Phil Pennington

Contractor pay in the public service has rates ranging from close to the minimum wage on helpdesks to as high as $185 an hour in IT - or almost $1500 a day, before tax.

Police have split with a research institute leading an investigation into bias against Māori and others.

Two leading Māori social workers are scathing of Oranga Tamariki's attempts to fix huge gaps in sexual violence crisis support for children.

Oranga Tamariki has not had any meetings with Māori to design new sexual violence services for children even as unmet demand ratchets up.

The Wellington region has been left with no coverage by large firetrucks this week after the latest breakdown.

Desperate construction companies are poaching workers off each other at a destabilising rate.

The hold-up at Watercare's new Interceptor tunnel is just one casualty from the virus rampaging through the construction sector.

More trucks are being fitted with safety systems, and handbrake testing is changing, to guard against potentially fatal rollaways.

Heritage New Zealand wants helipad planners to consider the wealth of archaeological sites on Aotea Great Barrier Island.

Māori on Aotea / Great Barrier Island have told Auckland Council to stop helipads being put in, and to start paying them more heed as kaitiaki.

A cycle and pedestrian lane trial for the Auckland Harbour Bridge has been blocked by Waka Kotahi NZTA, who is planning a celebratory bike ride instead.

Aotea Great Barrier islanders fear they will go the same way as Waiheke Island with lots of helicopters buzzing their skies.

A nationwide police operation to cut down on high-risk driving and road deaths has gone badly, an OIA reveals.

Official reviews of fire safety designs in hospitals have found many faults.

Firefighters are refusing to work on a fire truck left stranded without power to its big ladder at a blaze that destroyed a Wellington house last week.

Cyclists thought they had been banned from using a key stretch due to a 'no cycling' sign, but Waka Kotahi has now clarified they can use it - and the sign should have been covered.

The brother of an East Coast forester killed on the job says he gave up a fishing trip to keep felling trees because he knew crews were relying on him.

Longlasting pollutants linked to health scares overseas have been found in this country's urban water systems for the first time.

The shift to use more biofuels is forecast to raise petrol prices and knock up to $1b off NZ's economic growth within four years, but not making a move could also carry big, uncalculated costs.

The Civil Aviation Authority's hounding of a pilot over homicide-suicide risk fears has cost it almost half a million dollars.

Harmful sexual behaviour among children in care is rising fast, and many cannot get the help they need.

Excavation of contaminated soil begins shortly at a Ponsonby school following a fire a year ago that spread asbestos around the neighbourhood.

In the second of a two-part series, Phil Pennington looks at the plight of two families battling the system to come to the truth about a double-fatal truck collision.

A major truck distributor is investigating three trailer tow bars that failed to see if it needs to order a recall of about 600 vehicles.

Two West Otago families were subjected to one of the country's longest and most fraught fatal crash investigations after a truck collision killed two people. Phil Pennington looks at what went wrong.