Cabinet minister Kiri Allan will be off work for the next couple of weeks, the prime minister has confirmed.

Speaking from parliament today, Chris Hipkins said he has had a “brief phone conversation” with Allan since he returned from China, but won’t have the chance to catch-up face-to-face with her for a couple of weeks. Hipkins will travel to Europe on Friday for a Nato meeting and won’t be back in the country until the end of the following week.

“I’ve indicated to her that we’ll have a catch-up when I’m back from Europe,” Hipkins said. “I don’t relay the conversations that I have with ministers about other ministers, but I can provide a reassurance that if anyone raises serious issues about ministerial conduct, that is something I would take very seriously.”

Hipkins said Allan had indicated she’d like the extra time off, and he agreed. “When any minister has been under intense scrutiny as Kiri has been here, I would encourage them to take a bit of a breather,” he said.

Expectations for ministers were clear, said Hipkins, that they should treat staff and officials in their office with respect and “basic courtesy”. However, he didn’t expect all ministers to be perfect.

Hipkins said the feedback he’d received from the “relevant chief executives” were that the issues with Allan’s office were raised informally and resolved at the time. He therefore didn’t see any need for a more formal investigation.

“Kiri is an exceptionally talented minister who has contributed an awful lot to our government,” said Hipkins.

There had been a culture change at parliament over the past couple of years, which Hipkins said was a good thing. “As a former opposition member I can tell you that allegations of this nature flew around the place all the time and none of them really made it into the public domain,” Hipkins said. “I think it is good there is more openness and willingness to talk about that. Parliament as a workplace did need to change.”

On Twitter, Allan rejected the suggestion she was on “mental health leave”, phrasing used by a journalist today. “I’ll take a couple of days off over school holidays because each parent has to as we don’t have others that can take care of our kid,” she wrote. “Please stop conflating my MH with external allegations.” Hipkins said Allan would be taking a couple of weeks off.

The government says a new approach to hospital waitlists will see 3,500 more cataract surgeries delivered.

It’s been one year since Te Whatu Ora was launched, replacing the previous district health board system.

Health minister Ayesha Verrall said the new approach will see the removal of the “postcode lottery” for cataract surgery. “For decades the former DHBs used a point system that had wildly differing thresholds for access to cataract surgery – largely varying from 46 to 61 points. A score of 46 represents mildly reduced vision. A score of 61 represents poor vision and meant that the person could no longer legally drive,” said Verrall.

“Standardising access thresholds, including for cataract surgery, was identified as a priority by the Planned Care Taskforce in its Reset and Restore Plan last year.”

This year’s budget saw $118 million to reduce wait lists and standardise healthcare access. “In a first under the new health system there will be a nationally consistent score of a maximum of 46 in order to access surgery,” Verrall said.

Also announced today, a new pay offer for nurses would see Te Whatu Ora-employed nurses get a 4.5% pay boost for those earning between $69,566 and $99,630. Senior nurses would get a 6.5% bump to between $105,704 and $153,060 plus penal rates.

Verrall said this was an incredibly important pay offer that would see nurses paid what they were worth. “I’m also pleased that it should have positive impacts on our workforce recruitment and retention,” she said.

Nurses will soon vote on the offer which has been agreed to by Te Whatu Ora, the nurses organisation and the Public Service Association (PSA).

Labour MP Ingrid Leary attended a Mongrel Mob election hui over the weekend thinking it was an event organised by the Electoral Commission.

It was reported over the weekend that an unnamed Labour MP had attended the Dunedin event, with Mongrel Mob member Harry Tam posting to Facebook that it had been “gatecrashed” by a politician. “She [Leary] said my name comes up in parliament a bit so they’re a bit hesitant to be associated with me,” claimed Tam.

Taieri MP Leary told the Herald she didn’t realise the event was a Mongrel Mob hui. “I thought it was an Electoral Commission meeting encouraging enrolment. I do a lot of work to encourage enrolment with all my communities,” she said. “My attendance in no way condones the actions of the Mongrel Mob and I’m proud of the work Labour is doing to tackle gang crime.”

Opposition MPs said over the weekend that the news proved the Mongrel Mob had endorsed Labour. “Labour’s investment of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money into the Mongrel Mob appears to be paying off,” said National’s Mark Mitchell. “The fact the Mongrel Mob wants to see Labour win this year’s election is another clear sign that Labour is soft on crime.”

Ticket sales are down, hot shot directors are firing blanks and A-list movie stars are struggling to put bums in seats. The movie industry is in trouble, but none of that bothers local cinema chain Silky Otter, which has just opened yet another new theatre – this time in Palmerston North.

