Current Act MP Damien Smith is leaving parliament and won’t stand in this year’s election.

In a statement, party leader David Seymour thanked Smith for his service and wished him well for the future.

“He came to politics from a successful banking career in multiple countries and has used that expertise in parliament, particularly with his member’s bill to liberalise our overseas investment laws and to bring about common-sense changes to the CCCFA. His distinctly Irish cheer and optimism will be missed.”

Smith was one of nine new MPs for the Act Party in 2020 after its caucus ballooned from just one – Seymour – to 10. On current polling, it may do even better in October.

“I wish to express my profound gratitude to those who have provided me with support, mentorship, and guidance during my tenure in parliament,” Smith said. “I’m lucky to have been a part of such a high-performing group of MPs who all truly want a better future for New Zealand.”

Act has recently announced new high profile candidates for this year’s election, including former National MP Parmjeet Parmar. It’s also campaigning to win a second electorate, with deputy Brooke van Velden running in the Tāmaki seat that neighbours the party’s Epsom stronghold.

The owners of Three have reported more than $34 million in losses for the second year in a row, BusinessDesk has reported.

Discovery NZ is the company responsible for a suite of free-to-air channels, including Three and Bravo, along with the online streaming platform ThreeNow.

According to reports, the after-tax losses are $800,000 more than the company reported in 2021, the year after it took over the local TV stations and merged with Warner Bros.

A Warner Bros Discovery spokeswoman told BusinessDesk the latest accounts didn’t reflect the full picture of the company’s performance in the region. “While we do not discuss complete financial information for localised businesses, we are satisfied with the performance of the ANZ entity,” they said.

Meanwhile, as The Spinoff’s Chris Schulz explained here, Warner Bros Discovery recently renewed a deal with Sky for HBO content. While unrelated to the performance of local TV channels, it paves the way for Warner to launch its HBO Max streaming service in New Zealand.

A new poll has the National Party pulling out in front of Labour, 36 points to 31.

The Talbot Mills poll, reported by the Herald this afternoon, shows Labour has fallen back by 4%, with National nudging up by 1%. When you throw in the likely coalition partners of each, the poll has the right bloc ahead by five points.

Add in Act’s 12% and a National-Act coalition would secure 48%, while the Greens’ 8% and Te Pāti Māori’s 4.2% would give a Labour-led government just over 43%.

New Zealand First is also just shy of the 5% threshold needed to return to parliament. This poll has the Winston Peters-led party on 4%, with TOP on 2.9%.

According to the pollsters, this is the first time National has been ahead of Labour by five points or more since the 2017 election. It’s also the first time the centre-right has held that lead over the centre-left.

Chris Hipkins’ popularity has also taken a severe hit. He’s back six points to 32%, though still well ahead of National’s leader Christopher Luxon who is on just 21 points.

The poll comes after a difficult few weeks for the government, with the sudden resignation of a minister – Michael Wood – scrutiny over another – Kiri Allan – and ongoing troubles with the economy and cost of living. However, this is just one poll and it will take more to suggest any trend as we head towards election day on October 14.

And why is it under the headline: “F45 hit with shock orgy revelation”?

Well it turns out the local comic (and creator of Comedy Central’s Bouncers) shared a Tiktok in which he claimed “people are fucking” at the popular F45 gym chain.

The clip shows people yelling out that they know about this (very much unproven) rumour and even know what outlets are most notorious. Daymond posted to social media today saying he “woke up” and was taken back by seeing himself in the Daily Mail. “What in the hell”.

Condoms on bananas, traumatic birthing videos and extreme scaremongering. That’s how most of us remember sex education at school. And though the curriculum in Aotearoa is improving, there’s still a long way to go for all young people to be safely included in sex ed.

In the fourth episode of 2 Cents 2 Much, Janaye Henry speaks to PhD student Lauren Black about learning about sexuality through BuzzFeed quizzes and realising parents aren’t always the best teachers. And why is it always the PE teachers that are men that teach everyone about sex and sexuality? 

The prime minister will get some important face-to-face time with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy at this week’s Nato conference in Lithuania.

Chris Hipkins has landed in Vilnius for what will be a busy 48 hours meeting and greeting with his global counterparts.

While he’s lined up a chat with Zelenskiy, there will be no visit by Hipkins to Ukraine itself. The prime minister said that logistically it wasn’t possible to add extra days onto his trip. It’s the second time a New Zealand leader has turned down the chance to visit Ukraine after Jacinda Ardern did the same last year.

Other confirmed bilateral meetings in Vilnius include with the heads of France, Japan and Germany, along with Nato’s general secretary.

A spokesperson for the prime minister said Hipkins will also get some “informal pull asides” on the sidelines of the conference, though it’s not yet been confirmed who may crack this list. Asked overnight whether he’d be meeting with US president Joe Biden, after missing the chance to do so earlier this year, Hipkins remained coy.

