Kate Newton

Wealthy European buyers have snapped up four more sheep and beef farms to convert to forestry, as rural concerns over the sales ramp up.

Green Rush - Rich-listers, established farming families and a former All Black are among New Zealand's top 50 landowners.

Green Rush - The countess breached overseas investment rules while buying an iconic farm station, but was allowed to keep the property and was fined just a fraction of the purchase price. Video

The four largest private landowners in New Zealand are all foreign-owned forestry companies, an RNZ investigation has found.

Vast new pine forests are being hailed as a solution to NZ's carbon emissions deficit - but not all environmentalists see them as a silver bullet and farmers say they could gut rural communities.

Green Rush - Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in conversions of farmland to forestry after a rural backlash. Video

An old law that gives owners of multiple properties extra voting rights in local elections is unfair, archaic and should be ditched, election researchers say.

Seven years on from his arrest, the extradition battle between Kim Dotcom and the US reached NZ's Supreme Court this week. Kate Newton went to court to find out whether anyone seems to be winning. Video

Megaupload's claims it could not always delete illegal files were just an excuse to avoid properly complying with requests form copyright owners, the US says.

One of the men facing extradition alongside Kim Dotcom has finally gained a lawyer - who suggested to the Supreme Court that his client had been unfairly swept up in the case.

Kim Dotcom's Megaupload website was never intended to encourage copyright breaches, lawyers for Mr Dotcom and his fellow accused have told the Supreme Court. Audio

A district court decision that Kim Dotcom and three other men should be extradited to the United States was so flawed that it never should have been upheld, the men's lawyers have told the Supreme… Audio

The percussive boom of a bass speaker, then the crawling sensation of being covered in ants. Kate Newton meets a man who survived a lightning strike to tell the tale.

Researchers say an 'immunity gap' affecting an entire generation is what's allowing the disease to flourish. Kate Newton reports.

An elite group of business and iwi leaders, union officials and lobbyists are frequently bending the ear of the Labour-led government, ministerial diaries released this week show.

The accused mosque shooter is unlikely to be able to use his court trial as a platform for his political views, criminal and media law scholars say.

Emergency workers who went to the mosque shootings say they'll never forget the scene of hatred and horror that confronted them.

Volunteers are gathering in Christchurch to help give mosque shooting victims dignity and respect in death. Kate Newton reports.

As Central Otago temperatures approached 30°C this week, Naseby forgot summer and focused on ice, as the World Curling Championships qualifiers transfixed the town.

From the Prime Minister's baby to the Jami-Lee Ross saga and a Thai cave rescue to a royal wedding - 2018 has been a busy year.

In an era of fake news and partisanship, society needs critical thinkers more than ever. So why are students increasingly turning away from the humanities? Kate Newton reports.

Axed over Christmas, told to be out by lunchtime - this is redundancy in NZ, where there's no mandatory notice period or compensation, and little support for those searching for new work.

More than 20 staff have laid formal complaints against a single store manager at a branch of The Warehouse, saying they feel bullied and demeaned.

Rotten floorboards, leaking showers, water running down internal walls: where do tenants turn when landlords fail them? Not the Tenancy Tribunal - in fact, often not anywhere. Kate Newton asks why.

A state house tenant was evicted from her home and stung for $20,000 over a now-discredited meth test and because she had a relative who "may" have been involved with drugs.