“We are incredibly excited and proud to open our newest cinema in Palmerston North,” said CEO Neil Lambert in a statement. “A city that shares my passion for film deserves nothing less than a world class movie-going experience right in its own backyard.”

Silky Otter is known for building small but luxurious theatres with limited capacity attached to a full-service bar and kitchen in regions underserved by theatres. Palmerston North takes Silky Otter’s tally to five, with locations in the Nelson suburb of Richmond, Wigram in Christchurch, and Ōrākei and Ponsonby in Auckland.

In an interview with The Spinoff last year, Lambert admitted his expansion plans seemed excessive on paper, but demand showed Silky Otter was onto something. “A lot of cinemas, especially in the regions, haven’t been updated [in decades],” he told us. “We want to [deliver] this better experience.”

Read our full 2022 interview with Silky Otter boss Neil Lambert here.

Kiri Allan went against advice from transport ministry officials to take a proposed package of parking fine increases to cabinet for discussion, documents reveal.

As associate transport minister, Allan was involved in behind the scenes discussions on revamping parking regulations and offences. You can read more on that here.

One briefing shows Allan signed off only on public consultation on proposed changes to broader parking regulations. Officials said consultation could begin on these without cabinet agreement, as they were minor changes, which would not be the case for broader changes to parking offences.

Read the full story: Why the government is looking to hike parking fines

The government has announced plans to boost the nursing workforce by adding an extra 830 nursing students over the next two years. Health minister Ayesha Verrall says 130 students who would have otherwise been deferred to 2024 will now commence their nursing studies in this year’s winter intake. There will be another 700 clinical placements nationwide next year, a response to the New Zealand Nurses Organisation’s Maranga Mai campaign for more nurses to be trained.

“In the past nursing schools were turning away students because they couldn’t find an appropriate placement for them in the health system,” Verrall said. There have been widespread calls for nursing students to be paid during training, but when asked about it by the NZ Herald, Verrall would only say the government was looking at a range of options to support nurses “throughout their career”.

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It’s been a chilly and blustery weekend for much of the country – and today looks set to continue the trend.

Here in Auckland, Waka Kotahi has warned motorists to take care when travelling over the harbour bridge. A hazard warning remains in place this morning, with the agency telling drivers “strong wind gusts” may affect driving conditions. “Lane configuration will remain in 4×4 layout during the morning peak period. Caution is advised, especially for high-sided vehicles and motorcyclists,” Waka Kotahi said. “Please drive with care and expect delays, especially for southbound traffic.”

If winds reach red alert strength of 90 to 100 km/h today, the bridge was likely to be shut.

And if you’re hungry for more transport news, the Herald has a blog this morning ominously titled: “transport nightmare live”.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson has admitted her party’s new rental policy doesn’t take into account the fact not all landlords choose to increase rents on an annual basis.

Announced yesterday, the policy would introduce a 3% cap on rent rises – including for new tenancy agreements. Rent increases larger than 3% would be allowed only if the landlord had made “substantial changes to the property that provide a material benefit to tenants”, such as major renovations, and the increase would need to be agreed by the tenants and the landlord before work began.

Asked by RNZ’s Corin Dann what this could mean for landlords that had kept rents frozen for the past few years but then may wish to “catch up” to market pricing, Davidson said the scenarios needed to be kept “realistic” and challenged Dann to “find… a landord who hasn’t increased their rents in three years”.

“I think what is important here is if landlords want to treat their homes as a business, they can take on the ordinary business costs – the lick of paint, the new carpet,” Davidson said. “We’ve got a situation where we’re losing social cohesion, children are being ripped from their schools seberal times a year, people can’t hold stable employment.”

Hundreds of thousands of families in households were struggling with unaffordable rents in “pretty crappy homes,” said Davidson.

The Greens’ policy hadn’t considered landlords that weren’t regularly increasing rent, she said, because “for the most part landlords would look to increase the rent more than one time a year”.

As detailed in today’s Bulletin, the Greens also want to introduce a new “warrant of fitness” for rentals – a certification that every landlord would need to obtain at their own expense before letting a property.

The policy has received the anticipated response from opposition parties and landlords. Act’s housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden said it was a “predictable” proposition from the Greens and would damage the amount of renting stock available. “The Greens’ ideas amount to increasing the cost of renting out a house with more bureaucracy, and then reducing the benefits with rent control,” she said. “If your costs go up and the benefits are capped, the net result will be fewer homes for rent, less competition for tenants, and lower quality rental housing. In other words, the opposite of their intention – but economics was never the Greens’ strong suit.”