“It may be possible for us to have a brief conversation,” he told media. “But I’d note that we’ve had quite a lot of engagement with the US recently.” That’s a reference to Hipkins’ formal sit down US secretary of state Anthony Blinken in Papua New Guinea back in May. Blinken travelled to Port Moresby in place of Biden, who pulled out at the eleventh hour.

Consumer NZ’s welcomed the news that Pierre van Heerden will be the country’s grocery commissioner.

Announced earlier this morning, van Heerden will take on the new role, created following recommendations made by the Commerce Commission in its market study into the grocery industry.

Jon Duffy, chief executive of Consumer NZ, said this was an “important step” toward introducing fairness, improved transparency and improved competition in the multi-billion-dollar sector.

“Over the past year and a half we’ve watched sentiment towards the cost of groceries significantly change, rocketing up the list of household financial concerns. It’s imperative we have a grocery sector that is fair and transparent,” said Duffy.

“Now Pierre van Heerden has been appointed as grocery commissioner, the [commerce] commission can get on with updating its data on supermarket profitability. This should include an analysis of the margins supermarkets have been able to achieve through this period of high inflation and cost of living pressure.”

Consumer NZ has been collating examples of “dodgy” supermarket practices which it intends to pass onto the commission. Last week, The Spinoff reported that Countdown had mistakenly increased the price of two items it had “frozen” as part of its winter price promotion.

It’s been nearly four years since the devastating Whakaari White Island eruption. It’s likely one of those events, of which there have been far too many in recent years, where you remember where you were as the news started to roll in.

Today, following an extensive WorkSafe investigation into what happened on December 9, 2019, a trial will begin in the Auckland District Court. As detailed in The Bulletin, WorkSafe first laid charges against 13 parties in 2020 but six organisations have since pleaded guilty and another had a charge dismissed. The judge-alone trial was due to start formally yesterday but was delayed by a day after guilty pleas by three helicopter tour operators on Friday.

RNZ’s Amy Williams has a good explainer of the trial, which lays out the who, what, when, where and why of what will play out in court for, potentially, the next four months.

The ongoing audit of RNZ’s website has now reached a major milestone, with 1,100 stories now forensically examined and 49 updated.

The audit was launched after it was revealed a now-former digital journalist had been subtly inserting pro-Russian content (dubbed “pro-Kremlin garbage” by RNZ’s editor-in-chief Paul Thompson) into international wire copy. The reporter in question later told RNZ’s own Checkpoint programme they had been editing stories in this manner for a number of years with no issues raised.

RNZ announced an external review of its processes for the editing of online stories last month. A request for official information by The Spinoff pertaining to the story that sparked the initial audit has been bumped down the track. A spokesperson for the broadcaster said the full inquiry into the editing saga would be released in due course.

Pierre van Heerden has been appointed as New Zealand’s first grocery commissioner. The role was created based on a recommendation from the Commerce Commission in its final report on the $22 billion grocery industry, released in March 2022. The Grocery Industry Competition Bill had its third reading on June 21 and gives the commissioner a range of sector monitoring and enforcement tools.

Van Heerden has held senior leadership roles within the food industry for many years including chair of the Food and Grocery Council of New Zealand. He was head of Sanitarium during “marmageddon” in 2012 when earthquake damage to the company’s Christchurch factory resulted in a nationwide shortage of marmite. Van Heerden has also been head of Mojo Coffee and Farrah’s. While the Herald has zoned in on his time at Mojo for their headline, you could also say the man has food wrapped. van Heerden will have little time to savour all these incredible puns. He shares his start date of July 13 with the release of the food price index for the month of June.

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The acting prime minister says the government didn’t know that dawn raid practices were still being carried out following a landmark apology by Jacinda Ardern in 2021.

A report released yesterday concluded that after hours operations by immigration officials should be halted, or at the very least restricted, after it was revealed in April that they were still being carried out. That was almost two years after the former prime minister apologised to the Pacific community for the raids of the 1970s.

Speaking to RNZ this morning, Carmel Sepuloni said it had been her expectation that after the apology, these practices would cease. “They were operationally still doing these after hours operations and we didn’t know that was going on to be honest. Immigration NZ says they have a strong rationale for when and how and why they might undertake these, but given the spirit of the apology that wasn’t good enough,” she said.

“Immigration NZ did not take on board the spirit of the apology… they didn’t ensure that was reflected in their practice and hence how we’ve gotten to this situation.”

Moving forward, Sepuloni said it was her expectation that amendments to the law may be needed or even potentially new legislation in order to “uphold the spirit” of the apology. The government had instigated a pause on the practices when the new case came to light in April, she said, and that would continue.

Immigration minister Andrew Little said there may be limited situations in which the use of after hours tactics were required for safety reasons, something that the report also noted. Sepuloni said today that “as far as I’m concerned they need to stop” and advice had been sought on any legislative changes.

She expected that the community would be consulted – “that’s the least that should be expected” – in case it was determined there were situations where these sorts of operations may still be necessary.