The Australian women’s Football team, the Matildas, have released a video statement calling for equity in the prize pool at Fifa events for the men and women’s game. Women players get a quarter as much prize money as men.

The video was released by the Matildas’ union, Professional Footballers Australia, which has negotiated a collective agreement with the players. The current collective agreement ensures that the Matildas and their male equivalent – the Socceroos – get the same minimum percentage of shared prize money. 

Pay equity in sport is a difficult issue; many professional women athletes across different sports also have day jobs. In Aotearoa, women earn on average 15% less than men as professional sports players. 

Prize money in global tournaments like Fifa is contentious, determined in part by the amount of money awarded through TV rights. The relative price of women’s football rights compared to men’s has contributed to the disparity. 

Football Ferns legend Barbara Cox, who has captained the team and written a PhD about women’s football in New Zealand, told The Spinoff in an email that she supported the Matildas’ call for equal distribution of prize money, but the question of televisions rights was a thorny issue. “Why is there such a reluctance from television companies to support women’s football and indeed women’s sport in general?” she asked, suggesting that male players on high salaries from well-funded teams don’t need bonuses from prize money, and that that cash could be shared with the women’s sport instead. 

New Zealand has a professional football association; in 2018, they contributed to a deal for work equity for the All Whites and Football Ferns. There have been pushes for equality in other sports, too, including club football, cricket and rugby.

It was a boisterous question time today – the first in several weeks after MPs returned to Wellington after the recess period.

And it was a tough showing for opposition leader Christopher Luxon. Fresh off last night’s TVNZ poll, which showed slumping support for both major parties but a slim majority for the centre-right bloc, Luxon attempted to snooker the prime minister on the recent ruling out of a wealth tax.

But it didn’t quite go to plan. After Labour MPs interjected when Luxon was attempting to ask a question, the National leader attempted to regain control and said: “Don’t worry… we’ve got years of this”. While his comment was meant as joke about how many questions he had for the government, Labour MPs instantly saw it as a faux pas and erupted into applause. That’s because only opposition MPs are able to ask question, so if Luxon has “years of this” left he’ll be spending them in opposition and not in government.

Luxon laughed it off, while his deputy Nicola Willis subtly smirked.

Later in the exchange, prime minister Chris Hipkins could be heard yelling, again to applause and laughter from his caucus: “Is that all? Really? I spent half an hour preparing for that”.

Watch the full exchange here.

Former minister Michael Wood was back at parliament today for the first time since his resignation last month.

He told media he’d spent the past few weeks in his Mount Roskill electorate where he had received a mix of reactions from constituents. While some had offered support, others had said “look, you’re a silly, goose, you’ve got this wrong, you need to sort these things out and get back and get focused on the issues”.

But, reported the Herald, it’s also been confirmed today that Wood will face additional scrutiny over his failure to declare a portfolio of shares. He’ll be hauled before parliament’s court – the Privileges Committee – for a further investigation.

It follows a report from parliament’s registrar of pecuniary interests, Maarten Wevers, who concluded Wood should have been more aware of his shareholding. “He [Wood] has damaged his own standing as a member and has also cast a shadow over the entire register, and the trust and confidence that the public are entitled to expect they can have in their elected representatives,” the report concluded.

Also back at parliament today: Kiri Allan. The justice minister had faced scrutiny over her treatment of officials seconded to her office.

The founder and first leader of Act, Sir Roger Douglas, has castigated the current incarnation of the party, saying it “represents only the wealthy” and had become captured by libertarians after it “lost the plot” around 2001. While he had continued to vote Act, albeit without “much enthusiasm”, he was approaching the October election as “a swing voter for the first time”, said the architect of the 1980s Rogernomics agenda in a 22-page open letter provided to BusinessDesk.

