Food safety officials are investigating the discovery of a dead larva found in a government funded school lunch in Auckland.

He said the larva has been sent away for testing and the results were expected back next week.

The lunch scheme was plagued by problems in term one, with criticism of late, inedible, repetitive or nutritionally lacking lunches, and even a case of a lunch containing melted plastic.

Liar.

I had low expectations, but damn. Lowering the Govt's KiwiSaver contribution, pay equity changes, income testing for Best Start child payments and 18-19 year olds on the benefit tested against their parent's income, tax breaks for businesses, increased rebate threshold for SuperGold?

Will we ever get a Government brave enough to means test Superannuation. Boomers and businesses profit again and the younger generations have to pay for it with their futures.

Suspend him!

I think the C word is apt here.

Most severe punishment in the history of the country and it's based on a perjurious statement by Collins saying ACT was prevented from voting.

Nobody will convince me this isn't race based.

Unprecedented punishment. The first time in the history of our nation where a party has been punished this severely and it's based on false testimony by Judith Collins.

You'll never convince me this isn't motivated by race.

On Wednesday, Parliament's Privileges Committee released its final report into the MPs who protested the Treaty Principles Bill with a haka in the House in November 2024.

There was surprise and shock over the recommended punishments for Te Pāti Māori MPs, which seemed both unprecedented and extreme.

In retrospect, considering this week's response from Parliament's Speaker, the advice now available from Parliament's Clerk, and Committee Chair Judith Collins' public defence of her own report, that the initial reaction was overly calm. The committee report now appears partisan, indefensible and open to attacks of racism.

On Tuesday, 20 May, Parliament's House will debate whether or not to accept the Privileges Committee Report and its recommendations for punishments, namely that Te Pāti Māori's two co-leaders be suspended from Parliament for 21 days and their junior colleague for seven days, all without salary.

Talking to RNZ's Morning Report, Collins gave her view of the actions and motivations.

"This is not about haka, this is not about tikanga. This is about MPs impeding a vote, acting in a way that could be seen as intimidating MPs trying to exercise their right to vote.

"After Te Pāti Māori had exercised their right to vote, they then stopped the ACT Party from exercising theirs."

That is not true.

ACT had already voted. Every party had voted before Te Pāti Māori did. As the smallest party in Parliament, Te Pāti Māori is always the last to be called on for their vote.

It has been that way all Parliament.

Judith Collins could not fail to be aware of that.

The vote tallies and outcome had not yet been declared by the Speaker, so the fuller voting process was incomplete, and disrupting it was disorderly behaviour; but the claim that the MPs were intimidating another party to prevent it from voting is entirely unfounded.

The answer Collins gave RNZ was either misinformation (perhaps Judith Collins mistakenly believes the MP's actions were more serious than they were) or it was disinformation (in the aftermath of the report, she might have felt it necessary to convince the country the incident was more serious than it was).

Whatever the reason for the untruth, the claim suggests that Collins has a more jaundiced view of the MPs' actions than is realistic or defensible.

Did she fundamentally misunderstand the MPs' actions during the investigation (which would cast the committee findings into doubt), or did political or other prejudice make those actions appear worse than the evidence showed?

Research has repeatedly found that in any justice system, dark-skinned defendants are treated more severely based on ethnicity.

Findings based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the sequence of events would be highly embarrassing. Findings tainted by political or other prejudice would bring both the committee and the Parliament into disrepute.

A company's plan to mine 50 million tonnes of South Taranaki seabed every year has cleared the first hurdle in the Fast-track process.

Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) executive chair Alan Eggers said he was "delighted" the company's application for its Taranaki VTM project had been accepted as complete and would now move on to the next stage of the Fast-track process.

Opponents, meanwhile, are "livid" and have vowed to continue their fight against the project.

TTR wants to mine 50 million tonnes of seabed a year for 30 years in the South Taranaki Bight.

Eggers said the company had identified a world-class vanadium resource that could contribute $1 billion annually to the economy.

NACT's assault of the Maori isn't over yet. They aren't going to stop attacking until they have their boots on the throats of every non white, non cis, non het, non christian person in this country.

Don't wait until they come after you to speak up.

Hey everybody crying about decorum in parliament. What's your take on this?

• An external review shows the firearms registry is keeping people safe, says the authority
• The ACT Party claims the review is not good enough and has invoked the "agree to disagree" clause in its coalition agreement
• The NZ Firearms Registry was established in 2023 in response to the Christchurch mosque attacks

Pornography found on the work computer of former deputy commissioner Jevon McSkimming is being investigated as alleged objectionable material, RNZ understands.

McSkimming resigned as the country's second most powerful cop on Monday amid a four-month investigation by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and police.

RNZ understands his resignation came after he was confronted with allegations that pornography, being investigated as alleged objectionable material, was found on his work computer.

McSkimming declined to comment on the allegations through his lawyer.

The government is "testing children to death" with the announcement of a new maths test for the youngest children, says the head of the Principals Federation.

Next week's Budget will include $4 million to develop and introduce a "maths check" for children in their first two years of schooling.

"Yes, it gives us information, but teachers will be able to tell you that they already know which children need that extra support. They don't need a test to tell them that so what is this test for, who is this test for, is what I will be asking. We've now got a phonics test for literacy in Year 1. We've now got a numeracy test in Year 2. We're testing our kids to death here."

When government's have introduced compulsory testing in primary school, overseas statistics show there have been negative unintended consequences, Pomeroy told Morning Report.

I have some quotes out of order as the article is discussing two things. Here is the second:

It also announced $56m over four years to employ the equivalent of 143 full-time maths intervention teachers to help primary school children who were struggling with the subject, and $40m over four years for small group maths tutoring for up to 34,000 children in Year 7-8 each year.

Otene said principals would welcome the funding for expert teachers, provided they targeted the children who were furthest behind in maths - those classed as "tier three" meaning they needed support from externally-sourced specialists.

"We need that intervention support. But I'm really hoping that that's not just for tier two students... we need desperately learning support for those children who are 'well below'," she said.

Otene said the funding for tutoring at intermediate schools was premature because it extended a pilot scheme that had not yet been assessed.

"I'm a bit concerned that the minister does not have evidence to support the extending of that," she said.

The National Party wants to ban 16-year-olds from accessing social media by forcing companies to use age verification measures, but for now that's not government policy.

National MP Catherine Wedd, with the backing of leader Christopher Luxon, has put forward a members' bill which would follow Australia's lead on cracking down on the social media giants.

The Prime Minister said he wanted to explore picking it up as a "broader government bill," which would mean it could become law more quickly.

Right now the legislation does not have government-endorsed, meaning it would be debated only if it was drawn from the ballot at random.

The government is making it harder to make a claim for pay equity that will cut costs, saying the current system is too loose.

There have been massive pay equity claims in recent years for nurses and resthome workers.

Workplace Minister Brooke van Velden announced the moves to raise the threshold for proving work has been historically undervalued to support a claim, on Tuesday saying changes back in 2020 had created problems.

"Claims have been able to progress without strong evidence of undervaluation and there have been very broad claims where it is difficult to tell whether differences in pay are due to sex-based discrimination or other factors."

Claims were concentrated in the public sector, with costs to the Crown of all settlements so far totalling $1.78 billion a year, she said.

"The changes I am proposing will significantly reduce costs to the Crown," she said.

"The changes will discontinue current pay equity claims

Winston and Seymour's god is at it again.