Morning Edition: 17 December 2025

The Morning Edition of News Fix for 17 December 2025, straight from the Newstalk ZB newsroom - bringing you everything you need to know in news, politics, business, entertainment and sport.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Good morning. I'm Wendy Petree and this is your morning
news fixed for Wednesday, the seventeenth of December and this update.
Confidence our local body election system remains robust despite a
judge overturning a South Auckland result. Judge Richard mcilraith found
irregularities materially affected the Pappa Toy Toy vote for the
Altata Pappa Toy Toy Local Board after allegations of widespread

(00:27):
theft and fraudulent use of voting papers. The result has
been thrown out and a fresh election must now be
held on April nine. Transparency International New Zealand CEO Julie
Haggee says cases like this are extremely rare. They have
been complaints to judges, but none has actually resulted in
an overturning of an election as far as I could
look back, as far as I could see. Meanwhile, legislation

(00:50):
to overhaul electoral rules has passed sixty eight votes to
fifty four. Voting enrollments will now close thirteen days before
election day, stopping same day enrollment. It'll also become an
offense to offer free food near voting places, and prisoners
will also be banned from voting. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith
says they're fixing the basics. Labor is telling Nicola Willis

(01:12):
to stop making excuses for the state of the economy treasuries.
Half year Economic and Fiscal update shows a bigger delay
in getting the books back to black. Labour's Finance and
Economy spokesperson Barbara Edmonds says the government has made things
harder for people. She says more bad things are coming
down the track. Ultimately, unemployment is forecast to get worse,

(01:34):
grows as we have been expected, and food prices continue
to go up. A transport voice says there's some sense
to the government's new OMEGA ministry idea. It wants to
abolish the Environment, Housing and Urban Development and Transport ministries
and introduce a new Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and
Transport m sert. It argues these areas are undergoing reforms

(01:57):
and right now the system's two fragmented. Transporting in z
Dom Calassie says navigating across multiple agencies can carry challenges,
and sometimes less is more. Transports one part of a
larger ecosystem, and so taking a more unified, connected approach
does make some sense. Auckland councilors invoted to scrap a

(02:17):
fortnightly rubbish collection trial which would have seen ten thousand
households try out the scheme. Of more than five thousand submissions,
seventy eight percent oppose the trial. An extremism expert says
the Bondai Beach massacre shows the Islamic state terror groups
been bubbling away under the surface. Australian police are looking
into why the father and son shooters thought responsible for

(02:38):
Sunday's attack, visited the Philippines last month. Fifteen people were
killed when the government opened fire at a Jewish event.
Counter Extremism Project director Hans Yakib Shindler told Sky News
Isis structures remain in the Philippines despite government dismantling its
leadership years ago. However, time, money and iology means that

(02:59):
any we can, of course reconstitute if the pressure is off.
To sport and Tim Seifert has been snapped up by
the Colcutta Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League or
auction twenty four hours on from a century for the
Melbourne Renegades, and this Jacob Duffy was playing in the
IPL for the first time after being taken by royal
challengers Bangalore. Paris Labor Court has ordered Paris Saint Germain

(03:24):
to play Killing and mmbuffet the equivalent of one hundred
and twenty two million New Zealand dollars in unpaid salaries
and bonuses, and Portugal returned to Formula one calendar in
twenty twenty seven and twenty twenty eight. I'm weedd ptre.
That's your latest news fix. We'll be back with the
next update at midday from the news Talk, said Bean Newsroom.