Douglas was disappointed in Act leader David Seymour for failing to join the National Party opposition to bracket creep in income tax and appeared in thrall to a “small libertarian element who did not want public super or public healthcare at all”, he said. “Act is viewed by most New Zealanders as the most rightwing party, that represents only the wealthy, a view strongly reinforced by recent Act articles and policy,” he wrote. “This was never the intention of those who founded Act.” Instead, it had been committed to “ending privilege”.

Douglas wrote: “Not satisfied with the way National and Labour have robbed lower income earners of $60 per week over the last 13 years via bracket creep, Act wants to go further. They want to keep bracket creep in place and then use the extra billion dollars-plus of taxes per year … to lower the highest income earners’ in New Zealand personal income taxes. Really, this is not the Act party I formed in 1993.”

Seymour, whose party is today polling over 12%, told the Spinoff in response: “Sir Roger is possibly frustrated that Act is not as radical as he wants it to be. Our tax policy today is much less radical than the 23% flat tax that he fell out with David Lange and lost his job over. We still respect Sir Roger for his service to New Zealand, and hope he is enjoying his retirement.”

Douglas, the finance minister who drove a dramatic deregulation programme in the late 80s under Lange, co-founded the Association for Consumers and Taxpayers, which would soon become the Act Party, with former National MP Derek Quigley in 1993. Douglas led the party at its birth, but was soon succeeded by Richard Prebble, another exile from the fourth Labour government, who remains a close confidant of Seymour today.

Read about the fall and rise of the Act Party under David Seymour here.

Australia’s 2026 Commonwealth Games have been scrapped, with the premier of Victoria saying the growing price tag wasn’t worth it for a “12-day sporting event”.

Dan Andrews announced today that the proposed cost of the games had surged to about $7 billion.

“What’s become clear is that the cost of hosting these games in 2026 is not the $2.6bn which was budgeted and allocated,” he said, as reported by The Guardian.

“It is in fact at least $6bn and could be as high as $7bn, and I cannot stand here and say to you that I have any confidence that even $7bn number would appropriately and adequately fund these Games.”

Andrews said he wouldn’t divert money from other areas like health to get the games across the line. His government has had an “amicable… productive” conversation with the Games authorities in London.

The government’s unveiled its second youth justice policy in as many days, pledging to build a pair of new high needs units and change legislation to make existing residences safer and more secure.

The new facilities will cater for up to 30 “high needs” youth, particularly older teenagers.

It comes the day after the government announced new aggravating factors that would be taken into account when sentencing young criminals.

Speaking from parliament, prime minister Chris Hipkins said the new youth justice residences would provide more intensive support for serious offenders. “There is a big difference between a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old and what support and guidance they need. I want to see these new units designed with the best-possible rehabilitation models in mind for these offenders,” Hipkins said.

It was also clear, said Hipkins, that the best way to reduce victimisation and to break the cycle of crime was to provide supervision.

Meanwhile, police and Oranga Tamariki will be changing some of their procedures, streamlining the process of referrals for when a young person can be directed to a “family group conference”. These are formal meetings where the family comes together with professionals to talk about concerns Oranga Tamariki may hold for a child, said minister for children Kelvin Davis.

“We know that these processes often reduce the chances of a young person reoffending and that’s what we know the general public want,” he said. “When the Family Court has granted custody and support orders for these young people that include conditions to manage the risk of re-offending, we need to respond quicker to any sign that is happening – these protocols will do that.

Davis said it was “no secret” there have been issues with Oranga Tamariki, particularly around the introduction of older teens into residences. But the escalation of poor behaviour, such as recent rooftop protests, suggested more needed to be done.

Asked if he could rule out that children as young as 12 would be put into these new facilities, Davis said he anticipated it would be children aged 16 to 18. However he did not rule out younger teens being sent there. “The model of care has yet to be developed. I would prefer not to have that happen.”

There was no current timeline for how long the residences will take to be built or a cost, but Hipkins added it was likely they would be in Auckland and Christchurch.

