Labour MP and minister outside cabinet Meka Whaitiri is expected to announce tomorrow that that she will resign from Labour and stand as a candidate for the Māori Party in the upcoming election, according to Te Ao Māori News, which suggests she will make “a formal announcement tomorrow at Waipatu Marae in Hastings”. Such a waka jump would send a shockwave through parliament less than six months out from the election.

Whaitiri is currently MP for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and minister of Customs, Food Safety, and Veterans. She was reportedly disappointed at not being restored to cabinet when Stuart Nash was sacked. She was, however, made lead minister for the cyclone recovery in Hawke’s Bay.

In 2018, Whaitiri was demoted from cabinet by then prime minister Jacinda Ardern following reports of clashes with a staff member.

Te Ao Māori News reports that Whaitiri is set to replace Heather Te Au Skipworth as Māori Party candidate for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. Whaitiri has held the electorate since 2013, but it has been a safe Labour seat since its inception in 1999. Te Pāti Māori officially announced Skipworth as its Ikaroa-Rawhiti candidate for 2023 in November.

The Māori Party, which currently holds two parliamentary seats, has the potential to play kingmaker in the next election, based on recent polls.

A spokesperson for the acting prime minister, Carmel Sepuloni, issued a short statement, saying: “We’re aware of the media speculation. We have nothing further to add at this point.” The Spinoff has approached Whaitiri and Te Pāti Māori for comment.

Qantas has announced its finance boss Vanessa Hudson will take over as chief executive – the first time a woman has led the Australian airline.

She replaces Alan Joyce, who has been with the company for close to three decades.

It had previously been reported that New Zealander Cam Wallace was tipped for the position, having recently been appointed the head of Qantas’ international and freight division.

Wallace, a previous senior executive at Air New Zealand, recently quit Mediaworks after about two years in charge.

The Spinoff’s resident Shorty correspondent Tara Ward writes:

As Britain prepares for the coronation of King Charles, Prince Harry of Ferndale has returned to claim the throne of good hair and great doctor-ing. After a five year absence, Harry Warner – one of the many fruits of Chris Warner’s loins – showed up at Shortland Street again last night, surprising his father as one of the new surgical registrars competing for a permanent job at the hospital.

It’s Harry, but not as we know him. Now played by Xander Manktelow, Harry uses the surname Thompson, and slags off his dad before he’s even set foot inside Shortland Street. His medical skills are immediately tested when the minivan transporting the registrars (minivan?! Give the prince a gold coach, for the love of Meghan Markle) comes across a bad traffic accident. Moments later, Harry has his hand deep inside a stranger’s abdomen, stopping their ruptured spleen from bleeding out. To paraphrase those immortal words: please tell me that is not your spleenis.

Harry’s return should make every follicle on Chris Warner’s golden head dance with joy. The Warner empire is about to be reborn, but big questions must be asked. Where has Harry been for the past five years? Is his baby son Xin still living in China, and what made Harry become a doctor? In other unanswered questions from last night’s episode, why doesn’t nurse Vili doesn’t have enough pockets? No pressure, Harry Thompson, but the world needs to know.

RNZ’s been ordered to correct the record over its reporting on the end of managed isolation in April 2022.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has found RNZ to have been “misleading” in stories that claimed the MIQ system should have been ended immediately, rather than through a “managed transition” period.

Legal expert Hannah Wilberg, an associate professor at Auckland University, complained to the authority that it was “inaccurate” for the stories to have claimed the government had continued MIQ despite a lack of public health justification, given the official advice suggested a staged approach to winding up the isolation system.

“I suggest accuracy and balance in the reporting of this story was of special importance precisely because so many people had to make huge sacrifices due to MIQ,” Wilberg’s complaint stated. “They deserved not to be misled about the basis for the relevant decisions. They may disagree with the judgments government made, and many of them probably will disagree. But they should know that there was a genuine and honest balance being struck.”

In its response, the BSA said that RNZ’s reports were misleading and breached the accuracy standard. “We… do not consider the brief references to the government’s perspective in a small number of the later bulletins had the effect of clarifying the misleading impression, as they did not give any indication the original advice in the memo was heavily qualified,” the BSA said.

A complaint against the balance standard was not upheld by the authority.

RNZ has been ordered to broadcast a summary of the authority’s decision during Morning Report sometime within the next month.

As Charles prepares for his coronation this Saturday, his son is preparing for battle. Prince Harry has launched legal proceedings against Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, publisher of the Sun and the Times, alleging “the company targeted him with widespread illegal activity for much of his life, including hacking his voicemails and illegally obtaining personal information in the name of journalism”, the Guardian reports.

Many of Harry’s allegations relate to claims of illegal behaviour at the Sun, which News UK has always said was not involved in the phone hacking scandal that forced the closure of its News of the World paper in 2011. Before the trial can proceed, a judge must decide whether Harry can bring the case at all – News UK’s lawyers claim he waited too long to launch proceedings. That hearing is scheduled for later today.

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The deputy prime minister is comfortable with additional costs going onto high-emission cars – the so-called “ute tax”.

From the middle of the year, the government’s clean car discount scheme will be tweaked as a result of higher than expected uptake since it first came into effect.

As detailed in today’s Bulletin, the rebate on new EVs and plug-in hybrids will be reduced, but it will rise for used imports. And the threshold for what qualifies as a “high emissions vehicle” will drop from 192g of CO2 per kilometre to 150g.

Speaking to Newshub’s AM, Carmel Sepuloni, taking over the PM’s regular media slot, said it wouldn’t be a “regular cost” for everyday New Zealanders. “People are not buying a new ute on an annual basis… it’s a one-off when they buy a new ute,” she said.

It was hoped that as technology improved, even those who needed larger vehicles for work would be able to transition to a lower emitting vehicle. But also, Sepuloni said, some New Zealanders were purchasing these vehicles when they didn’t actually need them. “There are… a number of New Zealanders who are driving around with utes in Auckland where they’re not always needed for practical reasons and hopefully this will persuade them to move to an EV,” she said.

Asked about whether farmers should have the additional costs refunded to them, as they had no choice but to purchase these higher emitting vehicles, Sepuloni said it wasn’t something the government had considered.

Meanwhile, on Newstalk ZB, the transport minister Michael Wood defended the fact that Tesla purchases were being subsidised by people who could probably never afford a Tesla. “If we are encouraging someone with a bit more coin to buy a zero emissions Tesla [that’s a good thing]… but the scheme actually supports far more Toyotas than it does Teslas,” Wood said.

“The point of the scheme is to shift New Zealanders into cleaner vehicles.”