Morning Edition: 26 August 2025

The Morning Edition of News Fix for 26 August 2025, straight from the Newstalk ZB newsroom - bringing you everything you need to know in news, politics, business, entertainment and sport.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Good morning. I'm never Retti Manu and this is your
morning news fix for Tuesday, twenty sixth of August. In
this update, some economic gain could come out of a
possible loosening of capital requirements. The reserve banks folded to
government pressure, it is reviewing the settings currently applied to banks.
It's proposed changing how much total capital banks hold or

(00:27):
aligning it to the types of loan smaller banks. Issue
economist Cameron Bakery says the current rules at face value
are extremely risk averse, begging the question of the economic cost.
A noticeable gap is emerging in the retirement savings of
employees and those who are self employed. The Retirement Commission
and accounting firm Henry's new report reveals only forty four

(00:50):
percent of self employed workers are active KIWI Saver contributors,
compared to seventy eight percent of employees. The report finds
forty one percent of self employed workers don't get any
government contribution, often due to having irregular income or low earnings.
Poshe FORU universities to rethink how they mark students as

(01:11):
questions araised over grade inflation. A report by the New
Zealand Initiative has found the proportion of a grades has
increased from twenty two percent to thirty five percent since
two thousand and six, but cannot be explained by academic improvement.
Senior Fellow James Kerstead says changing the grading scale or
limiting incentives would help solve this problem, and he says

(01:33):
that the culture of kindness at universities can also be
changed as putting students up a grade because their kind
costs society. More details will likely emerge around the fatal
Loafer's Lodge fire in twenty twenty three as the second
day of the trial gets under way Today. Five people
died in the hostel blaze in the Wellington suburb of Newtown.

(01:53):
A fifty year old is accused of starting two fires,
one of which did not fully develop. He will pursue
a defense of insanity. Herald reporter Melissa Nightingale says more
than one hundred witnesses will be heard over the five
week trial, the CCTV footage of this occurrence, and there
will be someone introducing a one on one call from

(02:14):
one of the people who did die. Government agencies may
need to find further cost savings to fund board members
fee increases. Those sitting on the boards of most Crown
entities are rent for fee increases of up to eighty percent.
Public Service Minister Judith Collins says some agencies may need
to reprioritize or seek efficiencies. Advice to the government found

(02:36):
the increase was needed to narrow the gap between the
public and private sector. New Zealand's first ever potato ice
cream is now available from the shelves an Otago polytech
project has grown into a commercial venture, with the unique
ice cream being churned out in Dunedin. Second year Culinary
art students were challenged with developing products that could help

(02:57):
reduce waste. The reused food from the Heartland Potato Chip
Factory in Timidoo to create Mud, a blend of milk
and spud. It's a dark chocolate chip crunch ice cream.
In sport, shock news on cyclings of Walter Spaanya the
Vizma Lisa bike team, home to Red Jersey holder Jonas Vingergore,

(03:18):
claims eighteen bikes worth an estimated half a million dollars
have been stolen. A boost for the spring Box and
their thirty six man squad to play two Rugby Championship
matches away against the All Blacks skipper Ca Kalisi has
been medically cleared to return after recovering from a knee knock.
Black Ferns loose forward kay Paul olsen Baker has been

(03:39):
cleared of an ankle fracture after the site's opening World
Cup win over Spain. I never Reatymnu. That's your latest
news fix. We'll be back with the next update at midday.
From the news Talk ZB newsroom