home with four walls and a roof they've had in years…

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How a solar power company backed by public funds and one of the world's largest asset managers went into liquidation…

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Having a baby by surrogacy in New Zealand is complicated, convoluted and costly. A bill promised to fast-track change, but progress has been anything but…

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New research identifies a surge in fake online shops scamming Kiwis out of pocket in the lead up to Christmas…

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It hasn't been clear sailing for the Interislander, but any day the government will announce plans for the ferries' future…

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Developers are moving at pace to turn the south Auckland town of Drury into our next city…

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There's a clash of wills going on between central and local government in Taranaki when it comes to plans for seabed mining…

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There's already plenty of doubt that we'll get an India trade deal signed in the Prime Minister's first term as he promised. Here's another hiccup.

A rift among New Zealand's Indian communities that's testing tolerance over the right to protest could blow up, and a potential trade deal could suffer in the blast.

The Prime Minister's goal of getting a free trade deal signed with India in his first term is still looking shaky, but progress is being made.

Business links in both countries are being forged, but we are still a long way from any agreement.

Our Indian High Commissioner, Neeta Bhushan, appeared to put the brakes on expectations at a recent event in Christchurch celebrating new ties.

Newsroom's National Affairs Editor Sam Sachdeva says her message was revealing - and placed further doubt on the prospect of a free trade deal being done this term.

Calling Christopher Luxon's pre-election commitment on it "perhaps ill-advised", he says Bhushan was still quite positive about progress, noting that we are closer than we have been in a long time.

"But she sort of said 'look, let's take some small steps .. you can't just jump ahead' so I viewed that as an implicit reminder that you can't rush this."

However there's another potential stumbling block, one that's possibly under the radar for most kiwis ... but is not for the three hundred thousand-strong Indian population here.

It comes in the shape of a group labelled by India as terrorists, which is drumming up support around the world for an independent Sikh homeland.

The president of Sikhs for Justice was in New Zealand last month, rallying thousands of Kiwi Sikhs for what the group calls a "referendum" on the issue.

Auckland police have been praised for helping diffuse the situation, but the Hindu community wants to know why a man known for sowing discord was allowed in, especially on the back of a ban by New Zealand immigration of outspoken, far-right American speaker Candace Owens.

RNZ Asia journalist Gaurav Sharma says the New Zealand government has to start taking this seriously, especially if Indian officials read it as New Zealand giving its blessing to Sikh separatism.

And there's a warning - if the government doesn't keep an eye on this development, we risk a diplomatic rift like the one between India and Canada ... and there goes our trade deal.

Such a note of concern has already been sounded by political experts including Victoria University's David Capie from the Centre for Strategic Studies…

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