Stories by Phil Pennington

The country's biggest bulk wine supplier is turning gigantic flexibags into plastic fenceposts but the manufacturer says lack of government funding is barring the way from doing more.

An Auckland reserve at the centre of heavy metal residue concerns has been given the okay by Auckland Council in a just-released health assessment.

The location of some highway crashes near New Plymouth have been incorrectly entered into records by NZTA to locations hundreds of metres away from where police say they happened.

A leaking and mouldy Porirua school will have its air quality tested after the principal rounded on the Education Ministry.

The Education Ministry went against expert advice at a quake-damaged Christchurch school, hit spiralling problems and costs, and was obstructive and misleading, documents show.

The key government department had not prioritised critical services or tested how staff would work from home as Covid-19 caused havoc earlier this year, briefings say.

A Lower Hutt resthome is being investigated over complaints of physical and verbal abuse, neglect and intimidation of residents and staff.

Police did not brief the Police Minister or seek his approval for their move to set up a powerful new facial recognition and image handling system, the minister's office says.

Huge plastic bladders, each weighing as much as 20,000 plastic bags, are being dumped in landfills with no controls and no record-keeping.

Auckland Council admits it was at fault for not telling North Shore residents about contamination arising in part from maintenance of the Harbour Bridge.

The Department of Internal Affairs has signed a master agreement with a global biometrics tech supplier that just about any public or private organisation can be allowed to join.

Officials are promising that the country's war memorial Carillon instrument in Wellington will not need to be disassembled for major repairs again.

A huge Auckland quarry's attempt to expand has been knocked back under new wetland rules that both industry and conservationists describe as a threat.

Auckland Harbour Bridge maintenance work and operations contaminated land next to houses with heavy metals above permitted levels, but the Transport Agency opted not to tell locals.

Vehicle warrant of fitness inspectors alarmed at illegal repairs of seatbelts have forced action from authorities.

A $7.7m hunt is on for a deadly mineral beneath Auckland, but has already run into objections from city rail tunnellers.

A company the US says is owned or controlled by China's military made a bid to run the New Zealand police's new facial recognition and image handling system.

Serious safety concerns have been highlighted in the design of two highway viaducts being built north of Auckland.

The Transport Agency has changed tack on what has gone wrong at a $140m highway project in Tauranga.

One of the country's most expensive stretches of new highway just got more costly - and further delayed - by buried pumice engineers failed to spot.

The head of intensive care at Christchurch Hospital is warning some surgery for children and adults will have to be put off because of funding woes.

Truckers are finding shock absorbers torn from trailers and steering joints failing more often and blame the worsening state of highways.

The safety regulator is promising to get better legal advice about whether to prosecute in future, after it failed to act over a crash that killed two boys in 2018.

Christchurch City Council has taken no action against the engineers of an office block in a city-centre mall constructed with multiple earthquake design defects.

Auckland Council has pulled out of a plan to expand the city's network of CCTV cameras because it would have cost too much.