Are we fixing one problem (smoking) by creating another (vaping)? Growing numbers of rangatahi are taking up vaping for stress relief and socialising, despite never having smoked. In the fifth episode of 2 Cents 2 Much, Janaye Henry speaks to Elijah Tiatia from Hā Collective about educating ourselves on the effects of vaping and finding other ways to relieve stress.

Watch the latest episode below

All Countdown stores will be renamed as Woolworths, starting in the new year.

It brings the supermarket chain in line with its Australian counterpart – and is a return to what many of the branches were previously called up until 2011.

In a statement, Countdown’s managing director Spencer Sonn said the supermarket retailer had been working hard to do more to meet customer needs. “We are proud to be part of New Zealand communities and with this transformation our customers can expect to see more value, better ways to shop in-store and online, sustained investment in our charity partnerships and for us to lead in sustainability,” he said.

Other changes in the pipeline for the supermarket include more online shopping options, “a deeper connection to grassroots community activities”, a new distribution centre in Christchurch and a revamped loyalty programmed called Everyday Rewards.

“Having had the privilege of leading the New Zealand team for over two years now, I know there’s a lot that people love about what we do, and none of that will be going away. But our ambition is to be the best and to do this we know we need to be a better place to shop, better to work for and all-round better for Aotearoa’s tomorrow,” said Sonn.

The first Woolworths store opened in New Zealand almost a century ago in 1929 on Wellington’s Cuba Street. In 1993, the Woolworths New Zealand brand acquired Countdown and Foodtown stores, before all were brought under Australian ownership in 2005. A few years later, starting in 2009, all Woolworths and Foodtown stores were rebranded as Countdown. In Australia, Woolworths has remained the chain’s name.

The Ministry of Education has confirmed that Gloriavale School is under review by the Education Review Office (ERO). It follows a ruling by the Employment Court last week that six women, who lived in the Gloriavale Christian community, were employees and not community volunteers while working there. Judge Inglis said members of the closed Christian community accepted girls were only provided an education to the extent it prepared them for life in the sect.

As RNZ reports, Brian Henry, who represented the six Gloriavale leavers in the case, is questioning how the ERO reconciles those findings with “their report saying this is a good school?” Neither the Ministry of Education, the Labour Inspectorate nor ERO directly responded to questions from RNZ about whether they accepted Henry’s assessment of the school “training slaves”.

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The prime minister has admitted he’s “frustrated” with himself after the launch of a new government crime package mistakenly referenced a “new offence” that doesn’t actually exist.

At yesterday’s post-cabinet press conference, Chris Hipkins announced that adults found to be using children to commit crimes could be slapped with a 10 year prison sentence. But later in the evening, a correction was sent out to media noting that it would actually just be an aggravating factor during sentencing.

Hipkins told Lloyd Burr on Newshub’s AM that it came down to a mix-up when drafting up cabinet’s decision as two options had originally been on the table. One of those was to penalise only gang members using children – which would have required a new offence – and the second was to apply it more broadly to all adults – an extension of the current law. “We went with the latter option because I didn’t want someone to get off the hook just because they’re not a gang member,” said Hipkins.

The prime minister acknowledged he didn’t pick up on the mistake when he announced it yesterday. “One of the things that I have always said… is that I never claim to be perfect. I’ll always own a mistake,” he said. “I’m the one that’s responsible, so I’ll own the mistake. I believe you own up to them when that happens.”

He added: “I was frustrated with myself, I generally don’t like to make mistakes like this.”

In this case, said Hipkins, the underlying issue remained the same, adding that the government wants to break the cycle of offending and deal with any adults involved.

Over on Newstalk ZB, Hipkins confirmed further announcements on crime would be unveiled later in the week. “There will be more announcements… we’re working through further details on additional changes that we are going to make,” he said.

As for why it’s taken so long to get this package together, Hipkins said it wasn’t “acceptable” that retail time has continued to rise. “As minister for police I did a range of things, clearly they had some success but there is more work to be done,” he said. “We have done a lot of things already but clearly the problem has continued to persist so we’ve got to do more.”