Stories by Phil Pennington

Police who investigated a convicted paedophile who taught at a Wellington music centre aren't saying if he might be tutoring elsewhere.

A father who social workers gave misleading information to a judge about is threatening to sue Oranga Tamariki over how it went on to investigate the issue.

Middlemore Hospital has decided to get rid of an earthquake-prone building that houses maternity wards rather than strengthen it.

The cost estimate for fixing leaky buildings at Middlemore Hospital has more than doubled.

A Kaitaia woman caught up in a warrant of fitness disagreement does not know if her car is safe to drive.

The Transport Agency has called in outside auditors to look at "a range of concerns" at a key high-tech unit.

A move to buy time for historic buildings in Feilding that face expensive earthquake-strengthening upgrades has been defeated.

South Auckland's Middlemore hospital has more than 80 firestopping defects in its buildings that still need to be fixed and more are being found.

Greenlane is the latest hospital to fall foul of firestopping standards designed to slow down the spread of flames and smoke.

Newly released documents show road control authorities were pushing for a speed limit for scooters on footpaths of just 10km/h more than a decade ago.

Only one fire station site out of 660 nationwide has rung alarm bells for firefighting foam contamination.

Councils are charging highly-profitable companies little or nothing despite many facing significant costs.

The Environmental Protection Authority won't be prosecuting anyone found with the banned firefighting foam despite an investigation revealing several companies with it.

A survivor of sex abuse by a Catholic school leader whose portrait is being removed years after his attacks, says he was "one of the most evil men operating as a paedophile".

A small number of people who could become violent extremists are being monitored, but the programme is being criticised as wrongheaded.

A South Auckland hospital was warned that patients in its surgery recovery ward were at "extreme" risk from fire but did not fix the building for more than three years.

New Zealand is enmeshed in a spider's web of security agencies and an alphabet soup of committees and panels attached to them.

Newly released documents show all e-scooters were being ridden illegally just a month before the launch of trials of hire scooters in Auckland last October.

Some local councillors are calling on the Transport Agency to set national rules for using the scooters.

The security agency watchdog warned the SIS in 2017 not to overstate its powers to people they interview and to inform them of their rights.

A Muslim association with a 20-year plan to improve community links says it is this type of work that can keep people safe.

The SIS has been accused of breaching the rights of the Muslim communities it has been monitoring.

Police are defending their decision not to charge a man who, three days after the terror attacks, stood outside a Palmerston North mosque wearing a swastika.

A firefighter's widow who only got the state to pay compensation after her husband died is calling on the government to take action so others don't go through the same hardship.

Firefighters are pleading for a law change so they don't have to battle to get the state to pay them compensation when they get cancer. Video