Morning Report for Thursday 6 May 2021

6:19 AM.The Foreign Minister says it puts New Zealand in an uncomfortable situation to see Australia treated in a "punitive" way by China.

After a year in which China's targeted Australia with heavy trade… Read more Audio

6:24 AM.A brief update from the business sector. Read more Audio

6:35 AM.News from the rural and farming sector. Read more Audio

6:43 AM.A leading defence analyst says there may be some hard decisions coming up for New Zealand, as relations between Australia and China deteriorate.

Australia's new Defence Minister Peter Dutton recently… Read more Audio

6:47 AM.The National Party is rebuking the government for a pay freeze which it says will hurt teachers, nurses and police officers.

Public servants earning more than $60,000 will only be offered pay… Read more Audio

6:53 AM.Mountaineers and authorities at Nepal's Everest base camp are seeing an increase of Covid-19 cases and fear there will be a serious outbreak.

Cases are on the increase in Nepal, this week it saw more… Read more Audio

6:55 AM.News from the business sector, including a market report. Read more Audio

7:09 AM.Two of the country's leading cancer experts have slammed Pharmac's proposal to take away the special exemption which gives children with the disease any drug they need.

Oncologists Chris Jackson and… Read more Audio

7:15 AM.The little boy who had us all crossing our fingers he'd be found safe is due to head home today with his mother, after spending the night in Gisborne Hospital for a check up.

Three-year-old Axle… Read more Audio

7:18 AM.Health unions say doctors and nurses will up and move to Australia following the government's freeze on public sector salaries.

Under new government rules, three-quarters of people working in the… Read more Audio

7:23 AM.Rising tensions between Australia and China have raised the question of where New Zealand would stand if things escalate further.

Close trans-Tasman friend and ally, Australia is taking a more… Read more Audio

7:29 AM.One of the largest hospitals in Fiji has been put into lockdown to prevent it from becoming ground zero for a Covid-19 outbreak.

The Pacific nation has been fighting a local outbreak of the virus… Read more Audio

7:37 AM.The Reserve Bank has renewed warnings about house prices.

In its six-monthly financial stability report the central bank says it may need to take further action to cool the market.

Reserve Bank… Read more Audio

7:47 AM.A former Black Cap-turned Indian Premier League commentator says he's holed up in a hotel in Bangalore, waiting to see how he can get out of the country.

The competition has been indefinitely… Read more Audio

7:51 AM.Tuesday night's edict by Samoa's head of state calling for fresh elections is set to be challenged in the courts by a newcomer political party seeking to form government.

The FAST party has been in a… Read more Audio

7:56 AM.The former US President Donald Trump will not be allowed to return to Facebook or Instagram - at least for the moment.

Trump's social media accounts were suspended indefinitely in January, for posts… Read more Audio

8:11 AM.An oncologist from Southern District Health Board says cancer patients are suffering and dying because they are missing out on vital scans such as MRIs.

His scathing comments in an email to the DHB… Read more Audio

8:16 AM.Three-year-old Axle, the boy who had wandered off from his home in Tolaga Bay, was found again on Wednesday after a desperate night searching for him.

He went missing on Tuesday afternoon, prompting… Read more Audio

8:21 AM.Public servants earning more than $60,000 will only be offered pay increases under exceptional circumstances for the next three years.

Senior leaders and those on more than $100,000 dollars will get… Read more Audio

8:27 AM.The government says its funding of freight rail has been shunted to the side for too long and will now bankroll it from the same pot used for roads.

This morning's announcement - part of the… Read more Audio

8:30 AM.A brief update of movements in the financial sector. Read more Audio

8:38 AM.A health sector leader describes as abhorrent any suggestion that drug buyer Pharmac may end blanket funding of all children's cancer medications.

Pharmac may end the current funding arrangement… Read more Audio

8:40 AM.The country appears to be heading into a dry winter.

Farmers are already grappling with that prospect, making decisions about stock and feed for the coming months.

At the same time, a dry winter, if… Read more Audio

8:48 AM.A recovery operation to retrieve the bodies of two climbers who died on Mt Taranaki is underway again on Thursday morning.

The two male climbers have not been named yet but they were from a… Read more Audio

8:53 AM.A 70-year old survivor of sexual abuse has told the Royal Commission of Inquiry social workers called her liar and allowed her father to take her on an outing where he raped her again.

Reporter… Read more Audio

8:58 AM.A group who previously advertised in a magazine filled with misinformation is back again - this time organising a massive leaflet drop.

Up to two million flyers from the group Voices for Freedom have… Read more Audio